Food4Thought

Marketing Internally

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 07:32:00 +0000

Yesterday was talking to a friend of mine, and she said something that stuck with me. She said, in effect, that : " We don't care about the Organization we represent, we don't care what impact our work will have on the Brand, the perception or the future prospects of our employers with the customer." And you know what, she is right. I have observed many times that as employees, we fail to see the larger purpose, we fail to see beyond the current realities. Haggling with customers and partners, we forget where the brick goes into the wall.

What am I driving at? I am driving at the problem of selling internally, which leaders are facing right now, and which will become more and more acute without focussed action. Generating enthusiasm amongst employees, and creating the buzz internally, making them believe in the vision that, lets face it, they are going to delivering is going to be the toughest job for leaders going forward. Every frontline employee is a marketer, and influence the perception of the organization in the customers mind. All the investment in careful marketing and PR is gone to waste if the customer facing personnel do not re-inforce the carefully crafted image. And no, you cannot legislate enthusiasm, cannot make a policy making it mandatory. It is a big problem, also a huge opportunity....

Contemplating Employee Loyalty

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 07:11:00 +0000

CRM Mastery eJournal has an interesting excerpt from Employee Loyalty: What Makes them Stay?:

"Managers need to know how to create effective relationships. Supervisors need tools to help them identify the "value" in the life of employees. They can then use this information to begin to build relationships......

Here is a simple concept to consider. Use the CalibrationCoaching concept of the YMCA. No, not the silly dance song from the 70s, but the simple acronym that outlines how to coach in almost any situation:

Your Thoughts - open the conversation by listening to the employee's perspective on the issues.
My Thoughts - share your perspective with the employee. Explain the details and how they can change their behavior.
Calibration - discuss what needs to change -- choose no more three areas for focus.
Action - define expectations and set a timeline for change."

IMHO: Attrition levels are big concern for me, as I have written here, here and here. And yes, Managers do need to change the way they behave towards there reportees....treating them as a group, as a team, and reinforcing the precednce of the team's goals over personal goals. Also, at the same time, focussing on each individuals' own aspiration and trying to weave them into those of the team. Ultimately, it boils down to balancing the benefits equation: the higher pay, and the anxiety, time for settling in, from switching jobs, versus the trust, culture, and yes, familiarity of the current situation, but lower pay. Our job is to make sure that the latter part of the equation is always heavier.

Dave's Workday

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 09:43:00 +0000

PeopleSoft founder Dave Duffield's new venture, Workday, has just released a new product, an HCM solution based on the SaaS model. From the press release:

"About Workday:
Taking a fresh, modern approach, the company aims to provide mid- to large-sized companies with a compelling alternative to traditional enterprise software.........

Workday Enterprise Business Services are comprised of four suites of services, the first of which, Human Capital Management, is being announced and is generally available today(6th November). The subsequent suites—Workday Financial Management™, Workday Resource Management™ and Workday Revenue Management™—will be rolled out beginning in 2007. All of the Workday Enterprise Business Services share a common foundation:

On demand: offers web-based delivery, multi-tenant architecture, 24x7x365 availability, and enhanced security
Agile and Global: quickly adapts to meet your changing business needs
Intuitive: built for today’s generation of information workers; offers native reporting and analytical tools to help businesses make more timely and informed decisions
Built-in Auditing: enables tracking of all changes for governance/compliance purposes
Web Services Integration: offers out-of-the-box, standards-based integration capabilities, minimizing complexity and implementation time

About Workday HCM:
Workday Human Capital Management (HCM), the first service to be offered by Workday, is an on-demand solution that helps businesses dynamically align their people and organizations to adapt to fast-changing business strategies. With Workday, organizational changes that typically require weeks or months of IT support can now be done independently in hours or days by authorized business managers.

Built around a flexible organizational model and capable of managing all types of workers, Workday HCM addresses key functional areas such as Staffing, Compensation and Performance Management and is generally available as of today, November 6, 2006."

IMHO: Well, haven't we heard this before? Sounds very similar to the pitch of all ERP, and specially SaaS, vendors. But Workday already has a couple of customers (Biosite, and KANA software, both Calif.-based companies), and has signed up a few more. The way Workday is trying to differentiate itself is by eliminating the need for developers to go from RDBMS to what they call an Object Management System and back. Here's more on this. Let's hope that, at least technologically, Dave gives us a product as satisfying to work with as PeopleSoft.

Oracle Releases new WebCenter

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 06:13:00 +0000

From ZDNet:

"Oracle announced today WebCenter Suite 10g R3, which it describes as a "next-generation user interaction environment." It will deliver task-oriented, contextual, multi-channel interactions for information workers, bringing Web 2.0 technology to the enterprise," according to the press release. And, it's part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware. Not only that, Oracle WebCenter Suite is licensed as an option on top of Oracle Application Server Enterprise Edition for $50,000 per CPU.

....The demo of WebCenter given {this morning} at OracleWorld was impressive, with blogs, wikis, threaded discussion, widgets, instant messaging, search, VoIP, RSS and mashhups all rolled into one application development environment. However, two key components–WebCenter Composer, for creating and customizing the application user interfaces, business rules, profiles and policies, and WebCenter Spaces, which allows individuals and groups to collaborate and manage projects–are not available in the first release."

An attempt to bring Web 2.0 technologies to the Enterprise through the Fusion platform. For me, there will be limited impact of this addition to the stack, mainly because there are a lot of cheap options available for people trying to collaborate, like JotSpot. Maybe we'll see it bundled somewhere.....

