Concur Aims To Be Single Point Of (Purchasing) Access

Concur Technologies, Inc. was incorporated in 1993 as Portable Software, and soon offered as its first product a shrink-wrapped retail application to automate travel and expense (T&E) reporting for individuals. It expanded its product line in 1996 by offering a client-server travel and expense package called Xpense Management Solution(XMS), and again in 1998 by bringing XMS to the Intranet. The Intranet version of XMS - recently renamed Concur Expense- now accounts for the majority of Concur's travel and expense-related revenues, which in turn are the bulk of the company's overall revenues.

Concur has recently been expanding its capabilities through acquisition. The ten-person 7Software was acquired in 1998 - two years after 7Software was incorporated. 7Software had a product called CompanyStorethat was to be used to automate the procurement of routine items such as office supplies, furniture, computers and expendables; these are generally referred to as MRO goods (for "Maintenance, Repair and Operations"). It was at this time that Portable Software changed its name to Concur and announced its EmployeeDesktoptm (now called Concur eWorkplace) strategy of moving past the T&E market. The new strategy is to offer a single desktop platform for all in-house functions, including T&E, procurement, Self-Service Human Relations (SSHR), time and attendance, and facilities management.

In June 1999 Concur acquired Seeker Software, a provider of Web-based human resource self-service applications, in order to incorporate The Seeker Workplace(now called Concur Human Resources), Seeker's suite of HR employee and managerial self-service Web-based applications, into EmployeeDesktop(now called Concur eWorkplace, see below).

In October of 1999 the company renamed its product line to Concur eWorkplace. This product promises workplace access to T&E management, travel booking, Web-based purchasing, HR processing, and other functions yet to be named. Its announcement was marred by a simultaneous release of preliminary fourth-quarter financial results significantly below analyst expectations - the difference was approximately $3 million out of an expected $12 million. Chairman/CEO S. Steven Singh, a co-founder with Michael Hilton, attributed the shortfall to unexpected delays in closing business, due in part to a lengthening of the sales cycle brought on by their introduction of three new products during that quarter. Concur has had some concerns about its sales force as the company has transitioned from a single product to a corporate portal positioning, and has addressed these with new hires at all levels.

Concur has attempted to paint itself as the challenger to Ariba, the acknowledged leader in E-procurement applications, although Concur is not the clear number two in that market. However, Concur's wider strategy of being a single solution for all of what it calls the "workplace eCommerce solutions" certainly calls for it to go head-to-head with the E-procurement leader. This is because E-procurement is widely seen as the most significant business-to-business application area. It is the one that most significantly impacts a corporation's profitability.

Product Definition and Market Impact

Despite competition from both major CRM/ERP (enterprise resource planning) vendors and marketing analytics providers, pure-player marketing solutions like Aprimo, and Unica continue to serve the enterprise market place with new and updated EMM offerings. Recently Aprimo announced its new release Aprimo Marketing 6.0. The Indianapolis based firm, caters to big accounts like Merrill Lynch, America Online, Pfizer, and Autodesk. Its fully web-based solution encompasses functional areas such as marketing planning, financial management, production management, customer dialogue, and lead management applications. According to Mike MacNulty, a product marketing manager at Aprimo, "the product emphasize on application modularity contributes to deployment flexibility over time and quicker time-to-value". Production Management and Planning and Financial Management are two functional components geared towards the marketing resource management (MRM). The more traditional features such as campaign and lead manager are covered by the Demand Creation suite.

The Production Management modules deliver the necessary features to initiate and design through a scripted web template a marketing project from scratch. Features include internal or external resource assignments and management of cost by means of real time cost tracking. The pre-defined templates help marketers to follow the steps specified by best practices. The teamwork is fully auditable through online approvals for deliverables and creative. A rule based workflow manager, enables users to control quality standards like Six Sigma or financial regulatory rules like Sarbanes-Oxley.

The Planning and Financial Management modules confer to marketers financial visibility into their planned, committed and actual investments and provides the solution its expected MRM qualification. Using the budgeting and forecasting tool, defined users can be granted access to budget assignment, allocation, and transfer of funds. Links to a number of back-office applications, such as PO and AP systems, facilitate the exchange of financial data. Automated notifications for over- or under-plan conditions can be used by managers to control their marketing activities financials at different stages.

Customer Dialogue Management and Lead Management are the two major components of the Demand Creation suite. Users can leverage various demand creation modules to divide their customer list by segment and start targeting them using a multistep and multichannel marketing campaign. As a result they can automatically assign generated leads to specific sales groups or persons to conclude the sale.

Aprimo Marketing 6.0 .NET architecture takes full advantage of web services facilitating the interoperability of the application in a disparate system environment.

Can the Market Sustain a Stand-Alone EMM

The new millennium has completely redrawn the IT industry map especially in the enterprise marketing management (EMM) sector. Since year 2000, the number of independent marketing automation vendors has significantly shrunk due to frequent acquisitions and takeovers. Names such as Xchange, MarketFirst, Annuncio, and Prime Response no longer exist. Larger application providers like Amdocs, PeopleSoft, and Chordiant have assimilated all. Amongst the few still operating is Aprimo. Their strategy primarily targets large customers from the financial services, technology, media and entertainment, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing industries, and it pays. Aprimo just released its version 6.0 posed to help the vendor sustain the ongoing IT turmoil.

Building a better understanding of customer preferences to better serve their needs and increase their loyalty is certainly the motto for the new generation of marketing automation systems. Many customer relationship management (CRM) software vendors focused their first marketing modules in generating and conveying leads to the sales force.

Campaign management and e-mail marketing functions were amongst the first modules for CRM vendors to include in their product offerings. Siebel, E.piphany, Pivotal, DoubleClick, and Aprimo are some of the providers of such functionality. Marketers can design multilayered marketing campaigns filtering by customer segments and using the contact center capability to reach their target through multiple channels such as phone, portals, email, direct mail, and PDA.

The second functional category widely provided is electronic marketing. Such a solution offers a web-accessible, enterprise resource that manages and delivers essential information to marketing's customers, both internal (sales, customer support, etc.) and external (prospects, media, partners, etc.). Integrated content management and customization have added value to the basic features of e-mail marketing by avoiding the pitfalls of mass marketing.

Overall, basic campaign management modules provide the following capabilities:

* Planning campaigns targeted at segmented audiences

* Keeping a history of all the campaigns that have been run

* Tracking and analyzing the response to various products and target segments

* Executing and tracking responses, which help in generating leads for sales

Marketing analytics is the third component adding a new dimension to the basic campaign management modules. The analytics functionality enables marketers to conduct customer behavioral analysis and understand key issues such as propensity to buy. CRM vendors such as Pivotal, PeopleSoft, and Siebel are now offering marketing analytics through acquisitions beside other pure marketing players such as Chordiant, E.piphany, SAS, and Unica.

The most recent tool in the world of marketing automation is the emergence of the marketing resource management (MRM) pioneered by Aprimo. Facing shrinking budgets, marketing departments are more and more accountable for the cost of their activities. MRM helps marketing professionals to plan ahead for the following:

* Time for human resources

* Time for financial resources

* Responsibilities for different team members at different steps

MRM combines workflow capabilities for assigning tasks and triggering alerts and knowledge management to accede into marketing best practices. A tighter control over the projected budget, the planning, and the execution combined with a myriad of functions from campaign and lead management modules have pushed the limits of marketing automation and that is the reason vendors such as Aprimo and Unica are now referring to their products as enterprise marketing management (EMM) solutions.

Expense Submittal System Services

Adisoft provides corporations of all sizes with software and services to manage the processing of expense reports for corporate travel and entertainment. Adisoft offers a full range of support and customization services in addition to its software solutions. Adisoft was founded in 1991 and is located in California (US).

Adisoft offers web-based expense reporting software, standalone expense reporting software, web-based expense audit software, feeds from the expense database to your corporate system, payment software, hosted solutions and a complete range of support and customization agreements. Adisoft's software and services help companies increase control and reduce costs.

Top 10 Reasons to Automate Operating Expense Controls

If you’re like most small to midsized business executives, your primary focus is on growing revenue and controlling company spending. However, you probably use paper-based processes to deal with company expenses. Without an automated system, you have limited ability to actively manage spending—and can only hope that spending decisions remain within budget and in compliance with company policies.

