Business Making Progress

Your (not so) Typical Customer

Right now, your customer has 500 emails in his inbox, 20 voicemails on his phone, 85 percent of his DVR box is full. She has 25 apps uploaded on her iPhone (of which she only uses five on a daily basis). More often than not, he’s texting, emailing, watching CNN and eating all at the same time. She’s on the road 30 weeks a year and is constantly searching for a Wi-Fi connection. Yes, these customers may be typical high-powered executives, but they certainly don't want their CSP to treat them as anything like “typical.” They want a personalized experience, they want to be understood, and they want to know that someone is out there, listening and supporting them.

As competition continues to increase, treating customers as individuals (as opposed to a generic group, or worse, just another up-sell opportunity) will become a key differentiator for providers. Service providers will need to focus on understanding and anticipating customers’ needs. To do this, they must leverage technology that helps them understand and cater to the needs of customers' situation or location, their likes and dislikes. In other words, providers need to see the whole picture when it comes to their customers, and the only way they can achieve this is by marrying a customer's individual profile with their real-time usage call patterns to obtain a clear end-to-end visibility into customers' unique situations. 

With competition steadily increasing, the ability to offer real-time personalized services, which are more useful than simple location-based promotions, will become a key differentiator for service providers. Only by gaining the complete view of the customer can CPSs hope to present tailored services that will appeal to, and make a difference for, their customers.

It’s this type of personalized service that will keep customers loyal and help providers maintain and grow market share in the future.  

 

 

The role of government in securing supply chains

Governments and nations are in current movement around the world - the Arab spring, presidential elections in France and the US, political upheaveal in the Euro Zone, just to name a few. All these events have had repercussions across supply chains. In a recent statement made by President Obama, US companies were called upon to ensure they come up with a strategy to secure supply chains. What does this mean? What is the role of nation states in our supply chains? 

Reading the statement from the White House, what strikes me is that there is nothing new in what's being asked: responsible governments seek to secure a nation's domestic interest. Without diving too deeply into hegemonic stability theory, the United States carries an additional responsibility in the global economy and with extended supply chains, that responsibility extends to the the safeguarding of global trade and the flow of products. The Obama Adminstration appropriately used more business-oriented and supply chain terminology for an undertaking the US government has assumed since the 1940s. 

Government is not responsible to ensure I have a fresh flow of iPads, bottles of Bandol 2007 red wine, Kobe beef or any other product imported to the United States. The Government is responsible for ensuring that vital items - those which are important to national security - are protected. Energy, medicine, basic sustenance, to name a few.

Governments are also called upon to assist when events impact the supply chains - natural and man-made disasters. For this reason we witness the global community rallying when events such as the Japan tsunami or the floods in Thailand strike. The need to rapidly get these areas back on their feet is important to the global economy.

The video from the Navy is a great piece on the role of an extended government:

 

Governments provide an ecosystem for supply chains to compete. It is up to companies to focus on the fundamentals to achieve their goals. End-to-end visibility and an understanding of the impact of these events on the business are the first steps. Once organizations gain this real-time visibility, they can begin to put in place the executionable means to gain constant business process improvements - in other words, to become more operationally responsive.

Economic Analysis of the Cloud: Check the Fine Print – Your Results May Vary

I recently came across an interesting post on GigaOM: Which is less expensive: Amazon or self-hosted? by Charlie Oppenheimer. The point of the article is to walk through an example that supports his claim that “if you have a significant amount of load that is well known and predictable then you may be able to save some money by bringing a portion or all of that inside,” or in other words, self-host. Amazon is MORE expensive. While the majority of his analysis was pretty good, there were a few gaps that - in my opinion - need to be addressed.

1. How often is this type of decision ever ONLY about cost? Rarely. There is a lot of strategy work and planning that should go into the Cloud vs. self-host decision. If you were an ISV start-up seeking funding, how many VCs would fund your business plan if it contained a large budget for buying hosting infrastructure hardware? My guess is zero. Deployment strategies can and should vary. Fortunately, there are ways to manage your deployment within a Cloud environment that can give you more flexibility. Leveraging reserve instances instead of running entirely on-demand could dramatically reduce your run-time capacity requirements without sacrificing the ability to keep up with fluctuating demand. Plus, it will ultimately lower the overall cost of deployment, too. A true win-win.


2. If you ARE focusing on cost, then you need to consider whether or not it is more effective for your business to work with Capital Expense (CAPEX) or Operating Expense (OPEX). More often, I hear from our partners and customers that OPEX is the way to go because it is much more predictable and stable from a budgeting and forecasting perspective. The finance department will thank you for it.


3. Labor costs CANNOT be excluded from the analysis or the conversation. There is just too much variation between the resource demands of a self-hosted environment vs. a Cloud-based environment in terms of time, money, and personnel needed to scope, implement, manage, and maintain the system. A big part of why we built Progress Arcade was to address the need to simplify application deployment in the Cloud for our partners and customers. Excluding labor costs from your analysis is like refusing to set aside money to pay your taxes each year. In either case, your revenue model will be distorted and incomplete. You can’t see the complete picture.

Bottom line: do your homework and make an informed decision based upon YOUR unique set of requirements. Don’t let someone else “calculate” your success.

Thanks and, as always, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Failing to seize the opportunity - what bankers have in common with railroad tycoons

Following last week’s CEB TowerGroup, my main observation was that bankers are facing a ‘perfect storm’ that will necessitate a change in approach across the whole industry. Unfortunately it seems that bankers are still denying the circumstances they face, believing that they will survive.

Why do I say this? In a mobile, connected world, customers are becoming used to service levels that take into account their previous buying preferences, interests, background with the service provider and even their location. They are used to accessing services wherever and whenever they need to, via any channel, and are increasingly savvy to offers and promotions. Despite media stories of ‘Groupon fatigue’, the popularity of daily deal and voucher sites speaks of a new generation of bargain-hunters that often won’t make a purchase without some kind of added incentive.

Banks are not yet interested in this consumer trend, but they should be. Instead of seeing payments as a cost centre to their business, the data it gives them about customer spending habits, when combined with today’s mobile technology, provides a massive business opportunity.

At the moment, it seems like the banks are unable to see the bigger picture. Much like the railroad tycoons in early twentieth century America, they have the cash to invest but are not seeing the opportunity. Airlines were just setting up internal flights, which eventually became the competition that turned the railroads into a second-choice service that could only compete by discounting prices. The railroad owners could have got into the airline business, but instead of seeing themselves as transport providers, they only concerned themselves with the smaller world of railways. Bankers today, similarly, see themselves as providing a customer service that goes beyond today’s boundaries of banking. Traditionally, they’ve been the consumer’s trusted advisor. Now that trust is eroding, they will lose out if they don’t capture new ground. Otherwise, banking becomes a commodity and the only way to survive will be to drive further efficiencies and reduce costs.

In the very near future, customers will realise they don’t need banks, they need banking – and will shop around for the best offer if their loyalty has not been secured.

Solving the problem will require looking to new areas. At the CEB TowerGroup event, the key note speaker made this comparison: after 100 years of failed expeditions, Mount Everest was eventually conquered when new explorers brought in nylon ropes from the world of sailing (to avoid the problem of frozen ropes snapping) and oxygen masks that had been developed for fire fighters. Innovation is ‘out there’ – you don’t need to find it in your own discipline or reinvent the wheel, just observe how other sectors are embracing change and see what might help solve business problems in your area. When it comes to innovation, bankers would be wise to remember that to get to the top, they need to look to other areas for inspiration.

So where should banks look for innovation that will help them adapt their business for the next 20 years? Much of the technology they need to become more responsive to customers’ needs and open up new revenue streams already exists. Bringing together the engines from algorithmic trading, BPM technology from the telecoms industry and location-based services from the mobile world, they could make full use of the information they already have about what consumers like to buy (and where and when) to develop new, more targeted, offerings.

We have a vision for Responsive Customer Engagement, a technology approach that means a bank can respond to a customer’s actions and turn it into an opportunity to secure more revenue – and, perhaps more importantly – customer loyalty. One business model for this could be in providing a customer buying one item on their credit card access to offers and promotions from other merchants in their locality. The merchants – also the bank’s customers – would also become more bought-in, as their payments provider becomes their access to a mass of new custom.

I will be talking more about how these technologies could help banks tap into consumer trends and bring the change they need to survive in future blog posts. For now, I’d like to leave you with a thought from the mountain: if you haven’t yet reached the pinnacle, perhaps you are using the wrong tools. Don’t get left behind!

Customer Service is a Matter of Visibility

Given the proliferation of service options and add-ons available to today’s mobile user, keeping the customer happy is a task that has become more and more challenging in recent years. As the number of customer services options increase and diversify, the number of disparate business and operational systems involved in that customer’s experience has also  increased. As we all know, the backend is not one network and one system, as dozens of legacy and new systems need to integrate to provide one unified view of the customer.   

It is possible to manage the end-to-end customer experience, but visibility is key. The best way to achieve this holistic view is to bring all customer-impacting activities together. Only with a comprehensive view of all systems can SPs begin to solve customer problems on one call.  

This complete service view will become the single biggest point of competitive differentiation for mobile providers in the coming year. To prevent churn, providers need to respond to business events as they happen, allowing them to proactively address and fix network issues before the customer suffers from poor service and is left with no one to call but the competition.

 

 

 

 

Banks in 2012: Predictions of the Future or Statements of the Present?

Many have you have read various predictions related to the Banking industry over the past few months. Here at Progress Software, we’d also like to chime in with a few observations of what the industry looks like today and what 2012 will bring.

1. As we have seen with the airline industry, 2012 will witness the emergence of more banking alliances. To win customer loyalty, banks will partner with retail and other third party consumer businesses to create more cross-sell opportunities. But we think this new model will be a bit harder for banks to adopt due to the “siloed” nature of their organizations and infrastructure.
2. Banks will do their best to launch social media apps as part of their mobile and channels strategies to better serve their customers. However until banks understand how to capture payment and other transactions in real-time, they will struggle to deliver real value.
3. With the boarding of financial banking apps on smartphones, new ways of skimming will appear. Anti-virus companies will hop on the bandwagon and banks will have to develop strategies and tactics to sense and respond in real-time to these types of fraud.

 I look forward to discussing any thoughts and opinions you may also have as well.

 

Defining the “Responsive Supply Chain Executive”

Earthquakes, political uprisings and unforeseen every-day disruptions are just some of the stressful events that supply chain executives face daily. For any supply chain exec – especially those managing networks that span diverse geographies and markets – having visibility into the extended supply chain is a key component to staying on top of issues, improving responsiveness and meeting SLAs. All told, a lot goes into being a responsive supply chain executive in today’s environment. Here are two main must haves:

 

Real-time Visibility

Many businesses suffer from supply chain blind spots, impeding their ability to quickly recover from unexpected events and efficiently re-sequence their extended supply chain. A responsive supply chain executive must have real-time visibility throughout the entire network. This visibility allows managers to effectively “light up” those blind spots and proactively monitor the entire chain (no matter how dispersed it may be) to ensure that all processes are running smoothly through every touch point along the way. It also empowers executives to spot disruptions early, at any point in the system, and respond to them before they snowball and affect end deliverables and SLAs. Which brings us to our next must have…

 

Actionable Insight 

Being able to see the disruption is all well and good, but if you can’t react to it and address it, all benefit is lost. Responsive supply chain executives must have actionable insight, meaning they must be equipped with the ability to correct disturbances rather than simply acknowledge their existence. The ability to quickly respond to out-of-plan events allows execs to rapidly re-sequence their extended supply chain, meeting every SLA.

Until the day when we can correctly predict the future, supply chains will always be hindered by unexpected, uncontrollable events. When confronted with such an event – whether it be a natural disaster, geo-political issue or simple human error – the ability to quickly identify and respond is critical. In the absence of a crystal ball, advanced technology arms us with the ability to sense trouble and respond so we can keep supply chains active and flowing, despite what the world may throw at them.

 

 

Making 'Cents' of the Shifting Business Landscape

Last fall we collaborated with the Economist Intelligence Unit to look at how companies around the world are responding to the rapidly increasing pace of change in business. While I touched on some of the early quantitative results in a post for The Business Insider in September, the Economist researchers recently released some compelling qualitative data that shines a light on the ways organizations are tackling operational responsiveness.

 

A few key points caught my attention:

• Leaders need to be willing to conceive multiple futures and embrace uncertainty

“Companies need leaders who are tolerant of ambiguity and who can make others feel comfortable about that. They have to instill confidence in their teams that they are making the right decisions, even though it’s not clear how the future will evolve.” – Lowell Bryan, McKinsey

• Executives should listen to messages from the frontline 

“One of the most powerful sources of information about emerging adaptive opportunities and pressures lies at the frontline. Employees who interact with customers are always the first to get the clues and early warning signs about new sources of opportunity or competition.”

–      Ronald Heifetz, co-founder of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government

• Cultures will need to adapt 

“Most people have a bias towards the status quo, so when they are faced with a disruptive opportunity or threat, they see it as a virus they want to kill.”

-       Hal Gregersen of INSEAD

• Setting up a new division can be an effective way of managing disruptive change

“Setting up a separate unit with its own P&L and management allows that unit to focus on the breakthrough disruptive change, while the old unit can be shrunk down and moved to a space in which it can survive.”

-       Clark Gilbert, president and CEO of Deseret News and Deseret Digital, and a former professor at Harvard Business School

 

I encourage you to take a look at the Economist Intelligence Unit’s full report, Game Changer to hear more from these leaders and explore how you can affect change, stay ahead of competition and drive your bottom line.