Indian IT industry's (forthcoming) woes

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 09:04:00 +0000

Vinnie has a great post up on India's inflexion point. To summarize, he brings out three trends in Indian IT services environment which might hamper their continued growth:

1. Labor Shortages
2. Failure to develop significant competence in the business/program management domain, as opposed to technical domain
3. Shying away from new investments (Vinnie says Capex, but I believe that except for human resources, more an operational cost anyways, there is no significant investment in any key area)

As an aside, an intersting conversation is going on at Infosys Blog on talent shortages.

IMHO: I have written about this before here, here and here. I would also include:

1. Lack of focus: All Indian IT vendors want to be everything to everybody, consequently lacking the depth to tackle specific challenges

2. Underutilization of resources: Efficiency and productivity are frowned upon as I have written here.

3. Short term thinking: Quarter numbers are the most important items on every agenda, punishment from the market deeply feared. This manifests as a lack of forward, longer term thinking and hence obstructs development of competencies to face future challenges.

4. Walking the Talk: The use of IT inside the industry is abysmal. HR systems, and to some extent Financial systems are used, but in silos. CRM technology, Web 2.0 technologies, and other newer technologies are severely underutilized. These are the same technologies that we sell.

All in all, while there is a lot of buzz about the industry, the shortcomings pointed out above dampen the long term prospects. Playing Safe seems to be the mantra. As Seth would say: Playing Safe is Risky!!!

PS: Just shifted to the new Beta Blogger. So some of the Category Links might not work correctly. Do drop me a note if you come upon any such links.

SaaS Snippets

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 07:59:00 +0000

Am back after a long lay-off. Here are some relevant snippets:

SalesForce Winter Update: SalesForce announced Dreamforce (registeration required), which included the launch next year of its custom development platform called Apex. Apex is a SQL/ Java based proprietary language, which will allow customers to deploy there own code customizations on SalesForce. It is an interesting development, and one which pushes the SaaS model even closer to a hybrid with on-premise. Details of how this will be managed in a muti-tenancy model, as well as how upgrades and such things will work are still lacking though.

Oracle On-Demand: Staying with SaaS, Oracle announced the launch of On Demand offerings on PeopleSoft Enterprise suite, and Siebel CRM. Appears to be a watered down version of their on-premise software, the pitfalls of which have been well documented. Remains to be seen whether their self-proclaimed "leaders in on-demand" tag holds up.

Will try to keep up with regular postings. Keep visiting for updates....

Update: Netsuite has announced SuiteFlex, it's own version of a development platform. SuiteFlex is targeted at Service providers, developers and VARs, and allows building of vertical-specific functionalities and business processes. In addition, NetSuite has also launched SuiteSource Directory, a source of free, open-source Suitelets hosted on Source Forge. Well, these SaaS guys really know how to make things interesting....

On Complexity, Fear mongering and Critical Thinking

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 08:29:00 +0000

Brad Feld has a post up on Critical Thinking, and why he thinks we don’t see too many instances of it nowadays. He points to the transcript of this speech by Michael Crichton, at Washington Center of Complexity and Public Policy. I have been a fan of Michael Crichton since I read State of Fear. I have written a brief review here. The amount of research that goes into his books is amazing, although the story is sometimes lame. He talks about the pitfalls of linear thinking and blind belief when we are dealing with complex systems, essentially everything around us. He provides convincing arguments for a change in the media propaganda, and of discouraging fear mongering and doom prophecies. Must read for anyone trying to make sense of things around him/her.

Meanwhile Atanu is having an argument over at his blog, on Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (of The Art of Living Faith, or is it the other way round?). Atanu essentially asserts that SSRS is a brilliant marketer who is packaging and selling ancient Indian Wisdom to whose who want it. So how does this fit in with them topic of the moment? Well, there are a hordwe of followers of SSRS (Atanu calls it his cult) who are offended by his non-belief in SSRS’ divinity. Blind Faith. Atanu’s opinion should not matter to someone who truly believes in SSRS’ qualities, he is of course entitled to having and sharing his opinion. We had a huge uproar on the release of the Da Vinci Code ( a movie) in India. Essentially, the author tries to put forth the thought that Jesus might have been human. His followers did not like that, and mayhem ensued. Ultimately, it made for a hugely anticipated movie. Blind faith at work again.

I think that religion, blind belief, cults are all mechanisms we humans have invented to explain things (complex systems) that we can’t understand, much less explain. Linear thinking, as Michael Crichton points out, also has a part to play. Well, all questions have to have one right answer, doesn’t it? Problems have one solution, don’t they? Well, we keep forgetting the “at least” part, and hence the militant defense of our way of thinking. If I am right, surely you must be wrong if you are taking a different way? That is what makes us intolerant, hard headed, egotistic. Humans are complex systems, groups of humans increase the complexity, sometimes exponentially. And, we are all looking for simple answers. In isolation. Out of context. For very complex problems. What results?

Well, on the matter of religion, and belief, I can’t resist posting this excerpt from an interview by Douglas Adams. He really articulates it well:

Q: Mr. Adams, you have been described as a “radical Atheist.” Is this accurate?

Adams: Yes. I think I use the term radical rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “Atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘Agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean Atheist. I really do not believe that there is a god - in fact I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one. It’s easier to say that I am a radical Atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously. It’s funny how many people are genuinely surprised to hear a view expressed so strongly. In England we seem to have drifted from vague wishy-washy Anglicanism to vague wishy-washy Agnosticism - both of which I think betoken a desire not to have to think about things too much.

People will then often say “But surely it’s better to remain an Agnostic just in case?” This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I’ve been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would chose not to worship him anyway.)

