Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Jun 19 The Wizardry of Business Process Management – Part 3

Alan Trefler, Pegasystems’ founder and CEO, gave his luncheon keynote presentation at the Gartner BPM Summit in San Diego. His theme was “Don’t just Survive… Capitalize.” Trefler begun by reminding the audience that in today’s turbulent economy we are all “not in Kansas anymore” and may just need some “ruby slippers” to find our way back home to profitability. If you have 14 minutes to spare, you can re-capture the spirit of the event here.

In the main part of his presentation in Part 2, Trefler maintained that to follow the “Yellow Brick Road,” which will lead any business to Oz (and back to profitability), requires three capabilities in particular, starting with the ability to directly capture business objectives into the BPM system by the business users.It cannot be overemphasized how important it is for business users to be able to capture corporate objectives directly into the software technology so that these new objectives can immediately impact their customers, partners, and employees. The ability to easily record, erase, revise, and organize business rule changes creates the foundation for organizational agility. Letting organizations design for both planned and (even more importantly) unplanned business changes is of paramount importance.

It’s About (the “Six Rs” of) Automation, After All

Companies have to optimize their processes through technology that automatically integrates new objectives into their systems to adjust for every specific situation. They need a “brain” that ensures that processes and decisions are optimized per these new objectives in both mainstream and exceptional situations.

The idea is to get the initial process quickly and iterate later. Business users can do it one customer issue at the time, starting with any business process that needs improvement: e.g., open a new account, charge dispute, detect fraud, increase credit line, handle a missed payment, and so on.

As said in Part 2, Pegasystems (also known as Pega) users can use the familiar Microsoft Visio diagramming tool to visually create (model) the processes that will deliver better customer service. There are many pre-built solution frameworks with industry best practices to get them jump-started if necessary.

But the second brick in the Yellow Brick Road is the ability of the technology to automate all necessary computer programming. Namely, business people can draw nice pictures and diagrams to capture objectives, but if between that model of what you want and ultimately running your business you need to do lots of tedious Java or C++ programming, you cannot be agile and nimble enough. To that technical end, the model that business users create should actually automate the programming that makes the business process run.

The final brick in the Yellow Brick Road of BPM is the automation of business processes that then “drives the work to be done” by, well, automating the actual work. In other words, the work is not merely tracked or routed for human intervention, but is also completed with the power of smart automation and minimal manual effort.

Nirvana would be to ultimately automate the work for people, who then only add value as required. Although the human touch is always needed, the point of business process automation (BPA) is to eliminate any distractions.

Again stepping out of Trefler’s presentation’s narrow scope, let me try to explain here how Pega’s SmartBPM suite really turns work automation into a tool for business changes on the fly. Let’s explore the “Six Rs” of driving work to be done via Pega’s BPM technology.

As the first “R,” the BPM product makes it easy for users to receive the work that needs processing. SmartBPM has a broad ability to receive input out-of-the-box from virtually any conceivable channel.

To that end, flexible, self-expanding extensible markup language (XML)-based data structures make it easy to capture whatever data, attachments, images, or other content may be appropriate, so that users can always have the right information at hand. Web services, e-mail notifications, and so on are all treated through a common software architecture, to ensure that processes designed for one particular channel can be leveraged in a multi-channel environment.

The second “R” stands for route. To that end, rules ensure optimal work management for either people or systems by organizing related work into Cases and Folders, thus prioritizing and managing them. The duplicate checking ability prevents redundancy, while skills-based routing (SBR) optimizes work assignments.

For the third “R” of automation, report, the system offers over 100 standard reports, plus an open database to integrate with other customer information and enterprise reporting systems. Canned reporting capabilities can even be extended to include real-time business activity monitoring (BAM). For instance, built-in Service Level Agreement (SLA) management and statistical sampling provide management impacts in real time.

Customers use these capabilities to coordinate and control key business functions. For example, National Australian Bank (NAB) uses SmartBPM to control the receipt, prioritization, and execution of billions of dollars of high value payments, ensuring that every wire transfer request is handled according to the best practice.

The Exceeding “Three Rs” of BPA

But these are just the basic three “Rs” of BPA, something like the reading, writing, and arithmetic abilities in elementary school. They are the basis of what was originally called workflow automation that represents the procedural side of the world.

These days, competitive organizations need much more than the basics. To that end, PegaRULES Process Commander, a thin-client collaborative environment for both business users and IT departments, brings the further benefits and the power of automation with the additional three “Rs” that make the procedures even smarter.

Thus, the fourth “R” stands for research: the ability to dynamically get the data needed to automate work when and as needed, and use the best sources. Retrieving data if and only if it is needed saves resources and money. In addition, the system saves users’ time by only asking relevant questions and making it easy to dynamically insert alternative data sources.

Then comes the “R” for respond: the ability to reduce effort and provide service by ensuring that interactions with people are “smart.” For example, users are able to alter the forms and fields of the hypertext markup language (HTML) screens based on the rules and the situation. In addition, companies are able to notify partners, customers, and other relevant parties effectively and appropriately, and even have them directly participate in the completion of the work over the Web.

Last but not least, the sixth “R” stands for resolve: the ability to drive work through to completion with the power of an inference engine. In other words, it is the ability to fully automate work where possible and guide users if and when user involvement is needed.

The “Six Rs” of Automation in Action

Pega’s customers use these BPA capabilities to weave policies and other declarative rules into their procedures. As an illustration, let’s see how the “Six Rs” would work at an insurance call center:

1. Receive – A New York customer wants to add boat coverage to his homeowners and auto insurance plan. He or she goes to the online portal, gets partially through, but has questions about what happens if he or she moors in Maine in the summer, but brings the boat back for storage in New York in winter. He or she picks up the phone, switching from the Web to the phone channel.
2. Research – In the background, the system pre-determines that the local insurance agent is not skilled enough to write the policy for a boat moored in Maine, calculate the right policy for a commission sharing (and potential discounts), and up-sell.
3. Route – Thus, the customer profile triggers an SBR to a preferred customers queue in the call center. The right customer service representative (CSR) quickly asks a few relevant questions (e.g., near-shore or offshore sailing?) and recommends an additional multi-line coverage umbrella.
4. Resolve – The customer receives a quote to his liking and the change in policy is resolved by underwriting and a system-driven straight-through processing (STP) to be bound.
5. Respond – The customer gets an automatically generated confirmation e-mail with a print snail mail follow-up and confirmation of the change of policy and debit acknowledgement.
6. Report – The activity is monitored for ongoing process improvements and optimization via productivity and quality alerts.

The benefits of such intent-driven user experience are that it eliminates the CSR’s guesswork, since the system analyzes information on the customer history, coverage, value, prior interactions, etc., as well as the insurance provider’s business goals to determine the best course of action. Furthermore, CSRs benefit from improved effectiveness and efficiency, since the SmartBPM suite guides the agent through the interaction process and delivers the appropriate scripts, process steps, and customer information exactly when needed. In addition, Pega dynamically alters the agent experience to accommodate multiple roles (e.g., sales vs. service) and locations.

The Wizardry of Closing Execution Gaps

Going back to Alan Trefler’s luncheon presentation, in summary, he concluded that it takes the following: corporate courage (not to flinch in these times, but to instead try to see what can be done), a BPM brain (to capture the business intent), and a heart (a service oriented architecture [SOA]-based infrastructure). This creative cinematic BPM metaphor did not come out of thin air, since the presentation took place exactly on the 70th anniversary of the great “Wizard of Oz” movie.

Another salient point in Trefler’s creative speech was that the market for BPM software is driven by competitive businesses that seek to close the execution gaps that may exist between their business objectives and their actual business processes. Pega’s target customers are large, industry-leading service organizations faced with managing transaction-intensive, complex and changing processes that seek the agility needed for growth, productivity, and regulatory compliance.

Financial services organizations require software to improve the quality, accuracy, and efficiency of customer interactions and transactions processing. Pega’s customer process management and exceptions management products allow its financial service customers to be more responsive to changing business requirements. Representative Pega’s financial services customers include Bank of America, Barclays Bank, Citigroup, Credit Suisse Group, HSBC Group Holdings, JPMorgan Chase & Co., National Australian Bank (NAB), and TD Bank Financial Group.

