Business Process

Forrester's 10-Step Program On Mastering The Service Experience: A Quick Recap

Kate Leggett — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 22:42:57 +0000

Today, the gap between a customer's expectations and the customer experience they receive is huge. In our latest customer experience survey, we found that just over one-third of US brands deliver a good experience. What is even more surprising is that, in the five years that Forrester has been collecting this data, this number has not significantly changed.

Delivering good customer service is a cornerstone to delivering a good end-to-end customer experience. Yet few companies undertake efforts to follow best practices. This lack of attention to customer service has significant impacts for companies: escalating service costs, customer satisfaction numbers at rock-bottom levels, and anecdotes of poor service experiences amplified over social channels that can lead to brand erosion.

Mastering the customer service experience is hard to do. Here is a recap of my 10-step program. I've reordered the steps a little, but the message is still the same:

Master your strategy

Plan and run your operations

customer service; contact center; CRM; SCRM

Follow The Conversation From Forrester's IT Forum 2011

Connie Moore — Wed, 25 May 2011 15:35:05 +0000

Today we're kicking off Forrester's IT Forum 2011 at The Palazzo in Las Vegas. Prepare for three exciting days of keynote presentations and track sessions focused on business and technology alignment. Use the Twitter widget below to follow the Forum conversation by tracking our event hashtag #ITF11 on Twitter. Attendees are encouraged to tweet throughout the Forum and to tweet any questions for our keynote presenters using the #ITF11 hashtag.

Whither Application Marketplaces?

China Martens — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:28:23 +0000

Everywhere you turn in ERP-land these days, up pops another app marketplace. The roster of ERP players large and small with online showcases includes Lawson, Microsoft, NetSuite, Openbravo, SAP (with EcoHub and its upcoming SAP Store), and xTuple.

Today's ERP app marketplaces have a stronger focus on window-shopping than trying to be a software equivalent to Apple's iTunes store. Vendors are using their marketplace websites to draw attention to an increasing variety of their own and third-party ERP app extensions as well as complementary products and services, segmented by industry, line of business, and product type.

What do you think is driving the move by ERP apps vendors to open marketplaces and what might those sites may evolve into? Here's some of my current thinking on both topics:

Why have an app marketplace?

Drivers To The Cloud And Other Lawson CUE Takeaways

China Martens — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 21:22:15 +0000

I had the pleasure earlier this week of attending Lawson Software's conference and user exchange, aka CUE, in Boston.

The midmarket ERP apps vendor had the singular misfortune to throw its annual user party at a time of great uncertainty for both Lawson and its customers. Lawson has yet to respond to an unsolicited $1.8 billion acquisition offer from ERP rival Infor, aside from acknowledging receipt of the offer on March 11. Despite the Infor elephant in the room, CUE was a good-humored affair. Lawson execs exhibited grace under fire while customers expressed concern but remained cheerfully stoic and pragmatic.

Do you think Lawson will end up part of Infor? Alternatively, will it remain independent or will it be bought by a private equity firm and no longer be publicly traded à la Epicor? As apps vendors try to navigate fluctuating revenue mixes -- rising subscriptions versus falling maintenance -- being privately held may prove to be an attractive option.

Lawson is currently evaluating whether to break out subscription revenue as a separate line item in its next fiscal year. Of its 4,500 largely on-premise customers, around 350 use a Lawson SaaS product, the fruit of purchases such as Enwisen and Healthvision. Like other apps players, Lawson's embraced Amazon.com's EC2 as the cloud infrastructure for its HCM, M3 and S3 ERP apps. Several Lawson cloud services early adopters at CUE talked about their organizations' experiences and there were some similarities in those stories:

Greetings Fellow ERP App Enthusiasts!

China Martens — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 17:23:49 +0000

Hi, and thanks for stopping by. I joined Forrester just over a month ago and I plan to post here regularly with some thoughts on the ERP apps arena. I'm hoping this blog will serve as a place for us to exchange views, and I very much welcome your input.