Other people will ask how I can possibly claim to know? Isn’t belief-that-there-is-not-a-god as irrational, arrogant, etc., as belief-that-there-is-a-god? To which I say no for several reasons. First of all I do not believe-that-there-is-not-a-god. I don’t see what belief has got to do with it. I believe or don’t believe my four-year old daughter when she tells me that she didn’t make that mess on the floor. I believe in justice and fair play (though I don’t know exactly how we achieve them, other than by continually trying against all possible odds of success). I also believe that England should enter the European Monetary Union. I am not remotely enough of an economist to argue the issue vigorously with someone who is, but what little I do know, reinforced with a hefty dollop of gut feeling, strongly suggests to me that it’s the right course. I could very easily turn out to be wrong, and I know that. These seem to me to be legitimate uses for the word believe. As a carapace for the protection of irrational notions from legitimate questions, however, I think that the word has a lot of mischief to answer for. So, I do not believe-that-there-is-no-god. I am, however, convinced that there is no god, which is a totally different stance and takes me on to my second reason.

I don’t accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view. My view is that the moon is made of rock. If someone says to me “Well, you haven’t been there, have you? You haven’t seen it for yourself, so my view that it is made of Norwegian Beaver Cheese is equally valid” - then I can’t even be bothered to argue. There is such a thing as the burden of proof, and in the case of god, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best explanation we’d got, and we’ve now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. So I don’t think that being convinced that there is no god is as irrational or arrogant a point of view as belief that there is. I don’t think the matter calls for even-handedness at all.

{emphasis mine}

Two points for clear, unconventional (critical?) thinking…

The Relevance of Data

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 05:07:00 +0000

Guy Kawasaki and Seth Godin have a beautiful conversation over on Guy's blog. This caught my eye:

"Question: Why don’t you check your Technorati ranking?

Answer: Because the data won’t change my actions. Getting data for no good reason just drives you crazy. The secret is to get very flexible in the face of data you care about—changing your x every time you see y changes—and incredibly inflexible in the face of data you don’t care about."

Simple articulation, great meaning!! The whole conversation is worth a read...

Gearing Up for 2020

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 06:08:00 +0000

Paul Kedrosky has up some findings of a June study by the RAND corporation, highlighting the key technologies for 2020, and the countries best equipped to deliver:

Standardization in Sales

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 06:35:00 +0000

Vinnie has a great post up on Reengineering the Sales Process.

"I would break the product discovery process into 3 steps each with varying levels of customer self-service and vendor sales involvement:

a) From the thousands of RFPs vendors have already responded to, they should have an A,B,C analysis of most requested/somewhat requested etc. features. Expose that on-line to users (in a password protected area to keep from prying competitor eyes) using a requirements traceability tool. Let prospects navigate and fill their own feature/function checklists, if need be. Then it would be ok for vendors to refuse to fill out requests for 400 page feature lists in RFPs – encourage users to do so on a self-serve basis. And I mean refuse. JetBlue decided it was only going to have instant ticketing business model - no reservations on hold for 24-48 hours. I am sure they lost a few customers but they stuck to the model and it is becoming industry standard.

b) For horizontal functionality – common across verticals, geographies - expose major process flows in on-line demos, architecture in well structured documentation etc. so customers can self-navigate through the look and feel, flow etc. Make reps available by on-line chat, telephone – remotely - to answer questions. Organize product marketing collateral on those lines. This functionality should not usually require demos at the client site.

c) For more unique vertical or client specific functionality, invest in on-premise, scenario based demos. Vendors should encourage buyers to define likely real-life business scenarios and then diligently walk them through how their solution delivers it. And tell the truth – what is available as a standard feature, what comes from partner functionality, work arounds etc. Too many vendors fight scripted scenarios. Or they will only do them grudgingly if a competitor is likely to invest in them. This is where the sales person should be focused, because this is likely where the differentiation will be most acute."

IMHO: Vinnie has hit the nail on the head, yet again. There is a need for standardization, of greater automation in the sales process. We, especially in the IT services sector, need to cut down on this needless expense by leveraging already existing (at most places) technology infrastructure. It would also help us showcase the effective use of the very technology that we are pitching, lending credibility to our claims. The biggest benefit would be a smaller, more productive, more responsive sales force, and an efficient, trustworthy brand image. We also need to learn to say no to unrealistic expectations, be honest with our claims, and deliver a consistent, high quality experience to our customers. Standardization helps cut down inconsistency and wildly fluctuating results from Sales and Delivery alike.

Industry Concerns-Attrition Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 12:50:00 +0000

This is the third part in the series on attrition. Part 1 and Part 2 dealt with teaming and recruitment, respectively. While I promised last time that I will spend some time on the role of HR, I will take it on at a later stage. Today, I will focus on something that has been a traditionally weak area for offshore services providers (some say a big gaping void)—Leadership.

From the outside, we see, hear and respect senior managers for Indian IT companies, icons like Narayana Murthy, Pai, Nilekani, Premji and their ilk. Great leaders all. They are a big reason that Indian IT industry is where it’s at. This post is not about them. It is about the leadership one level lower—the middle management. These are the realities:

This section of leadership is under intense pressure

They are the links for the downward flow of the vision of senior leaders
They are the future senior leaders
This section is the most fragile of all with Indian vendors
They are squarely responsible for high attrition rates at lower levels

Consider this cycle: Middle management is under tremendous pressure—to deliver, to get business, to groom AND to fulfill their own ambitions. Some of the cadre leave, and are replaced (as is the norm) by fresh MBAs or, worse, with fresh engg trainees. Hence, the remaining managers face increased pressure, and some of them leave and so on….Charming picture, isn’t it?

To tackle this a few cultural aspects have to be addressed:

Rhetoric: Morale killer. Leaders espouse things which do not exist, or grossly exaggerate the few good things that are done. People are not dumb, and will not be fooled by empty promises or threats, or the doctored results of a survey. Just repeating things will not make them true. My advice, be restrained in proclamations, and when you do make one, make sure that it is true and remains true. Kill cynicism and distrust in the bud.
Good News: In all my working life in the IT industry, I have never officially heard a piece of bad news. Good news abounds. Worse is the spin put on things which are wrong, making sure they will never be fixed. People picking up unsavory topics are discouraged. Only in a culture of transparency will an organization truly know where it is at, and can accurately plan for where it has got to go.
Communication: Employees take their cue from their bosses. If the bosses are not committed to the organization vision, nobody will be. It breeds skepticism. Keep the middle management in the know and get their commitment. They may disagree, but allowing them to voice their opinions is a big step towards getting commitment.
Compromise: Whatever be the short term stakes, do not compromise on quality of middle level managers, for the sake of long term health. Using unsure, not-so-confident, short-on-knowledge managers drives down everybody. It is like a steroid, it may allow getting benefits for the short term, but will return to haunt you.

Excellence in execution is predicated on having good quality, capable, happy managers. Remember too, that their confidence, capability and knowledge flows down and in turn creates more managers, unleashing a virtuous cycle. It is a fragile segment of resources, in high demand and under a lot of pressure. Let us admit that, acknowledge the importance of middle management and try to give them a positive atmosphere to work in. This will not only prevent them leaving, but also reduce attrition at lower levels. Easy to say, tough to do (ain’t they all???). It IS the most powerful way to arrest attrition up and down the chain. As more and more large deals get signed, the pressure will be on, and organizations will be caught wrong-footed. Then we will perforce have to take remedial measures too late in the day. Better fix problems while the going is good.

Next (and last) time, I will try and tackle the prickly issue of the role of HR. Don’t expect me to be gushing about the current HR practices or attitudes.

Oracle briefing for Investors

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 08:03:00 +0000

Oracle hosted a briefing for investors on July 18. Some thoughts:

Oracle reiterates its commitment to develop further all acquired product lines. They provide timelines for general availability and what can be expected of the releases.

There is no comment on Oracle’s foray into OnDemand and how it plans to attack the SMB space and take on Salesforce.com and NetSuite.

Nothing new on Fusion applications, or how the development is progressing. But there is demonstrated movement on leveraging the capabilities of Fusion middleware with new application releases having close integration with BPEL, XML Publisher, Customer Data Hub and the like. IMHO, the whole application family is moving closer together and we may yet come to a situation where all modules will be hot-pluggable and inter-operable.

Some impressive numbers on Fusion vs NetWeaver, and the usual noises about how SAP is still proprietary and Oracle is moving to open-standards. They do deliver integrations with SAP products though.

SOA was a recurring theme as a growth driver. But demonstrated benefits through the use of SOA are still lacking, IMHO. In fact, I have not heard of a single large scale SOA deployment. SOA’s true potential can only be realized through large scale deployment and the network effect. I have written about this here.

The presentation is here. Notes on the event by James Woodrow also point out the Q&A that took place after the presentation. Vinnie has penned some questions here.

SalesForce Update

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 09:06:00 +0000

Techcrunch has the news from Salesforce.com:

"Salesforce.com will undergo its seasonal Summer ‘06 upgrade on Monday and has released information for the first time about a developers component at their annual users conference.

This year’s Dreamforce conference will include a sub-conference October 9-11th for Web 2.0 developers interested in moving out of the consumer sector and into bringing applications to market for business use.

The Summer ‘06 seasonal upgrade of Salesforce will see general enhancements and include the following highlights:

SAP integration, a means of connecting on-premises SAP databases with web based Salesforce.
Partnerforce, a system for managing resellers.
Scripting module, as in scripted dialogue not program scripts, for use in scripting customer interactions through a series of logical steps for categorization.
Service entitlements, a feature for managing service levels as appropriate for your customers of variable degrees of ritzyness.

The company is also announcing that it has now seen 10,000 customer installations of 280 applications through its AppExchange, a community for outside developers seeking to integrate with Salesforce."

IMHO: Well, well, well. Marc Benioff keeps upping the ante, doesn't he? Salesforce is once again making all the right noises. A big concern with SaaS so far has been the inabilityto integrate with on-premise solutions and extensibility. They are now trying to fix that. They are trying to involve the developer community, which is a great move coming after AppExchange for getting people talking about the technology (they already are, and it can only grow louder). Scripts and Service Entitlements, well, those are pretty standard feature of most SFA/ CRM solutions. But it demonstates that Salesforce is thinking about gaps and fixing them. Lets see how these are in action. The interesting question for me is: Will we see an on-premise version of salesforce? Any bets...?????

On acceptance of Mediocrity

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 07:12:00 +0000

Seth points to Andy Monfried’s post on lowering of standards. Great post, a must read, one to ponder on. Must warn you that the rest of this post bears no relation to what Andy says.

We live in a world which accepts mediocrity too easily. This is specially true for India, still feeling the after effects, after 60 years of independence, of British Raj and then the amazingly hare-brained Nehru Raj (Must say at this point that Nehru’s heirs have maintained the same “high” standards). We accept bomb blasts, corruption, poor infrastructure, poverty, impotent and stupid governance, and meaningless, inane rhetoric by the “rulers” as a matter of course. We condone the suppression of freedom of expression and right to equality, we keep restricting the growth of free enterprise and we keep electing the same nincompoops in government again & again. Sometimes I wonder if a democracy is geared towards mediocrity. Have the great western democracies prospered because of, or inspite of democracy? But, undoubtedly, it is the best system of governance available thus far, and more power to it. Enough ranting…the needless losses of life yesterday in Kashmir & Mumbai still rankles. It will go away soon; it always does, until the next time.

By the way, I bet that we won’t see any action to deter this from happening again, no getting at the root cause (I hope we know where the camps are) and effectively discouraging the abettors (read our friendly neighbor). What we will get, in plenty, is rhetoric, propaganda, hollow speeches, calls for calm and more security for our “rulers”. Well, we are not branded cheap just like that; life in India costs just the one local train ticket….