Pega’s financial industry knowledge and experience has resulted in solutions to help these customers close execution gaps and improve the following processes:

* In Bank Card Operations: Multi-channel service; Self-service account opening; Product roll-out; Fraud processing; Customer on-boarding, etc.
* In Retail Banking: Event-driven marketing; Account opening; New product introduction; Service case management; Specialized fulfillment, etc.
* In Wholesale Banking (e.g., wire transfers and treasury management): Proactive service monitoring; Account servicing; New product introduction; Compliance trade monitoring; Exception management, etc.

For their part, healthcare organizations seek products that integrate their front-office and back-office initiatives and help drive customer service, efficiency, and productivity. Representative Pega’s healthcare customers include: Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, Group Health Cooperative, HealthNow New York, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals (Kaiser Permanente), and Wellpoint.

Pega’s healthcare industry involvement has resulted in solutions to help these customers close execution gaps and improve the following processes: Automated Underwriting; Sales Renewals; Appeals & Grievances; Consumer Directed Healthcare (CDHC) offerings; Facilitation; Authorization Management; Small- and Large-Plan Enrollment and Servicing; Disease/Care Management, and so on.

Insurance companies, whether competing globally or nationally for customers and channels, need software to automate the key activities of policy/contract rating, quoting, customization, underwriting, and servicing as well as products that improve customer service and the overall customer experience. Representative Pega insurance industry customers include: American National Insurance Company, former American International Group (AIG) that recently changed name into American International Underwriters (AIU), John Hancock, Farmers Insurance Group, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, and The Prudential Insurance Company of America. Pega’s insurance industry knowledge and experience has resulted in solutions to help these customers close gaps and improve the following processes: automated underwriting; event-driven marketing; product cloning; claims management; legacy transformation, etc.

A CRM Provider Too?

While its customers are typically large companies in the financial services, healthcare and insurance markets, with SmartBPM Suite, Pega is also able to offer solutions to a broader range of companies and industries, such as telecommunications, government, life sciences, manufacturing, and travel services. Marquee customers here include Amgen, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD), General Electric Company (GE), Ford Motor Company, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, and The ServiceMaster Company.

All of the abovementioned companies are largely concerned about their customer service levels. Pega’s customer interaction know-how has also resulted in solutions to close gaps and improve the following processes: Customer retention and cross-selling; Specialized fulfillment; New hire training; Post-order clean-up; Objection handling; Reducing on-call time, Product warranty and servicing management, and so on.

In fact, Pega is also regarded as a customer relationship management (CRM) provider. ZDNet’s 2007 blog post mentioned Pega within a Forrester’s CRM Wave research document. Pega does acknowledge the competition from CRM application vendors including Chordiant Software, Microsoft Dynamics CRM by Microsoft, Siebel by Oracle; Pivotal CRM by CDC Software, and Consona CRM to name but a few.

There is also competition coming from companies that provide application specific software for the financial services, healthcare, insurance, and other specific markets such as Norkom Technologies, SmartStream Technologies, SunGard, The TriZetto Group, Oracle’s solutions for financial services, Misys, etc. An interesting nugget of information is that Pega used to be a Salesforce.com on-demand CRM customer. The vendor recently made a decision to replace Salesforce.com Enterprise Edition with its own CRM system, in an “drink your own champagne” manner.

Infor Strikes Again (at Long Last): Getting “Soft” While Flexing Its Muscles? – Part 2

analyzed Infor’s latest acquisition of SoftBrands Inc., a company with a somewhat complicated history and lineage, and formerly called Fourth Shift and AremisSoft.

The post concluded that, from a higher level overview, Infor has a good synergistic opportunity with the SoftBrands Hospitality solutions but some serious tweaking to do with the SoftBrands Manufacturing solutions. Some issues discussed were the long backpedaled development of the original Fourth Shift product due to SoftBrands’ focus on partnering with SAP for the SAP Business One Fourth Shift Edition product.

Infor’s Opportunity

But I will still go out on a limb here and say that SoftBrands’ manufacturing products mentioned in Part 1 might have the best chances of being brought back to life under Infor. To be fair, Infor has breathed more than one breath of fresh air into some long-written-off enterprise resource planning (ERP) products. Think of Infor ERP LN (formerly Baan) or Infor ERP Adage (formerly SCT Adage) and how much these products have been bolstered via Infor’s “Extend, Enrich, and Evolve” or “Three Es” approach and accompanying product delivery.

To that end, I am not sure how neglected and technologically far behind the “classic” Fourth Shift product is at this moment in order to be fully service-oriented architecture (SOA)-enabled within the Infor Open SOA framework. But the least Infor can do is to offer the “evolve” components like Infor MyDay or Infor Business Information Services (BIS) to legacy Fourth Shift customers.

Offering Infor MyDay on top of all of its ERP assets is a great way to entice customers to use Infor’s unified user interface (UI) and then eventually swap out the antiquated underlying systems. Part of the strategy for Infor MyDay is to layer it on top of all underlying enterprise systems and eventually have it become the main UI that Infor customers will use to access enterprise information.

However, from my understanding of Infor’s current sales strategy, the vendor really needs to focus on the plethora of its existing solutions. SoftBrands will certainly add an inevitable distraction in the short term, and at least it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Enter Infor Flex

This brings me to an even more recent announcement about Infor Flex, a well-thought-out program that was devised to give customers on active maintenance contracts a clear, fast, and cost-effective path to adopt Infor’s latest product innovations.

While the entire press release can be found here, and there is also an Infor Blog entry with a video message from Infor’s chief executive officer (CEO) Jim Schaper here and a Flex Overview Presentation here, the gist of the matter can be found in the following excerpt from the PR:

“…Through a package of software, services and financing, Infor Flex gives customers compelling, low-risk options to upgrade to the latest version of their existing Infor products or exchange to another Infor product, on a like-for-like basis. The decision to upgrade or exchange is completely in the hands of customers based on the needs of their business. Infor Flex minimizes license and/or transaction fees and offers significant benefits, such as a fast, reduced-fee implementation methodology and incentive pricing on additional users, modules or complementary solutions…”

A week before announcing Infor Flex, Infor also announced Infor Financing, which, for a limited time, offers qualifying customers a zero-percent financing option so they can immediately improve their competitiveness through software that’s available at flexible and favorable payment terms. Infor Financing is also available as part of the Infor Flex program for qualifying customers.

As with the SoftBrands acquisition coverage, there is little I can add to the opinions of Ray Wang, Frank Scavo, and ZDNet’s Dennis Howlett in their respective blog posts. My understanding on the Infor Flex program is that Infor has either removed or dramatically reduced and simplified pricing along with providing special incentives for customers to get access to new product releases in order to encourage customer upgrades.

Some software companies charge for each new release, but Infor does not seem to be one of these (“out of touch”) vendors. The new license revenue stream is always appealing, but that policy does make licensees seriously consider the cost before an upgrade. There simply are cases where upgrades induce major underlying platform changes that have, historically, incurred costs. Infor pledges to leave no stone unturned, however, in finding ways to eliminate or reduce these.

I can only speculate on whether there has been considerable customer resistance recently, which has then pushed Infor to this new program. In other words, it is difficult for the cynic in me to think that any vendor does anything for the customer out of the goodness of its heart. But in any case, what Infor is doing here will be beneficial if it moves more clients to the latest releases at a cost-effective price. My hunch is also that the focus is on leveraging Infor Open SOA and Infor MyDay.

But the “catch 22″ here is in how many of Infor customers are on the latest product release to be able to take advantage of these new “evolve” products. Not too many, I guess, and there Infor might be facing a real problem. There is a significant investment in this new technology, but if Infor Flex cannot build a lasting success in its install base, the company will ultimately fail.

I believe this initiative to get customers to upgrade or migrate will be the vendor’s focus (and a litmus test of a sort) for the next year or so. It is a good idea to get customers in a position so they can take advantage of these new innovations. But with a customer base of 70,000, the vendor cannot do this with a sporadic win here and there. Infor needs to show proof points and mass adoption relatively swiftly.

No Customer Left on the (Rimini) Street

During the analyst call on Infor Flex, it was interesting to hear that Infor did not care for a low-touch maintenance option that Vinnie Mirchanadani asked about, and then discussed in his blog entry. In fact, temporarily handing over some laggard customers to third-party service providers might be a wiser option for any vendor than to lose them anyway in the long-term due to a heavy-handed approach and rigidity.