Related Topics: Accounting and Financial Management, Time and Expense Reporting

Related Industries: Information, Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

Related Keywords: ExpenseWatch, expense controls, automated expense controls, T&E reports, SaaS solutions, operating expense, company expenses, expense management, financial management, software as a service

frontpath Announces Mobile Internet Appliance

ProGear supports all rich media formats and offers a high quality 10.4" TFT display, X 86 compatibility and a touch screen that will enable quick access to applications or the Internet. A soft keyboard or handwriting recognition gives users the choice of input modes. The three- pound product comes with a Soundblastercompatible audio and microphone/headphone support. ProGear comes standard with a three cell, three-hour battery. As upgrades, ProGear has a six cell, six-hour battery and also offers a cradle with integrated charging station. Both batteries are lithium ion with smart battery technology.

Initially available to frontpath partners in the US, the company anticipates that the most popular configuration will be in the $1,500 range with the flexibility to upgrade or downgrade features such as batteries, memory, cradle, access points, keyboard and mouse. Beta units are scheduled to be generally available in Q4, 2000 with quantity shipments scheduled to be available in Q1, 2001.
frontpath's approach differs from the rest of the market in a few ways:

1. Wireless vs. cabled
2. Primarily business/vertical users, as opposed to home users
3. "Web pad" design
4. Relatively high price

The wireless approach is intriguing. We can envision a mobile user connecting to a "gortal", (groupware portal) such as salesforce.com, to upload or download important information from that latest hot sales call, etc. The major competition in the wireless space is likely to come from Symbian-based and the other wireless gear such as Palm/Motorola devices.

Going for the business crowd, especially vertical markets such as medical, is a big change from the current "let's sell appliances to people who can't afford a real PC" mindset. We can see some vertical markets having a need for wireless connectedness - being able to download a patient's records instantly to an appliance would probably make a doctor's life easier. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles provides Palm devices to allow their physicians to do just that.

The idea of a Web pad has been discussed often in recent months, and Transmeta showed a model at PC Expo in June. The functionality and portability of the ProGear look good, but we question whether it isn't a little too big and heavy. Three pounds is light compared to most notebooks, but by the end of the day, even three pounds gets to be a bit much.

We question the wisdom of such a (relatively) high price. The ProGear certainly has lots of high-end features: lots of RAM (64 or 128MB), optional hard drive, high-resolution display. But will people really pay the extra $1000 (over portable devices such as a Palm VII or Psion's revo Plus ) for a portable Web surfer? frontpath's targeted applications will help it make a case for the extra cost, but they will need to provide a significant number of targeted apps to get broader market appeal.

Similar Infor Focus

It is interesting to note that the Infor supply chain planning (SCP) group is acting in a similar manner, selling to several of its ERP install bases within all geographic regions. The group currently has estimated annual revenues of $35 million (USD), more than 135 employees, and over 450 customers—more than 75 percent of these customers have come from a competitive customer base (meaning that only one quarter of these have come from an Infor ERP product instance). SCP modules featuring industry focus and deep domain expertise include inventory planning and replenishment (including strategic inventory planning and inventory optimization), demand planning (including demand forecasting and scenario analysis), supply planning (including manufacturing planning and supply optimization), production scheduling (including process and discrete manufacturing scheduling), distribution planning (including deployment and distribution optimization), and sales and operations planning (S&OP) (including S&OP reporting and supply chain optimization).

Somewhat differing from SSA Global's comprehensive convergence of products, Infor's "assembler" strategy for its major business units (discrete manufacturing [automotive, industrial equipment and machinery, high-tech and electronics, metal fabrication, and so on]; process manufacturing [food and beverage, specialty chemicals, pharmaceuticals, life sciences, and the like]; and wholesale distribution for durable goods [paper, plumbing and heating, industrial supply, building materials, electrical supply, and so forth]) is to acquire solutions and to skim off the potential "superbreed" modules, which it can then sell to users of its own ERP solutions as well as of other ERP solutions, while not losing sight of the vertical focus. Also, the collective domain knowledge and some acquired best-of-breed products will be (or already have been) transformed into evolutionary superbreed products for use across multiple divisions.

The best example, in addition to the aforementioned newly formed Infor SCP division (which stems from the SCT Process and Mercia acquisitions), is the SupplyWEB supply replenishment product for automotive suppliers, which has already incorporated the best functionality from former Future Three and Brain (see The Pain and Gain of Integrated EDI Part Two: Automotive Suppliers Gain), and which has meanwhile been rewritten in Java and is available for all ERP products. Further examples include the Infor eCommerce (formerly bizLinx), eStorefront, and eCatalog products from the Infor distribution division, and VISUAL WMS, from former Lilly VISUAL.

As a result, Infor has been able to integrate the collective industry-specific functionality and savvy of the products and people it assembles, as exemplified by Infor .NET's upcoming Center of Excellence which will join the forces of the former Lilly VISUAL and MAPICS SyteLine product development teams in the discrete manufacturing unit. Consequently, VISUAL WMS is being offered to Infor SyteLine customers, initially as a service offering, whereas the VISUAL Quality Management module is to be offered to both Infor SyteLine and Infor XPPS (formerly Brain XPPS) customers. As an independent entity, MAPICS had already linked the SSyteLine CRM product to Infor XA (formerly MAPICS XA), well before its acquisition by Infor; this product will soon be sold to the original Infor COM users and later to Infor VISUAL users. The forthcoming accounting and trading management product ACmanager is anticipated as a new global superbreed product, together with eStorefront (from the distribution group) for SyteLine and COM, and the enhanced demand planning product Mercia Links for XA, SyteLine, and COM. The vendor is also currently analyzing the possible product candidates for superbreeds in performance management, PLM, and CRM.

SSA Global Warehouse Management System and Transportation Management System Focus

This benefit might be particularly apposite for customers that increasingly are feeling the pressure of doing business in a complex global supply chain where rising transportation costs have a major impact on business performance and profits. To that end, since the EXE acquisition in 2004, the vendor has delivered a swath of warehousing enhancements dealing with regulatory compliance, integration with ERP counterpart products, event management, radio frequency identification (RFID), voice interface, and so on. Thus, SSA WMS (Warehouse Management System) 2000 5.5 and SSA WMS 4000 3.10, both from former EXE, provide a better user interface (UI), as well as compliance and warehouse operations facilities, with some industry-specific capabilities. Meanwhile, SSA TMS (Transportation Management System) 6.2, bolstered by new development since the Arzoon acquisition, provides more functionality for international air cargo transactions.

The array of enhancements slated for 2006 (for example, wave planning, agent-based network fulfillment execution, labor and task management, event management, and a multiwarehouse visibility platform) is no less impressive (see SSA Global finds Little Known SCM Gems in Filling Out its Solution Portfolio and Who Needs Warehousing Management and How Much Thereof?). All these enhancements come with the concept that users obtain deeper insight into their customers' demands to better match supply with available product, based on flawless demand-driven supply chain and production operations ideas.

SSA has recently had strong momentum and organic growth, especially in the WMS arena: sales of WMS Solutions grew in 2005 from 2004 levels, to now reach EXE's peak revenue levels of 2001. Acting as a stand-alone, best-of-breed SCE supplier rather than an ERP supplier, globally SSA Global has been regaining significant customer share. Basically, by closing well over 100 significant customer transactions with WMS solutions in 2005 (with more than half involving brand new accounts), the vendor may be dispelling any lingering perceptions that it is a mere ERP scavenger. In fact, compared to the pure-play WMS leaders, Manhattan Associates and RedPrairie (including recently acquired MARC Global), SSA Global is more global, since most of its SCE customers come from outside North America. As for industry segments, retail and wholesale distribution was the largest vertical for SSA Global's high-volume WMS transactions, with transportation and logistics being the second-largest vertical.

Building Ecosystems of Extended ERP

Both SSA Global and Infor have also been building ecosystems of extended ERP, consisting of complementary products that they can peddle (up-sell or cross-sell) to their installed base (and even to new customers in a stand-alone manner), to keep clients on maintenance and sustain them as a source of revenue for many years. Such a strategy has been particularly successful for SSA Global, since in the maturing market for ERP systems, new license sales have long become more difficult to achieve, and increasing revenue from existing customers is thus becoming more important.

On the other hand, although user companies want new functionality, they are quite reluctant to undergo a wholesale "rip and replacement" of functioning legacy ERP systems, if extended functionality from the incumbent vendor is likely to be "good enough" (or even better). These factors have led to the philosophy that a vendor's revenue model might depend less on constantly finding new customers, and more on sustaining a large installed base of existing customers, including sales of complementary products and services for integration with the user's installed system.