Google & Yahoo Discovery

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 10:18:00 +0000

Niel Robertson surmises in his characteristic articulate way that Yahoo is, for once, positioned well to fight Google:

"....Google wants to be the entry point for any discovery activity on the web. This would surely explain Google search, froogle, Google Scholar, Google SMS (assuming “web” is taken in a generic sense as “the cloud”), Google Maps, etc.. You could even posit that Google’s acquisitions hold up against this test. Consider Writely and Google Spreadsheets to be simply the input mechanisms to create document and spreadsheet content which is then discovered on Google. If you’re going to create a spreadsheet, it’s more likely you’ll put it somewhere that it can be shared and discovered if you do it on Google. Even something like their Dodgeball acquisition, which seems totally random at first blush, sort of fits this mold if you think of it as trying to “discover” the location of your friends. And of course, by mashing all this stuff up (maps, calendars, spreadsheets, payments, etc..) you simply add exponential utility around all the secondary and tertiary activities that come after discovery. First, search for a restaurant, then map it, and then go onto Dodgeball and tell everyone you’ll be there at 8:00pm.

.....an interesting question: what if the primary discovery mechanism people use today starts to shift away from Google?Keep in mind that almost all your discovery activities with Google are personal (and thus singular) experiences. You go to Google, enter a search term, get Google’s view of the results, then maybe you share. Well, what if it (and you) didn’t work that way. What if the first thing you did was interface with the web in a non-singular way?

And parenthetically, Yahoo has bought every single leading company in this space. What I’m talking about is discovery through tagging, which is a fundamentally community-centric activity (your context is what the community thinks the content is about) and not singular activities (what you think Google might think the content is about). To be less academic and cerebral about it, consider for yourself how often you now go to del.icio.us, flickr, or whatever tag-based system you like to search for something before you go to Google?

With that all said, I think there is a short window here where Yahoo is actually positioned well to fight against Google’s hegemony and to fundamentally shift the dominant discovery paradigm (sorry, I just had to say it) back in their direction. With their recent web2.0 tagging acquisition spree, Yahoo owns half of the equation (the tagging sites) but has yet to fulfill the other side (discovery)."

IMHO: Wonder whether Yahoo will (have they already??) wake up to this opportunity. Or whether Google will step up its social networking, community collaboration initiatives and open another channel for discovery. They have the Blogger platform, Orkut, and Picassa. And they are good at extending the utility of their basic platforms. Most importantly, they have the eyeballs.

Oracle PeopleSoft Version 9

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 06:13:00 +0000

Oracle today took yet another step in reassuring its existing PeopleSoft customer base:

"Oracle Corp. today released Version 9 of its PeopleSoft Enterprise application suite, an upgrade the company said will prepare customers to move toward a service-oriented architecture (SOA).Oracle, which completed a $10.3 billion buyout of PeopleSoft in January 2005, has told its customers that it will continue to support the products from its former competitor.The new release is integrated with Oracle's Fusion Middleware, a portfolio of server software that allows applications from different vendors to interoperate. The integration allows better use of other Oracle technologies, including XML Publisher, Business Activity Monitoring and Customer Data Hub, the company said.Oracle said the Version 9 release adds features related to corporate governance and compliance, CRM improvements for customer service agents, and enterprise-level planning. The company also expanded capabilities for areas such as the public sector, health care, financial services, communications and higher education."

Good news for PeopleSoft customers, although they are still being encouraged to retire their old code base to prepare for migration to Fusion. Read the full news here and here.

Oracle - Event-Driven Middleware Suite

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 06:01:00 +0000

Oracle announced its Event-Driven Middleware Suite recently. Has not gotten the coverage we expect from bloggers though. Here are some excerpts from the press release:

"Oracle(r) Event-Driven Architecture Suite iscomprised of best-in-class Oracle Fusion Middleware products that allowcustomers to sense, identify, analyze and respond to business events inreal-time. EDA is a key component of SOA 2.0, the next-generation ofservice-oriented architecture (SOA) that defines how events andservices are linked together to deliver a truly flexible and responsiveIT infrastructure.

Organizations using an EDA can gain a competitive advantage by responding more rapidly to changing business conditions. Current infrastructures for processing and managing events, however, are limited and require complex and expensive software engineering. Oracle EDA Suite includes a design time environment to easily define and correlate events; Oracle Enterprise Service Bus to collect and distribute events; Oracle Business Rules to define business policies on events; Oracle Business Activity Monitoring to monitor and analyze Business Events; and pre-built solutions for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and other systems.

Companies in a broad range of industries - including financial services, commercial banking, securities trading, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, retail, government and manufacturing - can now use Oracle EDA Suite to become a real-time enterprise by enabling them to build, deploy and manage EDAs. Leading manufacturing and distribution companies are using EDAs to optimize supply chain and vendor management; leading retailers are using EDAs to optimize inventory management using RFID; and global financial services institutions are using EDAs to optimize financial positions and hedging strategies in the financial markets.

Leveraging Oracle Fusion Middleware'shot-pluggable architecture, Oracle EDA Suite is interoperable withOracle Containers for J2EE and non-Oracle application servers includingBEA WebLogic Server, IBM WebSphere Application Server and JBossApplication Server along with messaging buses such as Oracle AdvancedQueuing, SonicMQ, Tibco Enterprise JMS and WebSphereMQ. The offeringincludes native support to create, process, analyze and manage eventsand provides a flexible, declarative environment to rapidly build andadapt event-driven applications"

IMHO: Sounds interesting, even with all the jargon thrown in. SOA's delivery capability on all it promises is still suspect, especially as the organization that deploys SOA does not reap benefits rapidly. Rather, a network effect is needed, necessitating widespread adoption, to unleash the full and supposedly immense power of SOA. Wait and see. The problem is that most target organizations for SOA might also adopt the same approach. SOA 2.0? Sounds very far-off to me.....

The flaw in the Software Services Business Model

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:46:00 +0000

Robert X. Cringely writes:

"IBM is a disaster-in-the-making. Big Blue as a total enterprise is running primarily on customer inertia and clever advertising, which definitely isn't enough.

One aspect of IBM's malaise is the disconnect between the traditional public image of the company (basic research, advanced R&D, patents, patents, patents) and the fact that most of their revenue-generating businesses aren't about hardware or software products at all, but services. Why continue to spend all that money if you're mainly just a business/IT consulting company made up of IGS and Price Waterhouse? Why, indeed.Here's what's happening with IBM. The heart of a company culture can be discovered if you look at the compensation system. IBM's major incentives right now are for signing business and cutting costs. In many IT firms, IBM included, billable hours are important. This results in a system where little is done to improve service efficiency, because doing so would lead to fewer hours and less revenue. Efficiency kills, so at today's IBM it is generally avoided.

The result is that an increasing number of customers are unhappy with IBM, signings are harder, so there is less return business. To get that signing incentive, IBM's sales folks are now under-pricing deals. The people who do the actual work are still expected to show a profit though, even if one wasn't designed into the contract in the first place. So to still be profitable, they under-deliver on the contract, and this leads to an even lower quality of service. What I am describing is a death spiral that top IBM management either doesn't see or simply doesn't want to admit."

IMHO: Hit the nail right on the head there. But this the case with almost every Software Services firm. The flaw is in the business model, where the charge is by time, and not by the result of that time spent. More the time spent on doing the little bit allocated to you, more is the money you make. Of course it needs a certain bit of naivete in the customer community as well for this model to work, and whatever else they may be, enterprise customers are not naive. So, how come it is working? Because the costs are low, and the quality is higher than what one intuitively expects for that cost. At least in the offshoring scenario. I am talking about the direct, visible costs here. Because, my hypothesis is that opportunity cost of the time and effort of the client is seldom taken into account. Truth be told, I have a feeling, the cost would still be comparable to nearshoring.

While offshore vendors have invested in getting certifications galore, like CMMi and ISO and what not, the hazard still remains that quality/ efficiency/ productivity will always be second rung to billable time/ loading factor. The alternative is the Fixed Bid model, followed by pioneers like GE, in which the incentive shifts back to the vendor to deliver efficiently to derive greater returns. One surmises that the number of such engagements should increase over time. Time to beef up estimation expertise as well for offshore vendors who severly lack it, but that is a story for another day....

Forrester Chief on Emerging Trends

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Wed, 10 May 2006 10:49:00 +0000

George Colony, the founder & Chief executive of Forrester Research, on future trends:

SAP has a 10% advantage over Oracle, as it is not preoccupied with integrating PeopleSoft & Siebel

Companies offering software and services focused on technology that has not yet been developed for the commercial market (yet) will ride the next wave

The big players in the new wave will be the likes of Google, Salesforce.com and a number of other small start-ups, by way of leveraging the “executable internet”, which refers to a new level of interactivity online involving websites that function more like software and less like pages to read.

In the future, much business software will be free and funded by advertising; Google will be leading the revolution

The "extended internet" will supplant today's internet experience, with 14 billion devices connected to the internet by 2012

Between 1996 and 2006 every company connected to the internet, but from 2006 to 2016 every company will be connected to every product; for example, he says, in the future a company like Coca-Cola will know where every can of Coke is in the world.

Well, Mr. Colony is certainly bold and good with jargon like “extended internet” and "executable internet”. Whether these prophecies come to life is yet to be seen, and all of us know that research firms miss the point oftener than not. There are quite a few challenges for the likes of Google, before they can achieve a significant presence in the enterprise. While Microsoft should certainly be alarmed by Google’s progress, I don’t think SAP & Oracle have anything to worry about—yet. SalesForce, and its brethren in SaaS have a long way to go before they can take on the mega vendors. As I have written before, here, we might end up with a hybrid of the pure SaaS and pure packaged application models in the medium term. As far as tracking each coke can is concerned……

Protect, Extend, Evolve with Oracle

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Fri, 05 May 2006 06:30:00 +0000

Niel Robertson writes about the recent Collaborate 06 conference, where three Oracle Users Groups: Quest Direct (traditionally the JD Edwards users group but now extends to include PeopleSoft), IOUG (Independent Oracle Users Group) and OAUG (Oracle Applications Users Group) came together.

“…they have launched a new “Protect, Extend, Evolve” messaging campaign. This was clearly Oracle’s mantra at Collaborate.

And, as usual, Oracle messaging is not just rhetoric – they are actually trying to back it up with product announcements. A few notable announcements from the Collaborate conference:

PeopleSoft 8.48 is coming and PeopleSoft 8.49 is planned (a vague 2007 date was given)
PeopleSoft 9.x applications are coming and there is “commitment” to a release after 9.0 (although no specifics could be given by John Webb, VP Application Strategy who filled in for Jesper at Collaborate)
A new release of JD Edwards is now available with more features on the way
The Announcement of an “Applications Unlimited” program claiming Oracle will continue to develop all application platforms for the foreseeable future”

I have written about the Applications Unlimited program here.

Industry Concerns-Attrition Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Wed, 03 May 2006 11:18:00 +0000

This is in continuation to my last post on Industry Concerns. Today I will share my thoughts on the second area of focus to arrest attrition—recruitment.