Third-party service and maintenance providers like Rimini Street, netCustomer, Spinnaker, Eclipse Total Solutions (ETS), etc., seem to be having a ball recently, especially in this economy. The main premise of these providers is at least 50 percent cheaper service compared to those of the original vendor. For more information on Rimini Street, as the most established and vocal third-party service provider, see TEC’s previous article, “Latest Developments for a Vendor-neutral Third-party Support and Maintenance Provider.”

Even more recent updates on Rimini Street can be found in respective blog entries by the “usual suspect” bloggers like ZDNet’s Larry Dignan, Vinnie Mirchadani, Frank Scavo, and Ray Wang. In a nutshell, Rimini Street now boasts nearly 300 customers. These are renowned companies that are on stable Oracle PeopleSoft, Oracle JD Edwards, and Oracle Siebel products (with support for SAP Business Suite introduced in 2009), and that do not necessarily care for the “latest and greatest” SOA and Web 2.0 technologies and gadgets.

The key highlights from the company’s mid-July press release:

* Rimini Street again achieved record results, by quadrupling sales in first half of 2009.
* The company accepted a substantial investment from Adams Street Partners for a minority stake in the Company.
* The investment will be used to aggressively expand the service provider’s global operations to meet growing client demand.

Rimini Street’s clients are typically very happy with their current functionality and want to run the current product releases for next 5 to 10 years. Rimini provides all the tax and regulatory updates, patches, and fixes the customer’s need. The third-party service provider will take care of customers’ existing customizations, but will not provide general consulting services such as enhancement development.

One can always wonder about what happens to the companies that need some modern technologies now, say, to use either Facebook for customer relationship management (CRM) forums or LinkedIn for talent management. Or, what if they need some new functionality from their primary vendor, say, on-demand transportation management system (TMS) or sourcing/supplier relationship management (SRM)?

To that end, new functionality that is separate from the ERP deployment—like Taleo or SuccessFactors for recruitment or employee performance management, LeanLogistics for TMS, or Ariba or Emptoris for sourcing—is procured and managed separately from Rimini Street. Customers can still procure additional modules from their primary ”mega” vendors if they like.

I asked Rimini Street’s executive whether in 5 or 10 years, when the customer decides that it is time to go for SOA and Web x.0, they will have to leave Rimini and go back to SAP or Oracle. Will that be like an entirely new implementation, or will they even have to pay penalties to these vendors to get reinstated on the service and maintenance contract? In other words, will all the savings they have made with Rimini Street be eaten up by the new installation and penalties?

Dave Rowe, senior vice president (SVP) at Global Marketing and Alliances said:

“Our clients generally plan to run their current releases for the next 5 to 10 years, then make a decision on a next-generation software platform well down the road. Many of our clients plan to compare the next-generation platforms from current ERP providers as well as potential new entrants like Workday or NetSuite, once those platforms are built, tested, and widely deployed—eliminating the risk involved in investing now in an unknown new platform to be delivered on an uncertain time frame at an unknown future cost. As part of a competitive evaluation, clients will still be able to choose their current vendor for the next-generation platform. If in 10 years you line up the vendors, each will fight very hard to win the new business and aggressively price as needed, and likely not resort to charging back maintenance fees.”

Here are a few of the highlights of why Rimini Street was selected as “IT Vendor of the Year” by Hastings Entertainment, a leading multimedia entertainment retailer (full press release can be seen here):

* ultra-responsive service (note that Rimini’s average response time by a software engineer is fewer than four minutes);
* extreme dedication to full resolution of each and every issue (in a stark contrast to the typical software vendor’s support model);
* support for existing customizations just as for the “vanilla” source code; and
* very high-quality tax and regulatory updates delivered ahead of the primary ERP vendor’s updates.

Maybe the “Street” Is Not That Suited For Infor Customers?

While Rimini Street and its peers seem to be doing well with disaffected tier-one ERP customers, I’m not sure the bang for the buck is there for Infor’s tier-two or -three customers, though. For one, Infor’s ERP install base is too darn fragmented for any third-party provider to tackle effectively.

One barrier of entry for the likes of Rimini Street to cater to Infor’s install base is that it is dispersed over 50 products. Some of these products are quite out of date technologically, and with limited install bases, so that is not viable for any outside company to form a team for (e.g., Manman, PRMS, KB, and other esoteric ancient products, that require rare and nearly extinct skills) that Infor has inherited.

On the other hand, those Infor products, which a third-party service provider might want to target, have been enhanced by Infor to the degree that existing customers have incentives to stay with the vendor. Thus, some of Infor customers from the “outdated product” camp might want to move to a similar function product that has definitely been enhanced by Infor of late (e.g., Infor ERP LN, Infor ERP SyteLine, Infor ERP Adage, Infor ERP LX). This is exactly in line with Infor Flex’s “switch” option.

Alternatively, these companies can opt to remain on their stable ERP products (following the “if ain’t broke, don’t fix it” adage), but with some modernized add-ons from Infor’s “evolve” products, at least to be Web- or business intelligence (BI)-enabled. Thus, when asked about any help from third-party players, Infor’s CEO statement about how no customer (out of 70,000) has ever mentioned that option might not be that off-the-mark (although some cynics will always reserve the right to their own interpretations).

Dear readers, what are your views, comments, opinions, etc. about the concepts of third-party service providers in general, and about Infor Flex per se? How do you think Infor will fare against its formidable competitors in light of its lofty strategy and recent concrete moves? If you are Infor, SoftBrands, or Rimini Street users, I would appreciate it if you shared your experiences with the product and the company discussed here.

Supporting Teamwork by Abridging Departmental Silos (and All That in a Cloud)

According to the adage “When one door closes, another one opens,” there are opportunities and unfulfilled customer needs even in this dour economic environment. Rather than hiding in a cave and waiting for the calamity to pass, some creative business software companies and individuals have been coming up with new value propositions to solve real problems for their customers.

Perhaps surprisingly to some, writing software applications is the easy part, relatively speaking. Making sure that one has a distinct solution to a problem that people are willing to pay for (especially nowadays when cash is scarce) is the hard part.

Generally speaking, the primary difference between good companies and great ones lies in their customer service. Inexpensive and easily deployable software applications that can help companies be more responsive to their customers and provide better service via showing “one face to the customer” (in turn due to much better internal communications) can go a long way even these days. The end result should typically be delighted existing customers, and, especially in this social networking era where news travels fast, happy customers (and their public product reviews and verdicts) should beget more customers.

In fact, some startup companies believe that this is an exciting time to be in the IT business. As established in my recent “SaaSy Discussions” series, software as a service (SaaS) and cloud computing are appealing business models for both vendors and customers, and will continue to be disruptive (game-changing) technologies for the foreseeable future.

But again, the delivery model is only part of the equation, whereas astute software applications that solve a specific problem are the key success factor (KSF).

Supporting Diverse Teams in the Cloud

Enter Muroc Systems, Inc., a Dallas, Texas, (US)-based software startup focusing on business applications delivered via the SaaS model. The company’s flagship product is TeamSupport.com, which is an on-demand customer service application that targets software companies.

Robert Johnson, chief executive officer (CEO) of Muroc Systems, previously ran a successful software company that served TV stations and broadcasting industries. He sold that company in 2006, and several people that shared his philosophies about how to run a software company and treat customers followed him to Muroc.

The startup company is self-funded at the moment, and has a focused team of fewer than 10 people. The majority of the team are software developers, with sales and marketing rounding out the rest of the Muroc team.

The idea behind TeamSupport.com came from a problem Johnson faced at his previous software company. Having recognized early on that customer service was crucial to the success and growth of his company, Johnson wanted to have his customer service group and the product development team working on the same software application (and thus constantly be “on the same page”) to track customer issues, software bugs, tasks, and new feature requests.

In his search for available solutions, Johnson found that there were some decent help desk applications for customer service advisors (agents) and bug-tracking applications for product developers, but there were no systems designed for both groups to use. For example, the well-known Bugzilla bug-tracking software is not aware of who the customer is.

After doing a thorough market search, the company was not able to find anything commercial off-the-shelf (COTS), so it ended up developing its own customer service software. After selling that company, Johnson had an epiphany that there was a market for better customer service software targeted towards independent software vendors (ISVs), and founded Muroc Systems to pursue that vision.

Muroc’s mission statement for TeamSupport.com is to create world-class customer service software for ISVs. As mentioned earlier, the entire TeamSupport.com team consists of veterans of other successful software companies, and they all believe that superior customer service is one of the factors that differentiates software companies. They also believe that customer service does not just come from the customer-facing service department, but rather from the entire company.