As you know, Forrester is structured around roles, and I'm part of the analyst team serving the needs of business process professionals. My primary area of focus is enterprise resource planning software. I'm currently pulling together my research agenda for 2011, and I was wondering what top-of-mind issues you think I should be tackling.

At a high level, some of the areas I'm considering include:

Midmarket ERP.
SaaS ERP and PaaS.
ERP-flavored project management.

I'm also interested in hearing about midsize organizations and enterprises that have benefited from the successful deployment of one of the following:

SaaS ERP.
A two-tier combination of one vendor's SaaS ERP integrating with another vendor's on-premise ERP.
Commercial open-source ERP.

I was previously an analyst with The 451 Group covering both ERP and CRM software, and I'm interested in the flow of business processes between those two kinds of apps. I'm also curious about ERP's potential embrace of collaborative technologies and thinking in contrast to what's already rapidly occurring in the CRM arena.

As a new Forresterite, I'm taking advantage of the training courses Forrester provides to become familiar with both the company's philosophy and its writing style. In that regard, I'm benefiting greatly from the guidance of the many seasoned analysts within the business process team. I'm based in the Cambridge, Mass., office -- although I just can't seem to shake my British accent. Looking forward to engaging over the coming months and years. Cheers!

Oracle Wins $1.3 Billion Award Over SAP

Paul Hamerman — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 03:53:18 +0000

The $1.3 billion verdict in the Oracle v. SAP case is surprising, given that the third-party support subsidiary of SAP, TomorrowNow, was fixing glitches and making compliance updates, not trying to resell the software. The jury felt that the appropriate damage award was based on the fair market value of the software that was illegally downloaded, rather than Oracle's lost revenues for support.

A news article by Bloomberg provides further insight into the jury's thinking and the legal process. Quoting juror Joe Bangay, an auto body technician: "If you take something from someone and you use it, you have to pay." Perhaps SAP should have made its case more in layman's terms.

SAP is in a very difficult position, in that it faces the same threat of revenue loss from third-party support. It was unable to convincingly defend its entry into the third-party support business for fear of legitimizing a business that poses a similar threat to its lucrative maintenance business as to Oracle's.

What happens to the third-party support business going forward? The size of the award potentially dampens customer interest in moving to third-party support, particularly with another case pending of Oracle v. Rimini Street. The SAP case, however, does not invalidate third-party support as a business. Third-party support, if carried out properly, offers an important option for enterprise application customers that are looking for relief from costly vendor maintenance contracts.

For SAP, the verdict is not only painful, but it prolongs the agony, because it is compelled to appeal the verdict. SAP certainly has the financial wherewithal to pay the damages but was hoping to put this embarrassing debacle behind them.

Unlock The Value Of Your Data With Azure DataMarket

James Staten — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 18:26:28 +0000

If the next eBay blasts onto the scene but no one sees it happen, does it make a sound? Bob Muglia, in his keynote yesterday at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, announced a slew of enhancements for the Windows Azure cloud platform but glossed over a new feature that may turn out to be more valuable to your business than the entire platform-as-a-service (PaaS) market. That feature (so poorly positioned as an "aisle" in the Windows Azure Marketplace) is Azure DataMarket, the former Project Dallas. The basics of this offering are pretty underwhelming - it's a place where data sets can be stored and accessed, much like Public Data Sets on Amazon Web Services and those hosted by Google labs. But what makes Microsoft's offering different is the mechanisms around these data sets that make access and monetization far easier.