Shifting from an initial focus on "portfolio collection," SSA Global has recently been focusing instead on a product convergence strategy, which means developing interfaces between its main applications and its acquired products. The vendor tends to offer an upgrade path to either the iSeries or the UNIX code bases via their respective SSA ERPLX and SSA ERPLN products. Recently, especially on the supply chain execution (SCE) side, it has acquired add-on best-of-breed point supply chain management (SCM) solutions such as CAPS Logistics (from former Baan), Arzoon, and EXE Technologies (and very recently, Epiphany for CRM and Boniva for HCM capabilities, which will be discussed later). SSA Global has been selling these ERP extensions (which in the SCM and SCE applications case are for all ERP products from the separate strategic SCM unit) primarily, but not necessarily to its existing ERP customer base (see SSA Global Forms a Strategic Unit with an Extended-ERP Savvy). The Epiphany acquisition has resulted in a new strategic CRM unit too. The integration of SSA Global's acquired products in areas such as SCM, supplier relationship management (SRM), and CRM should benefit SSA Global customers seeking suite-level integration.

So Similar, Yet So Different (and Vice Versa)

However, there are certainly somewhat different philosophies underlying the current state of affairs for SSA Global and Infor. Being the first to start the acquisition streak, SSA Global had initially shown (at least to lesser-informed outsiders) something of a scavenger nature, by acquiring struggling peer companies that typically had products written off by many as technologically outdated has-beens. But in hindsight, there was at least some underlying method and consistency to these acquisitions: all the products were technologically similar (based either on Unix or IBM iSeries [AS/400]); they were mostly aimed at related discrete and process manufacturing sectors; and they quickly became cash-generating businesses within SSA Global.

On the other hand, with every acquisition, Infor has attempted to solve essential, industry-specific challenges faced by its (by now) more than 17,500 customers (26,700 after the impending acquisition) and implementations in 70 countries. Also, each acquisition has had the role of helping to develop deep vertical expertise within the targeted supply chain management (SCM) and ERP solutions, and within certain regions (for example, Infor has succeeded in becoming the mid-market automotive supplier leader in Germany). The addition of Datastream, a prominent enterprise asset management (EAM) provider, reveals a lot about Infor's strategy to acquire leading brands that round out the entire solution footprint, and that provide compelling combinations to compete against the larger horizontal players like SAP and Oracle.

Certainly, SSA Global has been less focused so far on capturing certain industries with its acquisitions per se, than on acquiring ERP and SCM vendors to grow market share and share of wallet (SOW) by broadening its product footprint. Consequently, nowadays SSA Global develops, sells, and services enterprise applications software, which encompasses ERP, customer relationship management (CRM), SCM, financial management, procurement, project management, human capital management (HCM), business intelligence (BI), and product lifecycle management (PLM).

Even without an initially deliberate focus, SSA Global offers its applications to companies in a number of vertical markets, with a concentration on manufacturing industries (which represent about 80 percent of revenues, at least prior to the Epiphany acquisition; but this acquisition has shifted the revenue balance to about 64 percent, with the remainder coming from the service industries). The company offers its applications to companies in various industries: aerospace and defense (A&D); automotive; chemicals; consumer packaged goods (CPG); industrial machinery and equipment; general process manufacturing; high-tech and electronics; medical products, devices, and equipment; and pharmaceutical. To that end, its SSA ERPLN product is targeted at companies in the A&D, high-tech and electronics, and industrial machinery and equipment sectors, and includes specific functionality for companies in those sectors. SSA ERPLX has a similar focus on batch process companies, in sectors such as pharmaceutical, and food and beverage. Prior to the addition of Epiphany (via eclectic acquisitions such as Infinium or Computer Associates' Masterpiece), SSA Global had widened market penetration by adding business services, financial services, government and education, health care, hospitality and gaming, and retail vertical markets to its traditional manufacturing stronghold. Its strategy has been to add strategic solutions that allow customers in targeted industries to support end-to-end business processes with integrated applications from a single vendor.

What the two vendors have since been doing with their acquired portfolios highlights additional similarities and differences. As for similarities, the bedrock policy for both vendors is that no product will be sunset (i.e., "killed," "stabilized," or discontinued) for as long as the customers want to use the products and pay for maintenance and support (which, incidentally, Infor has not increased, contrary to the customary actions taken by other acquisitive peers).

Also, for new and more avant-garde customers wanting to migrate to more contemporary technologies and the broadest and deepest contemporary functionality, both vendors have embarked on the development and delivery of next-generation products. In the case of SSA Global, this means converging several technologically close legacy products into the SSA ERPLN or SSA ERPLX next-generation ERP offerings (see SSA Global—The Right Product Strategy). In theory, these offerings will draw on the best functional characteristics of all individual acquired products, in addition to new, internally developed (on an ongoing basis) functional capabilities.

The Enterprise Applications 'Arms Race' To Be Number Three

Even those who still believe that weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) will be found in Iraq (or in North Korea or Iran) should by now have realized that the number one position in the enterprise applications space will ultimately be decided in the inevitable showdown between SAP and Oracle (and their accompanying platform and partner ecosystems). Certainly, this does not imply that either of those will ultimately dominate the tier two or high end of the tier three market segments per se. Thus, the "arms race" for the number three spot is no less exciting (and is maybe even breathtaking), given that the revenue rankings snapshot for SSA Global, Lawson Software (soon to merge with Intentia), and Infor may change at any time, depending on which vendor has most recently announced yet another acquisition. One should also note that Infor, Lawson, and SSA Global have no illusions of dominance in the tier one segment, since that battle will already have been decided between the two aforementioned giants.

One should also not ignore Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) or Sage Group, in light of their total applications revenues, but these two archrivals are still fighting in the lower end of the market. Their respective significance remains, however, especially given Sage's recent acquisition of Adonix (which certainly has many larger midsized customers), and the fit of Microsoft Dynamics AX (formerly Microsoft Axapta) to like-sized enterprises, although this product is impeded by its nascence. Also significant are Epicor Software (with its recent acquisition of CRS Retail Solutions), and China-based CDC Software (with its ongoing digestion of the globally renowned Ross Systems, IMI, and Pivotal brands; its recent acquisition of JRG Software; and vacillating plans to nab Onyx Software), but they are still at a safe distance, revenue-wise, from the tier two echelon.

Recently, we have given due attention to the Lawson-Intentia combination, and to the rivalry between MBS and Sage (see The Market Impact of Two Powerhouses), so the time has come for a comparative analysis of the remaining two foes: SSA Global and Infor. Executives of these two vendors would be genuinely (or not so genuinely) insulted at any mention of similarities between the two entities, and although the two do have mutually distinct characteristics (which will be tackled further on), the two vendors do indeed have many similarities.

It’s About Process (or the Ability to be Responsive) — Part III

To that end, Webcom Inc. has leveraged its vast expertise earned while addressing many complex sales quote-to-order (Q2O) process issues (i.e., channel quote approvals, special pricing approvals, special non-standard product feature request approvals, etc.) and has created a brand new workflow engine, which can be (and is already) used for many generic business processes.

Such examples of processes would be: RMA (Return Material/Merchandize Authorization), NFR (New Feature Request), ECN (Engineering Change Notice), NPR (New Product Release), Bug Tracking, Engineering Change Request, and many other business processes that require approval steps.

The Ability to Respond, On-demand

In May 2008, Webcom announced the availability of ResponsAbility, its newest offering addressing the case management and workflow processing areas. ResponsAbility is designed to speed the “time-to-resolution” process, eliminate unnecessary time delays and improve overall value chain communications and productivity through improved transparency and collaboration.

The idea behind this case management and workflow solution was to help organizations keep their projects on track and their employees on the same page, thereby making the lives of internal and external team members much less complicated (and more productive and enjoyable).

This straightforward application provides a central location (repository) for managing the key aspects of many types of cases, including product and service defects, customer and supplier complaints, non-conformance issues, health and safety incidents, and RMAs. Separate tabs keep key information within easy reach, whereby team members can log issues as they arise, prioritize them, and update their status as appropriate.

Built-in reports let users see open issues by project, projects by stage, and many other categories. On a proactive side, the tool can be leveraged by companies to create and implement corrective and preventive actions (CAPA) and to support a plethora of regulatory and compliance requirements. All in all, users that have always had the responsibility now have the “ability to respond”, as required.

This case management software may not currently have all the bells-and-whistles associated with full-fledged BPM packages, such as programmatically driving a workflow engine, visual process modeling, process monitoring and optimization, or automatic task allocation based on workload. Still, it seems well suited for small and medium size companies, who can leverage such a software tool with an intuitive user interface (UI), for handling many, if not all of their processes, in an incremental manner.