In any technology company it is critical that the support group has a very tight relationship with the software development team as well as with the sales and marketing folks, both for resolving any issues and for getting customer feedback in the form of feature requests into the software. Yet the vast majority of software companies have one product (a “help desk” or “issue tracking” system) for the customer service group, and another product (a “bug tracker” or “version control”) for the software development team.

In fact, I wonder how many great features or critical bugs are trapped in any ISV’s help desk systems and never make it to the bug/feature tracking system? Many, I guess, since virtually every software (and manufacturing) company that I have ever worked for had developed (if not even nurtured) silos within its organization. In the “the right hand does not knows what the left hand is doing” manner, the customer service group does not communicate to the product development group (the people who actually create the product), while the product development group never gets to talk to the actual customer.

I concur with Muroc’s opinion and related blog entry that the closer the developers are to the customer, the better the product will be. Yet, too many companies have developed internal “islands of information” which prevent internal communication and end up making the company more distant from their customers. This situation happens all too often despite the conventional wisdom of involving the customer in product development from the word go, and as discussed in Kurt Chen’s recent blog post.

How Does TeamSupport.com Work

While technology will not necessarily solve all of the company’s communication problems, TeamSupport can go a long way in making the various teams in a software company work more closely together to solve their customer’s needs. Considering that a large percentage of the bugs and feature requests are generated by end-users and come in through the customer service group, it makes no sense that these two departments should be running on separate software packages.

At its most basic level, TeamSupport integrates an enterprise-level help desk solution with a bug tracking solution so that the customer service and development teams (and others such as quality assurance [QA], executives/management, etc.) use a common tool to create better products and happier customers. Used correctly, TeamSupport can break down the all-to-common chasms in software companies and allow them to support their customers more effectively. For more details, one can peruse the product’s frequently asked questions (FAQ) page here and some representative screen shots here.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

The company offers three versions of TeamSupport.com, and these tiered offerings focus on three different market segments. The Enterprise version is designed for software companies who want to integrate their help desk and bug-tracking systems into one unified piece of software, and thus holistically get to know their customers better.

In almost every company offering products and customer service, the various teams such as customer service, product development, QA, and sales and marketing operate as separate teams. The TeamSupport Enterprise solution is designed to promote communication among these teams and provide a better and more consistent customer experience.

To that end, this top-of-the-range version is designed to manage issues, bugs, features, and tasks and their direct relation to the ISV’s customers and products. The customer database is integrated into TeamSupport so that the ISV’s sales staff can quickly see if any of their accounts have problems and can be proactive about dealing with them.

In addition, the product’s history database (knowledge base) is also tied into the system so the developers and product managers can search to discern what bugs and feature requests are active on the products they are working on. When these issues and cases are resolved, that information is logged, giving customer service all of the information needed to handle the issues. The Enterprise version also can operate as a standalone bug-tracking system, and integrates with various source (revision) control systems.

For its part, the TeamSupport Professional version is targeted towards companies who need an externally facing help desk and technical support groups who need to track the company or department the issue is originating from. The product tracks issues and tasks on a per customer basis and offers a variety of customer portal options to let customers log and track their issues. In addition to company/department information, the Professional version also includes task management capabilities.

The TeamSupport Basic (or TeamSupport Express) version is an inexpensive internal help desk and basic software support solution. While Muroc generally focuses on technology companies, the Basic version of its software is essentially applicable to any industry. The Basic version is designed as a straight trouble ticket management tool. The low-end offering has many of the features of the Enterprise version, but not the ability to track products and customers.

Pricing Transparency and Some Freebees Are (Always) Good

Logically, the above product versions are priced in a tiered manner, starting with US$25 per user per month for the Enterprise version, US$15 per user per month for TeamSupport Professional, and US$10 per user per month for TeamSupport Basic. In addition, all of the product releases offer the first three user licenses free of charge, and for good. In other words, three user seats remain free even when the customer’s user number goes well beyond this number. More details on the pricing and associated product capabilities can be seen here.

If I might sound too enchanted with the product, how about some stats to substantiate its success? Well, TeamSupport has experienced excellent growth, with nearly 300 customers signed up from around the world since its launch only several months ago.

When I heard about this (unexpected) figure, I frankly wondered what was the secret behind the success. Did the company know these customers from its previous life, or have good viral marketing, and/or was is the freebee offer that did it?

The answer is a combination of all of the above. Muroc’s staffers knew many target customers from previous lives, which made for an easy pitch since they knew exactly how the product would benefit these prospects. Moreover, many customers actually found the company’s offering through Internet search engines, and the freebie option helps because it is a genuine offer with no strings attached.

To be more precise, while 80 percent of the TeamSupport customers are using the Enterprise version, 75 percent of customers have only three users or fewer (thus, not much revenue for Muroc at this stage). However, several of those companies are paying for other tools, such as customer portal access that costs US$3 per customer per month. In any case, having come from a traditional “heavy duty” on-premise software company where they installed large systems at customer locations, TeamSupport’s staffers have found refreshing to see how easy it can be to scale and deploy Web-based applications globally.

The Microsoft Connection

Muroc Systems is a “Microsoft shop” and is developing everything in the ASP.NET Web application framework, primarily with the C Sharp (C#) programming language. In addition, a little of Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET) code is tossed in where applicable. The Web server is based on Internet Information Services (IIS) and the database backend is Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

Muroc Systems signed up for Microsoft’s BizSpark program almost as soon as it was launched and has been very happy with that program, which provides software, support, and visibility for software startups. The vendor made a decision early on to stay with Microsoft technologies for a variety of reasons, and BizSpark has reportedly made access to the software the company needs very economical. In mid-June, Muroc was featured in this article as the Microsoft BizSpark startup of the day.

Staying Away From Full-fledged BPM

In our recent e-mail and telephone exchange, Johnson acknowledged that business process management (BPM) is an interesting space, but not one he really sees TeamSupport playing in. He agreed with the assessments in my previous blog series on Webcom ResponsAbility [evaluate this product].

Namely, Webcom Inc. has an interesting “lite BPM” system, but Johnson does not see BPM as the starting point for an issue-tracking system. A BPM suite would just be overkill for this situation. Perhaps the other way around where BPM could be gradually added to an issue/bug-tracking system (as Muroc has done in TeamSupport) could be plausible, but not as the core system.

This brings me to another SaaS product in Muroc’s portfolio. The company launched ApprovalTrack.com several months ago to meet a very basic need that almost every company has: managing their approval process. Namely, every company has to deal with approving (or rejecting, but the product’s name “RejectionTrack” would not sound too appealing) vacation requests, sales discounts, capital purchases, various accompanying documents, and so on and so forth.

While virtually any BPM application could handle this need with ease, it is overkill and very expensive to implement a heavy-duty BPM system to just manage approvals. Conversely, ApprovalTrack.com deals solely with approvals and has workflows tailored specifically for that niche.

The product routes approvals to the correct people in the organization based on the approval type, the request amount, or a completely custom user-defined workflow. ApprovalTrack is being offered at a low per-user monthly fee, but prospective customers can try it for a 30-day trial period. For more details, one see the product’s FAQ page here.

But while TeamSupport is focused on solving customer service issues for technology companies, ApprovalTrack is a much broader solution that is applicable to almost any organization. This trait is both a blessing and a curse.

On one hand, the opportunities for ApprovalTrack are virtually unlimited. On the other hand, Muroc will need a much more expansive marketing approach for this product. Competition is also much broader and coming from many directions, not least from Microsoft SharePoint.

Thus, like in case of the abovementioned ResponsAbility product, the customer uptake for ApprovalTrack has been much more moderate. To be fair, the product was just launched publicly, and several early adopter companies are using the product already and have found it to be an invaluable workflow tool.

Dear readers, your comments, thoughts, suggestions or individual experiences with help desk, issue tracking, workflow/BPM tools and like? How do you handle your processes, manually, in an automated way or somewhere between (only some processes are automated)?

Will Servigistics Click on More Service Cylinders? – Part 2

Commerce based in Chicago, Illinois, United States (US). At the end, the article mentioned the July 2009 merger of Servigistics and Click Commerce’s Service Network Services (SNS) division.

The private equity firm Marlin Equity Partners acquired both entities recently with the idea of forming a new combined company to solve the planning, optimization, execution, and analytics challenges associated with delivering post-sale service. The new company, with estimated combined revenue of nearly $100 million (USD), will be headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia (US) and retain the Servigistics name and its chief executive officer (CEO).