And for those of you interested in more on the quantitative data, check out this infographic: 

Tweet and Be Damned

The following is an excerpt from Dr. John Bates’ recent commentary on Huffington Post, which discusses Twitter’s ability to predict financial market sentiment. 

Another firm has jumped on the Twitter sentiment bandwagon; Topsy Labs is planning to release a Twitter trading tool to investors later this year. Topsy follows U.K. hedge fund Derwent Capital, which launched a fund last year using a Twitter algo that claims to predict market direction three or four days in advance with nearly 88% accuracy. And U.S. firm Wall Street Birds, which offers a free service for investors to use to make investment decisions based on the analysis of social media data. (It has become so popular that to sign up you must get invited by an existing user.)

But are emotionally laden Twitter messages able to provide reliable bellwethers for market sentiment? As I said in an interview with Advanced Trading in April, I think you can use a Twitter algo to get a sentiment reading on particular topics, but by the time you've got the information it is more of a trailing indicator rather than a leading indicator.

Read the full post from Dr. Bates here. 

 

Improving the Banking Customer Experience - An Internal Perspective

Banking organizations are fraught with silos. Operating this way must feel like looking at the world through a straw, I imagine. With a limited view, your ability to affect change is thwarted by the distortion of the full magnitude of any given situation. With this narrow perspective, you’re vulnerable to errors or worse, fraud and revenue leakage.

Compounding this issue is the increase in customer demands. As expectations rise, tolerance for dissatisfying banking customer experience is at an all time low, and grumbling customers take to social networks to complain.

The good news is: there’s an answer. Banks can reevaluate their operations and gain the critical business level visibility needed to achieve premier levels of customer support. To do this, business leaders should assess four key areas:

• Volume – the number of customer requests coming in through all channels such as call center, online, mobile etc.

• Velocity – the pace of customer expectations (same session service expectations) and the ability to meet big data and customer requirements in real time at the moment they are requested

• Variety – the variety of data and channels we see such as web, mobile, call center, outsourcing services etc. The more channels there are, the harder it is to track, control and resolve issues before they reach the customer. Many institutions now outsource IT needs, etc. making it even harder to control each channel 

• Complexity – having end-to-end visibility into internal transactions despite multiple channels

You simply cannot offer new products and services and maintain consistent customer experience if you have not taken a hard look at your internal operations. The lack of visibility makes the complex dependencies between data sources and channels too hard to see and thus too hard to control.

To hear more about gaining end-to-end visibility in the banking world, check out Bank Systems & Technology’s recent webcast, “Customer Transaction Management - Gaining Visibility, Control and Reliability.” 

 

Straight From the Source: How One of Our ISV Partners Uses SaaS to Improve Business

Almost all businesses—large or small—have a need for a comprehensive human resources (HR) program to serve their most valued resources, employees. Leading integrated benefits, payroll and human resources solutions provider Unicorn HRO provides solutions to manage HR processes with greater speed, scope and depth.

In the ’80s, Unicorn’s on-premise solution addressed approximately half the target market needs, and they knew they wanted to offer more.  Today, Unicorn leverages the Progress OpenEdge SaaS application development platform to help their customers, from mega-corporations like McDonalds to lesser-known SMBs (small-medium businesses), do business with greater efficiency.

I asked Tim Diassi, EVP and GM for Unicorn HRO to share the top reasons they use SaaS and this is what he told me:

• Ability to deliver services via the Web -- Unicorn releases new software upgrades twice a year with updated federal, state and local tax rates. SaaS helps Unicorn keep everything up-to-date so that customers can quickly and easily take advantage of the newest software version to stay compliant.
• Reduced time-to-market – The scalability and flexibility of a SaaS application development platform accelerates the speed with which Unicorn distributes software upgrades. In fact, Unicorn migrated 50 clients over a single weekend, without a hitch.
• Business continuity and disaster processing – Just because your network goes down, doesn’t mean your business can stop running. Unicorn’s service teams have kept customers’ applications up and running during all kinds of crises, including Hurricane Katrina.
• Increased ROI – Thanks to the cloud, Unicorn has experienced double-digit growth for the past 5 years without adding any significant cost of capital investment for the development of new services.

The Progress–Unicorn partnership shows the true power of SaaS. We’re excited to continue to work with such an innovative company as they plan further leverage SaaS for increased efficiency and business process integration.

Thanks and as always, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Inventories lag as sales grow - supply chains balancing act

While many on the economic front were drawn to two numbers - the unemployement rate which was lowered to 8.5% the lowest it has been in 3 years and consumer spending/confidence was inching upwards - two signs that the economy is slowly moving upwards. There is another report, less heralded, but just as interesting: inventory levels. The wholesale inventory levels barely grew at the end of 2011, yet the sales for wholesale did well. For the month of November, the inventory level grew by only 0.1%, yet sales in October grew at 0.8% and in November 0.6%. Is there a disconnect there? Clearly the wholesale supply chain did not properly plan the growth of inventories to keep up with demand. Granted, it is not as simple as turning on a faucet and producing more inventories. Add to this the strain on inventory that certain companies such as Toyota suffered due to natural disasters and there is invariably going to be a drop in the availability of inventory.

What it does remind us, is the fact that we are still stuggling to close the loop between planning and execution.The growth in sales in October coupled with the upcoming holiday season, should have been signals that inventories needed to be ramped up. Now maybe the plans did not forecast a continued growth trajectory, but with a better tuned ability to sense, these companies could have done better responding as well.

I am fairly certain that we will see inventory levels grow a more rapid pace over the next few months to catch up with the demand. I also realize that there is a lag time between inventory and demand. The situation remains a good example and reminder of the importance of closing the window between sensing and responding to changes and shifts in demand.

Maybe it is time to buy some stock in manufacturing companies!

Greetings 2012 – Say Hello to OpenEdge 11

As was mentioned in mid-December, the latest update to our OpenEdge platform is now shipping, and I am pleased to say that it is enabling hundreds of our customers and ISV partners to securely develop and deploy applications across any platform, any mobile device, and any Cloud.

One of the highlights of OpenEdge 11.0 is our patent-pending Multi-tenant Tables, in which data is physically (not virtually) separated in the database - providing greater security and control for Cloud deployments. Multi-tenancy is a critical component and key differentiator for our customers and partners, along with our multi-Cloud deployment options, business process-enabled development, and support for mobile devices.

Feedback has been very positive and many customers are migrating to OpenEdge 11.0 sooner than expected to take advantage of the increased security in the Cloud, greater deployment flexibility, reduced costs, and faster time to market. Let me share some of that feedback with you now.

Security and Flexibility through Multi-Tenancy

Jeffrey Brown, Senior Development Project Manager at Infor notes, “Progress provides us with the technology to power our Infor10 Distribution Business, a distribution application specifically designed to help distributors with complex business models run an efficient, end-to-end operation. We are interested in the new multi-tenancy capabilities in the OpenEdge platform that could provide us with the flexibility to add an additional level of security and separation of data at the database level that is unique in the industry.”

Reducing Cost While Speeding Time to Deployment

Another Progress partner, a global medical software and services provider, used OpenEdge to develop an order management system for internal call centers. Multi-tenant Tables in OpenEdge 11 provide a viable solution for compliance with data security regulations customary to the healthcare industry. Moreover, it facilitates the roll-out of their order management system to all companies they acquire moving forward, which will be deployed in a fraction of the time, for a fraction of the cost, and with better security measures.

Efficiency and Moving Down Market with SaaS

Over in Germany, EDV-Software-Service AG (ESS), a provider of ERP software and services for the mid-size housing and real estate market, is leveraging OpenEdge 11 Multi-tenant tables to move to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) to gain efficiency and expand into new markets. Their CIO Michael Förster explained, “Progress Software understands the needs of medium-sized businesses and helps us provide value to our customers and accelerate our time-time-market with new solutions. We took part in the OpenEdge Early Adopter Program and Multi-tenancy Workshop, and in only five days were given the tools and expertise needed to get our new release ready for launch in early 2012.”

I look forward to hearing more about how our customers and partners are taking advantage of OpenEdge 11.0. For more information on OpenEdge 11.0, please review the “What’s New in OpenEdge 11.0” feature highlight.

Here’s to a great start to 2012!

Thanks and as always, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Merry Christmas...unless Santa ordered your gifts from an online retailer

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have become just as much a part of the Christmas holidays as stockings, midnight mass, a large man with a white beard in a red suit, candycanes and packed malls. North American retailers look to this season as their...well...Christmas. A time when they will push their finances into positive territory, make profits and fill coffers with cash for the upcoming year. We have all read about the horror stories that are also linked with this shopping season: stock outs, long lines, unruly clients and the list goes on.

Of course now you can avoid these hazards of leaving the safety of your home to do Christmas shopping and instead tackle your entire shopping list in the comfort of your home, while you are at work (take advantage of that high speed connection...I sure hope my boss isn't reading this) and even via your smartphone or tablet. It is so easy - use Google or Bing to find your items, do some price shopping, look for any deals on shipping or discounts, enter your credit card, hit "buy" and voila...your shiny new train set, book, tv, hand knit sweater, box of chocolates, lego city police station, iPad etc etc...will be dispatched to you. Most sites are now so kind as to tell you when is the absolute LAST moment you can order so that Santa will ensure you receive your desired items by Xmas.

But wait, it is not as simple as that. While the user experience has become much easier and truly allows a wide array of choices and prices, the fulfillment that empowers this process is only becoming more complicated. Bah humbug is what is usually muttered from the supply chains that have to fulfill these orders. Retailers start planning early in the year and are positioning inventories, in some cases, as early as August. Warehouses, transportation and store shelves assets have to be planned well in advance: what items will be in high demand, in what geographic locations, at what price...add to this the fact retailers are dealing with multiple suppliers who themselves have...you guessed it...multiple suppliers. Never mind the supply chain processes needed to build an Xbox, or packaging all the pieces for the Lego City Police station, determining the right combination of size and color for the Paul Smith shirt collection, and the list goes on. All these factors render the fulfilment process for all those holiday goodies a challenge to even the best of retailers and supply chains.

So no surprise that certain retailers are not able to fulfull their online orders, companies like Best Buy are finding themselves in a pinch. Looking to aleviate the strain on their brick and mortor stores (as well as push inventory back into distribution centers) they sought to push consumers online for their holiday shopping, however poor visibility and a lack of connection between their plans and execution led them to where they are today: not being able to fulfill client orders! Ouch. Best Buy, themselves, admitted that there were orders from as far back as November that could not be fulfilled.

As I thought about this I remembered a piece done by SC Digest in the spirit of the holiday, click here. The point of this "supply chain christmas carol" is the need for great connectivity between systems and suppliers and improved visibility into your channels. Do you have the inventory in your system but it is in the wrong location? Are demand and POS data showing you that an item you thought might be a good seller is becoming a red-hot item (think of the Furbies or Wii crazes from Xmas past) or is an item you thought would be a hit with 10 year olds a dud? 

During many conversations I have had this year, I get some looks like "I don't need that level of visibilty" when I talk about gaining real time visibility, but as the Best Buy case demonstrates if you are measuring visibilty "success" in terms of months maybe that is not the answer either.

Happy Holidays to all! And if Santa or whomever is bringing you a gift is a few days late, you can always blame their supply chain.

 

5 Signs You Need a Business Process-Enabled Application

As I have mentioned many times before in various forums, next generation business applications need to be able to quickly adapt to business changes. The old, traditional way of hard-coding workflows is just not acceptable anymore. There is a need to drive continuous change and process improvement even within pre-existing business applications.

But how can you tell whether or not your application is in need of an update? Here are five signs that you need a business process-enabled application:

1. You have more menu items then puzzle pieces.
   While using an application, users want to seamlessly get through their work with as few detours as possible. Unfortunately some applications make customers feel like they are putting together a puzzle – lots of pieces and no guidance as to where to begin. A business process-enabled application can guide users through the application with a customizable wizard-like interface, creating a much friendlier and better user experience.
2. Your workflows are set in stone.
   Hard-coding workflows into your application may have worked in the past, but today’s dynamic applications shouldn’t force users to follow a path that might not be correct and/or efficient. Today’s customers demand more flexibility and continuous process improvement, and business process-enabled applications allow you to tailor processes as needed.
3. Your customers are NOT all created equal.
   Ford used to say you can have your Model T in any color you like, as long as it’s black. Unfortunately, the same goes for many applications these days. A company will tell its customers or users that they can use the application to get the job done as long as they do X then Y then Z. That specific process might not make sense for each customer or user. They want to be able customize the workflow to work best for them, and by providing business process-enabled apps, you can provide the right solution for each specific need all with a single application.
4. Your IT team makes your business decisions.
   Business decisions should address customer and market demands, not what works best for the IT department. Yet many applications are updated based on what the IT department thinks is best. By adding business process management (BPM) capabilities to your existing application, you can drive better decisions that are acceptable to the business folks, all while adjusting quickly and easily to market changes.
5. Your application picture is worth a thousand lines of code.
   Many companies will collaborate with their customers or users to determine what processes and workflows should be included in an application and then capture them in some form (e.g. paper, whiteboard, graphical diagramming tool like Microsoft® Visio®). Next, they hand over the results to the developers and tell them to “build the application.” Ultimately, this means the work is done twice as the developers try to figure out how to code what they see. Business process-enabled applications let you quickly capture the process or workflow graphically and simply “plug it in” to the business logic of the application and you are off and running. Think Visio on steroids. That graphical “picture” is now worth much more than the 1000s of “words” or lines of code. It means you only do the work once and also gain better visibility into how the application functions without requiring a master’s degree in computer science. Plus, the business folks can stay engaged.

In summary, if any of these points resonate with you, maybe it's time to think about business process-enabling YOUR business application.

Thanks and, as always, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think.

What I Learned from Bank CMOs

 

 

 

Earlier this month I attended American Banker’s Financial Services Marketing Symposium in New York. There were a variety of sessions that covered topics such as customer centricity, the role of social media and mobile channels and how to create a differentiated customer experience. All were informative and interesting.

 

As everyone in the industry knows, banks are feeling the (sometimes conflicting) pressures of regulatory requirements and having to differentiate themselves in a highly commoditized market. Mark Hendrix, SVP, Director of Marketing at Fifth Third Bank echoed recent regulatory requirements including Durbin, Reg E, Card Reform, and Dodd-Frank amendment – which alone has 1200 provisions written into it.  

 

According to Hendrix, banks are reaching the end of the golden era, they need to change the playing field by embracing the consideration of customer engagement, including all processes, services and events impacting their banking activity. He's right: they need to be more operationally responsive. And on the flight home, one of the points I continued to think about was his sentiment that what is driving the balance sheet is the interaction with the customer.... giving them the right answer in the right moment.

 

This encapsulates what banks need to do to stay competitive, increase customer loyalty, and grow revenue.  Just as our customers know, Progress can help.  

 

The Internet of Things Expands

A friend of mine recently told me he was surprised by an experience he had with some of his Apple products. He had downloaded a couple of games for his iPhone from the App Store.

The next time he opened his iPad, the games were already there, even though he hadn’t taken any action to sync them up. His two devices and the app-store cloud had gone off and talked amongst themselves and done whatever needed to be done.

Most of us simply accept the wonders of the Apple ecosystem without trying to figure out what’s behind it.  But my friend's experience is just one example of the growing value in empowering the “Internet of things” to drive business processes.

An increasing variety of non-electronic systems are starting to be transformed by inter-machine communications. Those communications control business processes that are becoming faster and more automatic. 

W. Brian Arthur, a visiting researcher with the Intelligent System Lab at the Palo Alto Research Center, recently wrote an article in McKinsey Quarterly, pointing out that underpinning the real world is a second, digital world that is growing exponentially. It is, in fact, controlling more and more of the real world.

Arthur uses the example of a package of machine parts being shipped into Rotterdam. Its arrival on a pallet is registered by RFID; typically the information is then forwarded to the freight terminal that will receive it next and the trucker who needs to carry it and the factory that is awaiting it.  All that information drives human activity, but the commands didn’t come from humans, they came from automated communications between machines. 

The communications among the machines make the whole process highly responsive.  People get involved only when they’re needed for tasks like driving the truck, or opening the loading dock door.

In the real world of airline delays, responsive process management is playing a growing role. New regulations fine airlines up to $27,000 per passenger for keeping passengers trapped in planes on the tarmac for more than three hours, even in cases of unavoidable storm delays. That has forced airlines to develop automated processes that recognize when a plane is within 30 minutes of that limit and start taking needed steps. If all gates are occupied, the airline must find a gate that is about to board, and delay that flight so the first one can return to the gate. It has to try to assemble a new crew to make sure flight-time limits aren’t exceeded. It has to start rebooking passengers with connections and identifying preferred fliers for special treatment. This kind of responsiveness demands electronic processes that tell humans what to do. 

Cisco estimates that by 2020, there will be 50 billion devices connected to the Internet. While many people will have more than one device they use to reach the Internet, most Internet-connected devices won’t be human-interface tools. They will be machines that will communicate with other machines in processes that only occasionally reach out for human intervention.

These tools promise to make our world work a lot better. In some cases they will improve efficiency, reduce pollution, cut costs and boost profits. In others they will amuse us, entertain us or monitor us.

The reality is that the tools themselves will mostly be useful by communicating with each other. Those communications will initiate processes. Businesses can’t rely on humans being able to absorb the growing amount of information and quickly respond to changing events. They need to use modern software technology to design responsive processes that will take the right actions. 

 

Consulting our crystal ball: IT Predictions for 2012

With the New Year just around the corner, many are busy thinking up unattainable diet and fitness resolutions, but we here at Progress have instead spent our time collaborating on more realistic forecasts for the coming year.

The team here at Progress put our heads together to produce our top predictions on how the role of IT within the business will change in 2012. An increased emphasis on cloud development, data security and social integration are all issues we expect organizations to prioritize over the next twelve months, but the list doesn’t stop there. Here’s a quick look at where we see business IT going in the coming year:

1. Cloud on the move. Organizations will increase deployment of the public cloud, escalating demand for cloud-enabled systems and applications.
2. Cost control evolves to efficiency. While cost was the main driver of cloud adoption in the past, the focus will now expand to include system efficiencies and time to market.
3. Data security starts with secure access. Who will have access to the data? How will it be encrypted? Who is the core owner? A strong driver that runs on a stable and tested data interface like ODBC is the best line of defense as application stacks continue to grow.
4. RIP: Non web-based applications. Approximately 80% of business apps will be web-based, and they need to be business process enabled, web-based and cloud-deployed.
5. IT border control. More than half of all content and functionality will be out of your organization’s control … in the hands of outsourcers, supply chain partners and external community databases. How will it be protected is the question du jour.
6. What’s in the fire hose? While we may see companies promoting fancy strategies for managing “fire hose data,” only those focused on responsive analytics will make meaning from the massive deluge.  
7. Limitations of freeware. This year, we will see greater support for ODBC and investment in data connectivity as companies look for dependable, robust ODBC drivers to handle financial transactions securely and quickly.
8. All hail the social enterprise. Social collaboration apps will dominate as employees look for ways to more effectively share and innovate across regions and lines of business; in fact, users will begin to expect these capabilities to be offered as standard, embedded features in business applications. 

And there they are: Progress’ IT predictions for 2012… how do they stack up to what you have in mind? We welcome comments below or on Twitter at @DrJohnBates or @ProgressSW

The top 10...or make that the top 12 thoughts for supply chain in 2012

Happy Holidays to all! I always enjoyed reading predictions for industries and technologies this time of the year, some times it is even more entertaining to read them years later when we can gasp in awe at our predictions or wonder what were we thinking...so here are some predictions for the supply chain space for 2012. I started writing these as a top 10 which became a top 12, a nice number for the year 2012.I really did not intend to have that many, I guess I was just feeling very "predictive."

Here are my predictions for supply chain in 2012, if you are interested in the more detailed article feel free to drop me a note:

 

1. Planning is dead. Long live planning. Even with the sophisticated planning tools available today, the best supply chain plans yield less than 50% accuracy. While the advances in planning brought the industry some remarkable promises it also proved how difficult it was to predict the future by simply relying on historical data. However, without going through the planning exercise, businesses and their supply chains cannot determine an end goal and path to get them there. So planning is not dead, but organisations should use it for the purpose it serves – setting the end goals and determining the direction in which to head.
2. Bidirectional elasticity a must. For many years the supply chain world has been ‘flat’ and materials are sourced from all corners of the world as organisations chase low cost manufacturing. However, some sacrifice lower costs to be closer to their customers and reduce time to market – for example, manufacturers moving plants from Asia to Mexico to speed the time from the production floor to the shelf in the North American market. Additionally, many of these “low cost” countries have themselves become the end client. To accommodate these changes, supply chains will have to demonstrate a level of bidirectional elasticity to address both the wide reach of production, as well as the growing mix of customers.
3. Floods, earthquakes and war force companies to rethink their supplier strategy, but at what cost? The Thai floods and tsunami in Japan have made organisations recognise the sensitivity and level of risk exposure supply chains have when reliant on a small number of vendors, especially those located in volatile environments. Organisations will attempt to avert risk by on-boarding new suppliers, however this will be a challenge as relationships and business trust are not developed overnight.
4. Predictive time horizons will shorten. With leaner supply chains, being able to understand and react to changing circumstances quickly is vital. Organisations will try to add short window predictive analytics for real-time event processing. Business Intelligence solutions promised the ability to take data, analyse it, understand correlations and provide the user with a deeper understanding of the cause and effect within the business, all that is important, however the speed at which it is done is crucial.
5. Desperately seeking centralised command and control.  The ability to have a seamless view of what is happening across the entire supply chain network will determine the success of organisations, and in 2012 supply chains will continue to seek a centralised system of command and control. Although technology is evolving to make a single view of the supply chain possible, the challenge of disparate parts and siloed systems remains.
6. Successful Companies will build a ‘Touchless’ supply chain. Rather than actually touch the product, large brands will simply orchestrate all the moving parts that comprise their supply chain. Apple is a great example, the company manages all the moving parts of its supply chain without actually “touching” the product at every stage. Companies will continue to gravitate towards this model, with some even outsourcing the management of the supply chain itself.
7. Logistics providers will evolve into information and management hubs. As supply chain managers continue to feel the pressure of a leaner supply chain, they will rely on logistics firms to do more with the information they hold. Logistics providers will be seen as the perfect outsourcer for the supply chain, as they are able to see the movement of inventory at every stage of the supply chain.
8. Finance will become increasingly involved in the supply chain. With the uncertain economic climate it is no surprise that the CFO’s office will become increasingly interested in the day-to-day activities of the supply chain function and interactions between these departments will intensify. Supply chains, at their core, are manipulating and managing inventory or better said – working capital. In many cases they have their foot on the accelerator, and the brake, that controls the velocity of free cash flows.
9. Discrete manufacturers will tackle the service side of the supply chain.  Parties in the supply chain network will continue to clear out carrying costs and leverage service as a competitive advantage. More and more companies, especially high technology manufacturers, are recognising the importance of better managing their services. Organisations will maximise the opportunity by managing inventory and human capital while orchestrating the service level agreements held with the client base. Smart companies will continue to push the knowledge they gain from this end of their supply chain all the way back to the beginning – and enable better forethought and planning.
10. Businesses will be able to tackle the ‘C-A’ in ‘P-D-C-A’ (Plan, Do, Check, Act).  The success of enterprises and their partners across an extended supply chain will depend even more on a manager’s ability to gain even more visibility across their supply chain.  In the iterative four-step ‘PDCA’ (plan-do-check-act) management process used in business for the control and continuous improvement of process and products, this enhanced visibility is only useful if these managers can act instantly on events as they occur. The ability to tackle the ‘checking’ - both on the events themselves and the correlating impact these events have across the supply chain - and to act almost simultaneously on these events will become even more important in 2012.You can read more about my thoughts on the evolution of PDCA in a prior post - click here.

Two more predictions to make it a dozen! 

11. Greater usage of unstructured data, think of social media will act as one of your leading indicators. Much like what AMR Research coined a few years ago – the Demand Driven Supply Chain will creep closer to reality as supply chains leverage increased access to unstructured data coupled with their existing understanding of how to maximize information from structured data. This combination will allow companies such as Best Buy to monitor in real time and anticipate which products will sell, allowing demand to drive their supply chain. The obvious first movers will be retail and CPG companies, but others like Dell and Verizon will continue to leverage these signals to manage the service side of their supply chain. Even life science companies will gravitate to usage of unstructured data as they can look to anticipate where flu breakouts or colds or rashes of sun burn will rise through unstructured data mining. Of course this will only increase the wave of Big Data that will only continue to grow.

12. Finally, that iPad, iPhone, Droid or even yes Blackberry are not just for Angry Bird, eMail and Netflix but will integrate into supply chain. We are all mobile now, whether you choose to embrace it or not. A September report from Forrester Research states that over 50% of all workers today are working either at multiple locations or only remotely. This spills over into the supply chain space.  Mobility will impact supply chains in two ways. First the growth of tablets and smartphones will make the number of nodes where decisions can be made and executed that much greater. The person loading a truck at the receiving dock can instantly update via a tablet, the factory worker can monitor the through put of her assembly line via a smart phone, the person doing inventory in the hospital will be able to scan with an QR code reader from their smart phone and the list goes on. Second, the explosion of mobility will add to the glut of data that can be had. Whether it is communicating directly with clients or positional data, the rise of mobile devices will continue to infuse more data into our systems.

 

What do you think? What do you see for the supply chain space in 2012?

If you like reading these, look for an upcoming podcast series where I sit down with Bruce Richardson, former AMR Research Chief Research Officer, to discuss his views on supply chain trends for 2012 and beyond.

Supply Chain Management in 140 Characters (or less)

A few weeks ago, I took part in a lively Twitter Q&A with our official Twitter feed, @ProgressSW. If you missed out on the real-time action, you can check out the discussion below. Looking forward to doing more of these and, as always, I welcome your thoughts on #scm topics, questions and issues to discuss in the future!