The design and enforcement of processes is enabled because both administrators and end-users are able to design workflows, notifications, and data collection forms, as well as setting up permissions accordingly. The system manages cases by ushering each case through the resolution process, and by tracking the progress of each case throughout the entire process.

The multi-tenant software as a service (SaaS) delivery model ensures that a customer can be up and running quickly with all of the selected critical processes being modeled and functional. No onsite deployment is necessary and the software only requires a Web browser and some modest to minimal data and process setup to be up and running.

Brethren Software Vendors as Likely ResponsAbility Users?

For example, a software development company can deploy this tool within a day or two and allow its customers to report bugs. This information can then be internally routed according to a customized workflow to the support department, then to the engineering and testing staff, and then back to the customer for approval and case closure.

To elaborate, the Software Bug workflow logically starts with the customer reporting a software bug. Then a default assignee at the software vendor reviews it, and then either resolves it on the spot (hopefully) or assigns it to the software engineering staff by providing a test case. Then the software engineering team determines a cause for the bug and either provides a workaround, fully fixes the bug, or determines that the software behaves as designed after all.

At the same time, ResponsAbility can be used to allow customers to create new feature requests, which are then routed via a different customized workflow starting from project management, via development, release scheduling, back to development, quality assurance (QA), documentation (technical writers), product management, and finally to marketing teams.

Again, if the bug can be fixed, the case is assigned to the testing staff, back to the support team, and finally back to the customer for approval and case closure. But, if the issue turns out not to be the bug after all, the case is then converted to a new feature request and follows an entirely different workflow.

To that end, the New Product Feature Request process starts with customers, sales & service people, channels and/or product managers requesting a new feature. Often, the existing users (install base special interest groups [SIGs]) are allowed to vote on it, and based on the number of votes and other factors, some new features are assigned to the engineering department to estimate the effort entailed to implement the requested feature.

Based on the estimate and other criteria, some new features are then assigned to the engineering or research and development (R&D) departments for implementation. Upon implementation, the new feature is assigned to the QA department for testing and approvals. Finally, based on the QA results, a new feature is returned back to engineering for a rework or is scheduled for production (or general availability).

Apparently, various instances of a process (called cases) can be changed midstream. For example, something that was initially entered as a bug upon investigation may be classified as an expected behavior. The customer who did not expect such behavior from the software can then change a case type of this instance from a bug to a new feature request, without having to re-enter any information and this case will then follow the prescribed new feature workflow process.

Also, a built-in notification and permissions engine ensures that all communication and collaboration happens within ResponsAbility, so everybody is aware of anything that anybody ever stated about the case via comments, file attachments, etc.

Unlike some of the simple issue tracking software packages mentioned in Part II, ResponsAbility can be used not only for tracking things, but also for enforcing a process in order to ensure that things get done correctly. For example, a workflow engine can be set up to make sure that a process status cannot be changed from “bug fixed” to “in testing” until a concrete test case scenario is provided by a user via customizable online forms.

Webcom — “Eating Own Dog Food”

It might be interesting to note that Webcom, as a software developer itself, has since late 2006 been using ResponsAbility internally for its older sibling WebSource CPQ product’s bug tracking and new product features introduction.

The traditional model, whereby the dedicated product/project manager and support staff were the only bidirectional conduit between the client’s team (i.e., WebSource CPQ users and administrators, local project manager, application owners, stakeholders, etc.) and Webcom’s team (i.e., developers, modelers, QA, consultants, product managers, etc.), has over time been shown to have many disadvantages.

Namely, despite the dedicated project manager’s intimate knowledge of the individual client’s installation and the established relationship and hand-holding comfort level, the challenges have repeatedly been the bottleneck nature of the dedicated project management and support team, with no significant value being added by this additional layer of communication.

Other disadvantages would be the all too often “black hole” syndrome due to the lack of a single project/client/tasks/issues depository. Therefore, priorities are often managed on an inefficient (and often redundant or conflicting) one-to-one basis.

The advantages of the new support model, with ResponsAbility providing a single repository of all cases (in a hub-and-spoke manner), start with collaboration and the ability for all parties to both instantly contribute to the case/task/issue and have instant visibility into the case status. Also, new resources that include clients, Webcom employees and third-parties (partners) can all immediately participate and be notified, while the enabler for everyone is also an advanced searching capability within the system.

The Webcom Q2O clients’ adoption was initially somewhat tepid due to the ingrained human habit of emailing or calling directly the preferred contact or due to the clients having their own issue tracking systems. Of course, there is always the need for a human touch and chatting (as a “bonus”) with Webcom associates about the “critical” issues like a “lovely” winter weather in Wisconsin or about the Green Bay Packers’ revival.

Nonetheless, joking apart, from the end of 2007 ResponsAbility has been the sole vehicle for communication, tracking and managing tasks and cases at Webcom. Prior to that, Webcom had used the JIRA issue tracking system, which at the time allowed users to create a workflow based on a set of offered statuses.

However, at the time (the things might have meanwhile changed though) there was not the user’s ability to create statuses and workflows at will. For instance, the offered statuses were “open,” “in progress,” “closed,” etc., but the user could not create a custom status like “material returned”, “in engineering”, “being analyzed” or so.

Further, users could add custom fields, but they could not design forms in a drag-and-drop fashion. There was no way to specify forms and fields for each action (task) either, so that, e.g., when the process passes from the “bug fixed” into the “in testing” phase, the user could not create a mandatory field named “test case.” While administrators had ample controls, the end users had very little control over what fields they could see on the screen, and so on.

Key ResponsAbility Design Tenets

In contrast, ResponsAbility was built with several design concepts in mind, starting with scalability in terms of users’ ability to create an unlimited number of cases, processes, statuses, status transitions, custom fields, users, user types, departments, etc.

There is also flexibility in terms of creating permissions (e.g., by project, by process, by custom fields, etc.) and the assigning of rules and permissions is visible system-wide. As for data flexibility, there are custom fields and forms and process-related fields and forms, while at each process point (step) fields can be assigned as read-only (viewable), editable, and/or required (mandatory). There is also a flexible definition of assignments, notifications, and recipients, whereby conditional actions drive implicit and explicit notifications.

Furthermore, the ease-of-use concept translates into hardly any training required, whereby the idea for the tool is to be perceived by users as their enabler for getting things done instead of an enforced mandatory tracking tool by the “ivory tower.” Some examples of the ease-of-use features are:

* An intuitive drag-and-drop interface for administrators to design and preview online forms;
* An instant system feedback regarding the field size, informing users how many characters they still have left or by how many characters they have exceeded the maximum field size, and all of this happens dynamically while they are still typing;
* When looking at the list of cases, dragging a mouse over a case will bring additional fields in a hover (a so called “mouseover”), so that a user can find out more about each case while browsing a list, without having to open each case (thereby saving valuable time); and
* Each list of cases can be customized (personalized) by users in order to show fields as columns based on what that user is interested in or what a user considers to be important. If, e.g., a case type has 100 fields, it is impractical to put them all as columns in a list of cases on the screen. It is also impossible to select 10 most important fields universally because their importance depends on individual user needs. Therefore, each user can determine (select), in a drag-and-drop manner, which fields are truly important for them.

Last but not least, the ease-of-setup tenet starts with a pre-built library of processes, but companies can certainly create their own processes with an intuitive and flexible setup of forms, workflows, notifications and permissions. In addition to the abovementioned advanced search capability, users have a facility of unlimited comments and uploading of attachments.

The administrator is able to create brand new processes, new fields and forms and to define the workflow(s) for new processes. He/she can define which field and when in the process is mandatory, visible, hidden and for whom. The administrator is also able to define who has access to which types of cases and projects, who can oversee which users, and so on.

May a New Day Begin for Mature Enterprise Applications – Part 1

While attending a number of vendors’ annual user conferences and/or by being briefed by vendors about their future directions, I’ve lately discerned this trend: virtually every vendor is attempting to win its users’ hearts and minds (as well as wallets) via a more intuitive and appealing user interface (UI). But it would be a real understatement to attribute everything to improved screens without talking about improved (i.e., “rich” and targeted) user experience (UX) design as a whole.

Namely, a UI is a means to an improved UX end, and the recipe for success is to deliver forms and screens designed for a particular user’s role in the organization. In other words, employees can now log into their own role-tailored user profile and personal place in the business management system. The role-personalized UI displays only the selected tasks, metrics, alerts, and activities they need to perform, providing the users with an overview of what they’ve done and what’s next in line.