We Need YOU!--Vote For Forrester's IT Forum 2011 Theme

Connie Moore — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 23:56:45 +0000

Are you ready for Forrester's IT Forum 2011? Mark your calendars for May 25-27 in Las Vegas and June 8-10 in Barcelona and in the spirit of --empowerment and Web 2.0 -- help us design an event that is as relevant and productive for you as possible. We've come up with three potential draft themes, and now we need your vote for the best IT Forum 2011 theme:

1. Unleash your empowered enterprise.

As more business technology (BT) decisions get driven by forces beyond IT alone, as business optimization and transformation come to the forefront of management's attention, and as the consumerization of IT encroaches upon business use, business process professionals find themselves in the hot seat at the intersection of IT and the business. This leaves business process pros with but one choice: get proactive by empowering employees with new business process, social and information tools, or swim against the tide of unauthorized technology coming into the organization haphazardly. Successful BT leaders will react not by blocking access but by lending their considerable expertise to increase the chances of technology success and empowering business people to solve customer and business problems. This year's IT Forum will provide a blueprint for reaping the benefits of your empowered organization -- complete with case studies, methodologies, and step-by-step advice tailored to each IT role.

2. Capitalize on the intersection of business and technology.

IBM Makes A Good Catch With Clarity Systems Acquisition

Paul Hamerman — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 14:41:35 +0000

Today, IBM announced the acquisition of privately-held Clarity Systems for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition bolsters IBM's solution set for the CFO, and complements its recent acquisition of OpenPages, a governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) vendor. Clarity, based in Toronto, had approximately 390 employees and 600 customers at the time of this deal.

Clarity Systems is a Strong Performer in "The Forrester Wave™: Business Performance Solutions, Q4 2009", offering a very good planning, budgeting, and forecasting solution as part of its flagship product, Clarity 7, along with an improved financial consolidations component. During the past few years, Clarity developed a market-leading regulatory reporting solution, Clarity FSR, which supports the process of creating full SEC filings and also embeds technology for XBRL reporting. IBM Cognos is ranked as a Leader in the same comparative evalution.

The success of FSR alone during the past two years made the large BPS vendors, IBM, SAP, and Oracle, envious of Clarity's success. Oracle made a competitive response early this year with the release of Oracle Hyperion Disclosure Management. It seemed to this observer that SAP would make the next move by doing a deal to acquire Clarity, but IBM beat them to the punch.

What Is An "Unconference"? Please Weigh In On Topic Choices.

Paul Hamerman — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:58:33 +0000

At Forrester's Business Process And Application Delivery Forum, October 7 and 8 in National Harbor, MD , we are holding a session called an "unconference" in the Business Process content track (there is also an unconference for the Application Development and Delivery track).

What is an "unconference"? you may ask. It's a session where the attendees are the presenters. Here is how the session is described on our event site:

"Unconferences are the coolest thing going in conferences, having taken a page out of the Web 2.0 and social networking world. Here's how it works: Upon arriving at the Forum, attendees can vote for one of these three topics: 1) the future of packaged apps; 2) the future of BPM, or 3) the role of Social Computing in business processes. Once the winning topic is announced, then it's your turn to sign up to speak at the session. Yes, that's right -- you are the speakers! Those passionate about the topic will each have 3 minutes to discuss the topic and offer a conclusion. It should be a lot of fun, quite democratic, and full of interesting points of view. "

We need your help, whether you have already signed up to attend, considering it, or just learning about the event. What we would like you to do is select the topic that you are most interested in discussing with your peers. It only takes a minute. Vote here:

http://deploy.ztelligence.com/start/index.jsp?PIN=15Y6Y9D79ZL6V.

From the online survey, we will identify the most popular topics and present them to attendees for final selection. Thanks for your help, hope to see you at the Forum.

IT Forum EMEA 2010: Talking Business Intelligence With James Kobielus

Simon Yates — Fri, 21 May 2010 16:37:05 +0000

As we get ready to host IT Forum EMEA June 9-11 in Lisbon, we will be conducting interviews with some of the key Forrester speakers and our invited industry keynotes. With so much attention being focused on business intelligence these days, we decided to sit down with Senior Analyst James Kobielus, who covers analytics, data mining and warehousing and business intelligence. James will be delivering a presentation for Business Process and Applications professionals.