(Over-the-top) Ringing Endorsements

The merger’s press release and Servigistics’ Web page dedicated to the event are replete with ringing endorsements and quotes from two of AMR Research’s renowned analysts and some customers. Both in his blog post and in Servigistics’ press release, Bruce Richardson, chief research officer (CRO) at AMR Research said:

“The combination of Click Commerce SNS and Servigistics brings together the pioneer in service parts planning with the leader in strategic service management. This pairing also brings strong vertical expertise. Click Commerce SNS dominated aerospace and defense, while Servigistics owned high tech. Together the two will be a strong force in the emerging opportunities in life sciences, consumer goods, retail and logistics.”

The new and upcoming Servigistics’ service lifecycle management (SLM) solution is envisioned to enable asset-intensive service organizations, such as manufacturers, to optimize many more components of the complex SLM process. This process includes contract and warranty management (for managing, determining, and tracking entitlements); workforce management (for staffing, training, scheduling and dispatching field technicians); service parts management, warehouse management (for receiving, stocking, deployment and delivery of parts); knowledge management (KM) for gathering, organizing and delivering information); sourcing; repair and returns (reverse logistics); and service analytics.

I was a bit surprised by AMR Research’s atypically unreserved endorsement that didn’t really mention any caveats. Although I will admit that the newly combined company is now the clear market leader in terms of the eventual product footprint, total install base, and geographic coverage, I have some reservations.

The new company has about 240 employees (most of which are experts in service-based rather than more common product-based environments), who will serve a global client base of more than 240 marquee companies across motor vehicles, aerospace and defense (A&D), heavy equipment, high tech, consumer and industrial products, and utilities. New Servigistics will have operations worldwide, including regional headquarters in Tokyo (Japan); Bristol, United Kingdom (UK); Gurgaon (India); and field offices in Austin, Texas (US); Warwick, UK; Rochester, New York (US); Irvine, California (US); McLean, Virginia (US); and Chicago, Illinois (US).

As erstwhile Click Commerce that was analyzed in Part 1, “old” Servigistics had also embarked on a journey to break out of the spare parts management niche and address a broader problem set that, presumably, would bring about more revenue. But Servigistics has been much more focused on the aftermarket service arena only.

Initially being only a service parts planning and optimization provider, via a number of focused acquisitions and internal development, Servigistics has developed its strategic service management (SSM) suite, which currently also entails service labor planning and scheduling, KM, and service parts pricing. The value of aftermarket services to business has never been greater. The service market is attractive, especially in a bad economy where companies try to make more revenue by delighting customers via service.

While I can question both old and new Servigistics’ tactics and execution, this unchanged (continued) strategy is one of only two choices available to any specialist vendor. The other is to become a niche specialist and rely on other mega-vendors to provide the broader infrastructure and ecosystem within which the point product can operate (and to eventually be assimilated by some ecosystem provider).

But while Servigistics has shown much focus and a great command of the services-based industry, those achievements have come at a price of depending too much on the venture capital (VC) community (or being over-leveraged in VC lingo via several rounds of financing). The company’s grand vision to create a platform for service businesses has unfortunately not really translated into the hoped-for customer uptake and adequately increased revenues.

The lion’s share of the old Servigistics customers (about 80 of over 100 before the merger) was still from the “mother” spare parts planning solution. If one discounts the customers inherited via previous acquisitions, the customer uptake via the consequent cross- and up-selling of parts pricing and workforce management solutions has been somewhat thin. In my recent three-part series on the vendor’s impressive Service Knowledge Management (SKM) solution, I pointed out that Servigistics had yet to sign its very first SKM customer.

The situation remains similar even under new Servigistics: about 120 out of 240 customers are still spare parts management customers. What are indeed the chances that the newly added and even more disparate products and technologies will sell like hotcakes in this economy?

Servigistics claims that both the acquisition of former ProfitScience and of Transdecisions have been profitable. Pricing makes up almost 30 percent of the company’s revenues now. The workforce management business has already been profitable for Servigistics as well, and is expected to take off this year and next.

For the above reasons, it is likely that Servigistics could not get any more money from its former primary investor Bain Capital, who was apparently more interested in some sort of exit strategy, I guess. After squandering a mind-boggling amount of money on his unsuccessful 2008 presidential Republican primary campaign, is Mitt Romney is back to his prior money-making savvy (or at least protecting money) in his brainchild business? But I digress…

Counter-ringing “Endorsement” from an Archrival

Therefore, in an (expected) sharp contrast to AMR Research, MCA Solutions, which has for now decided to remain a spare parts planning and optimization specialist (and thus a much smaller, albeit arguably more focused, company), immediately came up with its own damning blog post. Sure, MCA has an ax to grind here, but one cannot argue with some of the facts put forth in the blog post. Especially intriguing is the following excerpt:

“…this is not a merger of two companies but rather an acquisition of two financially distressed organizations by an opportunistic private equity firm. Marlin Equity Partners is a well-run company whose transaction approach, according to their Web site, is to buy underperforming business divisions or product lines, and companies in various forms of distress - a label which can certainly be applied to Servigistics and Click SNS (Service Network Solutions).

Consider the following: Click SNS includes a number of acquired companies, most notably LPA, which was a pioneer in the service parts planning space in the 90s. Since it was renamed Xelus in 2001, the core company underwent four changes of ownership, cobbled together a variety of dated technologies, and saw a significant reduction in market share…”

These factors could be a bad omen in the long run. Anyone who has had experience with private equities that buy “distressed” companies expects the ensuing “nip and tuck” measures to be severe. Marlin’s goal is to make profit, and in a down market we might assume what exactly that might mean.

The remaining combined Servigistics and SNS sales team will be eager to close deals and be aggressive. If no immediate success in meeting quotas takes place, some demoralization and departures are likely to ensue.

Anther issue with Marlin, using construction industry terminology, is that the company has traditionally been regarded in the VC community as a “flipper” rather than a “builder.” To be fair, with its other asset, Solarsoft, which dates back to 2006 with the initial acquisition of former UK-based ERP vendor XKO and the 2007 acquisition of the Canadian ERP vendor CMS, Marlin claims to have invested in the merger for long-term growth. Solarsoft’s team experience and install base provides a platform for future investment, with more recent acquisitions of VantagePoint Systems and Chelford Group plc, again in Canada and the UK respectively.

In fact, Servigistics points out that Click Commerce SNS was a profitable division before it was acquired, purely based on its maintenance revenue. Servigistics was also reportedly a profitable company. The combined entity is already profitable, without initial headcount reductions, and has a revenue growth plan for 2009.

Servigistcs also points out that Marlin does not only buy distressed assets. If you look at the company’s Web site, it specifically calls out different types of purchases, of which distressed assets is one. However, the site specifically classifies Click Commerce as a “corporate divestiture of a non-core asset” (and I don’t think anyone can argue that ITW considered software as its core competency, as mentioned in Part 1). Servigistics is classified as a “recapitalization.”

Furthermore, in its history, Marlin has acquired 26 companies, and has exited only three of these. This hardly qualifies it as a “flipper.” But some VC insiders point to the “leopard can never change its spots” adage (or in Marlin’s case, “fish can never change its scales”). In other words, is Marlin really committed to its assets in the long run, or is this approach just because of the current buyer’s environment (rather than a seller’s environment)?

An unnamed venture capitalist who is always hungry for good deals just told me that his company passed on these two companies (Servigistics and SNS), just as it passed on almost everything else that Marlin or Infor buy. Make no mistake, that company gets one of the first looks at everything that goes down in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) space (customer service is part of CRM), and only passes on those that are either of too low quality for its standards to buy or those that get bought (at a higher premium) by Oracle, Microsoft, or SAP.

Servigistics acknowledges that many bidders looked at the company. Marlin came in and made a preemptive bid to get Servigistics, which looks pretty smart given that it also had Click Commerce. Servigistics vehemently denies the claims that it was a low-quality asset. Furthermore, the company wonders why ERP vendors and other VCs have passed on purchasing its competitors.

The Platform of the Future: ERP or SSM/SLM?

But even if these comments by MCA and an unnamed VC firm can be dismissed as some sort of “sour grapes,” another legitimate question would be: how viable is a standalone SLM platform in the market? The above VC executive admitted to me that he too loves the service market, but just because Servigistics sticks an SSM or SLM moniker on several disconnected ERP, SCM, workforce management, and whatnot products, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Servigistics is the thought-leader in the service market.

One of this VC company’s assets is also building a customer service and support suite with leading case management, KM, and agent-customer collaboration tools like chat, remote diagnostics, etc. The company claims not to be able to find a place for Servigistics and SNS products in what it is trying to assemble.

Claiming a SSM/SLM platform leadership might be in vain if not many folks decide to play that game. In other words, for me to claim that I am the best “hrkljush” player in my neck of woods might be a correct statement, but who cares about this imaginary archaic and esoteric game!?

Sure, I’ve previously clearly repeated that service is not archaic and esoteric, but the point here is whether any prospective company in need of service-oriented solutions will look for an all-in-one SLM solution per se, or maybe would start by evaluating the service capabilities of their incumbent ERP provider? Maybe they would even look for the primary ERP vendor’s recommendation for a specialist solution in its ecosystem?

In fact, critical enterprise asset management (EAM) and asset diagnostics capabilities are still missing from Servigistics’ portfolio. Guess what: many ERP vendors have quite strong EAM capabilities, integrated to other back-office capabilities. Think of SAP, Oracle, IFS, IBM, Infor, and Lawson Software, to name only some. Thus, a winning platform might come rather from Oracle, SAP, or any other transactional service management vendor, and not a group of currently largely disconnected point service solutions.

I am not sure whether Servigistics’ all-in-one strategic service suite is the best way to go, in light of SAP and Oracle’s platforms. But also, in addition to MCA Solutions, some other point service solutions are doing fine these days. A great example would be Click Software in the realm of field workforce optimization, with great reference customers such as the Beijing Olympics, Montreal, Quebec (Canada)’s Gaz Metropolitain utility, Vodafone UK, and Best Buy’s Geek Squad scheduling.

Moreover, Vendavo has lately been doing well in parts pricing, promotions, and deal management. All the three above-mentioned companies are in SAP’s Industry Value Network (IVN) ecosystem, and might well be acquired by SAP down the track. Even though I am aware of MCA, Vendavo, and Click Commerce integration and joint selling plans, I am not aware of a customer buying these products together.

At the end of the day, Servigistics is selling an ERP add-on into the Oracle, SAP, and Infor market. This is not a viable long-term proposition, as it is only a matter of time before any best-of-breed company is eliminated by those giants, as this area is clearly an extension of what the ERP giants are doing.

Also, if Servigistics could have been sold to SAP or Oracle it would have been, since these two giants pay the most for any company they deem important. However, both Oracle and SAP likely felt that this is an area that they cover already with respective products and ecosystems, and just need to improve their own offerings to shut Servigistics out.

The final part of this blog series will analyze Servigistics’ positions in individual service niches and conclude with some final thoughts (better than Jerry Springer’s, I hope). In the meantime, please send us your comments, opinions, etc. on Servigistics’ strategy. We would certainly be interested in your experiences with any of the above-mentioned SLM software categories (if you are an existing user) or in your general interest in evaluating these solutions as prospective customers.

What Keeps EAM/CMMS Away From PLM

Today, many assets are designed and manufactured with the help of product lifecycle management (PLM) tools and systems, which contain highly valuable product definition information for enterprise asset management (EAM) and computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) operations.

That being said, if there is a way to tie the two systems (EAM and PLM) together, the result will be beneficial to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), asset owners, and third-party maintenance service providers. However, this isn’t an easy job. The following are a few barriers between EAM and PLM as I see it.

1. Two Different “Lifecycles”

Yes, the product lifecycle (PL) and the asset lifecycle (AL) are similar. Both of them may begin at a strategic starting point (e.g., PL begins with planning the next offering for the market, and AL begins with planning the next purchase of equipment for a factory) and finish at the disposal stage. However, the difference between the two is also obvious. Quite often, the concept of “product” in PLM doesn’t coincide with the physical asset within EAM. In PLM, a product is likely to be a model or a version, which may have multiple physical instances. In other words, in the development process, a product is not serial-number-sensitive in many cases. Even cases in which the product structure contains part serial numbers, usually a PLM system finishes its job at the stage when the product is built.

To EAM, the original configuration of an asset at the time when it is delivered is helpful, but asset maintenance history and current configuration are more important with the passing of time. One solution for this situation is to connect EAM and PLM to each other.

2. Integration across Organizational Boundaries

As discussed above, it makes sense for an EAM system to be able to retrieve product design information from a PLM system and for a PLM system to receive maintenance records from an EAM system. Actually, some PLM systems are able to manage as-maintained product configuration, which means that the systems are capable of creating and maintaining configuration information for each physical asset. However, there are remaining issues, such as how asset owners or maintenance service providers will be able to access the product information as needed and how well the configuration information will be maintained every time a maintenance task is performed—given that PLM systems and EAM systems belong to different owners.

The integration between EAM and PLM is not only a technological issue, but also a business issue. I’m wondering if the whole ecosystem has found a way to distribute fairly the responsibilities and benefits associated with the integration between the two systems.

3. Intellectual Property (IP) Rights

Before cross-organization integration becomes feasible, an alternative solution is to implement a PLM system on the EAM side. More precisely, a product data management (PDM) system will suffice for the requirements of better managing product/asset definition information, since EAM will be able to manage the rest. Disregarding the cost of embracing another system, this solution has another difficulty—the intellectual property (IP) issue. As an asset owner, even if you have an in-house PDM system, how likely is it that your equipment providers will share their detailed design information so you can maintain it in your own system?

Retrieving design information directly from an OEMs’ PLM servers also faces the same IP control issue, but it seems to be more manageable, since the OEM can have control over what product information can be disclosed and what procedures are used to authorize access to that information. When the capability of storing computer-aided design (CAD) models in a non-file-based way is ready (which means CAD models are collections of objects in the database rather than distinct files), secure and efficient IP control may become even easier. However, in my opinion, IP control over product design information in a collaborative work environment is a complicated issue that can’t be resolved in a short period of time.

These are the barriers between EAM and PLM that I’ve seen. A blog series by P.J. Jakovljevic addresses some of the challenges from the strategic service management (SSM) perspective. What I can leave you with is an imaginary scenario like this:
One day, when a maintenance request is submitted to an engineer at the asset owner, AO-1 Company, he searches for a resolution based on the description of the problem. Unfortunately, within either AO-1’s or the equipment provider OEM Company’s database, he can’t find a satisfactory answer. However, a search result about a different company—AO-2—seems very applicable. This search result is about a resolution of the same problem, requiring the replacement of a certain part, which unfortunately is not in the inventory at AO-1. The engineer then submits an order request to the OEM and is informed that it will take 2 days for the OEM to ship the service part. In addition, the OEM also notices that within AO-1’s part inventory, there is another part that can be used as a substitute after light modification, which can be performed on-site, easily and quickly. After the engineer chooses the second option, he receives a dimension specification for the modification and a 3D animation of how to replace the part. The engineer then is able to complete this maintenance task and log the information in the EAM system before finishing his day. The OEM’s PLM system then realizes that this has become a repeating problem and routes it to the design team

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Pronto Xi—The ERP from “Down Under” Becomes TEC Certified

Introduction to Pronto Software

I’m admiring to say that the acceptance for the PRONTO-Xi action adeptness planning (ERP) arrangement has been completed by TEC’s analyst team. Actuality I’d like to allotment my consequence and some abstracts apropos this arrangement with you.

This accomplished anniversary we had the amusement of accepting Pronto as guests at TEC’s offices. Both Terry Leister, VP North America, and Jayd Blunden, Senior Business Consultant at Pronto Software were actuality for the acceptance meeting. I absolutely acknowledge the actuality that they fabricated the continued cruise from Australia to Canada to accommodated the analysts and appearance us their absorbing system.

Pronto Software is an chip band-aid provider, accepted mostly in Australia (where they are based), as able-bodied as in the South Asia region. They are currently putting a lot of accomplishment into acceptable added accustomed and acknowledged in the North American market. The aggregation has catered to the midsized ERP bazaar for over 30 years and assuredly has a abysmal and bright compassionate of their over 1,500 customers’ business needs and challenges. Pronto Software defines its above audience as manufacturing, importer distributors, chip retailers, accessories and account companies, mining, and mining accumulation companies.

Product Strengths and Challenges

In acclimation to ascertain the solution’s features—in added words, its able aspects as able-bodied as its weaker points—I acclimated the advice that I acquired during the audience affair as able-bodied as the abstracts from the appeal for advice (RFI) that was completed by Pronto. I aswell acclimated TEC’s eBestMatch™ accommodation abutment arrangement (DSS), which can be acclimated by anyone searching to do a agnate exercise for any action software alternative project.