RECRUITMENT: In any Service Industry focused on knowledge, recruitment of the right people and allocation to right roles is of utmost importance. I look around me, and the situation is despotic. Interviews are conducted over phone (face to face in some cases) for functional knowledge, masses are recruited from B-schools and engineering schools and people poached from other similar organization without discretion. BG checks are done in name only, and no thought is given to the persons aspirations when allocating roles. Pathetic!!! My hypothesis is that if we conduct a random sampling of people inside and outside the organization (in a busy mall, say) and rate them on a 5-point scale according to attitude, qualifications, previous experience etc., the proportions we get will be disturbingly similar. That usually means that the recruitment process is not discriminating enough, in fact not even required. We will probably achieve similar results if we open the office gates to everyone whenever recruitment is required, and closing them after the required number have walked in. Why spend so much of the shareholders’ money on something that just does not work???

In counterpoint to the above, there is high pressure on recruiters and the number of recuitees is very high in any timeframe. Hence, it is difficult to focus on quality and organizational fit, just meet the numbers. This in turn increases attrition and increases the recruitment numbers for the next time frame, forming a vicious cycle of never ending recruitment. Dante would have loved this scenario!!

As in any processes focus on the end goal is very important. Let us pause and think, maybe take example of an industry leader. Google, for instance, has a very rigorous recruitment cycle, almost like a 6-month long IQ test. Of course, they are an engineering company and it serves them well to have loads of braniacs cooking up innovative products all the time. This reflects in their attrition rate (Less than 1% for engineering employees). I am not suggesting that we go berserk over IQ of applicants, but we should have a criterion for people who will like it in this environment. An example might be “attitude” (psychometric testing is standard for evaluating attitudes). Recruitment must be geared towards sifting out everybody in the “poor” and “average” category, even if in the process we lose out on a few “above average” and “excellent” people.

Anyways, here are a few simple (:))) ways to improve recruitment:

Make recruitment specific. Too often we recruit first and allocate later, when the requirement arises, in order to have ready numbers quickly. The first step should be to recruit for specific requirements if we are to find the best fit of people. It is difficult in this highly competitive industry to predict requirements accurately. The resolution should be to have the best people serve the customer, or to not take the business at all. If this means cutting down on ad-hoc orders, or staff augmentation opportunities, so be it.

Involve performing practitioners. Second step is to reduce the workload of recruiters through the involvement of practitioners who have proven performance track record. Let them sift through the applications and pick out outstanding ones for further processing.

Screening before interviews. All screening should be done before the interviews take place, to avoid resource wastage and fraudulent entries.

Strengthen referrals. Employee referrals are very important if the right talent is to be attracted. While reward systems are already there, a high standard when referring and an informal procedure of reprimand in case an employee, once selected, turns out not to be what he was touted to be should be in place.

Above all, set high standards. Do not recruit just to make up the numbers.

Recruitment, especially of the wrong variety, has widespread implications. Teaming, Morale, Attitude, Culture—everything is predicated on recruitment. And yet, this is treated as HR domain. Effective recruitment is the job of everyone in the organization, and not just HR. You, me, the cheerful lady in the next cubicle, the slick HR guy we meet for coffee—everyone has a stake, and hence everyone has the responsibility. The role of HR is restricted to primarily recruitment in IT Services organizations. I am no fan of HR in IT, but even I think this is unfair. Next time, I will deal with the role of HR in arresting attrition. Do let me know your thoughts on this in the meanwhile.

Update: Seth Godin, the author of Permission Marketing & Survival is not enough, talks about Recruiting here. A super read for anyone remotely interested in the woes of the business world.

Oracle & Siebel CRM

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Tue, 02 May 2006 05:59:00 +0000

John Wookey talks about the synergy between Siebel and Oracle:

“There are four very strong parts of Siebel's business that made it an attractive acquisition target for Oracle.

One, obviously, is the core CRM technology. Siebel is clearly the world leader in this marketplace by all measures: customer success, market share and technology. The company has rich, deep CRM functionality and their success shows it.

But Siebel also has amazing industry-specific capabilities. I've come to appreciate that horizontal CRM is a fantasy. Dream CRM is about specific vertical marketplace requirements. Siebel took a very strong core set of functionality around service, marketing and sales, and developed best practices and specific capability around specific industries--such as high-tech, pharmaceuticals, and CPG. And they did it in an innovative way. They invested a lot in industry-specific domain expertise and built some very unique industry content and capabilities on top of the CRM components.

The third very powerful capability from Siebel is the company's business analytics. They acquired analytic technology about six years ago and really invested in it to create market-leading analytics capabilities. And of course, because they were an applications company, it wasn't just a BI engine. They'd invested a lot in building content-rich dashboards--again, by industry. That allowed them to go out and help customers understand what was happening in their business. And to do it from data sources beyond just Siebel applications--including other applications, and custom systems that customers themselves had created.

Additionally, the combination of Oracle and Siebel also created the world's largest and most comprehensive on-demand offering. The combined talents, expertise, and vision of the Oracle/Siebel organization will give customers access to the industry's broadest range of enterprise computing solutions delivered with a services-based approach. That means continued innovation and flexibility, but with additional options and at a lower cost.”

IMHO: Seems like Siebel will be leading Oracle’s CRM charge. Also, there has been speculation (confirmed???) that Oracle is going to segregate its CRM business from its other application businesses and treat is as different from other applications. Makes sense too, in that CRM technology is unique as far as Enterprise Applications are concerned. It deserves a dedicated, focused approach to development, implementation and change management. Another point to note here is that Oracle’s latter acquisitions—Retek and Portal—nicely complement and enhance the vertical specific functionality. I think they will form important pieces in Oracle strategy going forward, providing rich, deep vertical functionality and built-in best practices. Sounds good, but the challenge will be to seamlessly and efficiently integrate these disparate technologies.