@progresssw
@gcourtin

1. What is supply chain responsiveness? #SCM
1.1.The ability to re-sequence your supply chain in a timely fashion - where timeliness is defined by the customer demand. #SCM

2. What are the pillars of a responsive supply chain? #SCM
2.1.PDCA - Plan, Do, Check, Act. Or having a closed loop process, monitoring and taking appropriate corrective actionswhen necessary. #scm

3. How does being able to predict and react quickly to shifts in the biz environment improve org performance? #SCM
3.1.You can stay ahead of competitors and are more responsive to your clients - leading to greater market share. #SCM

4. What are the simplest and best practices we can put into place to improve supply chain responsiveness?
4.1. A couple of levels
4.2.Simplest: gain end-to-end visibility. #scm
4.3.Best: Get a clear understanding of the impacts and be able to act. #SCM
4.4.One thing that cannot be overlooked is the change management side, your people must be of the mind set of wanting to improve. #SCM

5. What advantages can businesses achieve by improving supply chain visibility? #SCM
5.1. If you cannot see it or measure it, you cannot correct it. Cliché yes, but it's the reality. #SCM
5.2. second - 5. As supply chains get more lean and extended, ability to improve visibility is paramount. #SCM

6. What risks are companies facing if they don’t focus on improving supply chain visibility? #SCM
6.1. First – Relying too heavily on historical data to drive forward means you are flying looking backwards.
6.2. W/o full visibility you're at greater risk for misplaced inventory, unmet client needs, inability to properly meet SLAs. #SCM

7. Can you give some examples of companies that have successfully improved their supply chain processes to great biz benefit? #SCM
7.1. Of course the one we all think about - #Dell and #Apple who are constantly working on gaining thru their SC #SCM
7.2. But also the likes of #BestBuy, #Panasonic and manufactures like #Jabil. #scm

8. How has the role of planning in supply chain changed over the past decade? #SCM
8.1.Planning remains a vital cog in SCM, but it’s fallen short lofty aspirations proclaimed in the late 1990s. #scm
8.2.You need a well crafted plan to provide goals and direction as well as asset need – but its only the 1st step #scm

9. How can we leverage cloud to become more responsive? #SCM
9.1. Cloud impacts all forms of biz, SC being in the middle of this - process, apps and a wide swath of data is accsble #scm

10. How can we leverage #mobility to achieve supply chain responsiveness? #SCM
Mobility is a hot topic across the enterprise and SCM – it does bring a double edge sword #SCM
10.1. 1) a valuable source of real time information (structured and unstructured) #scm
10.2. second - a decision making tool pushed further into the enterprise, empowering a greater swath of the supply chain. #scm

11.What role do flexible applications play in our ability to achieve PDCA?
11.1. Flex and composite apps allow us to gain greater visibility and an ability to act, at a lower cost of ownership. #scm


12. What are the most important trends and shifts in the supply chain environment currently, forecasts for the future? #SCM
12.1. A couple of trends - better closed loop mngmt finally tying in planning and execution – true PDCA #SCM
12.2. Second – an ability to move towards a greater centralization of command and control #SCM
12.3. Finally the infusion of unstructured and structured data. #SCM

13. What are supply chain pros struggling most with today? #SCM
13.1. Lack of other pros! Technology remains a small part of the solution; people and change management is the most important. #SCM

14. What are the key steps we can take to overcomethese obstacles? #SCM
14.1. Education Education Education - Companies must recognize the importance and value of human assets. #scm

15. Why is real-time visibility in supply chains so difficult to achieve? #SCM
15.1. Biz must recognize the value of sharing information, first within their own depts then with partners and sources. #scm
15.2. Technology is only a tool to enable change management. #scm

16. What are the top 5 handles you follow for yoursupply chain news and analysis? #SCM
16.1. @bobferrari, @rwang0, @pjtec, @lcecere, @supplychainNtwk

In the words of Mark Allen, founder of Corticon

Corticon founder Dr. Mark Allen shares the full story behind rules management innovation:  

The idea for Corticon started back in 1995, during my medical training at UCLA.  As a part of government-funded research projects, I built rule-based systems to automate clinical decisions, such as what diagnostic tests to order, or treatments to render.  My research proved that physicians using these systems practiced a much higher quality of care at a lower cost (they ordered more of the appropriate tests and treatments, but far fewer of the inappropriate ones).  And, they were twice as fast in the encounter.  I was sold.  This was the future of medicine.

The problem was that the systems were prohibitively difficult to build and maintain.  Using the best available software development technologies, and a great team of programmers, the systems took years to develop.  Worse still, as soon as we finished development, the guidelines would change.  Even simple changes would take weeks to code, and would often break our systems.  I became very interested in this problem, and how to solve it.

I discovered ways to more easily visualize the logic as sets of interrelated business rules.  This provided a common language between subject matter experts, who defined the business rules, and programmers, who implemented the rules.  Ultimately, this helped accelerate application development and change cycles, and ensure the accuracy of the logic.

I saw the opportunity to transform not just healthcare delivery, but also decision-making within other industries.  In early 2000, I joined forces with Pedram Abrari, an expert in Enterprise Java, XML and AI technologies. He brought deep expertise in developing rule-based systems in financial services and HR applications as well as innovative ideas to incorporate into our product. Our founding team of expert engineers began building the Corticon solution, and today, Corticon products are used to power billions of decisions every day in diverse industries and applications.

Now, as part of Progress’ extensive BPM, BI and CEP offerings, Corticon BRMS has the ability to expand into new areas of decision management and responsive actions. We are excited to begin the next chapter of business agility and responsiveness with Progress Software. 

If you have questions or comments, feel free to contact me at maallen@progress.com. If you’re an existing Corticon customer, you can continue to use your existing Corticon contacts for support, professional services and sales, and if you’d like more information about our solutions, please contact a Progress/Corticon sales person through www.corticon.com.

 

Exciting news: Progress Software Acquires Corticon

Today, Progress announced the acquisition of Corticon, an industry leader in the Business Rules Management System (BRMS) market. I’m incredibly excited about this acquisition. I want to take a moment to talk about why we made the decision to acquire Corticon and why I’m so thrilled.

As you know, Progress is the “responsive business specialist”. A responsive business is one that can see how effectively it is running right now and over time, that can proactively address opportunities and threats, and can continuously improve the performance of its business operations. One key part of the responsive business is decision management – making decisions in the moment. And that’s what Corticon specializes in. Corticon delivers a business rules engine that automates business decisions, enabling more efficient and responsive operations. So whether it is a complex set of rules to decide if someone qualifies for an insurance policy, or to decide whether fraud is going on, or to decide on whatever business decisions need to be made, Corticon enables that complex decision logic to be defined simply and executed efficiently. Pretty useful stuff!

The really cool thing about Corticon is that it is safe to put in the hands of a pure business user. Corticon offers graphical tools to compose rules that can automatically detect conflicts and loss of integrity in rule sets at design time. This contrasts with having to do comprehensive run-time testing using other rule approaches. With Corticon, you can detect problems before you go live. You have the necessary guard rails to de-risk the system and to improve time-to-value. That fits perfectly into Progress’ vision of empowering the business user alongside the business analyst and IT user.

Corticon will be integrated into Progress’ RPM Suite. This will combine Corticon’s BRMS with Progress’ Business Process Management (BPM), Business Event Processing (BEP), Business Transaction Assurance (BTA) and Business Analytics. Through the Progress Control Tower, the vision is that a single command and control interface can provide visibility and control across your business. As IDC’s Maureen Fleming said, "high quality and comprehensive rules and decision services capabilities are required for a best-of-breed platform." And we believe Corticon is the best rules engine out there. Also the Corticon team are fantastic and we welcome them whole heartedly into the Progress family.

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to take a minute to view this video from Dr. Mark Allen, founder of Corticon. You’ll agree, he had remarkable vision in 2000 when he started the company. And by integrating it with our RPM suite, we are now offering customers a comprehensive single vendor solution.

We’re excited to add Mark Allen and the rest of his team at Corticon to the Progress family and are looking forward to offering our customers a better way to manage their businesses in real-time.

Banks Need Transaction-Level Insight Into Mainframe Systems to Meet New Transparency Demands

Recently I participated in the first installment of a webinar series  hosted by Bank Systems and Technology. I was joined by Greg MacSweeney of Bank Systems & Technology and analyst Gareth Lodge of Celent, and we discussed the need for banks to have transaction-level insight into mainframe systems to meet customer, partner and internal demands.

We are living in an increasingly complex world, especially in the financial services space where regulations continue to tighten. Banks must increase analysis to meet this heightened demand for reporting and compliance, and to do this we need real-time access and visibility into all transactional data. As Gareth said during our discussion, “Mark Twain said we can count on two things in life, death and taxes, and now we have a third: regulation.”

In addition to meeting these new requirements, customers are increasingly expecting immediate and detailed response and communication from their bank. However, this type of service requires access to transactional-level data in real-time. This is a multi step process and is not automated, so how do we get it done in a timely matter for the customer especially when this data is hard to find and difficult to interpret?

Many banks still maintain complex system architectures comprised of old and new mainframes- many of which are very difficult to access and navigate. It’s like operating in the dark, where there is very little transparency, creating frustration for IT departments.

In the future, we hope to see banks address some of these challenges with new technology. In order to meet new regulatory demands, banks need access to transactional level data, which will improve responsiveness and ultimately customer service. However, finding transactional level data on the mainframe and being able to act upon it poses quite a challenge from a business and operational perspective.

So how do we do that? Stay tuned for my next post, highlighting second installment of our webinar series. I welcome your comments here, as well.

Our 2012 Predictions: What to expect in capital markets

What will we see for capital markets in 2012?  The countdown to 2012 has begun. On the capital markets horizon is a great deal of change – no surprise to those following this year’s rollercoaster of rogue algorithms and regulation tension. So with no further ado, here are our capital markets predictions for 2012:

 1. Billion Dollar Blunder. At least one financial institution will take a billion dollar (or more) hit when a rogue algorithm goes wild. The algo will go into an infinite loop, taking on an irreversible and un-hedged position, which cannot be shut down. Losses will challenge those by human rogue traders, which banks and financial institutions will prevent from happening next year.

2. Occupy HFT. The public, government and regulators will start the "Occupy HFT" movement -- a popular uprising against the ultimate elite of those making money in this climate. Despite immense financial industry pressure, regulators in both the US and the EU will be panicked by investor and political disapproval of HFT and will rein it in with draconian rules and controls.

3. SEFs Spur Splash Crash. Swaps execution facilities (SEFs) will revolutionize OTC derivatives trading, enabling them to be traded electronically. This, in turn, will lead to increased risk of a cross-asset class swaps "splash crash" which will confound regulators, who have little understanding of these markets.

4. Global Regulation Rocks. Countries will finally realize that regulatory harmonization is a good thing and that individual self-interest is not. Banks and financial services firms will realize that they need to think like regulators, taking control of internal surveillance and compliance before regulators make them do it.

5. RICs Get Smarter. The RICs in BRICs are getting smart order routing and gearing up for an increase in algorithmic trading. This, coupled with looser regulations, will begin to attract regulatory arbitrageurs and Volcker Rule escapees.

6. The Wild East. The West's supremacy in financial markets will further decline as new trading regulations - the Volcker Rule in the US and MiFID in Europe - create a surge of regulatory arbitrage favoring more lightly regulated geographies such as Russia and China. Wall Street and the City of London will lose human and financial capital as a result.

7. Financial Terrorism. An exchange or trading destination will be hacked by financial terrorists intent on manipulating markets for political gain. This will lead exchanges and ECNs to add more stringent monitoring and market surveillance capabilities.

8. Head in the Clouds. Explosive growth in foreign exchange trading and SEFs means that participating firms will require complex hosted solutions. Even the smallest FX broker needs aggregation and pricing services which require a big technology footprint. SEFs present new challenges as swaps markets attract algorithms and require surveillance.

9. Crime & Punishment. Regulators are cracking down hard on financial fraud and market manipulation and they will bring in some big fish in 2012. Prosecutions and punishments will increase in size and in impact.

There you have it – nine predictions for capital markets in 2012. What are your thoughts on these predictions, and have we missed any? Comment below, or tell us on Twitter at @DrJohnBates or @ProgressSW.

Merry Christmas! Wait...we need to enjoy Turkey day first - Christmas Creep and the supply chain

For those of us in the United States, we have already been bombarded with holiday promotions and I am not speaking of the Thanksgiving celebration but the Christmas one. Many have deemed this "Christmas creep." (yes it has a wikipedia page...but what doesn't these days?). I am used to the Christmas marketing efforts to start after Thanksgiving, granted it usually started about 5 minutes after the last piece of turkey has been polished off. As a kid, I also felt that somehow the Macy's parade was the official sign that you could transistion from Fall and Halloween/Thanksgiving to Winter and the holiday season. Alas now, at the end of October you start seeing the appearance of Christmas - decorations being sold, the red cups at Starbucks and even Christmas window displays in stores. I knew I was in trouble when I heard Christmas music being pumped over a speaker system at some retail location.

So what does this mean for your supply chain? First of all, retailers tend to start stocking for the Christmas season in September sometimes earlier, so if their planning and forecasts are decent (that is sometimes a stretch) they will have the appopriate amounts and mix of inventory. Rather than trying to flush out the excess inventory as Christmas gets closer or...gasp...discount post Christmas to clear out inventory, the Christmas Creep allows for retailers to extend the window they have to move merchandise. Of course the supply chain needs to be flexible if demand outpaces the inventory, granted on some products this will not be possible if production times are long. From a store shelf perspective, the Christmas creep might not be a bad thing - Christmas provides a greater array of merchandise then either Halloween or Thanksgiving. While Halloween is almost on par with Christmas when it comes to decoration needs, it pales in comparison to the array of merchandise Christmas related. For a retailer this ensures store shelves will be flush with goodies to be purchased.

The supply chain issue that is sometimes overlooked by retailers pushing Christmas Creep is the impact on the consumer, the source of demand. Clearly the desire to extend the Christmas shopping season is to start the shopping engine sooner, get consumers to seperate themselves with cash early and often...but will a longer shopping cycle just render the shoppers numb as well as "train" consumers to ignore some of the marketing and promotional efforts that occur in October? Do consumers enter the holiday season with a set budget and whether they spend it starting in October or November or December 22nd, they will spend that amount. Will consumers expect to get greater discounts as the season draws on, especially if retailers start promoting Christmas season in October and leveraging discounting earlier and earlier into the season to draw customers into their establishments? Basically having an arms race amongst retailers - who can capture the consumers faster than the next - with the weapons of choice being promotions.

So as your push back from the table after your second serving of turkey, think about the fact you should have been making some Christmas purchases since October!

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American readers and friends. To the rest of you, how is your Christmas shopping going?

Computerized Compliance: Savior or Intruder?

Several top executives of UBS, one of the world’s biggest banks, resigned in disgrace this fall following the announcement that a very junior rogue trader in the London office had managed to lose the astounding sum of $2 billion.