Among the functionality of the Pronto Xi ERP system, I would like to highlight the following:

* I alone admired the user interface argumentation that the arrangement is based on, breadth the user has a array of advice readily accessible on the screen—in absolute time. In aggregate with online queries, screens, reports, and drill-down and awning customization capabilities, it gives users the adeptness to acclimatize and appearance plan spaces, apply on business tasks, and abate the amount of ascribe errors. The awning customization allows you to change, modify, add, or adumbrate awning prompts, fields, grids and buttons, and even actualize user-defined buttons.

* Pronto Software is a single-source supplier. This agency that they accommodate a individual cipher application, and no affiliation is appropriate for the a lot of archetypal business processes: the chump does not charge to acquirement and install added third-party programs. The aggregation offers added accomplice applications—mostly for business intelligence (BI) appliance Panorama—and interfacing with added systems. All added modules are an inherent allotment of the arrangement and can be calmly angry on and off as needed.

* Another absorbing aspect of Pronto’s Xi artefact is its scalability. The arrangement can be auspiciously acclimated by baby businesses with absolute few workstations, as able-bodied as by almost ample corporations with bags of users and an continued amount of business processes and procedures. The arrangement is scalable and abiding abundant to serve organizations with added than 2,000 users.

* Pronto Xi software can be delivered to the chump through acceptable accession or through the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. The bell-ringer offers Pronto Hosted Services that accommodate multi-site hosting and administration adeptness with abstracts apery and replications.

* Pronto Xi ERP aswell contains a able-bodied and able point-of-sale (POS) bore for retailers and distributors. The appraisement array for the functionalities of this bore in our eBestMatch arrangement were high; which a lot of absolutely shows that Pronto Xi has the adeptness to attempt with the best POS systems on the market.

* Active intelligence and assignment intelligence appearance are aswell provided with this system. These are accoutrement that can be acclimated for alternate advice with your ERP system. The arrangement is acute abundant to accomplish abbreviate bulletin account (SMS) and pop-up messages, forward a fax or e-mail, run a process, and barrage an appliance based on accurate contest or important assignment milestones. It’s absolutely up to the user to ascertain them. It can be used—for instance—to e-mail your chump if the acclimation is accessible to be shipped, or it can SMS the account administrator to active him/her that a accurate account is out of banal and needs to be reordered.

* With accepted auditing capability, the arrangement allows users to clue changes that accept been fabricated to any acreage or section of advice aural the absolute system. The “what,” “when,” “where,” and “by whom” types of questions can be calmly answered.

In animosity of all the software’s appearance and advantages, I begin a few areas breadth Pronto Xi’s capabilities were not as able-bodied as its competitors in this space.

* There are some weaknesses in the action accomplishment administration module. It’s accessible that this ERP appliance has developed from detached accomplishment (where I feel it is assuredly able in functionality) and based on Pronto’s acknowledgment to our RFI, some specific business processes accurate to connected blazon of action accomplishment are not accurate by default, and ability crave customization, modification, or—in the case of by-products or co-products tracking for authentic tasks—“workarounds.” In added words, the appliance can abutment these business processes, but it does not do so “natively,” i.e., some user manipulations aural added sets of functionality may be required. A agnate access may be appropriate for activating compound acclimation based on the absolute characteristics of ingredients, crop calculation, assorted action models for the aforementioned item, annular bill of abstracts (BOM). The acceptable account for abeyant barter because Pronto Xi ERP is that this hasn’t chock-full added action manufacturers from appliance the product, and Pronto has accomplished abounding acknowledged arrangement accomplishing examples in the biologic and actinic verticals, aliment processing, and added mixed-mode or action industries.

* The all-embracing appraisement for the animal adeptness (HR) bore was lower due to a almost weaker agent self-service functionality. This functionality alluringly allows advisers to appearance pay stubs and assay and advance own claimed information, such as name, address, allowances accompanying to a activity event, tax filing status, amount of exemptions, audience and beneficiaries, etc. This is declared to be offered in approaching releases but for now it may not be the best best if self-service functionality is a analytical antecedence for your company. Added than the self-service breadth of HR, Pronto approved HR ratings that larboard the mixed-mode ERP boilerplate far behind.

* The aggregation focuses mainly on the Australian, New Zealand, South-East Asia, and North American markets. As such, the arrangement is translated into French and Spanish languages only. This ability be an affair if you are planning to use your ERP arrangement in countries breadth users allege added languages.

The addition assay blueprint beneath shows that in a lot of business areas, Pronto’s Xi arrangement ante college than boilerplate by the industry benchmark. The alone exceptions—as I mentioned earlier—are animal assets and action accomplishment administration areas—where the ratings are hardly lower than the industry benchmark.

Enterprise Ability Planning (ERP) in a Nutshell

In this blog, we wish to accomplish readers added accustomed with the argumentation abaft our Evaluation Centers on our Web website by allocation them—and, at the aforementioned time, we wish to represent our compassionate of accomplishment and action ability planning (ERP) systems allocation in general. We did not reinvent the wheel, but we are one of the few companies alms software alternative casework that accommodate all the accoutrement you crave to acquisition your way to the appropriate ERP for your business needs. All you accept to do is to chase our logic, which starts with actual simple business processes; but it can get added and added complex, depending on the blazon of action you do.

Templates and Uniqueness

As we all know, accomplishment is basically a action of authoritative articles for use or auction application three of the a lot of important resources: materials, equipment, and labor. Hence, the greater allotment of manufacturing’s centralized processes is about managing and manipulating these three types of assets in adjustment to aftermath the appropriate articles in the atomic bulk of time and that are the best accessible quality. Lately, it seems that advice has becomes an important ability for all types of business, including manufacturing, and we apparently can accede it as addition ability to be appropriately handled and controlled. Regardless, about any manufacturing, to a greater or bottom degree, includes all of the afterward business processes:

* artefact design

* assembly planning

* actual purchasing

* accomplishment execution

* account management

* accomplished appurtenances sales

* financials

* animal assets (HR) management

As continued as this accomplishment “template” is applicative for a lot of cases, developers and creators of computerized advice systems archetype these real-life processes and transform them into the anatomic modules of ERP systems. Basically ERP systems are annihilation added nor beneath than a basic absorption of absolute business processes aural computers and networks—which agency that the bigger the ERP arrangement is, the bigger it reflects reality, and the beneath adulterated a account of your business you accept in your basic space.

Of course, altered software architects and developers architecture their articles in altered ways, based on their own understanding, experience, and akin of creativity. That’s why a business that is address in apperception an accessible ERP alternative and accomplishing should accede how altered the business is, how abounding “non-standard” business processes there are, and how accessible you are to adapt your own “home grown” business processes according to the “external” and adopted ERP business argumentation (which is not necessarily bigger than the absolute one). Sometimes those “unique” schemes and practices accommodate business with the exclusivity that contributes to accepting a aggressive account and this advantage can be dead with ERP standards. In such cases, acutely some modifications or arrangement customizations are required; and accurate abstemiousness and affliction in ERP alternative is awful recommended.

Our Way of Classifying Manufacturing

All types of accomplishment can be categorized based on a ample amount of factors; however, just a few of them are broadly used. For example, the categorizations can be fabricated by akin of alternation (discrete or process, or a combination) or by aggregation admeasurement (small to average businesses against ample enterprises). Actuality are some examples of added allocation criteria: lot size, akin of artefact customization, vertical industry, akin of activity administration involvement, and so on. The table (figure 1) shows these classifications.

erp_matrix1.JPG

Figure 1. Accomplishment types [click to enlarge]

In reality, manufacturers generally do not accord to alone one accurate group; often, their businesses are a admixture of two or added categories, and their processes are complicated and cannot be able as a simple detached or accumulation production. Such manufacturers absolutely crave adult and multilayer software to administer the business, and this aberancy should be taken into application during an ERP alternative and accomplishing project.

Our Way of Defining Altered Types of ERP

We will not altercate actuality functionalities such as financials and animal resources, which can calmly be replaced by committed solutions. A lot of of the time, an ERP artefact will accept at atomic some financials functionalities, and can plan actual able-bodied with alien accounting or HR products.

The abject of a lot of of our ERP ability bases (sets of belief acclimated to appraise business solutions) is ERP Discrete. As you apparently know, detached accomplishment is the action of architecture articles by accumulating apparatus into beyond systems or objects. The end aftereffect can calmly be disconnected into abstracted pieces, or units (e.g., shirts, computers, cars, etc).

Spaceships are aswell produced by piece. The alone aberration is that engineering is actual complex, altered and project-based; therefore, the ability abject is alleged ERP Engineer-to-Order (ETO). As the name implies, you will never aftermath spaceships and again delay for barter to appear and buy them; in fact, it’s the opposite.

If your articles are not produced by section (small or big), don’t panic! We accept something for you too— it’s alleged Action ERP, which is for accomplishment processes involving a mix of capacity that accomplish a artefact of which the capital appropriate is that you cannot differentiate its units: you cannot abstracted a can of acrylic into its basic parts.

What if you do both? Let’s say you aftermath ice cream, but you aswell accomplish the packaging for it. You will charge ERP Detached for the ice chrism and ERP for Action for the packaging. I know, it’s the added way around—but I was just blockage to see if you’re following! If you’re still with us, again we accept something for you: Mixed-mode ERP, which is acclimated by companies who charge to about-face assembly after arresting their operations.

Manufacturing is great—but ultimately, the abstraction is to advertise what you’re producing. ERP systems accept sales modules, but sometimes it is added able to advertise your accomplished appurtenances to a distributor. Because they alone buy and sell, these companies do not charge adult actual requirements planning (MRP) modules, but cannot plan after barn manageIn this blog, we wish to accomplish readers added accustomed with the argumentation abaft our Evaluation Centers on our Web website by allocation them”and, at the aforementioned time, we wish to represent our compassionate of accomplishment and action ability planning (ERP) systems allocation in general. We did not reinvent the wheel, but we are one of the few companies alms software alternative casework that accommodate all the accoutrement you crave to acquisition your way to the appropriate ERP for your business needs. All you accept to do is to chase our logic, which starts with actual simple business processes; but it can get added and added complex, depending on the blazon of action you do.

Templates and Uniqueness

As we all know, accomplishment is basically a action of authoritative articles for use or auction application three of the a lot of important resources: materials, equipment, and labor. Hence, the greater allotment of manufacturings centralized processes is about managing and manipulating these three types of assets in adjustment to aftermath the appropriate articles in the atomic bulk of time and that are the best accessible quality. Lately, it seems that advice has becomes an important ability for all types of business, including manufacturing, and we apparently can accede it as addition ability to be appropriately handled and controlled. Regardless, about any manufacturing, to a greater or bottom degree, includes all of the afterward business processes:

* artefact design

* assembly planning

* actual purchasing

* accomplishment execution

* account management

* accomplished appurtenances sales

* financials

* animal assets (HR) management

As continued as this accomplishment “template” is applicative for a lot of cases, developers and creators of computerized advice systems archetype these real-life processes and transform them into the anatomic modules of ERP systems. Basically ERP systems are annihilation added nor beneath than a basic absorption of absolute business processes aural computers and networks—which agency that the bigger the ERP arrangement is, the bigger it reflects reality, and the beneath adulterated a account of your business you accept in your basic space.

Of course, altered software architects and developers architecture their articles in altered ways, based on their own understanding, experience, and akin of creativity. Thats why a business that is address in apperception an accessible ERP alternative and accomplishing should accede how altered the business is, how abounding “non-standard” business processes there are, and how accessible you are to adapt your own “home grown” business processes according to the “external” and adopted ERP business argumentation (which is not necessarily bigger than the absolute one). Sometimes those “unique” schemes and practices accommodate business with the exclusivity that contributes to accepting a aggressive account and this advantage can be dead with ERP standards. In such cases, acutely some modifications or arrangement customizations are required; and accurate abstemiousness and affliction in ERP alternative is awful recommended.

Our Way of Classifying Manufacturing

All types of accomplishment can be categorized based on a ample amount of factors; however, just a few of them are broadly used. For example, the categorizations can be fabricated by akin of alternation (discrete or process, or a combination) or by aggregation admeasurement (small to average businesses against ample enterprises). Actuality are some examples of added allocation criteria: lot size, akin of artefact customization, vertical industry, akin of activity administration involvement, and so on. The table (figure 1) shows these classifications.

erp_matrix1.JPG

Figure 1. Accomplishment types [click to enlarge]

In reality, manufacturers generally do not accord to alone one accurate group; often, their businesses are a admixture of two or added categories, and their processes are complicated and cannot be able as a simple detached or accumulation production. Such manufacturers absolutely crave adult and multilayer software to administer the business, and this aberancy should be taken into application during an ERP alternative and accomplishing project.

Our Way of Defining Altered Types of ERP

We will not altercate actuality functionalities such as financials and animal resources, which can calmly be replaced by committed solutions. A lot of of the time, an ERP artefact will accept at atomic some financials functionalities, and can plan actual able-bodied with alien accounting or HR products.

The abject of a lot of of our ERP ability bases (sets of belief acclimated to appraise business solutions) is ERP Discrete. As you apparently know, detached accomplishment is the action of architecture articles by accumulating apparatus into beyond systems or objects. The end aftereffect can calmly be disconnected into abstracted pieces, or units (e.g., shirts, computers, cars, etc).

Spaceships are aswell produced by piece. The alone aberration is that engineering is actual complex, altered and project-based; therefore, the ability abject is alleged ERP Engineer-to-Order (ETO). As the name implies, you will never aftermath spaceships and again delay for barter to appear and buy them; in fact, its the opposite.

If your articles are not produced by section (small or big), dont panic! We accept something for you too— its alleged Action ERP, which is for accomplishment processes involving a mix of capacity that accomplish a artefact of which the capital appropriate is that you cannot differentiate its units: you cannot abstracted a can of acrylic into its basic parts.

What if you do both? Lets say you aftermath ice cream, but you aswell accomplish the packaging for it. You will charge ERP Detached for the ice chrism and ERP for Action for the packaging. I know, its the added way around—but I was just blockage to see if youre following! If youre still with us, again we accept something for you: Mixed-mode ERP, which is acclimated by companies who charge to about-face assembly after arresting their operations.

Manufacturing is great—but ultimately, the abstraction is to advertise what youre producing. ERP systems accept sales modules, but sometimes it is added able to advertise your accomplished appurtenances to a distributor. Because they alone buy and sell, these companies do not charge adult actual requirements planning (MRP) modules, but cannot plan after barn management, accumulation alternation administration (SCM), or retail and commerce. You apparently already estimated that we accept a ability abject for that, which is alleged ERP for Distribution.

If you are neither bearing nor affairs what others produce, you apparently are a account aggregation and anticipate you dont charge an ERP. Before you alpha searching for something else, lets yield a attending at the analogue for “resource” on Wikipedia: “A ability is any concrete or basic article of bound availability, or annihilation acclimated to advice one acquire a living.” To acquire a active in services, you charge activity and amount management, back-office functionality, and others, which are aggregate calm into our ERP for Casework ability base.

A appropriate affectionate of account is education, area you apparently do not absolutely charge befalling and arrangement administration nor portfolio management. You will focus on back-office functionality, financials, HR, and payroll. We accept them all in the ERP for School Districts ability abject (soon to be published!).
And finally, depending on altered projects that we had forth the way and on the appeal in the market, we accept created vertical ability bases. ERP for Mining and ERP for Mill-based industries already exist, and we are currently alive on Retail and Construction.
ment, accumulation alternation administration (SCM), or retail and commerce. You apparently already estimated that we accept a ability abject for that, which is alleged ERP for Distribution.

If you are neither bearing nor affairs what others produce, you apparently are a account aggregation and anticipate you don’t charge an ERP. Before you alpha searching for something else, let’s yield a attending at the analogue for “resource” on Wikipedia: “A ability is any concrete or basic article of bound availability, or annihilation acclimated to advice one acquire a living.” To acquire a active in services, you charge activity and amount management, back-office functionality, and others, which are aggregate calm into our ERP for Casework ability base.

A appropriate affectionate of account is education, area you apparently do not absolutely charge befalling and arrangement administration nor portfolio management. You will focus on back-office functionality, financials, HR, and payroll. We accept them all in the ERP for School Districts ability abject (soon to be published!).

And finally, depending on altered projects that we had forth the way and on the appeal in the market, we accept created vertical ability bases. ERP for Mining and ERP for Mill-based industries already exist, and we are currently alive on Retail and Construction.