We’ll see how it pans out, but for now Siebel seems to Oracle’s flagship CRM product.

Benefits of CRM

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Tue, 02 May 2006 05:15:00 +0000

The CRM Mastery E-Journal reports on a survey by CSO Insights:

"We asked participating sales executives to assess the impact that technology was having on their sales performance. A consolidated review of their responses found that 71.9 percent stated that CRM was improving their performance, 18.2 percent said it was having no effect, and 9.9 percent didn't know.

Initially we see that for more than seven of 10 firms there is a plus side to their CRM initiative. But these figures prompt a follow-up question: What exactly is different as a result of using this technology? To get a more definitive answer we asked these execs to get specific about what "better" looked like now that the CRM applications were in the hands of their salespeople.

The article includes a chart analyzing the "Benefits Resulting from CRM Usage." Here are the top 10 benefits:

Improved Communications - 60+%

Improved Forecast Accuracy - 50%

Reduced Administrative Burden - 40+%

Increased Revenues - 30%

Improved Best Practice Sharing - 25+%

Shortened Sell Cycles - 20+%

Reduced New Rep Ramp-Up Time - 20+%

Improved Win Rates - 20%

Improved Order Processing - 15+%

Increased Margins - 10%"

IMHO: Sounds good doesn’t it? But the problem is putting dollar numbers to improvement, and attributing some of the improvement to CRM. Having gone through a CRM initiative in my own organization recently, while I am a big proponent of the technology, I think CRM has a long way to go to fulfill the promise of “Customer Relationship Management” and more than the technology has to evolve to realize that. I will go into details of this soon. Do let me know your thoughts.

Oracle Applications Unlimited

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 10:02:00 +0000

From ZDNet news:

“Oracle unveiled its Applications Unlimited program on Tuesday, removing a 2013 deadline for halting development of new releases of its PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards and Siebel Systems software.
Under the program, Oracle will continue issuing new versions of PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards and Siebel applications in the foreseeable future. It had previously said it would discontinue support for those companies' programs after 2013.

Right now, Oracle is melding their technologies into its next-generation architecture, Oracle Fusion. But the change means it will keep putting out updates beyond the anticipated debut of Oracle Fusion applications in 2008.

"This is a little added insurance for our customers and something they've been asking for," said Jesper Andersen, senior vice president of Oracle's application strategy. He added that some large PeopleSoft customers, for example, may need more time to roll out their applications across several continents.

In addition to removing the deadline, Oracle is dedicating development teams and assigning general managers to each of the three lines of applications, Andersen said. Customers of PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards and Siebel will also provide input on the product plans for the software they use.”

IMHO: Analysts say that Oracle is feeling increasing heat from SAP, and that has precipitated this decision. But more than that, I think, it is just Oracle keeping options open and not killing off the cash cows it has. It has in fact pledged additional investment. The decision also reflects the will to reassure the existing customer base, and of course, to halt the SAP charge, or at least slow it down. Kudos to Larry Ellison for listening to his customers. When these new versions get delivered and what functional enhancements are provided is still not clear though, but with Larry at the helm you can always expect a surprising move or two from Oracle.

Industry Concerns-Attrition Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Anurag) — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 11:47:00 +0000

As a part of the Indian IT Services industry, I am naturally concerned with the high rates of attrition and the dearth of real talent here. The latest results highlight the issue, wherein all the Indian IT players reported attrition from 13-20%. That means that every 1 in 5 people that the organization invests in is leaving. That is an alarming number, but one that we have lived with over the past few years of rapid growth. More alarming though is that the middle management level is seeing high churn rates (If you have the numbers on this, kindly give me a pointer) and is stretched wafer thin.

The way the industry has traditionally tackled this issue is to hike salaries. The salaries offshore are set to grow 15-25% in the next fiscal, so the trend is continuing. I believe that this is the incorrect, very short term solution and will create problems going forward. We have to do much more if we are really sincere about arresting attrition, especially within the performers and key executives.

To even begin to address this issue, first there has to be a commitment to changing the mindset of looking at employees as statistics, as a number, and treating them like we would our customers—with transparent & consistent policies, quick issue resolution, no red tape, consistent & concise communication, and delivery on promises. Here are the things I would focus on from a long term perspective:

TEAMING: I haven’t seen, or heard of, any organization which has effective teaming practices. As humans, we tend to stick to our networks, preserve our connections. Here is what I propose we should do to promote teaming

Give people a clear goal. All good, cohesive teams are characterized by their striving towards a definite, clear objective which takes precedence on their own agendas. The goal should be finite, unambiguous and measurable. Choose the measures carefully. I will discuss this more fully in another post. This is half your job done.

Promote constructive dialog amongst people, providing a platform for free expression and positive conflict. Rather than artificial harmony, I would rather have honest conflict and difference of opinion. It is easier said than done, though, and the challenge is to encourage people to participate, to have an opinion, to share honest views rather than saying what they think their managers want them to say.

Inculcate trust among team members. Have frequent team meetings, where all members are encouraged to share good news, but particularly concerns and apprehensions. Demonstrate action on alleviating those concerns.

Encourage honest criticism and feedback. This will promote issue based actions rather than people based. This is much tougher than it sounds; people are sensitive to criticism and tend not to appreciate it. But to focus solely on the above stated goals without getting sidelined by personal issues, it is imperative that this be tackled.

Have clear, transparent accountability.

This is just one of the things that organizations need to focus on in order to arrest attrition. This is preceded though by recruitment, often the root of most, if not all, evils, which I will talk about in another post.

If you are interested in this topic, you might also find interesting this post by David Kirkpatrick on HCL’s innovative pratices on this front, this interview with Wipro’s Azim Premji and the Idea Market at Rite-Solutions. I have also written about this earlier.