More Than Tech

SAP has paid $8B for Qualtrics. That's a massive investment and one of the highest value acquisitions for a cloud software provider. What is Qualtrics? Qualtrics is the market leader in  "experience management" (EM), which is basically feedback, think of customer feedback, end user feedback, product feedback, etc. Experience (feedback) has become so central to our lives today, just think about Google reviews, Amazon reviews, Yelp reviews and just think of the reviews and surveys you get exposed to in every day life. I get sent surveys every time I fly, rent a car or even when I call my ISP customer support.  Although I'm no expert on the EX market, my experience as a consumer tells me that companies are spending a great deal of money and effort to gather this data. That said, I'm not convinced that they are always taking full advantage of the EX data they are gathering.  From qualtrics.com: Over 10,000 enterprises worldwide, including more than 75 pe...

Blockchain is one of the hottest topics in technology today. There is a lot of poorly informed hype surrounding blockchain but there is a great deal of promise also. I recently read an article on a pilot blockchain project undertaken by a major company, one which has been responsible for some wonderful technology. The article claimed that blockchain was enabling a swathe of new capabilities, but every single capability described was simply nothing new - been around for years, in fact I designed a system over 20 years ago that had all of the capabilities of this supposedly groundbreaking blockchain. It seems that the only reason blockchain was involved in this project was to ensure that it got funding and publicity! This type of hype could easily drive us to dismiss the technology altogether, but I think that would be wrong. This is an interesting technology that we should understand, if only to spot the hype. Its still a young technology and I think it will take years for it to mat...

E-Procurement solutions have been widely available for almost 20 years now and we have seen them develop significantly A Little History In the late 90’s the indirect purchasing model was not supported by systems. Typically, there would be contracts and preferred suppliers, but it was very difficult to prevent maverick spend and non-compliance with policy. It was the early days of the internet and one of the early internet (or intranet) scenarios was to use a simplified browser-based interface to create purchase requisitions by selecting items from a more user-friendly list of items, which quickly became catalogues. The objective was to digitize the old paper based requisitioning system and drive compliance through an interface that the infrequent user could easily navigate. The interface was intended to require little training and to have a reduced set of functionalities to support very basic purchasing. Quickly after this, we saw the emergence of true e-procurement solut...

My first job was as a developer, I was involved in the development of a mainframe purchasing system, which I later helped to replace with a package. That was my first exposure to a buy rather than build decision and since then I’ve seen both scenarios, although in the vast majority of cases buy beats build hands down. Of course, if there isn’t a package in the market that does what you need, then building your own system makes sense. Also, if your company has some secret sauce that is truly unique and special, then there is an argument to build. Whilst I was at a previous company, we developed our own WMS because we didn’t see anything commercially available that could easily be enhanced to contain our proprietary intellectual property, but that company is one of the largest distributors in the world, with some intelligent systems and some unique ways of doing things. For everything except the WMS, we used packages - I think that says something. Even with the capability and expert...

If you’ve read the EI books then I’m probably preaching to the choir. If you haven’t, then I’d like to recommend that you do! Many tech people are much better at problem solving and working with numbers than working with people. Business Applications - All about People People implement systems! Rightly, we put a great deal of emphasis on the technology but we really must guard against neglecting the people. The most significant factor in implementing business systems, is how well you engage with the business owners and deeply understand their needs and issues. Its important to have a structured and rigorous methodology but more important are the way the people operate. How well do they listen and understand. How good are the people ate listening and digging deeply to get to the requirements. How good are they at recognizing and challenging legacy thinking? (thinking constrained by the legacy system and the "way we have always done it"). How good are the implementation ...

In a previous role, my company provided warehousing and distribution services to Apple, Google and Microsoft. We managed a massive global network of warehouses, millions of square feet. We were able to quickly connect companies into our systems, then ship their products for them. We would receive product in bulk, often from manufacturers in China, then we would receive the order details and fulfil them. We also had some very slick reverse logistics capabilities. A great deal of this connectivity is still based on "old" EDI. Its extremely reliable and scaleable, but API’s have provided newer and faster ways to connect structured messages and business processes. This means that even smaller companies are able have rich connectivity, by enabling all the key structured messages. These virtual organizations provide better systems and visibility than the old monolithic organizations. Better systems with lower costs. If you outsource your logistics operations to a third par...

Cash Friendly SAAS costs are considered as operating expenses, whereas a software license is considered an asset, with years of planned depreciation. If cash is tight SAAS is really the way to go. Typically it’s much harder to get a large capex approved than it is to take on an annual opex commitment. Support and Upgrades are Included SAAS pay as you go pricing typically includes support and upgrades. Some traditional software providers include upgrades but support is typically about 20% of the initial software cost Over Time, SAAS Can Look More Expensive But… When you look over an extended period, SAAS can appear more expensive. This can be a dangerous calculation though because it’s hard to compare apples to apples. You can include hardware costs in a total cost of ownership calculation but its harder to correctly reflect implementation costs because SAAS solutions are typically deployed at much lower cost. I am aware of traditional ERP implementation costs i...