YATES: What is the key lesson/theme that you will present at IT Forum EMEA?
KOBIELUS: I'm speaking on four topics in four different sessions with the common theme being that pervasive adoption of business intelligence (BI) can make organizations more lean, agile, and adaptable to changing conditions. I'll be discussing "Driving Better Business Outcomes with Pervasive BI," "Best Practices for Centralizing and Consolidating BI," and "Transforming Business Processes Through Business Analytics" (with Derek Miers). Also at ITF EMEA, I'm moderating the SAP Espresso Lounge session on "Transform Your Enterprise into a Best-Run Business."

YATES: How do these sessions tie into the overall theme of making business technology real?
KOBIELUS: All of this ties directly into that theme, since "making business technology real" can be defined as empowering information workers with tools that they use all the time and without which they would not be even half as productive. BI is just such a technology, because it can infuse every decision with the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and trustworthy information available. In this way, every information worker can have greater confidence in every action they take, can justify it fully, and can adjust their plans rapidly to fit changing circumstances.

SAP Advances Innovation Strategy With Sybase Acquisition

Paul Hamerman — Wed, 12 May 2010 23:35:21 +0000

In late breaking news today, SAP announced a definitive agreement to acquire Sybase for $5.8 billion. The deal will be accretive for SAP and is expected to close in July 2010. Sybase is a profitable company with revenues of $1.2 billion and $1 billion in cash. Sybase Chairman, CEO and President John S. Chen will become a member of SAP's Executive Board.

The deal is a good move by SAP mainly because it accelerates SAP's innovation strategy, which is focused on in-memory computing, mobile device applications, analytics, and SaaS. Sybase brings assets to the table in each of these areas:

In-memory databases via its Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) platform and SQL Anywhere.
Mobile applications development and device management via Sybase Unwired and Afaria.
Analytics via the Sybase IQ column oriented analytics server and complex event processing (CEP) technology.
Cloud computing is delivered via Sybase's partnership with Amazon Web Services.

It is also a good move for several other reasons:

It extends SAP's industry play with Sybase's strong presence in financial services, as well as increasing its regional presence in AsiaPac.
It grows revenue profitably, at a time when SAP has been struggling with sales of its own products.
It makes a move that will get Oracle's attention.

Regarding the latter point, SAP and Oracle regard one another as bitter rivals in applications, yet SAP has a significant dependence on Oracle as a key database platform provider, both for customers and for its own internal use. Potentially, the Sybase ASE database platform will reduce SAP's own dependence on Oracle and give it an opportunity to offer customers another option. However, Sybase is not currently a supported platform for the SAP Business Suite. SAP says it intends to make Sybase a supported platform as soon as possible.

Oracle Puts Another Notch In Its Industry Apps Acquisition Stick

Paul Hamerman — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:30:38 +0000

Today, Oracle announced yet another acquisition - this one of Phase Forward, a clinical research suite that helps life sciences companies manage their R&D process. Oracle paid $685 million in cash for this acquisition. While my research role focus does not encompass life sciences software specifically, Oracle's overall apps strategy is definitely of interest to me. My thoughts about this deal are as follows:

Oracle continues to aggressively acquire industry-specific applications to complement its core ERP solutions (e.g., EBS, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, and the yet-to-be-released Fusion Applications). Industry apps enable Oracle to achieve deeper relevance with specific types of businesses, and sell them additional products, including middleware, integration accelerators, BI, databases, core ERP applications, and now even computer hardware.
The Phase Forward clinical trials software puts Oracle into the mix in large pharma accounts, where SAP tends to have the lion's share of the wallet for applications.
Healthcare overall is a massive market opportunity for which Oracle has only scratched the surface. Oracle only recently established a Health Sciences Global Business Unit, and more acquisitions can be expected in and around the healthcare ecosystem. Healthcare provider solutions may fit into this build-out at some point.

Your thoughts on Oracle's apps strategy and portfolio? Feel free to comment here.