Government regulators had already been pushing banks to make sure they knew their risks and commitments at all times. Clearly, UBS didn’t have the automated systems in place that would have alerted higher-ups to the exposure. Some critics asked how an individual ETF trader could have authorization to take such a huge risk. Presumably UBS had set limits for each level of trader, but a flaw in the system let the man keep increasing his exposure.

Automating compliance in the world banking systems should be a no brainer. With the velocity and volume of transactions, only computers can make the trades, and only computers can monitor them. Some regulators buy real-time market surveillance monitoring from Progress Software, the same company that provides real-time trading software to investors (and the sponsor of this blog).

But computerized compliance can be a two-edged sword. It can be so restrictive that traders can’t do their jobs of creatively managing risk. 

And when corporate managers start pushing their CIOs to monitor compliance in other areas they can get into difficult areas of employee privacy. MIT research fellow Michael Shrage, recently wrote in Harvard Business Review that, “very few CIOs want to become the ‘Chief Interrogation Officer’ or ‘Chief Invasiveness Officer.’ But those are roughly the roles they're being asked to assume as the enterprise dependence on their technologies expands.”  He points to requirements to monitor e-mails and text messages for disclosure of secrets or terms of harassment.

Most companies make it clear to employees that they should have no expectation of privacy for anything they do on a corporate computer or corporate network. And workers are coming to understand that anything bad that they say about their companies on their private Facebook pages or Twitter feeds could get them fired.

The issues of compliance and privacy are becoming more difficult as companies increasingly allow employees to use their own technology, such as iPads and iPhones, on the corporate network. It’s very easy to accidentally write an intemperate e-mail or forward an inappropriate picture with your corporate account rather than your private HotMail.

The ability to monitor all kinds of electronic activity by employees makes it tempting for companies to do so. But they need to carefully consider exactly what they want to monitor. And they should let employees know the boundaries.

Some companies have adopted loose guidelines. Microsoft’s unofficial policy on employee blogging is “don’t be stupid.” But with Millennials entering the workforce, understanding of what is “stupid” may be lacking. Someone has to warn them that lines that were clever on their semester-abroad blog might be offensive in a work Wiki.

Computerized compliance is a necessity in many functions. But companies need to consider carefully what they monitor and what they do with the information they gather.

Can market surveillance help to keep traders on track?

"According to TABB Group new compliance costs are indicated at between 512 and 732 million euro, with ongoing costs between 312 and 586 million euros.  But while regulators are still determining what regulation will look like, the need for market surveillance is undiminished. Traders made about 13.3 billion euros ($18.2 billion) from market manipulation and insider dealing on EU equity markets in 2010, according to an EU commission study.  With some arguing that firms can only do so much to survey markets themselves as trades cross multiple brokers and gateways, the panel discussed the need for fragmented market data to be brought together in a consolidated tape and surveillance performed at an aggregate market-wide level."

This is just an excerpt from a recent post to our Event Processing Blog by Richard Bentley, VP Capital Markets, Progress Software. Can market surveillance help to keep traders on track? Read the entire post.

Plan Do Check Act - getting closer to closing the loop in Supply Chain

I have been fortunate enough to have had worked for some incredible visionaries and leaders during my career. One such person is Sanjiv Sidhu, one of the founders of i2 Technologies. I learned a tremendous amount from my time spent at i2 and much was gained from the passion, intelligence and vision exhibited by Sanjiv. One simple, yet powerful, mantra Sanjiv preached was the notion of “Plan – Do – Check – Act.”

Granted this was not original to Sanjiv but rather a process by which companies can leverage as they strive for continual improvements. The beauty, as in many things, is in the simplicity of this saying for supply chains. The need to be able to plan well – how will I determine my end goal, allocated resources, make investments and distribute my assets. Then being able to do – execute towards the end goal, in a expeditious and profitable manner. Once the execution begins the need to constantly monitor how the process is trending – establishes milestones or alerts to indicate whether or not I will be able to achieve the goals I set. And finally to be capable to act – if and when events impact my ability to achieve my goals, can I take the appropriate actions to re-sequence my supply chain and get back on track. The simple process of PDCA allows enterprises and their supply chains to have a constant feedback loop on where they stand with regards to completing the goals they established.

 When it comes to supply chain management we have spent much treasure and effort in giving solutions for planning and doing – just take a look at the landscape of solution providers that allow you to plan and then execute. The ability to do the check and act has not been as evident within supply chain management. I realize vendors and service providers have tried to bring true visibility to end to end supply chain processes – with minimal success.

Today with flexible applications, the cloud, greater mobility and other advances with our systems and architecture we are closer to being able to finally round out PDCA. As we start to have true extended supply chain visibility coupled with complex event processing – tied to business process management – supply chains can truly check their process, understand the impact of events and act or re-sequence to ensure their end goals are met.

We are getting closer to true closed loop supply chain management.

 

Halloween, Zombies and the Supply Chain

With Halloween rapidly approaching, coupled with continued interest in zombies, I thought to myself: how could we apply some supply chain principles to surviving a potential zombie out break?

First let us make the following assumptions about the zombie outbreak – it mimics the characteristics of the zombies on the poplar show “The Walking Dead.” Yes I admit I am a big fan. So the zombies can smell and hear their prey, they do not see very well but they are attracted by rapid motion, can travel in packs, are always hungry so looking for “food” (maybe they should think about a hunter – farmer model), seem to have varied rates of speed and if they spot a human…look out.

For the humans the rules are fairly simple as well – survival means not being eaten or infected (this can happen either via bites or scratches from a zombie). The only way to incapacitate a zombie – the head/brain of the zombie needs to be disabled, how you do it is a personal choice (bullets, arrows, shovels, blunt objects, screw drivers…really anything that is available).

So let us apply some of our supply chain concepts to surviving a potential zombie infestation.

• Visibility is vital for survival. You must be aware, and with as long a time horizon as possible, as to exactly where the zombies are in relationship to you. Are they lurking the woods you are camped in? Or maybe down the road from where you RV broke down, or in the same building as you. This has to be in real time as well, learning about the presence of zombies in your building the next day is not very useful if you decided to overnight it in that same building. If you cannot see it, you are blind to the threats that could be right in front of you.
• Correlating the actions of the zombies. Okay you now know where they are, but can you assess what they intentions are? Granted you should always assume they are looking to make you their next super size meal, but what if they already fed? Regardless you need to quickly assess the situation and the events presented – do you fight them, if so how are your inventory levels with regards to weapons? Does your personnel have the appropriate technical skills to fend of the threat? At what point would any delay cause irreversible damages to you and your entourage? If you decide to avoid contact do you have the appropriate routes available to achieve this goal? If you do engage what are the potential consequences of that course of action – attracting more of the flesh-eating horde and therefore creating a greater problem?
• Take action, now you know where the zombies are and you have figured out that they are really hungry and active but you are confident in your groups’ skill set and your weapons inventory. You must now be able to coordinate and give direction in real time. Provide instructions and guidance to fend off the threat. Ensure that the proper personnel are undertaking the appropriate tasks in order to ensure success.

Seems fairly straightforward to me! Just make sure you can do this in real time! Learning about a stock out in your weapons inventory 2 days later, or seeing that a horde of the undead are waiting for you in that building after the fact, could be dangerous for your well being. Being able to survive a zombie infestation is similar to being able to dynamically process and manage your supply chain’s events, ensuring a positive outcome.

Imitation is the Highest Form of Flattery

It’s nice to be first…

First makes you a thought leader. First means you are ahead of the curve. First tells everyone else “follow me…”

On September 20, 2011, Progress announced the general availability of Progress® Arcade™ - a portal environment for simplifying the deployment of SaaS applications in the Cloud. The Arcade platform is Cloud agnostic to prevent vendor lock-in, thanks to a partnership with RightScale. It’s so simple to use, it only takes a handful of mouse clicks to go from zero to the Cloud. You can move your application and data back and forth from the Cloud if you require without restriction. Initially, Amazon is the Cloud vendor for Arcade, with others following soon.

Now, read this:

On October 6, 2011 at Oracle’s OpenWorld Conference, CEO Larry Ellison announced the Oracle Public Cloud, which I happened to learn about from a blog post on TechCrunch. According to Ellison, the Oracle Public Cloud is a platform for the deployment of Oracle applications in the Cloud. It avoids vendor lock-in through Cloud interoperability. It allows the application and data to move back and forth from the Cloud if needed. And, it can “play nice” with Amazon.

Sound familiar? It sure does.

Progress Software was first to market with Arcade. Oracle was first as well – first to follow!

Again, it’s nice to be first…

Thanks and, as always, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Supply Chain planning is dead...long live planning!

I was just at the annual North American CSCMP event in Philadelphia. I had the pleasure of spending time with some leading supply chain influencers and friends such as: @bob_ferrari, @lcecere, @arnoldmarkwells, @jeffashcroft to name a few.

What struck me was the absense of supply chain planning was from the event. Well I guess it should not be a real surprise when so many vendors have come and gone trying to provide users with the optimal "plan." Over a decade ago there was an explosion of companies that could provide an optimal planning the likes of i2 , Manugistics, Red Pepper Software or Numetrix to name a few, all looked to plan or schedule or optimize different parts of the extended supply chain. The ERP players did not stand still and created their own supply chain planning and optimization offerings - SAP APO even spelled it out- Advanced Planning and Optimization. But then the tide turned.

Businesses and supply chains realized that all the planning and optimization in the world was not a magic bullet. Companies such as i2 and Manugistics recognized they needed to add execution engines to their offerings to compete. ERP players like SAP and Oracle went about developing or acquiring their own execution engines. The past 5 years has seen an increase in the need for better execution, such as TMS (transportation management systems) solutions. Which brings me to CSCMP where the conference was heavy on the logistics and transportation side of supply chain. So has planning been killed off once and for all? No.

Planning will not go away, it should not be retired. Why? Planning is what allows companies to determine how resources will be allocated, where personnel is needed, the level of investments needed and finally what the goals are for the business. The basis of all plans is to determine a path to achieve a goal. Think about football (the american version), you have plays scripted and practiced, why? To achieve goals. Whether the goal is to score a touchdown, gain 5 yards or run out the clock, there are plays (plans) in place with the intent to reach these goals. Of course once on the field, you must execute this plan. As we all know, "no plan survives the first contact with the enemy." This is where execution kicks in, you need to be able to execute your plan. There is a third element to this - reducing the gap between execution and the plan. What do I mean by this? The ability to rapidly sense out of plan events, determine their impact and take corrective action.

There was some discussion about this on the floor at CSCMP, and many I spoke with were very excited about an ability to do this. The question remains, are we ready to move our focus away from simple execution and planning to the ability to truly correlate the two in such a manner that we can reduce our reaction time to out of plan events?

What do you think? And if you were at CSCMP what were your thoughts?

My Live Twitter Q&A with @ProgressSW

Recently, I took part in a live Twitter Q&A with our official Twitter feed, @ProgressSW. For those who missed our online chat, we transcribed the Q&A so you can read what I tweeted about optimization, agility, and industry trends.

 

Follow me on Twitter

Follow Progress Sofware on Twitter

Optimizing your organization

PRGS: What are the simplest and best practices we can put into place to improve our organizational agility?

Bates: Base all applications on an explicit model – so they can be understood, analyzed & rapidly changed

PRGS: What can we do to move from a reactive culture to a proactive, anticipatory organization?

Bates: Tap into the events in your business. Look for patterns that indicate impending opportunities and threats

PRGS: How is being able to predict and react quickly to shifts and crises in the biz environment improve org performance?

Bates: Org can reduce risk & continually optimize itself, e.g. deploy “nearest” truck – saving fuel

 

Competitive advantages and agility 

PRGS: What competitive advantages can our organization achieve through improving market intelligence and responsiveness?

Move before your competitors; increase profits 

PRGS: What risks are companies facing if they don’t focus on improving agility?

Bates: Your competitors will launch services first & adapt before you. You’re dead!

PRGS:  Can you give some examples of companies that have successfully translated improved agility into better overall performance?

Bates: Reliance Capital, BT and Dell – all on a panel with me at Revolution

PRGS: In what industries are advanced intelligence, agility and rapid response most critical?

Bates: Capital Markets, Banking, Telco, Supply Chain – to name but a few

PRGS: How can we leverage agility to create a better customer experience?

Bates: Detecting customer problems before they happen – makes 4 delighted customers

PRGS: Can you give some examples of organizations that have successfully turned crises into opportunities?

Bates: Plus markets will be speaking about real-time surveillance – avoiding rogue traders and market abuse

UBS has shown today what happens without proper real-time risk and surveillance. Our customers have responsive systems to protect them

 

Industry trends and pain points 

PRGS: What are the most important trends and shifts in the business environment currently, forecasts for the future? 

Bates: Self-learning systems that can provide intelligent suggestions to business users

PRGS: What do you think are the most pervasive operational pain points in organizations today generally?

Bates: Decisions take SO long. Also companies operating with 20^th Century models

PRGS: It’s hard to argue that improving organizational agility isn’t a good thing, so why isn’t everyone doing it?

Bates: It’s really hard! The data isn’t visible – lots of stuff on mainframes or legacy apps

Only Progress can light up that data and enable you to sense and respond to events & improve your processes

PRGS: What are the most common obstacles to improving operational intelligence, agility and responsiveness?

Bates:  Organizational – people are living in the 20^th Century

Technical – no visibility to the events running thru the org

PRGS: Thank you, @drjohnbates, for participating in our Twitter chat. We will see you next week in Boston for #ProgressRev!

Bates: Thank you @ProgressSW for asking some challenging Qs in the twitter chat. I look forward to #ProgressRev next week!!

"Rip & Replace" isn't pleasant, especially in the supply chain world

  
Picture the following: you are on a long haul flight from Sydney to London, because you have status you were able to get a seat in Business Class. You settle down nicely for your flight, stretch out, maybe have a glass of champagne and some mixed nuts. 3 hours into your flight you see the crew exit the plane, walk on the wing and start unscrewing the engine...how would that make you feel? Maybe that someone slipped something into that champagne. However that is what it is like when companies try to replace software systems in the middle of every day business. This is even more apparent when it comes to the supply chain space. The systems that sustain your supply chain have DIRECT impact on either your suppliers, distributors, customers, partners, just to name a few of the entities impacted. Yet, systems constantly evolve, improve and get more powerful. So what to do when it comes to upgrade or replace systems to get the most out of existing infrastructure and applications?

The first option is that you take out the systems and replace them with new systems. Painful, business does not stop while you take the time to take off line your systems and then subsequently have to implement, train and being utilizing the new systems. Your second option is to stick with your existing systems and constantly add new systems, patchwork style, to address your supply chain needs. This also adds complexity and lag to your ability to address your business needs. A recent article in the Supply Chain Management Review, mentions the importance of being flexible in the volatile world we work in. This remains a challenge when you rely on legacy systems and other applications that are not seemless tied together. Invariably, supply chains and enterprises must evolve and add greater functionality to their systems, otherwise they will be passed by more flexible supply chains.

So what to do? Supply chains and enterprises need to seek solutions that enhance their existing infrastructures. Solutions that can starting tieing together all the applications and technology investments they have made over the past decades. The reality is, businesses must continue to lean on their existing systems to ensure business keeps moving forward. In parallel they need to determine if there are applications and systems that can make what they already own better. Applications in the cloud or those that can layer on top of existing infrastructures are two methods of delivery that can allow these organizations to enhance existing systems without the down time and pain of rip and replace.

Can you afford to take down time for systems overhauls?

Progress Revolution gets an “A”!

The final day of Progress Revolution opened once again with phenomenal keynote luminaries. Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger described his extraordinary landing on the Hudson River after hitting a flock of birds.  Sully attributed his monumental landing with his preparedness for emergencies through extensive flight training.  Also his composed style of leadership allowed him to keep calm and take charge during the emergency.  Sully is truly an inspiration to all of us and reminds us we must all be prepared to respond in critical situations.

 
  
 

Of course, how can we forget about Ben Zander’s incredibly animated keynote?  Zander instilled a positive outlook for life in everyone in the audience—to invent things that make us happy and to shout, “How fascinating!” when we make inevitable human mistakes.  Furthermore, Zander turned the Progress audience into the Progress choir as he conducted us while we sang “Happy Birthday” to Greg and Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony, “Ode to Joy.”

 

Progress Revolution was truly an unforgettable experience.  I truly wish everyone had an awesome last day at Progress Revolution and I hope you gave us an “A”!

Day 3: Onboard the Train to a Revolution

Day 3 opened up with an exciting panel featuring Mike Gualtieri from Forrester and customers from BT, Reliance Capital and Dell, facilitated by CTO, John Bates.  The three Progress customers provided cross-industry views on how changes in the business world have made it mandatory for them to become more responsive.  Dell remarked that the pace of business has quickened dramatically; the company has introduced 72 releases in the first half of this year versus 46 for all of last year.  In addition, Dell must be more prepared than ever to problem solve, as he must solve up to “6 crises per week.”  Sheree Lacey of BT also provided some management tips for adjusting to corporate changes. She recommends inviting everyone who will be using a new software to participate in the choosing process and to empower them to become an advocate of change.

  
 
   

Former Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, delivered his inspirational keynote about how he used critical leadership skills to reduce crime, to increase employment, to decrease enrollment in welfare and to help New York City recover from the 9/11 tragedy.  Giuliani outlined the key characteristics of an effective leader: a clear goal, optimism and the ability to turn fear into positive energy for working towards your goal.

 
 

And how can we forget the absolutely amazing Train concert at the House of Blues? From their Led Zeppelin cover to “Drops of Jupiter,” Train certainly brought an amazing energy (and some lovely Trainettes on stage) during their performance.

 

I hope everyone had an amazing third day aboard the Revolution Train.  I know I did!

What is RPM?

This week Progress Software end users and partners worldwide gathered in Boston to get some actionable insights that will help them lower costs, raise efficiency, improve customer experiences, and drive revenue. Our attendees have the ability to chose from over 100 sessions designed specifically for business and IT professionals. One of our breakouts is dedicated to Responsive Process Management (RPM) which is a topic we’ve been talking about a lot over the past year. The introduction of RPM has stimulated discussions around our hallways and within the industry on what RPM exactly is…

• Is RPM the Next-generation BPM?
• Is RPM a totally new and different concept?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Below are two articles written by Daniel Schlosky. Dan is a technology writer with more than two decades of experience writing for companies like Sun Microsystems, Qualcomm, Broadcom, and Western Digital. He’s also written for publications such as Datamation, Silicon Strategies, and in-house publications for Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments.

Take a minute to look at both perspectives and TELL US WHAT YOU THINK!

To share your thoughts, click the Comments link below.

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BPM Is Still Evolving

In the early 1990s, the first Business Process Management (BPM) systems could track processes with only limited scaling and relatively few users. Adequate for tracking accounting or claims processes, they were not yet up to handling an entire company’s purchasing system that services tens of thousands of people. Since then, BPM has evolved into much more powerful and mature systems. They all now include process engines, process modeling, asset repositories, etc. Current large, robust enterprise BPM systems have great complexity and functionality, while web-based departmental BPM systems are usually simpler but still highly proficient.

Today’s BPM systems are extremely powerful and capable. They focus mainly on cutting costs by making companies more efficient through iterative, continuously improving processes. While BPM systems have come quite far, they are still advancing. Several new trends are making them even more powerful and useful.  

One new trend that goes beyond cost cutting is finding new revenue sources. For example, Progress BPM enabled an airline to expand its revenue stream by building an application to connect to alliance partner airlines. The customer, after paying a small insurance fee, is assured that if a flight cancellation occurs, the airline will automatically rebook him/her on the next alliance partner’s flight. It would also automatically change hotel reservations, cancel and rebook rental cars, etc. Happy customers are now saved from the hassle of rescheduling everything themselves – and the airline adds to its bottom line.

A second important trend is including complex event processing in BPM systems. With this capability, managers can monitor streams of activities such as stock market transactions, airline scheduling, and communications ordering systems. One basically searches for patterns and anomalies within those patterns. Although some other BPM systems may also deal with events, Progress BPM, when combined with the company’s Apama business event processing (BEP) platform, sets it apart in both power and performance.

A third new trend is the mobility enablement of BPM systems. These systems can now interconnect with intelligent handheld devices to speed up handling tasks with greater user convenience. For a BPMS process tracking purchase requests and approvals, managers can now actually respond to them on their iPods or blackberries without having to fully log onto financial applications on their laptops. This new mobile capability both simplifies the approval process and saves time.

Yet another significant new trend is enabling greater collaboration, especially in process modeling. Coupled with the new mobility, this is an even stronger improvement. The objective is to have managers in different locations review and provide input for the process model and simulation. Having this collaborative capability in the process planning stages is a major benefit.

These four innovations of the latest BPM systems – finding new revenue sources, events processing, enabling mobility and facilitating collaboration – are the leading new trends in the ongoing evolution of BPM. 

 

The Progress® RPM Suite – Is It Really About BPM?

What exactly is Responsive Process Management (RPM)? Is it a natural extension of BPM, or a totally new and different concept? Analysts and customers generally agree that RPM is an evolution of high-end BPM Gartner talks about Intelligent Business Operations as a development from BPM for responsive operations. Forrester refers to Business Transformation and IDC to Decision Management as expansions of BPM. Others, mainly business rather than technology professionals, see RPM as a completely new domain, one with greater ROI and faster time to value.

A recent Vanson Bourne independent research study found that most businesses are unable to respond to market or customer changes quickly enough to be competitive. RPM triumphs over this challenge with a very high level of operational responsiveness – the ability to sense and respond to changing conditions and customer interactions as they occur. If not totally new, RPM raises its responses to a whole new level of power and possibility. Savvion BPM is an integral part of Progress’ RPM Suite, but so are the company’s Apama business event processing (BEP) platform and Actional business transaction management (BTM) solution. To cap these three systems, the Suite adds its new groundbreaking Progress Control Tower, a first-of-its kind interactive business control panel that ties the three systems together for unprecedented responsiveness capabilities.

The Control Tower is the central RPM control point for

• Modeling and simulating processes
• Automatic documenting of processes
• Drilling down and analyzing information
• Cross-collaborating with team members
• Taking corrective steps as needed
• Continuously improving processes
• Reducing risk

So with all this said, which is it – a natural evolution of BPM or a totally new concept? Convincing arguments can be made for each view. If it’s an extension of BPM, it goes much further by adding real-time, end-to-end visibility into events and applications; enabling immediate response to situations when they arise; allowing users to capitalize on opportunities; and empowering business users with greater control for continuous business improvement.

What do you think? To share your thoughts, click the Comments link below.

 

The Role of Technology in Making Business Decisions

The following is a guest blog by Chris Webber, Senior Editor of the Economist Intelligence Unit.  He conducted a research study on the role of technology in making business decisions and presented his findings during a session at Progress Revolution Boston 2011.

By: Chris Webber, Senior Editor of the Economist Intelligence Unit

History shows that organisations struggle to cope with change. According to Dutch thinker Arie de Geus, that's the main reason why the average life span of a Fortune 500 company is less than 50 years. De Geus's classic study of corporate change is now nearly 15 years old, and it would be startling indeed if corporate life expectancy had increased at all in that time.

 

After all, the pace of change businesses are encountering appears to have picked up significantly in the years since de Geus's research was published. New technologies, more competition, the growth of emerging economies and an explosion in the amount of information being generated are all contributing to an increasingly complex economic system. In a new survey, which has been sponsored by Progress Software, the Economist Intelligence Unit has been analysing the impact of this increase in complexity on corporate decision making.

Unsurprisingly, three quarters of the 490 businesses surveyed think that the pace of change in their operating environment has picked up over the past five years. Added to this, nearly 80% think it's important to respond quickly to the changes that are taking place around them. Again, that's no big surprise given that failure to respond quickly to change implies missing out on growth opportunities or undermining existing sources of competitiveness.

What does seem counter intuitive, however, is that only about a fifth (22%) of those surveyed think their organisation's managed to increase the speed at which it makes decisions over the past five years. In fact, many more say the exact opposite is true, with nearly half (48%) saying the amount of time taken to make key decisions has increased.  

Of course, this raises the intriguing question of why businesses are taking longer to make decisions. Reflecting on that puzzle over the past month, one of the key points I've kept returning to is that more information and analysis doesn't necessarily mean less uncertainty for businesses. On the contrary, increasing complexity and interdependence in our economic system could easily mean that businesses are facing more uncertainty than ever before, and that might well explain why executives are taking longer to make decisions than they would like.

This is an important point. With all the data and analytical tools at our disposal in a modern economy there's a temptation to think that we're capable of fully understanding the complexities of the present and that we have a clearer picture of what the future holds.

To some extent those two points might be true. For instance, there are plenty of examples of administrative functions that have been demystified and systematised over the past couple of decades with impressive results for performance.

Judging by our survey results, however, the majority of executives are still plagued by uncertainty and are struggling to make decisions as quickly as they would like. Technology has clearly come a long way and is improving rapidly, but levels of complexity and uncertainty seem to be increasing even more quickly. Technology providers will need to up their game if they really want to help their customers through this set of challenges

Progress Revolution Day 2: Redcoats and a Revolution

Day 2 of Progress Revolution opened with a bang as Rick Reidy, John Bates and John Goodson took the stage with product announcements and inspiring keynotes on the importance of responsiveness.  The CEO, Rick Reidy, began by announcing the RPM 2.2 release scheduled for later this month, which will feature the Progress Control Tower, an interactive cockpit.   

CTO John Bates, in his memorable red coat (apparently he didn’t get the memo about Lobsterbacks in Boston), emphasized the importance of being responsive in the new world of higher expectations, unforeseen disruptions (earthquakes, rogue traders) and smarter competitors.  He presented the customer success story of Turkcell, a mobile company which used Apama to successfully offer highly targeted, location-based mobile deals for its customers.

For partners building software on top of the Progress platform, Bates showcased Arcade, a platform that can be used to create and manage Cloud-based SaaS solutions. Arcade empowers partners to become more competitive through creating easily consumable, Cloud-based apps faster and cheaper for customers.

In addition, John Goodson, SVP of Product, announced the launch of OpenEdge 11 for the near future, which will be the FIRST process-enabled BPM Cloud development platform with multi-tenancy

 

Finally, Geoffrey Colvin, Senior Editor-at-Large of Fortune Magazine and the author of Talent is Overrated, delivered an enlightening keynote on how high performance is not just for the Einsteins and Jerry Rices of the world.  Ordinary people can achieve high performance and success during times of stress simply with Deliberate Practice.

I look forward to the stimulating customer panel moderated by John Bates, the keynote by former Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, and of course, the rockin’ Train concert.  Let's continue on with the Revolution, but leave your red coat at home!

Defining Customer Experience Management – A Conversation with Susan McNeice, Yankee Group

Even if you have the latest and greatest communications technology at your disposal, if the user experience is poor, all value is lost. It is the provider’s job to ensure that user expectations are met and that network disturbances don’t negatively affect the end user’s experience, which could result in costly churn and lost revenue. Susan McNeice, Vice President, Yankee Group, will be leading a breakout session at the Progress Revolution 2011 conference (going on now) titled "Emerging Trends and Improving Customer Experience Management in Communications and Media." We asked Susan to expound on customer experience management – what is is, what it entails and how companies can effectively achieve it in a consistent, transparent and dynamic way. Here's what she had to say:
 
PRGS: How do you define customer experience management?
 
SM: Customer Experience Management is a cross-functional discipline that aims to deliver a consistent, transparent and dynamic relationship between CSP and customer.  The goal is to achieve competitive differentiation by viewing the world through the eyes of one¹s customers and modifying interactions of the experience accordingly.
 
PRGS: What does it mean to be 'consistent, transparent and dynamic'?
 
SM : Consistent  - When service providers promise customers certain coverage, quality, pricing or availability, customers expect consistent behavior from the network, customer care, billing, provisioning and all other touch points.
 
Dynamic - Service provider actions that affect the connected experience must be rapid, personalized, immersive and competitive. Connected users of all services look for real-time or at least near-real-time delivery.
 
Transparent - The relationship should be evident and in plain sight at all times, but ³fine print² restrictions and caveats are almost always present in customers¹ experiences with their service providers.  In fact, customers are actually willing to pay 10 percent more per month to avoid billing surprises.

The Revolution Has Begun: Progress Revolution takes Boston!

 What a way to kick off day one of Progress Revolution Boston 2011!  With over 1,000 attendees from all over the world, today was simply the first to an amazing four days of inspirational keynotes, educational sessions, innovative showcase demos and engaging networking opportunities.  Of course, we cannot forget that Grammy-winning Train will be performing on Wednesday!

 

The highlight of today was certainly the Intro to Business Process Management (BPM) workshop by Sandy Kemsley, an analyst with over 15 years of experience with BPM.  Kemsley provided product and brand agnostic coverage on BPM, giving background on its history, explaining BPM Notation, and highlighting the latest trend of integrating BPM with Social Software.  Here are some of the audience’s tweets about Kemsley’s workshop:

  

 

 

Another great success for day one was the evening reception.  Our valuable sponsors, partners, customers and employees gathered for delicious food and drinks, mingled with industry peers and watched product demos from over 30 booths.  Our Social Media Booth, #34, also saw quite some buzz as people came to view and contribute to the live stream of the #ProgressRev hashtag and to earn Twitter stamps for their Revolution Passports.

 
  

Let’s keep up the awesome energy as we continue on with our Revolution, the Progress Revolution!

Introducing SupportLink - Our New Customer Support Portal

Progress Customer Support is now Progress SupportLink!  And it’s not just about a new name – it’s about several new features that make it easier for you to manage support cases and engage resources.  It’s about getting even more responsive award-winning support – from self-service searches to telephone support, giving you the right solutions to your issues quickly and effectively.

From easier management of cases, to stream-lined communications, to faster answers, you are going to like Progress SupportLink!  Check out an overview, complete with informational video and FAQ online!

You may have already pre-registered and received your login credentials – if so, get started here!  Or if you need to create your account, it only takes a couple of minutes to register.

 

SMB Business Outlook: “Cloudy”

Welcome back! Now that summer is over (sigh), it’s time to once again focus on work. I am sure you are busy reviewing your end-of-year strategies and tactics. Some of you might even be peering into 2012 and wondering what you can do to make an impact—maybe grow revenue through new customer acquisitions, make your business more efficient, improve customer relationships, etc. Hopefully, the Cloud is on your short list – and if it’s not, it SHOULD be. And here’s why…

We recently surveyed our Application Partners and ISVs and discovered the following:

• 90% are investigating Cloud computing
• 88% have given “a lot” or “some” thought on hosting in the Cloud
• 60% will begin work on testing the Cloud
• 50% will make some form of Cloud purchase in 2011

If you aren’t among this group, then you are at risk of falling behind and losing business to the competition. The Cloud is everywhere – even non-technical folks will be using the Cloud in some way, shape, or form in the very near future. Not sure about that prediction? Have you seen the recent commercials and ads from Microsoft® and Apple®? They make “going to the Cloud” seem easy and, dare I say, fun? I can imagine you yelling at the screen now, “Sure, storage in the Cloud is easy, but configuring and deploying business applications in the Cloud is HARD!” This is where Progress® Arcade™ comes into play, and you can reference my Welcome to the Cloud blog post for more information on this topic.

For those of you that are still hesitant about the Cloud, let me give you some additional food for thought. I was recently interviewed by InformationWeek for the article, Cloud Contracts: 5 Questions SMBs Should Ask. The article talks about five key topics you should discuss with your potential Cloud vendor(s). While there are obviously more things to consider, this article should help you address many of your greatest concerns prior to “signing on the dotted line.”

Thanks and, as always, please let me know what you think.

PS: I hope to see you at Progress Revolution, September 19-22, 2011 in Boston.

End to end visibility - coming to a supply chain near you

I have been fortunate to particpate in the 2011 Gartner Supply Chain Executive Conference in London, an assembly of leading supply chain practictioners where we spend 3 days listening to latest thinking for Gartner/AMR Research analysts (I will always think of many the AMR analysts in that light!). The underlying theme for supply chains is that we are moving to a new generation of innovation, a manner for enterprises to build the systems and capabilities to elevate their extended supply chains.

What is one of the building blocks at the heart of this transformation? End to end supply chain visbility of course! Gartner highlights a theme which revolves around the VUCA concept -

• Volatility
• Uncertainty
• Complexity
• Ambiguity

Supply chains need to integrate end to end visibility, supply chain sensing and responsiveness to be able to survive in a world where VUCA lurks at every corner. This ability to successfully weave together these abilities through your technology is paramount to your supply chain achieving a high level. One aspect that we must also consider is that no matter how good the visibility and functions technology brings to the extended supply chain, at some point there must be a human intervention when it comes to make decisions. Companies cannot ignore the need to have the appropriate supply chain leadership within their organizations who can leverage these new tools to their full potential.

Which is another element that Gartner hightlighted - supply chain talent management.

Vendors can provide enterprises with some world class capabilities, but enterprises need to put the right level of talent at the controls.

Want to discuss VUCA, visibility, control towers and other supply chain issues of today? Please send me your comments and if you are at the Gartner conference come by the Progress booth! Or please come to Progress Revolution in Boston next week and we can discuss over a bowl of clam chowder.

Is Revolution the Path to Transparency?

Revolutions are proliferating.  When you watch a revolution happening elsewhere, political or otherwise, it’s a good time to contemplate the revolution in your own history, or in your future.  There are few among us that can’t point to one or the other.  One of the common drivers is the fear that something is happening where we can’t see it happen, and we want transparency – of process, of government – of whatever seems to be wrong.

The capital markets globally are experiencing a similar revolution now with regulatory change, and the current climate threatens to create a revolt as well.  Market participants may push back on reforms to the point of creating a new state of stress.  Either way, the future presents very real threats to companies that aren’t prepared.  We’re observing a vast expansion of global rulemaking, and a coming deluge of data - especially in the derivatives markets. It’s very expensive and distracting to fix problems after the fact, so we need to act now.  “Hope is not a strategy” – as is often said to have been uttered by famed (American) football coach Vince Lombardi.

In an open letter to Barack Obama published on January 23, 2009, Benjamin Ola Akande advised, "Yet, the fact remains that hope will not reduce housing foreclosures. Hope does not stop a recession. Hope cannot create jobs. Hope will not prevent catastrophic failures of banks. Hope is not a strategy."

Now we have the Dodd-Frank Act in the U.S., MiFID II and EMIR in Europe, all preceded by the de Larosiere Report (EC, 2009), Turner Report (FSA, 2009), Volcker Report (G30, 2009), G20 – Feb 2009 Declarations, Financial Stability Forum Report (FSF, 2009), INF Report (IMF, 2009), Walker Review (UK, 2009), Basel / IOSCO Reviews… the list goes on.  And the rest of the world is watching, waiting, for another revolution.  The intended scope of the most recent reforms seems to almost be panacea, and transparency is the first step.

The next Revolution is happening in Boston, fittingly.  Progress Revolution 2011, from September 19^ththrough the 22^nd, offers the chance to learn from industry innovators on how they have successfully tackled these challenges within the capital markets.  Customers including PLUS Markets and Morgan Stanley will be there to share success stories.  And Kevin McPartland, Principal at the TABB Group, will be there too.  I’ve included a sneak peek into Kevin’s “Path to Transparency” below.

According to the New York Times, at the Republican Convention in 2008, Rudy Giuliani once said while contemplating Barack Obama’s candidacy, “… ‘change’ is not a destination ... just as ‘hope’ is not a strategy.”  Rudy will be speaking at our Revolution too.  Will you be there?  It will be a lively conference – I hope that you can join us!

-Dan

The Path to Transparency

By Kevin McPartland, Principal, TABB Group

Managing the vast quantities of data born into existence by the Dodd Frank Act and related regulation will present a challenge in the post-DFA environment; but collecting and producing the required data is just the tip of the iceberg. The ability to analyze and act on that data is what will separate the survivors from the winners. This is already true in many other parts of the global financial markets, but the complexities inherent in swaps trading coupled with the speed at which these changes will take place creates unique challenges. Spread this across all five major asset classes and three major geographies, and the complexities become more pronounced.

Margin calculations are proving to be one of the biggest concerns for those revamping their OTC derivatives infrastructure. In a non-cleared world, dealers determine collateral requirements for each client and collect variation margin on a periodic schedule—in some cases once a month, and in other cases once a year. When those swaps are moved to a cleared environment, margin calculations will need to occur at least daily. The result is an upgrade of the current batch process with dozens of inputs to a near-real time process, with hundreds of inputs. Whereas before major dealers could perform margin analysis, client reporting and risk management in a single system, those systems now need to operate independently within an infrastructure that provides the necessary capacity and speed.

The trading desk will require a similar seismic shift, as flow businesses will provide liquidity across multiple trading venues to an expanding client base. Most major dealers are at some stage of developing liquidity aggregation technology intended to provide a single view of liquidity across multiple swap execution venues. Creating this type of virtual order book requires receiving multiple real-time data feeds and aggregating the bids and offers in real time.

Furthermore, rather than comparing model-derived prices to the last trade price to produce quotes, inputs from SEFs, CCPs, SDRs, internal models, third-party models and market data providers will be required inputs to real-time trading algorithms once reserved for exchange-traded derivatives.

Providing clients with execution services presents other challenges. Executing on multiple platforms also means tracking and applying commission rates per client per venue in real time. Trade allocations also complicate the execution process.  In the bilateral world a big asset manager can do a $100 million interest rate swap and spread that exposure across multiple funds as it sees fit. Under the DFA, the executing broker must know which funds are getting how much exposure. Account allocation in and of itself is not new, but cost averaging multiple swap trades and allocating the right exposure at the right price to the proper account presents complex challenges, especially in a near-real time environment.

Risk management, compliance and back-testing data will also require huge increases in processing power, often at lower latencies. Risk models and stress tests, for example, are much more robust than they were before the financial crisis, requiring a considerably higher amount of historical data.

Compliance departments now must store the requisite seven years of data so they can reconstruct any trade at any moment in the past. This is complicated enough in listed markets, when every market data tick must be stored, but for fixed-income securities and other swaps, storing the needed curves means that billions of records must not only be filed away but retrievable on demand. Similar concerns exist for quants back-testing their latest trading strategies: It is not only the new data being generated that must be dealt with. Existing data, too, is about to see a huge uptick in requirements.

In the end these changes should achieve some of the goals set forth by Congress as they enacted Dodd Frank – increased transparency and reduced systemic risk.  The road there will be bumpy and expensive, but the opportunities created by both the journey and the destination will outweigh any short term pain.

This perspective was taken from the recent TABB Group study Technology and Financial Reform: Data, Derivatives and Decision Making.

 

Supply chain disruptions...but not the usual suspect

Earthquakes, hurricanes, power outages, SARS outbreak are all examples of external events that can create disruptions to your extended supply chain. What about other events? How about a sporting event? For those of you that are not fans of the oval ball (the rugby ball that is) the Rugby World Cup has kicked off this past week. So what does this mean, why should your extended supply chain care? Simple - late nights watching the matches, too much lager, extended water cooler chats, missing work due to "illness"...to name a few unintended results of the sporting festivities. Think this is a non factor to the work place? Think again!

For those readers in the United States we are all aware that every March comes the NCAA men's collegiate basketball tournament and with it office pools, seemingly non stop games and suspected drop in productivity. Similar impacts occur when it comes to other large scale global sporting events - such as the Olympics or Football World Cups (soccer for North American readers). And if you are not convinced such sporting events can impact your extended supply chain - how many events can cause warring sides to pause during such an event - click here to read about how the World Cup stopped a civil war? With the Rugby World Cup upon us it is a good time to reflect on how such an event can impact your extended supply chain.

• Supply Chain demand impact - during the 1970 Football World Cup, the games were going to be broadcast in color for the first time, creating a lift in color television sales. Same occured during the 2006 World Cup when the matches were in high-definition for the first time. Sales of HDTVs went up (the same cycle occurs in North America prior to the Super Bowl). How will your supply chain react if demand spikes because fans want more HDTVs or if the number of rugby players looking to purchase your boots triples over night?
• Strain on productivity - when you have a large scale sports event that will go on for a few weeks you need to anticipate potential drops in your work effectiveness. As mentioned above, workers from all aspect of your supply chain are fans, how productive will they be if the nation they support plays deep into the tournament or if they reside in the host nation? I recall a story of a CEO of telecomm company being in Mexico in 1986 being told that if business did not get done before the start of the World Cup that he might as well wait until the tournament's completion. Otherwise the entire nation was going to be distracted by the football. If your extended supply chain relies upon nations that are active participants you need to be aware of the potential impact on your work force during the tournament.
• Host nation pop - the host nation will get an economic pop, from infrastracture improvements to influx of tourists and corporations looking for advertising. If your supply chain offers relevant services then you need to be prepared for unexpected demand for your services, on the flip side your business might be negatively impacted as resources and efforts usually pointed in your direction are realigned to support the event.

Large national sporting events ellicity national pride from fans, but they also have supply chain impact. How will your extended supply chain react? Ignore these disruptions at your own peril, while the impact might not be as clear as when a port falls victim to a strike or volcanic ash shuts down airspace, such sporting events can and will impact your extended supply chain. Without visibility into your extended supply chain, the impacts, good or bad, will be magnified through out your business.

So who will win this version of the Rugby World Cup? While I wish I could say my beloved France will somehow pull it together, I fear their run will end in the 1/4 finals againt nemisis England. Semi-finals will look like the Tri Nations: England v Australia and South Africa v New Zealand. Look for the Kiwis to win the title on their home turf.

Want to talk more about how events, such as the sporting events but also more "traditional" supply chain events can create blind spots in your extended supply chain and how to better deal with them? Join us at Progress Revolution in a week, maybe we can also catch a rugby match as well!

 

Introducing the Progress Revolution Boston 2011 Smart App – Because Real-Time Connection to the Right People and Ideas Delivers Genuine Value

In a couple of weeks we’re hosting Progress Revolution 2011 in Boston. With all of the innovation in the overall business environment as well as important shifts and trends in specific industry sectors, it’s very exciting to bring thought leaders together for a candid exchange of ideas.

While idea exchange in the abstract is inspiring and motivating, what’s most important is interfacing with those individuals with ideas relevant to your business.  This is the value that you bring home to your organization. 

 At Progress, we’re all about real-time connectivity – we know that this translates into measureable success. We encourage our clients to focus on both bottom-line performance and return on investment. We are mindful and appreciative of the time and resources that our attendees are spending to attend 
the conference, and are committed to ensuring that we maximize the return on that investment.

We are pleased to announce the launch of the Progress Revolution Boston 2011 Smart App – this interactive application works with your iPhone, iPad, Blackberry or Android and provides you with up-to-the-minute information on the conference. 

Our attendees will be able to search, connect and communicate with other participants with aligned business interests to schedule meetings, share highly relevant ideas and stay in touch after the  conference. The application will also feature Progress Q&A covering product information, conference questions and other related community topics. 

During the conference the application will provide real-time information on conference news and events and instant access to a video channel featuring interviews and commentary.   Attendees can also connect and collaborate on exploring the restaurants, activities and sites in historic Boston.

We’ve made it simple and easy to access and install.  All you have to do is visit the Apple App Store, Android Market or Blackberry App World – the application works across the spectrum of smart phone platforms.

To register, open the application on your device and type in your email address and the password (provided to all attendees via email) to set up your account. It’s important to use the default password so that the application recognizes you as a conference attendee.  Then, go ahead and search for “Progress Revolution” and install the Progress Revolution 2011 application.

Within the application you will be able to customize your profile and preferences and access a list of other attendees.  The application will point you to the attendees that most closely align with your profile and interests, and you can learn more about their background and contact them directly to connect and communicate.  

We’re really pleased to bring this innovation to the community attending Progress Revolution 2011. It’s our goal to connect the right people, spur the exchange of the best, most relevant ideas and deliver the highest possible value and return on investment to our attendees and their organizations.   We’re looking forward to spending an inspiring, informative and valuable few days with the Progress community.

Download the Progress Revolution Mobile App here:

iPhone

Android

Blackberry

More extended supply chain variables means greater need for visibility

Companies do not compete, supply chains compete…have you heard that one before? If you have, you probably are well aware of all the factors that go into running your business rely upon a host of partners and service providers that do not have your logo on their business cards. Globalization and competiveness has created a business world where no company can truly “own” all that goes into make their business…their business. We can only succeed in our business if our partner, our supply chain, is successful. In the pursuit of efficiencies, economies of scale and maximizing competitive advantages we have also created the unintended consequences of dilution of control. Even when companies controlled their supply chain they did not enjoy the visibility or ability to react to consumer demands to the level they would like. Remember Henry Ford? He was happy to sell you a Model T in any color you wanted, as long as it was black. Already Ford knew that his assembly line, and by extension his supply chain, could not cope well with diversity, choice and any color other than black. 

Fast-forward to today’s globalized economy. Companies whether they are B2B or B2C, must offer choices to their end customer. Whether those choices are in terms of the color, size, taste, speed or texture of the good or whether it relates to the service level a customer can expect after the sale or the rapidity at which the service is delivered. These all factor into the global extended supply chain and all call for a level of orchestration and visibility not easily attained but constantly demanded by customers. The reality is our extended supply chains and businesses need greater visibility and enhanced real time decision-making functions in order to compete and ensure they meet the constantly evolving demands of the consumer.

At Progress Software we are addressing these needs and this next step in the evolution of supply chain solutions. Come to Revolution to learn from our team and clients how we are able to tackle this issue and join us to take the next steps in the next wave of supply chain solution innovation.

Progress-- You Say You Want a Revolution

By: Greg O'Connor

Greg O'Connor is the CEO of AppZero and a guest contributor for the the Business Making Progress blog. Pioneering the Virtual Application Appliance approach to simplifying application-lifecycle management, Greg O'Connor is responsible for translating Appzero's vision into strategic business objectives and financial results.

Here’s a revolution: AppZero protects your software from your customers.

As a proud Progress alumni approaching Revolution, I am struck by the irony of how very much I could have used the technology I now bring to my fellow software executives, who are struggling to balance revolution and cost. 

It all began in a little log cabin … Progress and Sonic 2000

In 2000, I had the opportunity to gather some of the best and brightest people as I co-founded Sonic Software with Bill Cullen, Sonic CTO (and product brain)  At the time, we saw a market-making opportunity to take the AppServer world standards (formal/XML or market driven/Java) and apply them to the EAI market.  

Thanks to the afore-mentioned bright folks, help from Roy Schulte (a Gartner fellow at the time), a bit of luck, and an excellent Messaging product, we created and evangelized the ESB market category.  The first ESB to market -- Sonic XQ (Xml Queue) -- was shipped February 2002.  10 eventful years later, I’m here to share what Bill Cullen, AppZero CTO, and I are up to – and how our Sonic experience shaped it.

If you sell software, you’ll appreciate this observation

Growing Sonic Software, we faced two universal hurdles that significantly impacted our business – and that of pretty much everyone who sells software:

1. Winning or losing – labor-intensive demos, proof of concepts (POC), evaluations, and trials had a huge impact on our growth rate
2. Installs that did not go perfectly, resulted in fire drills, lost business,  and a sharp dip in customer confidence

(These facts of software life are some of the acute pain points we solve here at AppZero.)

At Sonic, we were often faced with a 5 day evaluation for a prospect:  1 day to setup our software on their environment, 3 days to do the work they requested, and 1 day show off the results.  (IBM, Tibco, BEA and Webmethods   had more or less the same timeframe but seemed to send a heck of a lot more people to the evaluation.)

When the 1^st day did not go as planned, we always lost.  Always.  Every single time. No exception.

A cautionary tale:  If you sell software, you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent

Oh, and here’s how I learned that an imperfect install can still bite you long after you have successfully fought to win a customer (in this case a market icon).  A full year after having won the business and implemented our product at the New York Mercantile Exchange, I received a call from the CIO.  He had some new concerns, “Sonic messaging system appears to slow down under load”. 

Arrgggh.  How could this be possible?  Sonic was ahead of its time with elastic scaling, continuous availability, and best in class through put.  This could not be correct.  As it turned out, it wasn’t. 

But determining and fixing the “root cause”  took 6 labor-intensive weeks filled with tons of anxious phone calls, numerous pointing fingers (with chewed fingernails), and a couple of flights to NYC by our top troubleshooter .  Life got very unpleasant before it returned to good.

The culprit? A bug in the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and Java Runtime Environment  (JRE) that would not do garbage collect (free memory) under load.  Now, long before that fateful phone call, we at Sonic knew all about this issue.  We had documented it, changed our install and packaging to make an easy fix. 

(Cue scary music) But then the customer got involved.  

Someone, somewhere along their line had installed their company’s “certified” version of the JVM/JRE thereby putting our product and reputation at risk.

“It wasn’t my fault” just doesn’t matter.  It took a long time, involving many smart people to find the 2 files that needed to be changed so that all the oil futures in the world could once again flow over the Sonic messaging system.

Morale of the story: Once a customer has your software, things happen.

If I had a time machine, I would bring the AppZero product to my(then)self 

AppZero not only solves the PoC puzzle for software vendors, but protects their Windows and Linux server applications from customers.  We make it possible for applications to be pre-installed, pre-configured and then provisioned onto a physical or virtual OS -- in minutes, perhaps over lunch.  

This capability effectively changes the math around POCs in a big way: we reduce the install, setup and configuration time to zero.  If I had been able to use AppZero at Sonic, I would have freed up a whole day to actually do the customer requests on every single PoC.   What would a 33% increase in productive time have meant?  I’m going to guess a higher win rate against the competition, faster company growth, bigger promotions, and more time spent with the wife and kids.  

And if I had had AppZero at Sonic, our very cool software would have been safely isolated from the customer’s operating environment instead of deeply enmeshed in it.  Innocent from the start.  Hey, how’s this for a new tag line? “AppZero -- protect your software from your customers.”  (www.appzero.com)

For more fun stories and a look at another market-making technology, stop by our booth at Revolution.

Greg O’Connor, AppZero CEO
grego@appzero.com

Experience the User Interface Revolution

 By: Mike Fechner   

Mike Fechner of Consultingwerk, a software architecture and development company, is a guest co nt ributor on the Business Making Progress blog. He started using Progress and OpenEdge in Version 5 almost 20 years ago and ever since has supported Progress Application Partners and end customers in adopting the features of the latest OpenEdge  and Progress releases to enhance the capabilities of existing  applications.

 Consultingwerk is proud sponsor of the Progress Revolution Conference and exhibitor at the solution expo. Visit us at our booth and see how we can support you with your user interface revolution!

The user interface is the most visual point and often the selling point of every application. The user interface needs to convince prospects during the demonstration of the application and needs to support existing and demanding users to get their job done in a productive and pleasing manner. Last but not least the user interface needs to stand the comparison with standard applications such as well-known office suites.

Consultingwerk is specialized in leveraging Microsoft .NET technology to help our customers build modern user interfaces for existing applications as well as new applications and new modules of existing applications. Our products and services are designed around the combination of Progress OpenEdge and Microsoft .NET technology, both based on the OpenEdge GUI for .NET or native .NET development.

Instant migration to the OpenEdge GUI for .NET

The WinKit (Window Integration Toolkit) is Consultingwerk’s proven tool to simplify the adoption of the OpenEdge GUI for .NET in existing OpenEdge GUI applications. The migrated application receives a modernized, state of the art user interface that allows easier sale and increases the end user’s acceptance of existing OpenEdge GUI applications. Think of it as adding modern controls like the Ribbon, Tab Folders, Dockable Panes and Grids into the existing application without requiring any rewrite or architectural change. This results in dramatically reduced costs and almost no risk in the process of modernizing your application.

Rapid application development for the OpenEdge GUI for .NET, OpenEdge Reference Architecture and the Visual Designer

The SmartComponent Library ensures your successful transition towards developing with the new user interface technology and the recommended application architecture principles in the shortest possible time using enhanced development tools and specialized runtime components. Our  tools are designed to get you instantly up to speed with a modern user interface technology and application architecture without taking any compromise in flexibility or capabilities of the new application or application modules.

The WinKit and the SmartComponent Library can be used together or independently from each other. The shared foundation code base ensures the successful combination right from the start or one after the other – depending on our customer’s needs or time scale.

User interfaces for Mobile Devices such as iPhone, iPad and Android

Our new SmartComponent.Mobile framework can be used to build native user interfaces (Apps) for the most popular platforms for mobile devices. It is based on .NET technology to make the best usage of our existing framework components and both our and our customers’ existing experience. The SmartComponent.Mobile framework allows you to access the OpenEdge Database and Application Server and reuse existing business logic that may also be used in the SmartComponent Library on the OpenEdge GUI client. For our customers already using the SmartComponent Library this allows that they only have to develop the new user interface but can keep the existing business logic. For new customers this guarantees that any new effort spend in a new application architecture  can be leveraged from a large number of different user interfaces.

Our tool offerings are completed using top of the edge consulting services. Our expert consultants have experience from a large number of projects supporting OpenEdge partners and end customers during all aspects of the modernization of OpenEdge based applications or the conception of new developments. Do not miss the chance and discuss your application needs with one of our experienced senior architects on our booth.Get a personal demonstration of our outstanding tools and see how we can support your success.

As you can see we will be demonstrating solutions for any user interface your application might need to help you with your personal user interface revolution!

Looking forward to see you in Boston!

Banking Industry Session Sneak Peek - Richard Bentley on Responsive Customer Engagement

 

Maintaining customer loyalty and identifying new revenue opportunities is are recurring themes within today’s banking industry. As mobility and social computing proliferate, the ‘instant-on’ customer need more and more touch points. Although a challenge from the perspective of data security, storage and compliance, there are significant cross and up-sell opportunities that are ripe for the taking.

Today, in a special drill down post, Progress Industry Vice President for Banking, Richard Bentley, shares his take on Responsive Customer Engagement as well as other topics he’ll be exploring during his talk at Revolution.

To read Richard’s full post, click here.