One of the most common problems plaguing business software users has been the deluge of data coming from all directions, especially in complex and expanding global supply chain networks. In addition to complex integration and disruptive heterogeneous system upgrades, a major global network’s challenge is confusing UX due to multiple views of information that come from independent resources (e.g., trading partners’ systems) and disparate business processes. Confusing UX means that users spend much more time interacting with business applications, searching for the right information, and consolidating data manually, rather than on actually acting on that information to create value.

The Role of Role-tailored UI and UX

One way to reduce this unproductive time is via a configurable interface that allows users to focus on key tasks, presenting current information from virtually any data source onto a tailored home Web page. Each user’s homepage is then replete with pertinent (contextual) reports and key performance indicators (KPIs) based on the specific user’s role in the company. This means that a modern functional UI has to create a holistic view of dispersed pieces of information that are drawn from various sources such as financial systems, Web storefronts, warehousing management systems (WMS), time & expense (T&E) management systems, and so forth.

Moreover, underlying enabling technologies like workflow management, event management, business intelligence (BI), enterprise portals, etc., bring information and action together. Actionable content means that users can drill down into disparate source systems for further analysis or to enter transactions (as necessary further actions).

The result is that employees have a central repository to find the information that they need in real-time to make decisions and complete their work. Each person then more clearly understands the progression of work in a way that is personalized to their specific job, regardless of whether they belong to the board room, the shop floor, human resources (HR), sales, warehousing/shipping, and so on.

As an illustration, employees in the procurement and sourcing departments can use the system’s consolidated data reporting to make business decisions that reduce excess expenditures and maverick spending, manage vendor compliance and viability risks, and identify opportunities to consolidate multiple vendors and suppliers. On the other hand, tailored reports could provide users in the sales department immediate visibility into trends in sales volumes and customer service levels, as well as the costs of servicing customers. Finally, finance and accounting can gain greater insight in less time into cash flow, total cost-to-serve customers, and other germane metrics that will enable them to make more informed decisions that improve profitability and productivity.

As a result, this modern UI and UX design reduces end-user dependency on assistance from the IT department. That is to say, programmers no longer have to build customized reports for each end user, who now can personalize their own views and the system outputs. In short, this UX approach enables everyone to focus on their tasks and organize their time in the way that works best for their company.

Enter Infor MyDay (Not Mayday, Folks!)

At the Inforum 2008 annual user conference in late 2008, Infor outlined its painstaking effort to incrementally build upon its vast portfolio of acquired products. I concur with Ray Wang’s estimate in his recent blog post that the vendor has moved on from collecting disparate (and sometimes antiquated) products to build a more cohesive strategy and value proposition for customers.

At the core of this ambitious endeavor is the Infor Open SOA architectural framework. Infor Open SOA is an event-driven architecture (EDA) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) that leverages a standards-based approach to distribute data between Infor solutions and non-Infor systems and data sources.

The grandiose idea behind Infor Open SOA is that Infor’s customers can relatively rapidly and economically add future Infor, third-party, and in-house software applications (and component-based enhancements) without the need to “rip-and-replace” software or interrupt other systems during operations. I should commend Infor for being quite up-front about how huge undertaking the delivery of the total Infor Open SOA (sometime also referred to as Infor Network) framework is.

The vendor frankly admits that it is only perhaps halfway done three years after embarking on the journey. This candidness has even lately warmed up some “doubtful Thomas” observers that are known for their customary harsh skepticism towards vendors. I refer here to a relatively positive blog post by ZDNet’s blogger Dennis Howlett.

Most of the Infor Open SOA framework’s components have been delivered by now (or will be delivered soon) and are free of charge to customers who are on active maintenance contracts. The major SOA platform’s parts start with the Development Studio that consists of the following components:

* Modeler - caters to UI Personalization, Dynamic Enterprise Modeler (DEM) Process Choreography, DEM Monitors, and Reporting Studio; and
* Eclipse open-source Integrated Development Environment (IDE) - contains Web 2.0 UI gadgets and Spring IDE plug-ins.

Then, the Administration Environment caters to Security Administration, User Logging & Auditing, Component Registry, Licensing Monitoring, Packaging (in accordance with the OSGi Alliance guidelines), Deployment, and User Management. Finally, the Run-Time Services module consists of the following components:

* Core Application Services – provide Master Data Management (MDM), Business Information Services (BIS), Infor MyDay, Hierarchies, and Resource Control;
* Core Platform Services – provide Monitoring, Workflow, On-Ramps, Configuration Software Infrastructure (CSI), Component Framework, and Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).

To explain some of these “ominous-sounding” components, Infor MyDay role-based user home pages are enabled by BIS, another major Infor Open SOA component that helps enterprises capture and consolidate data in a centralized and secure database for reporting processes. The analytic and reporting services come with built-in contextual analytics and support the ability to drill down to the original data source from the user’s home page (into both Infor and third-party applications).

For its part, CSI is a configuration infrastructure for messaging (not CBS’ famed TV series) that entails the technical details of how Infor provides standards-based connectivity. “On-ramp” is a term Infor uses for the connector or adapter for a specific Infor application. So, there will need to be an “on-ramp”–e.g., for Infor BIS database, Infor ERP LN, Infor ERP Syteline, Infor Warehouse Management, Infor EAM Enterprise Edition, and so on.

Given the several dozen Infor software assets that will require their own on-ramps, one can imagine the magnitude of the still outstanding development work when it comes to Infor Open SOA. Still, Infor can do some interesting things with on-ramps. When configured, an on-ramp essentially creates peer-to-peer (P2P) network messaging.

This network architecture has a fairly distributed (via a number of lightweight on-ramps) and “standardized” approach. In my opinion, however, “standardized” is a relative term, since standardization requires that you have other industry players who buy into that standard. We will have to wait and see if Infor will be successful there and exert some clout in the industry.

I also noticed a shift in the Infor Open SOA approach toward a P2P network, away from ESB, as initially stated and intended. As an explanation, a service bus is a hub-and-spoke architecture where the processes and decisions are made at the central hub, which undermines the supply chain nodes’ autonomy that network architecture promotes.

Moreover, Infor is moving to use OSGi to do the packaging of its software components to simplify the deployment and management of the environment, and current ESBs are not compatible with the standard (although Progress Software is moving to support it). In addition, the requirement to offer the SOA platform to customers as part of maintenance (the vendor has lately seen increase in maintenance buybacks from once off-maintenance customers) is simplified if Infor provides all parts of the solution, and is not dependent upon third parties’ ESB offerings.

Open SOA, So(a) What!?

So, why did I dwell this much on this SOA technobabble? Well, for the simple reason that without this ambitious framework, it would be difficult (if not even impossible) for Infor to viably deliver any refreshing value proposition to its customers (beyond merely milking the recurring support and maintenance revenue).

In addition to enabling flexible buying and deployment options for customers, the Open SOA framework is instrumental to taking companies’ current IT assets beyond transactional systems, to extended directive and prescriptive systems that can respond proactively to prescribed business rules and handle exceptions. The noble idea here is that the software can adapt quickly as business conditions change.

Infor Open SOA offers solutions to the abovementioned global supply chain network challenges (and remnants from inflexible enterprise-centric client/server architectures) via directive and prescriptive UX, a single network view of information, collaborative resource sharing, agile business processes, standard-based integration, and non-intrusive upgrades.

6 Specialists, 6 Industry Domains: Trends for 2008 and 2009

The Learning Review asked specialists from six major industry domains to share their thoughts on how they see various areas of employee management changing in the near future. The question, sent by e-mail, was simple: what do you think the main trends in [domain] will be for 2008 and 2009? Following are each of their answers.

Human Resources (HR) Strategies
by David Ulrich, consultant and educator in human resources management

In the next one to two years, HR professionals will face some interesting challenges.

First, they will need to manage both individual talent and organization culture. A [current] trend in HR is to focus on an individual's ability, called talentship, workforce, or human capital. But having great talent without teamwork makes people into all-star teams who do not work well together. The challenge will be to build both individual ability and organization capability. Organization capability deals with the culture and organization as a whole. HR professionals must learn to manage both the person and the process.

Second, HR needs to connect the inside and the outside. Often HR focuses inside the organization on employees and line managers. We hear the words … “We want to be the employer of choice.” HR needs to connect the inside and the outside, and use the words, “We want to be the employer of choice of employees our customers would choose.” Too often, HR professionals see their “customers” only as employees inside the firm, not taking into account customers, investors, and communities in which the firm operates.

Third, HR must learn to manage both transactions (the administrative, operational work of HR) with transformation (change, strategic, and long-term work). These are often seen as two different types of operations. The operations require efficiency through technology; the strategic requires transformation through alignment and integration.

Finally, we have found that HR professionals must have competencies to manage both people and business. Our study of over 10,000 people shows clearly the benchmark competencies required of HR professionals for the future (see www.rbl.net).

Human Performance
by Roger Kaufman, renowned researcher and professor at Instituto Tecnologico de Sonora (ITSON) in Sonora, Mexico

We will continue to expand our frame of reference—our mind-set—of our individual performance to align it with the goals of improving the organization and adding value to the external client and society. While we are getting increasingly better at … scientific and research-based individual or human performance improvement, we are increasingly seeing that no matter how well we meet individual performance objectives, those objectives must also add value for what the organization delivers to its clients, as well as [the] value … we add to all our external clients, including society.

This is the basis for what we are doing at ITSON in terms of curriculum and applied research. For 2008/2009, we and the profession will be expanding our horizons. And not a moment too soon.

Informal Learning
by Jay Cross, CEO of Internet Time Group in Berkeley, California (US)

Informal learning will continue [to grow] in importance. People do not have time [to take] many classes or workshops. The technology for facilitating self-service learning is available via the Web. Perhaps most important, empowered workers are rebelling against information deluge. They are going after what they want to learn (pull, informal) instead of taking what's thrown at them (push, formal).

Web 2.0
by Stephen Downes of the National Research Council Canada (NRC)

I was just today reading about a report from Gartner saying that software as a service (SaaS) will grow "seven times faster than on-premise software deployments during the next three years." That seems right to me, as for the most part, Web-based software is able to address many of the cross-platform issues facing application developers. And Web-based software allows a person to work with the same applications and same documents from multiple locations: their home computer, their work computer, their iPhone, whatever.
This flexibility may be contrasted with desktop operating systems that have become more and more cumbersome over the years. The result of people creating on the Web will be a continued proliferation of people creating for the Web, and so I think we'll see a steady increase in user-generated content. Also coming to Web 2.0 applications is a single sign-on service—most likely OpenID—which will allow users to mix and match content from different Web-based applications.

Thus, Web-based applications will be more than desktop applications could ever be; they will be social applications supporting collaborative authoring and content creation. In other words, what we will see will largely resemble Web 2.0 as we see it today. But there will be significant improvements in performance and stability “under the hood.”

E-learning
by Tony Bates, president and CEO of Tony Bates Associates Ltd. in Vancouver, Canada

Mainly, [e-learning] will continue to grow rapidly. One of the biggest costs for many companies is employee training, in terms of the time employees are absent from work, as well as travel and lodging expenses during training. E-learning gives some of that time back to the employee. Workers like this option because they can study and still be able to spend time at home with their families.

We will see much more simulation and animation, which will allow us to reduce the time spent being trained on expensive equipment. We will also witness a shift to more blended learning programs—a combination of face-to-face training and online learning.

Finally, due to purely economic reasons, we will see the development of material for online training that will apply to different industries and that can be shared between different companies, especially for basic training.

Knowledge Management
by Javier Martínez Aldanondo, knowledge management manager at Catenaria in Santiago, Chile

Before making any predictions, we must stress that, presently, there is a lack of clarity on what we understand as “knowledge management.” My rustic definition for this much talked about concept is “how to learn from what the company already knows, so that when people need to face tasks, they can take advantage of the experience of someone who has already tried that same task before, and therefore, use what worked, and learn what caused problems to avoid making the same mistakes twice and being inefficient.”

Knowledge is an asset that already exists in the organization; you don't have to invest in developing it. It allows you to get things done and to obtain positive results. However, it is an atypical asset, because it doesn't show up in balances, it cannot be deposited in a bank, and it fades when people leave the organization. Not using this knowledge is a waste that companies cannot afford. There are two terms that will affect knowledge management in the future: innovation and intelligence.

While people are intelligent and learn from their own experiences (every day we accumulate cases and stories that we reuse constantly), organizations have a difficult time finding out what [people] know and learning from it (lessons learned and better practices), and therefore they are inefficient and lose money. Organizations need to learn how to be intelligent, and to do so they have to innovate their concept of knowledge management. Today, this concept is reactive and centered on document management and training solutions.

Companies will need to know what their employees are trying to do, and offer them support when they have issues. When I'm preparing a commercial proposal for a customer, my knowledge management system will ask me, “Do you want to know who did this before you? Do you need help with a proposal similar to the one you're working on [and] that contains sales arguments that worked wonders with this type of scenario and customer?” The organization not only will be able to anticipate to its members' requests, but it will automatically learn while it gathers experiences that will feed its corporate memory. To achieve this, it is necessary to contemplate three areas:

* work with people (experts) who have cases and histories and critical knowledge, much more than [with] documents, procedures, and systems;
* establish real business metrics;
* and, most importantly, understand what knowledge really means—how we learn and what we understand as intelligence.

It’s About Process (or the Ability to be Responsive) — Part IV

Other Real Life ResponsAbility Use Examples

In addition to the examples described in Part III, another example of the ResponsAbility software in use can be found in Grayhill, Inc. an electronics manufacturer from Lagrange, Illinois (US), servicing industrial and government customers. While the company has been a long-term WebSource CPQ user for sales configuration purposes, the ResponsAbility sibling was later introduced for managing several processes, among them for product returns or return merchandize authorizations (RMAs).

Customer return requests are either imported from the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system or directly entered by customers and/or Grayhill associates into ResponsAbility as a “request for material return.” Based on the entered data via a customized form, the return is authorized or denied. Namely, a default assignee reviews a request and approves it, rejects it, or asks the customer for additional clarifications.

Upon authorization, when the goods are received a case gets assigned to the quality assurance (QA) team. This is another “gate review” step in the process where the quality team determines if the failure is due to a product defect or misuse (user-induced damage). If a case is determined to be a defect, then the part is repaired at no cost or a new part is sent to a customer.

The defective part is also sent to the engineering department for analysis to determine the root cause and future corrective actions. Namely, in order to ensure the highest quality for which Grayhill is known, the case cannot be closed until all the corrective and preventive action (CAPA) requirements are fulfilled. To that end, the following outputs must be generated: the detailed explanation of the root cause of the problem, the short-term fix, the long-term fix, sent a final report to the customer, etc.

If it is not a defective part case, the case is closed and the goods are returned to the customer, who may in turn elect to convert it to a special service request case type. Logically then, another workflow process is followed, consisting of steps such as creating a service estimate, approval, service fulfillment (repair), invoicing, etc.

In other words, in case of misuse, the customer is asked to authorize a repair for a fee. If and when an approval is received, the product is repaired and the case is closed. Similar to the new feature request vs. bug software example from Part III, a repair service for fee process follows its own workflow via the repair department and QA, and then is shipped to the customer.

Ken Hoving, Grayhill’s vice president (VP) of corporate quality said

“The Webcom solution allowed us to consolidate all of our customer corrective actions in one system and enable web access across the entire organization, including our customers, resulting in cycle time improvements and increased customer satisfaction.”

Also, the company asserts that due to all the system’s nifty drag-and-drop Web 2.0 personalization capabilities for both users and administrators, the BPM tool is not something that users feel forced to use, but they truly want to use it because it helps them to do a better job. They do not have to worry about forgetting to do something or missing a step in a rush, since ResponsAbility ensures that the process is thorough and consistent each time.

Another important process that ResponsAbility enables at Grayhill is SDPR (Special Design Pricing Request).

Namely, when a prospective customer inquires about a product that Grayhill does not currently manufacture as a standard, then such a request gets routed via a number of departments, starting with sales that captures the detailed inquiry/request. Then, the engineering team will estimate the cost/time to complete the special request, while the marketing and accounting staff will analyze the economic viability of the special job (it is still expected to be some batch/series production rather than a one-off engineer-to-order [ETO] product), and create a catalog number and its price (quote).

Before that happens and the sales department can communicate back to the customer Grayhill’s interest and official price (quote), several collaborative iterations have to take place between the customer, Grayhill and its vendors (e.g., the special tooling and fixtures’ cost and lead time discussion).

Product Information Management Example

Broan-NuTone, based in Hartford, Wisconsin (US), and North America’s leading manufacturer and distributor of residential ventilation products is another combined WebSource CPQ and ResponsAbility user. Its products include range hoods, ventilation fans, heater/fan/light combination units, Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Fresh Air Systems, built-in heaters, whole-house fans, attic ventilators, paddle fans and trash compactors.

The company has thousands of products, each with a slew of attributes such as length, width, material, standards to comply with (e.g., the UL Safety Standard, Canadian Standards Association [CSA], CE-Marking, etc.), voltage, power, air flow, and so on. The goal is to publish all that vast catalog data electronically via WebSource CPQ.

However, that cannot happen without consolidating all of the above data for all of the company’s products. ResponsAbility comes into the picture here, whereby each product will go through a special product information management (PIM) workflow.

Namely, the engineering team will have to fill in over hundred data points for each product, the marketing staff will add in their pertinent data, and product management will then have to fill the various product prices (list price, distributor price, wholesale price, etc.). Once the PIM case is closed, a prepared Microsoft Excel document with all of the required data about all the products in a product family can be imported into WebSource CPQ.

“After months of review and the evaluation of numerous vendors to help implement a Product Information Management system, we chose ResponsAbility from Webcom”, stated Mark Hughes, Internet Marketing Manager at Broan-NuTone. “Having several thousand products to manage from conception to obsolescence, we wanted to have stability out of the box. We feel that ResponsAbility is the perfect fit,” added Hughes.

Underlying ResponsAbility Technology

With some research indicating customer acquisition costing multiple times more than customer retention, ResponsAbility complements Webcom’s quote-to-order (Q2O) solution, WebSource CPQ, and continues the company’s focus on simplifying complex business processes.

“Attaining your goals and objectives requires not only a focus on obtaining new business through a quote-to-order solution such as WebSource CPQ, but just as rigorous a focus on retaining your most treasured asset, your customers”, commented Aleksandar Ivanovic, Webcom’s chief executive officer (CEO) and founder.

“ResponsAbility is just the type of solution needed to help drive customer satisfaction, innovation and repeat business”, added Ivanovic. “Especially in today’s uncertain economy, driving productivity through repeatable and reliable processes is crucial to success, and ResponsAbility could be a valuable tool helping companies improve customer service through nimbleness and implement process control.”

However, in order not to create internal competition for research and development (R&D) resources, WebSource CPQ and ResponsAbility, although both being offered on-demand, have intentionally been developed on two different technologies, Microsoft .NET Framework and Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), respectively. For more information, see TEC’s earlier article entitled Understand J2EE and .NET Environments Before You Choose.

Some best-practices sharing between the two teams could still be possible on the user interface (UI) side, since both products leverage Asynchronous Java and XML (AJAX) for rich client enablement and Web 2.0 gadgets. Although the two products are currently English-only, a common translation mechanism for other languages is being developed. Both products will be able to leverage these schemas for deployments in several languages. However, the decision on which languages to tackle first and deliver has yet to be made.

But, in contrast to WebSource CPQ, ResponsAbility is enabled for the Hibernate database-independent object/relational persistence and query service. The product features full audit trail and archiving capabilities, and the ability to export data in the CSV (comma separated values), Microsoft Excel, extensible markup language (XML), Adobe PDF (portable data file), and RTF (rich text file) file formats.

KISS IT or Leave IT

Webcom’s main challenge with the new workflow/BPM product will be to balance its “keep it straight and simple (KISS)” mantra with the complexity of full-fledged BPM applications’ deployments. On the one hand, the vendor positions ResponsAbility as a “lite BPM” product, given that it features much more capabilities than a mere workflow product, but on the other hand, it is far more limited than any other notable BPM suite’s functional footprint at this stage.

To be fair, some BPM functional requirements can be rendered moot in the on-demand model. In fact, product versioning, acceptance testing and/or whether workflow notification mechanisms can integrate with desktop products or interact via email are all capabilities that are a “big deal” for client/server on-premise BPM deployments, but are virtually irrelevant in software as a service (SaaS) subscription-based deployments.

The same goes for integration with third-party integrated development environments (IDE’s) due to the web-based workflow modeling environment within ResponsAbility. Indeed, IDEs like Microsoft Visual Studio are relevant for on-premise programming development, i.e., for writing source code, compiling it and making it executable code. In contrast to that, workflow modeling within ResponsAbility does not require coding, compiling, server deployment, etc. Furthermore, the SaaS deployment model completely obviates the need to buy and install an IDE.

It might be interesting to note here that Salesforce.com, when it started several years ago (and likely even still today) only had a fraction of customer relationship management (CRM) functionality that Oracle Siebel has had (and still has today). Still, this functional deficiency did not stop the on-demand CRM pioneer from succeeding.

The goal is not necessarily to out-feature other software packages, since most of them already have so much functionality that much thereof is never implemented or used (as can be seen in TEC’s article entitled Application Erosion: Eating Away at Your Hard Earned Value).

Thus, Webcom’s main goal is to make ResponsAbility so easy to set up and so easy to use that there will never be a failed implementation or a disgruntled customer. The goal is to quickly and simply help people to get their respective jobs done in a way that they get almost addicted to the tool, so much so that they cannot even imagine doing it any other way.

For what is worth, getting back to the “eating own dog food” mantra from Part III, Webcom’s staff admits to being addicted to ResponsAbility. If they look at their own statistics, which are available in the application, each Webcom employee will have personally performed thousands of transactions therein.

In the next product release, due in the fall of 2008 (which is another advantage of the SaaS development, i.e., the frequency of new releases), Webcom will be adding several new features, such as visual workflow/process designer, rules and conditions, escalations, service level agreement (SLA) tiers, field dependencies, scheduled events, analytics (graphs, charts, trends), etc. Features like Web Services application programming interface (API), support for personal digital assistant (PDA) and other mobile devices, case and task interdependencies, etc. might come in future product releases.

While the vendor strongly believes that ease-of-use and ease-of-setup are far more important than a long list of out-of-the-box supported features, it is necessary to have some of those in the request for information (RFI)/request for proposal (RFP) phase of any selection project to avoid outright elimination.

Even though some of the capabilities which are often marked as a “must have” will likely never be implemented by prospective clients, the selection team wants to make a safe decision and get all of their bases covered. Without those capabilities on paper, ResponsAbility may get eliminated before users ever get a chance to fall in love with the application.

Webcom also strongly believes that if users need to be trained extensively on how to use the application, the product will have failed. We concur that no one can expect customers and partners (channel and supply) to take additional classes on how to collaborate with the company using its applications.

The software needs to be as intuitive as going to the Amazon.com web site and buying a book or a CD, or going to Google and doing a search. It is Webcom’s approach that until it figures out how to make each feature that intuitive, it will not introduce it in the application.

Current State of Affairs

ResponsAbility has been generally available (GA) since May 2008, with a free trial option. Deployed in a SaaS subscription model, pricing starts at US$ 19.95 per user per month for an internal user, and US$ 4.95 per user per month for an external user/trading partner (or alternatively 99 cents per each case generated by external users). Such aggressive pricing a la espresso coffee drinks or music downloads are hoped to generate the initial “critical mass” user base.

Webcom also recently announced the expected availability of ResponsAbility for Salesforce.com’s AppExchange directory of on-demand applications. Leveraging Salesforce.com’s Force.com platform, the next ResponsAbility release (expected in September or so) will be available for test drive and deployment at the AppExchange site. There is already GA for the Oracle CRM OnDemand ecosystem.

Every customer that installs the software over the Web in a self-service manner gets the following four default workflow process templates: Bug Resolution, New Feature Request (NFR), Engineering Change Notice (ECN) and RMA. Certainly, customers can define and create their own process templates to their heart’s content. The experience has shown that it typically requires a few hours for a major business process to be thought out and defined.

As additional food for thought, here is a (partial) list of potential groups of processes within various lines of businesses (LoB’s)/departments that could hereby be automated:

* Finance — asset management tracking, budget approval, invoice approval, payment request, capital acquisition request, credit approval, merger and acquisition (M&A) tracking, etc.;
* Product Development – product specification approval, product change notice, engineering change request, issue management, enhancement/new features requests;
* Back-office (Administration) — expense claims, travel authorizations, help desk requests, purchase requests, document change control, etc.;
* Customer Service — call management, field service management, case handling, customer survey forms, information technology (IT) services request, etc.;
* Human Resources — new hire setup requests, training enrollment, certification alerts, etc.; and

May a New Day Begin for Mature Enterprise Applications – Part 2

Infor’s “Three E’s” Approach

The “enrich” part of the strategy refers to adding value to Infor’s raft of current products (solutions or assets). Infor has released over 100 product upgrades and feature (service) packs free of charge for customers on active maintenance contracts. It is also important to note that there is no forced march imposed upon customers here; these feature packs can be enabled or disabled by turning the appropriate switches “on” or “off” in a parameterized setup.

The “extend” part of the strategy refers to extending functional footprint via OSGi standards–based interoperability within Infor’s portfolio of applications in order to meet the growing complexity of global supply chains. Customers will receive ongoing service-oriented architecture (SOA) integrations. On one hand, these product connections represent cross-selling opportunities for Infor, on the other hand, they should also enable customers to extend their current solutions and build a broader foundation for future capabilities that might be required.

For example, Infor’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) users will be able to leverage, e.g., Infor’s supply chain management (SCM), business performance management (BPM), or enterprise asset management (EAM) products. But in contrast to the “extend” feature packs (and new individual product releases), these new functional capabilities are logically available for an additional license fee.

Finally, the “evolve” part of Infor’s Open SOA strategy follows along the lines of developing brand new products that will solve some particular business problem and improve users’ competitiveness (and thus will not become obsolete for quite some time). These new components promise to feature universal interconnectivity to major Infor products.

Depending on their nature, they will either be free of charge (e.g., Infor MyDay) for eligible customers or for a commensurate license fee. For more details, see TEC’s previous article entitled “Ambitious Plans and Promises: An Enterprise Software Provider Keeps Its Word.”

At the Inforum 2008 user conference, Infor touted about 20 new “evolve” components to be generally available (GA) , i.e., tested on limited release with real customers for several months) by the end of 2009 (and many more to come afterwards). In addition to the MyDay role-based portal (which will be described soon), are Infor Decisions and Infor Order Management are already GA.

Infor Decisions brings real-time, enquiry-driven business intelligence (BI) to line of business (LoB) managers. These folks have been inundated with data coming from disparate sources such as financial management systems (e.g., actual vs. budget), customer service systems (e.g., customer and product profitability), external systems (e.g., a customer’s financial performance) and operations (e.g., inventory status).

But this overflowing data has unfortunately not traditionally been linked to the context of business. To that end, Infor Decisions drives a “train of thought” inquiry, which transforms users from transactional to information workers and facilitates informed decision-making and action.

For its part, Infor Order Management provides multi-model pricing and time-phased inventory reservation right across supply chains. The solution was built to enable the true and unified order experience, i.e., how companies really sell and how customers buy (and not how the system “thinks” the trade happens).

For example, order capturing and inventory reservation can take place centrally, while the actual delivery and customer service takes place in a certain local division. Infor Order Management was designed with flexibility in mind to accommodate ever-changing business practices.

Evolution Continues

The upcoming Infor Advanced General Ledger (formerly also known as Multi-Books Accounting) module is an “evolve” component that should give global companies the ability to conform to multiple, country-specific accounting standards and currencies. The module can either run concurrently with an existing general ledger (G/L) system or serve as the primary accounting module.

The idea behind the multi-books accounting capability is to enable the system to work alongside financial management systems to help companies cast their financials in multiple ways. If, for instance, a corporation has an operation in China, India, or Brazil, and it has to follow these governments’ rules on what one precisely refers to local accounting concepts and regulations, like “salary,” “wage,” or “value-added tax” (VAT) or “sales tax,” how do users get a system without having to rip and replace what they already have in order to work in China, Latin America, the US, and Europe? Advanced G/L and about a few dozen other upcoming “evolve” components, such as, e.g., Pricing, contracts & promotions; Actual costing; Multi-echelon inventory control, and Sales & operations planning (S&OP), are slated for delivery by the early 2010s.

So, What’s The Big Deal with Infor MyDay?

Typically, when I attend vendors’ annual events, I ask their staffers to tell me what in their mind is the highlight of the conference. I was a bit dismayed after hearing the strangely named MyDay feature as the major theme of the Inforum 2008 event.

Namely, IFS Enterprise Explorer (IEE, part of the ongoing Project Aurora), Microsoft Dynamics Client for Office (DCO), Lawson Smart Office, Epicor Productivity Pyramid, IQMS Smart Page UI and so on revolve around themes like role-based portals, contextual analytics, KPIs, alerts, dashboards, shortcuts, favorite/recently used pages, etc. In addition, the role-based UI was implemented with common controls and gadgets, and delivered for basically all of the Microsoft Dynamics enterprise resource planning (ERP) products after introducing it and testing first in Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Thus, I wondered what I was missing at the time within MyDay that was making me a bit indifferent (and why I should not have been indifferent). To be fair, Infor MyDay is designed to deliver persona-based content to over 150 roles Infor has identified in its customers’ businesses. Infor’s blog post explains as follows:

“…What do we mean by persona-based? A persona is a composite of a user within an organization. A lot of vendors talk about role-based interfaces. A persona takes this concept to the next level. A role is generic, designed for a departmental role such as the “finance user.” A persona is specific to an individual user within that department, such as the VP of Finance or Controller. A persona also adds texture to that individual. At Infor, we’ve given them names and faces and built stories around their life. These are imaginary people, but they are based on the hundreds of users we studied to understand the real needs that real people need to get their jobs done. From conception, design and development to sales education and marketing, this gives us the understanding we need to build and deliver great content for people.

Let’s take a look at one of the 16 persona roles we are delivering with this first release, Bob the Production Planner. Bob is a composite of the typical production planner. He is the choreographer of the manufacturing shop floor, managing planning and production. He determines what to produce, how much and when it’s needed. He acts as the go-between between the shop floor and the corporate side of the firm. He has a degree, probably business or engineering, and about 10 years experience with manufacturing. He knows how to use applications but he’s not an IT gearhead.

Bob has to deal with unexpected events – late purchase deliveries, machine downtime or last minute work orders. He wants to be more proactive, but the reality is that he is in ‘reacting mode’ much of the time and plans are always changing. He has to deal with inaccurate inventories and bill of materials, and he has an avalanche of unstructured information that he needs to gather, format and assimilate to take action on.

From our research, we have learned Bob’s typical responsibilities, his skills, his working environment, pain points and goals. We have learned how he uses his ERP software, the other applications he uses and the value he needs to get from them. We learned all of this because we’ve done our homework. A lot of it. We started in early 2007, logging thousands of hours of research into the personas of the people using our software. We’ve built-in the content they need to make their lives a little easier, so they can focus on strategic activities instead of looking for information…”

While an impressive and thorough exercise, persona-based profiling (and subsequent UI tailoring) is not necessarily a unique practice. Namely, TEC’s recent article entitled “Application Giants in Duel—and Duet—for Users’ Hearts, Minds … and Wallets” explains at great length Microsoft’s rationale for its elaborate approach to UX, including role centers (based on numerous interviews of real-life users and their needs).

It’s About Making the Users’ Day (and Less about Impressing Analysts)

The just-announced availability of Infor MyDay for Infor ERP Adage [evaluate this product], the renowned process manufacturing ERP solution, has given me an answer to my quandary. After Infor MyDay was unveiled at Inforum 2008, this represents its first GA for one of many Infor ERP solutions.

As the recent Infor blog post explains, one issue that almost all of the process manufacturing companies can relate to is cost to service customers. In most process ERP systems, actual cost of production, post invoice rebates, disallowed discounts, non-salable allowances, and return data are just some of the data captured over time.

“…This data often resides in ERP modules or disparate, standalone systems. Most companies struggle to pull this information together with customized reports, spreadsheets or complex general ledger allocations. The problem is, by the time you sort through all the noise, the information is months old and the impact is diluted.

With Infor MyDay, the information is immediately at your fingertips, without having to call IT to develop a custom report. This information is built into the Infor MyDay personas for finance and sales managers, who receive these reports on their personalized page and can now better control cost to service and ensure their most profitable customers get the most profitable products…”

For all this time, I was thinking as an industry analyst (rather than a user of a specific product), and comparing MyDay to what other vendors are doing, thinking about the possible market differentiation. On the other hand, to a user of an aged Infor ERP Adage instance, which has been a very functional product but with a rudimentary UI (to put it mildly), MyDay will likely feel like time travel to at least two decades in the future (or as if they were participants in ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover show).

And who might then care about what other vendors might be doing in this regard? The Infor ERP Adage MyDay Datasheet is available at the company’s web site here.

Now I get that MyDay, being free of charge and exhibiting a unifying, dynamic, and snazzy UI, should resonate with Infor customers on antiquated and diverse products. The UI enhancement has also very recently been made GA for Infor ERP LN, Infor ERP SyteLine, and Infor ERP Visual to provide these users as well with visibility into the “why” and “when” and not just the “what” of business operations. As mentioned in Part 1, Infor MyDay does this by filtering data by job function and relevancy and delivering it in a condensed home-page format.