Business Capabilities Are The Strongest Foundation For Tech Strategy

Randy Heffner — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:14:09 +0000

In developing a technology strategy for your organization, what will be your basis for deciding which technologies to pursue, when to pursue them, and how to implement them? In other words, what will be the foundation for your technology architecture and strategy? In considering this question, I assume we agree that technology strategy should directly support improvement of business outcomes, both now and over the long haul. To provide for the long haul, your technology architecture and strategy must be crafted to support a continuous stream of business change, both small incremental steps and large radical shifts.

Your strategy could begin with a list of hot technologies -- perhaps even ones that business colleagues are clamoring for -- but how would you know which of them would lead to the most important improvements in business outcomes? You could begin with your top executives' current business plans and strategies -- which would clearly address today's priorities for improving outcomes -- but over the long haul, business plans change, sometimes dramatically, making them an unstable foundation for technology strategy.

Since the goal of technology strategy is to improve business outcomes, let's refine the question with that as our focus: What basis for technology architecture and strategy:

(a) Aligns best with the ways that business leaders conceive, plan, execute, and measure improvements to business outcomes,

(b) Provides the best structure for building technology implementations that align with and facilitate the ways that businesses change both now and over the long haul, and

(c) Best guides the prioritization, planning, architecture, design, and usage of technology within business improvement projects?

SAP Jam Teleconference Notes: SAP's Growth and Innovation Strategies

Paul Hamerman — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:58:57 +0000

Thanks to those of you that attended our SAP Jam Teleconference today, part of a series that will run throughout the week. For details on the next event in the series, see http://www.forrester.com/rb/teleconference/sap_jam_session_what_should_sap_clients/q/id/6292/t/1.

For those of you unable to attend, I will summarize some of the content that I presented on SAP's overall growth and innovation strategy. SAP has a double-barreled product strategy focused on Growth and Innovation.

Growth Strategy

The Growth strategy rests heavily on the current Business Suite, which includes the core ERP product that is used by approximately 30,000 companies worldwide. SAP claims that it touches 60 percent of the world's business transactions, which is hard to validate but not all that hard to believe. The main revenue source today is Support, which comprises 50% of the total revenues of the company at more than 5 billion Euros annually, and it grew by 15% in 2009. Other growth engines include:

Analytics, which includes the Business Objects portfolio
SME products, which consists of Business ByDesign, the SaaS product, Business One for small businesses and All-in-One, which is a preconfigured version of the enterprise ERP system.
Industries, which are a key area of focus for growth that includes both development of new modules for the ERP system and acquisitions that bolster the portfolio in specific industry markets. Though not as aggressive as Oracle to date in acquisitions, look for SAP to step up its game here to drive revenue growth and verticalization.

Two other important strategic elements that we talked about during today's SAP Jam Session included CRM and Sustainability, detailed by my colleagues Bill Band and Alex Peters, respectively.

Business Process

Forrester's 10-Step Program On Mastering The Service Experience: A Quick Recap

Categories:

Follow The Conversation From Forrester's IT Forum 2011

Whither Application Marketplaces?

Categories:

Drivers To The Cloud And Other Lawson CUE Takeaways

Categories:

Greetings Fellow ERP App Enthusiasts!

Categories:

Oracle Wins $1.3 Billion Award Over SAP

Categories:

Unlock The Value Of Your Data With Azure DataMarket

Categories:

We Need YOU!--Vote For Forrester's IT Forum 2011 Theme

IBM Makes A Good Catch With Clarity Systems Acquisition

Categories:

What Is An "Unconference"? Please Weigh In On Topic Choices.

IT Forum EMEA 2010: Talking Business Intelligence With James Kobielus

SAP Advances Innovation Strategy With Sybase Acquisition

Oracle Puts Another Notch In Its Industry Apps Acquisition Stick

Categories:

Business Capabilities Are The Strongest Foundation For Tech Strategy

Categories:

SAP Jam Teleconference Notes: SAP's Growth and Innovation Strategies

Categories: