The Best of Times: 2009 ERP Software Industry Year in Review

Ainda olhando o ano de 2009, eis abaixo uma avaliação da empresa Panorama Consulting (
http://panorama-consulting.com) especializada em seleção de soluções de ERPs!

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The Best of Times: 2009 ERP Software Industry Year in Review

Posted by Eric Kimberling on December 4, 2009

This last year was a time of ups and downs and highs and lows for many companies and individuals.  The enterprise software and ERP industry was no different, with the industry’s vendors, clients, and consultants all experiencing both high points and low points.

However, despite a fair share of pessimism in business, among consumers, and certainly in the media, 2009 was a year with some noteworthy highlights.  Below is a list of the top ten highlights in the ERP software industry for the year.

2009 Top Ten for ERP Software Industry

1. Evolution of ERP in the new economy. Given the turbulent economy in 2009, executives were forced to do more with less, be more deliberate with IT budgets, and demand a higher return on investment from their enterprise software initiatives.  To our surprise, while many large companies were cutting ERP budgets, companies in the small and mid-size (SMB/SME), energy, and government sectors were examples of organization types that continued to invest heavily in enterprise software.  These trends were outlined in a recent ERP presentation from Panorama Consulting.
2. Comprehensive study of ERP implementation results. In January, Panorama Consulting published a comprehensive study of over 1,300 enterprise software implementations across the globe, a first of its kind.  The ERP industry report and corresponding summary research briefings revealed useful benchmark information regarding ERP metrics, such as implementation duration, cost, and business benefits realized.
3. Shane Company’s enterprise software failure. The year began with some bad news about Shane Company, which filed for bankruptcy and heavily blamed its financial woes on its botched ERP implementation.  In order to make the best of a negative situation, Panorama hosted a webinar outlining some of the lessons learned from this ERP failure (Shane Co. was not a  Panorama client).
4. Comparison of SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, and Tier II ERP solutions. As part of its series of summary briefings on its ERP benchmark study, Panorama Consulting published one of the most comprehensive quantitative comparisons of leading enterprise software solutions in the marketplace.  The findings revealed significant differences and tradeoffs between leading software providers.  This software vendor comparison was also outlined in a YouTube video presentation available on our ERP video page.
5. Continuing duel between on-premise ERP and Software as a Service (SaaS). The hype surrounding SaaS and cloud computing continued to intensify throughout the year, as did the corresponding myths and misconceptions.  Panorama hosted multiple ERP webinars to help clients and colleagues understand the tradeoffs between SaaS and on-premise ERP.
6. Manufacturing and Distribution ERP Software Report. Panorama’s series of reports of it’s ERP benchmark study continued with an overview of enterprise software benchmarks in the manufacturing and distribution space, which outlines some of the challenges unique to this industry vertical.
7. Debut of “ERP Strategies and Solutions” podcast. Panorama continued to extend its communication vehicles to the ERP industry by debuting its bi-monthly podcast series, which featured interviews with clients, Panorama ERP experts, and other industry leaders.  Topics focused on ERP issues related to ERP software selection, implementation, and organizational change management in the manufacturing and distribution, life sciences, chemicals, non-profits, and other key industries.
8. Organizational change management steals the spotlight. Given tough economic conditions, increased pressure to provide accountability to board members, and the need to mitigate risk, an increasing number of CIOs invested more time and money in organizational change management and benefits realization than in years past.  This is partially demonstrated by the fact that Panorama’s organizational change consulting practice saw a huge increase in business in 2009.
9. ERP consulting services skyrocket. Although official 2009 company results won’t be published until January, Panorama is well on the path toward record revenue and profits.  At the time of this post, our year to date revenue was up over 80% compared to last year.  Several new clients turned to Panorama to help them with their enterprise software selection and implementation initiatives in 2009, including Champion Window, Maxon Lift, Focus on the Family, dpiX, Bioness, Alliance Laundry Systems, and Robert’s American Gourmet, the makers of Pirate’s Booty snacks.
10. Launch of new ERP resource site. In November, Panorama launched a new and improved web-site for its clients, employees, prospects, recruits, and industry peers.  The site highlights the company’s extensive enterprise software expertise and thought leadership, including a 360 ERP Blog and our resource center which features ERP videos and podcasts, ERP software vendor comparison tables, a mock ERP selection process, and other useful resources.

These are just a few of many highlights in the ERP space in 2009.  Many of these trends will continue or evolve into 2010, which will make for another exciting year of opportunity.  From all of us at Panorama Consulting, we wish you a happy holidays.

Do you have a Corporate Innovation System?

Um post de hoje do Continuous Innovation Group, um grupo da rede social LinkedIn!

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Monday, December 28, 2009

Do you have a Corporate Innovation System?

by Rowan Gibson

Co-authored with Peter Skarzynski, CEO of Strategos, in close collaboration
with well-known strategy guru Gary Hamel, I believe that “Innovation to the Core” (Harvard Business School Press) is by far the most important thing I’ve ever done.

Lots of people have been asking me for a synopsis of the book, so here goes…

Could you describe your company’s “corporate innovation system”? Ask this question inside most organizations and all you get is a blank stare. It’s obvious that, in the vast majority of firms, innovation is still more buzzword than core competence.

Yet a few leading-edge players – including GE, IBM, P&G, Whirlpool, Shell, Cemex, Best Buy, and W.L. Gore – are demonstrating that large industrial organizations really can tackle the challenge of innovation successfully in a broad-based and highly systemic way.

What these companies understand is that it’s entirely possible to make innovation an “all-the-time, everywhere” capability, something that becomes part of the organization’s bloodstream – just like quality, for example.

Instead of ascribing innovation to a mysterious mix of happenstance, individual brilliance and the occasional bolt of lightning, the first thing we need to do is demystify the innovation process. If you want to create a high-performance “innovation engine” inside your organization, you need to recognize and address three cultural preconditions for making breakthroughs happen: creating time and space in people’s lives for reflection, ideation and experimentation; maximizing the diversity of thinking that innovation requires; and fostering connection and conversation – the “combinational chemistry” that serves as a breeding ground for breakthrough ideas.

Next, you need a methodology for systematically generating novel strategic insights – these are the raw material for innovation breakthroughs. There are four specific kinds of insights that enable innovators to discover new and unexploited opportunities of real value. These are: company and industry orthodoxies that deserved to be challenged, trends and discontinuities that could potentially reshape the business landscape, competencies and assets that could be leveraged to create opportunities beyond the boundaries of the existing business, and emergent but as yet unaddressed customer needs.

Once your company has built a foundation of novel strategic insights using these four “lenses of innovation”, the next step is to “crash” various insights together to see if the collision opens up new opportunities for innovation. Radical business innovations are almost always the product of “creative collision” – i.e. they are based on a combination of insights, ideas and domains that don’t usually belong together. It is also imperative to examine each component of your company’s (or your industry’s) business model, using insights from the “four lenses” to uncover opportunities for industry reinvention.

In addition to this ongoing insight discovery and ideation work, which should engage as many minds as possible across your organization, the goal is to open up the innovation process to your extended network of customers, suppliers and partners, involving all of these constituencies in the search for new growth opportunities.

Once your company is using all these available means to improve the quantity and the quality of new ideas entering its innovation pipeline, you should make sure you are employing the right evaluative criteria at every stage of the opportunity development process, so that you avoid prematurely killing off potentially valuable ideas. The most important question to ask first, for example, is not “What’s the expected ROI?”, but “How BIG is this idea?” – based on the understanding that it is radical (rather than incremental) ideas that tend to deliver breakthrough performance.

It is also crucial to build mechanisms for rapidly reallocating resources behind new growth opportunities, as well as an “innovation architecture” that gives strategic coherence and consistency to your opportunity portfolio. You want to make sure your innovation pipeline is robust enough to nurture, manage and commercialize the ideas your organization decides to pursue, and that it is capable of managing growth opportunities with very different timescales and risk profiles. You are also going to need a comprehensive set of metrics (linked to management compensation) that is designed to measure innovation performance – including inputs, throughputs, and outputs.

Finally, to drive innovation to the core, you need to put the necessary systems, structures and processes in place to make innovation a self-sustaining enterprise capability and a tangible core value. This requires four interdependent and mutually reinforcing components that need to come together to institutionalize innovation: visionary leaders and organization aligned around a common vision of innovation; a disciplined approach to building innovation capabilities across the organization; a systematic approach and supporting tools to enable idea generation, pipeline and portfolio management; and a collaborative, open culture that rewards challenging the status quo.

Do all of this and your innovation outputs will soar!

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Rowan Gibson is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on enterprise innovation. He is co-author of the bestseller “Innovation to the Core” and a much in-demand public speaker around the globe. On Twitter he is @RowanGibson.

Review of 2009: Intelligent Enterprise 2009 Editors’ Choice Awards

 2009 ainda não acabou!

Portanto, cabe ainda refletir sobre o que nele aconteceu.  Navegando pelas paragens das análises sobre TICs, dei-me conta de uma matéria do blog www.intelligententerprise.com  que havia saido em janeiro de 2009 (reproduzida abaixo).  Minha expectativa é que o blog faça uma reflexão em janeiro de 2010 sobre o que aconteceu com estas empresas, e divulgue suas escolhas para 2010.

Meanwhile, deixo ao leitor o post completo para, como eu, também refletir sobre a performance de tais empresas!

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Janeiro 2009
http://www.intelligententerprise.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212800112
Intelligent Enterprise 2009 Editors’ Choice Awards
Intelligent Enterprise names ‘The Dozen’ most influential vendors in enterprise IT for 2009. Plus, we highlight 36 ‘Companies to Watch’ in five categories.

By Doug Henschen

With all eyes on the economy, smart enterprises will have to make the most of technology to outmaneuver the competition and navigate the shoals of a challenging marketplace. The competition will be fierce, and it’s more important than ever for companies to make the most of information and deliver timely insight, to quickly adapt applications and processes to changing conditions, and to maximize financial and operational performance.

Technology complacency is not an option if you expect to outsmart the competition; nor is this a time for heedless investment without specific goals for competitive advantage or return on investment. To guide you to vendors that have been leading the way in innovation and business optimization, we present our 10th Annual Intelligent Enterprise Editors’ Choice Awards. We considered scores of companies that are helping organizations move toward the ideal expressed by our publication’s name, Intelligent Enterprise. In our estimation, all 48 companies that made our Editors’ Choice list are leaders, but a select group of 12 were named among “The Dozen” elite companies that will matter most to intelligent enterprises in 2009. We highlight 36 other vendors as “Companies to Watch” in five categories:

Business Intelligence
Business Process Management
Enterprise Applications
Information Management
Performance Management

As always, this year’s Editors’ Choice award nominations were a collaborative endeavor, with extensive input from a dozen Intelligent Enterprise contributors:

Rajan Chandras, integration expert and author
Cindi Howson, BI Scorecard
Seth Grimes, Alta Plana
Sandy Kemsley, Kemsley Design
Nelson King, software development expert and author
David Linthicum, data integration and Enterprise 2.0 expert
Mark Madsen, Third Nature
Curt Monash, Monash Research
Alan Pelz-Sharpe, CMS Watch
Mark Smith, Ventana Research
David Stodder, Ventana Research Fellow and information management expert
Kas Thomas, enterprise architecture and software expert

We are grateful for the input and analysis provided by these experts. However, Intelligent EnterpriseEditor-in-Chief Doug Henschen was responsible for the final selection of “The Dozen” and “Companies to Watch.” We encourage practitioners and independent experts to share their comments in our discussion forum (below), while those representing or otherwise tied to individual vendors should send comments to dhenschen@techweb.com.

THE INTELLIGENT ENTERPRISE DOZEN

ADOBE. When it comes to rich Internet applications (RIA), Adobe has a formidable line-up: world-class graphical content creation tools (Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash Professional), the ubiquitous Flash Player for running client RIA programs, and the somewhat lesser-known Flex and Adobe (AIR) for application developers. Adobe’s enterprise software products aren’t as well known, but the LiveCycle Enterprise Suite is a leading business process management suite that gained content management capabilities in 2008. The workgroup collaboration story tucked away in Bridge and Version Cue will also bear fruit beyond the graphics context. Before the dust settles, we’ll see Adobe pull pieces together and become a heavier hitter in enterprise software.

AMAZON. Amazon is writing (and then selling) the book on “infrastructure as a service” with Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon SimpleDB, among other services. With its experience in scaling online retailing, Amazon understands the inherent challenges in scaling enterprise systems. What’s more, it has the brains and the bucks to address the business continuity and security concerns facing cloud computing. While other vendors talk and make announcements, Amazon is making cloud computing a reality.

IBM. BI, business process management, content management, event processing, relational database, in-memory database, information integration, mashup technologies, master data management, enterprise search ” you name it, and IBM undoubtedly has it in the most comprehensive information management portfolio in the business. The company also has the vision to bring all the pieces together. Cognos was a particularly nice, overlap-free fit for the company, and in 2008 IBM added Business Viewpoint for flexible dimension management in BI, OLAP, analytic and master data management activities. IBM has stayed maniacally focused on helping companies to build a “trusted information layer.” What’s more, it adds technologies whenever they emerge as important differentiators.

MICROSOFT. There seemed to be lots of distractions up on the bridge in 2008 (Vista, Yahoo! and so on). But like a super tanker in motion, Microsoft has momentum that carries it forward in important areas of the enterprise. SQL Server, SharePoint and Performance Point, to name a few products, are still winning market share. Loyal developers and Microsoft shops have held steady even as executives ponder the next course. If Microsoft follows its usual pattern, it will deliver a fresh wave of products in the coming year, and the company will make additional inroads into the enterprise. In the BI arena, look for beta in-memory technology and glimpses of scale-out database technology by year end.

MICROSTRATEGY. Much to its credit, BI vendor MicroStrategy has resisted the temptation to be a “me-too” on analytics and performance management. Instead this independent has focused on delivering world-class BI with state-of-the-art dynamic dashboards. The MicroStrategy 9 release set for Q1 2009 adds in-memory analysis to speed queries and reduce data-prep dependency on IT. And a new multi-source engine opens up data access while supporting flexible modeling as BI spreads from workgroup to enterprisewide deployments. In short, MicroStrategy will set new standards in the BI market in 2009.

NETEZZA. Now that Oracle has introduced its HP Oracle Database Machine and Microsoft has committed to a scale-out compatible version of SQL Server by 2010, it’s not a good time to be a startup data warehouse appliance vendor. But Netezza is no longer a startup; nor is it resting on past accomplishments. With its triple-digit and still-growing customer base, Netezza is plowing money back into R&D and developing a compelling story around in-database processing with help partners in the Netezza Developer Network. The vendor’s on-stream programmability enabled one customer with whom we spoke to cut three- to four-week data mart build times down to four to eight hours. That’s the kind of dramatic difference that will keep Netezza on the data warehousing short list.

ORACLE. Solid from a financial perspective and still at the center of the database universe, Oracle has also made a lot of good moves. For one it has responded forcefully (with partner HP) to the data warehouse scalability challenge with a new line of appliances. BI initiatives are paying off, too: With control over the database and applications in many accounts, lots of customers are buying the performance management and analytic applications that rely on Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition. Oracle has also beefed up the Oracle Universal Content Management line, and its Oracle Secure Enterprise Search product is poised to shake things up in the enterprise-search market. If there’s any chink in the armor it’s Oracle Fusion Applications, which are late. But better to get it right late than to stumble when the market has little appetite for upgrades.

SALESFORCE.COM. Clearly the standard setter in the world of software as a service (SaaS), Salesforce.com continues to refine its core offering, providing points of integration to sync information back into the enterprise and a user interface that non-technical types love. The company also has innovated with its Force.com “platform as a service,” making it simpler for customers and partners to deliver all kinds of enterprise apps. In short, Salesforce.com will continue to define how SaaS and the larger cloud computing market evolve.

SAP. This vendor now has the market-leading position in both enterprise applications and business intelligence. SAP customers are loyal, and more than 500 are said to have replaced incumbent BI vendors with SAP Business Objects. Performance management and process management are high-priority strategic thrusts for SAP, and customer demand for better cash management and process efficiency will help the company weather a down economy. The potential for SAP’s emerging NetWeaver Business Process Management story is not well recognized, but promised integrations with SAP ERP are likely to make it the only logical choice for existing customers looking to optimize business processes.

SAS. The quiet giant of business intelligence, SAS continues to lead with its segment-dominating analytics tools and myriad prebuilt applications. Last year, SAS made the sensible decision to spin off data integration talent and initiatives to its DataFlux subsidiary, which is now better positioned to innovate in the areas of data quality, data integration and master data management while SAS concentrates on BI and analytics. In the latter area, SAS has partnered with Teradata to push complex analytic processing into the database for greater scalability and faster results. It’s that kind of innovation that will keep SAS at the head of the pack.

TIBCO. This company serves a vital role in that it offers strong alternatives in lots of categories that would otherwise be dominated (and no doubt monopolized) by the giants. TIBCO offers the unique-among-independents combination of business activity monitoring, SOA/integration infrastructure, business process management, event processing, master data management and other technologies. The latest addition (through acquisition) is BI visualization via Spotfire, which remains a leader in real-time analytics. In a vendor landscape that has drastically consolidated, TIBCO remains a rare, strong independent survivor.

TERADATA. This stalwart remains the leader in large-scale data warehousing, but it has shown new flexibility and aggressiveness in a changing market. Teradata has kept its enterprise data warehousing (EDW) ideology in check as it has introduced a gradation of platforms from appliance to data mart to EDW. It has also improved the core database and partnered with independents such as SAS, MicroStrategy and Informatica while remaining close to its loyal, innovative customers. It’s a focused company that has only benefitted from intensified competition.

COMPANIES TO WATCH: BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Actuate. This vendor made lots of good moves with its recent Actuate 10 release, adding an Ajax-based viewing environment, JavaScript APIs for developers, and Flash-based widgets and gadgets. What’s more, Actuate 10 makes the most of the open-source Eclipse BIRT project. Actuate is poised to take advantage of growing interest in open-source BI alternatives.

Attensity. This firm’s on-premise and SaaS-based offerings help companies read the “voice of the customer” buried in surveys, e-mail messages, call center exchanges, Web forum comments, blogs posts and other high-volume interactions. Attensity provides an automated way to understand customer intent and expectations to improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn and anticipate market shifts.

Clarabridge. Another text-mining leader, Clarabridge is focused on voice-of-the-customer/voice-of-the-market analysis. In one of our favorite case studies of 2008, Gaylord Entertainment described its use of Clarabridge software to analyze and understand Web-based hotel guest surveys within hours so it can quickly take action to improve services and win back guests who had complaints. It’s cutting-edge technology with a real ROI story.

Information Builders. While other BI vendors simply partnered with SPSS to add analytics, Information Builders shrewdly chose to build on top of the popular open-source R programming language. The move promises to pay dividends in 2009 and beyond. Meanwhile, the company’s proven products include scalable and affordable alternatives such as its under-rated WebFocus Active Reports technology, which binds data and interactive viewing into a single, cross-platform file format.

Inforsense. Treating BI as a process, InforSense provides an intuitive, workflow-based environment for predictive analytics and visual-analysis. Data integration and collaboration features are built in, and a repository lets you capture and share proven approaches. It’s also services-based, so you can build composite analytic apps and deliver predictive services. Pharma and biotech firms are among those taking advantage of repeatable and auditable analytic processes.

Pentaho. Open-source BI is gaining traction, and Pentaho seems to have the most momentum. With projects including Mondrian OLAP, Pentaho Reporting Engine, Kettle ETL, Weka data mining and the core eponymous BI Suite, Pentaho has all the key BI components covered. It’s a well-managed company with a solid technology base.

SPSS. Every BI vendor now wants to compete on analytics, it seems, so SPSS is the partner of choice for SAP Business Objects, IBM Cognos and others. That speaks volumes about the depth, breadth, affordability and market acceptance of SPSS analytics and data mining products.

COMPANIES TO WATCH: BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT

Lombardi Software. Business process management systems knit together the people and systems involved in end-to-end processes. Lombardi Teamworks shines in both styles of integration, but human-centric-workflow and event and exception management are its strong suits. Lombardi always seems to be on our short list for BPM.

Pegasystems. Now that rules vendors ILog and Haley have been acquired (by IBM and Oracle, respectively), Pegasystems’ offering of both business rules and business process management technology stands in even sharper contrast to other BPM independents. Customers can count on the company to be impartial when it comes to advocating the best approach. Pegasystems is also innovating with a “platform-as-a-service” option that lets IT offer independent BPMS instances for individual internal projects, speeding development while recognizing the desire for autonomy.

Software AG. Some now say SOA is dead, but services-oriented integration and business process management ” the killer app for SOA ” will survive come what may. With strengths in integration, BPM and services infrastructure, Software AG has a strong portfolio and an equally strong, global base of customers. In a market destined for consolidation, this vendor will be there.

Vitria. By combining event management with real-time analytics, Vitria has expanded on its integration roots and is pioneering the area of process intelligence. The M3O Suite introduced last year gives business users a slick, iPhone-like interface through which they can intuitively model, manage, monitor and optimize processes without help from IT. The recently added Operations Book module offers continuous analysis of business conditions and events in the context of historical data.

COMPANIES TO WATCH: ENTERPRISE APPLICATIONS

Google. Last year we ranked Google among “The Dozen” most influential companies in enterprise IT, saying “it casts a shadow far out of proportion to its actual footprint in the enterprise.” The question is, will Google always be an influencer rather than an actual presence within large organizations? Sure, Google Search Appliance, Google Apps, Google Gears and Google Android will all make marks, but the last three were invented primarily to serve the broad consumer market. Given Google’s might, we’ll keep watching for more dedicated enterprise efforts.

Infor. Not to be left behind in the battle between Oracle and SAP, Infor has continued to advance its applications and architecture. Users can customize the rich, dynamic MyDay interface (introduced last year as a standard feature) to support more than 150 roles, keeping job-relevant tasks and alerts in view. Look for Infor’s entry into SaaS this year.

InterSystems. We won’t get to pervasive business intelligence through conventional BI interfaces. The idea behind InterSystems’ DeepSee is delivering embedded real-time BI inside transactional applications. Developers embed prebuilt graphs, charts, reports and dashboards directly within applications. As a result, users see current operational data within a familiar interface so they can make better decisions and change workflows and business rules to optimize performance.

JackBe. Now more than ever, agile companies will carry the day. JackBe is all about being nimble, with component-based Web development tooling including a server, composer and connectors designed to quickly bring secure and reliable mashup applications to the enterprise.

SugarCRM. Launched as an open-source project in 2004, SugarCRM has been downloaded more than four million times. Well-supported Professional and Enterprise editions build on the Sugar Community Edition, which boasts a strong developer community. Commercial derivatives include SaaS and even an appliance-based (Sugar Cube) offering. Sugar sweetens the deal with third-party data integration and Web 2.0-style social networking features.

Workday. Conventional ERP vendors are dragging their feet and giving grudging lip service to software as a service. Meanwhile, Workday is forging ahead with an ever-richer suite of resource planning and resource management functionality. The latest upgrades include HR management tools that help managers evaluate staff costs and business expenses. A new Pay for Performance feature helps managers set employee and team goals and drive desired results with tailored compensation programs.

COMPANIES TO WATCH: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Autonomy. This leading player has gone well beyond a robust, cross-media enterprise search platform to address records management, e-mail archiving, e-Discovery and even process management. In short, Autonomy is putting search into broader business contexts.

Calais. This natural-language-processing Web service automatically tags huge volumes of content within seconds, adding metadata for people, places, organizations, facts and events so publishers can make archives searchable, improve tagging consistency and aggregate and deliver new information products and services. The API is easily integrated/mashed and the Open Calais Web Service will apply tags to up to 40,000 documents per day at no charge.

Coral8. Blending business intelligence with its complex event processing technology, Coral 8 introduced an upgraded product suite in 2008 that monitors streaming information ” market data, trade data, clickstream data, point-of-sale data and so on ” as well as the reference data typical of data warehouses. The approach improves how users view and understand real-time actions by adding the context of historical patterns.

EnterpriseDB. In a tough economy, open-source database players will find the crack in the market door opening wider. MySQL may be ensconced in the LAMP stack, but no player is doing more to boost enterprise acceptability than EnterpriseDB, offering support and strong contributions around PostgreSQL.

Greenplum. With Oracle and Microsoft joining the data warehouse appliance crowd in ’08, competition will surely narrow. Greenplum has the advantage of a good head start and petabyte-scale systems to its credit. It’s also still innovating, most notably with its drive to employ the performance-enhancing MapReduce approach.

HP. This giant seemed to be in a BI holding pattern for much of 2008, but then, it did have the considerable distraction of the EDS acquisition. It’s clear that BI and data warehousing are pet projects for HP CEO (and Teradata veteran) Mark Hurd, as evidenced by his putting a former Teradata protégé in charge late last year. We expect more action on this front in 2009.

Informatica. An independent that has held its own in the face of fierce competition from IBM and Oracle, Informatica has continued to innovate with its push into real-time data services and data integration for cloud computing options including SaaS. Look for more forays into operational data integration outside of the context of BI.

Initiate Systems. Garbage in, garbage out. This old maxim is behind the steady adoption of master data management (MDM) systems that ensure consistent and reliable data. Initiate Systems is an MDM leader, and its strong customer base in health care and insurance should ensure continued innovation as the company branches into the high-tech, manufacturing and retail markets.

Interwoven. This company unraveled in the wake of the dot-com bust, but a new team has stitched everything back together over the last two years. By staying focused on two core markets: large-scale Web content management, and document management and compliance for legal and professional firms, Interwoven has been pleasing customers and profiting. The lesson? Stick to your knitting!

Kalido. The only thing you can count on in business is change, so Kalido has done well as a pioneer of flexible modeling with its Kalido Information Engine. In 2008, Kalido took another step beyond static approaches to data warehouse development with the Business Information Modeler, a tool that lets analysts sit down with business constituents to discuss information delivery (and changes thereto) in visual terms they can easily understand.

Nuxeo. Already the leading open-source enterprise content management vendor in Europe, Nuxeo now has its sights set on the big US market. Expect to see its fast growth, strong community support and steady pace of innovation continue.

Siperian. Master data management is steadily gaining traction as a must-have technology. Siperian is an MDM leader, setting the standards for data acquisition, cleansing and deduplication, in addition to management of data relationships, hierarchies, models and reference data. What’s more, the company is breaking into new markets including manufacturing and retail.

Sybase. Column-store databases offer clear performance advantages over relational databases in analytic applications, and SybaseIQ is the incumbent with more than 1,000 customers. The company responded to upstart competitors last year with an IQ-based appliance and a real-time loading solution for low-latency reporting and decision support.

Talend. An open source alternative seems to exist for every enterprise software niche. In the data integration and ETL space, the leader is Talend. Solid tools and plentiful connectors are complemented by an extensive list of BI and data warehousing partners.

Vertica. Vertica has opened many eyes to the advantages of column-store databases, and it has been an aggressive innovator in releasing appliance- and cloud-based options. With its advanced compression technology and visionary leadership, this company is making waves.

COMPANIES TO WATCH: PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Kinaxis. Software as a service shines when collaboration crosses geographies and organizational boundaries. Kinaxis provides a SaaS-based performance management application that helps companies improves sales and operations planning as well as supply chain visibility.

Quantrix. Business plans and assumptions are changing quickly these days, and nine times out of 10 the big decisions are made in spreadsheets. Trouble is, Excel is better at analyzing history than exploring many possible futures. Quantrix provides an in-memory planning and modeling alternative that lets users change assumptions and choose from among myriad business scenarios.

RiverLogic. Enterprises must be able to understand the interdependencies between operational and financial performance. RiverLogic’s Enterprise Optimizer models the links between, say, supply chain processes and related financial performance to help enterprises comprehend current and potential performance.

Varicent. Salespeople are the spark plugs of business. But if their efforts aren’t aligned with corporate strategy and if they can’t adapt to changing conditions, your company is sure to head in the wrong direction. Varicent provides on-premise and SaaS-based alternatives for modeling, analyzing and quickly adapting compensation plans as sales trends and markets fluctuate. It’s sales performance management that serves finance, human resources, and top executives as well as sales managers.

Five Innovations that Will Change Cities in the Next Five Years

Interessante video da IBM em sua iniciativa de soluções de tecnologia para as cidades (retirado do blog http://asmarterplanet.com)!

IT impact on global trade greater than economic share

O post abaixo saiu ontem na ComputerWorld (http://news.idg.no)!

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IT impact on global trade greater than economic share

Veronica C. Silva
18.12.2009 kl 17:13 | IDG News Service

ICT is estimated to contribute one-fifth to the aggregate global exports in 2009, but the sector’s overall impact on global trade is seen to surpass its economic share.

With global trade expected to hit US$19.5 trillion this year, World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) chairman Dato’ Dan E. Khoo bets on ICT as an “essential tool” to revitalise cross-border trade and revive the world economy.

In a speech at the recent Asia-Pacific Digital Innovation Summit (APDIS 2009) in Melbourne, Australia, Khoo said: “As a horizontal tool, ICT is an enabler of growth and development for all other industries that collectively contribute to the other 80 per cent of global trade.”

This is despite the prediction of technology research firm Gartner that global ICT spending will dip four per cent in 2009. WITSA noted that spending already reached US$3.8 trillion in 2008.

Ubiquitous

ICT tools such as e-commerce, mobile commerce, Web portals, business matching and customer relationship management systems are bringing a whole new dimension to how other industries operate, do business and reach out to markets, added Khoo.

“For it is ubiquitous in any and every industry, from traditional sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, medical and education to new ones like biotechnology and green tech,” the WITSA chairman said, describing the presence of ICT.

At the opening ceremony of the Global Public Policy Summit (GPPS 2009) in Bermuda last November 2009, Khoo stressed that people must exert their influence on their respective governments about the benefits of building out the ICT infrastructure through pro-competitive market policies and sound investments.

Following the same line of thought in APDIS 2009, Khoo cautioned governments bent on carrying out protectionist measures to reduce unemployment as well as current account and trade deficits. On the contrary, he said such moves could even hinder global economy recovery.

IBM Acquisition of Lombardi Influenced by Cloud Strategy

Eis um post do blog http://industry.bnet.com!

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IBM Acquisition of Lombardi Influenced by Cloud Strategy
By Erik Sherman | Dec 17, 2009

These days, it seems that almost every tech company is focused on “cloud computing,” as most busily try to recast what they do into a cloud context. But in some cases, companies really seem to get it, and IBM (IBM) is one of them. Except given its long expertise in enterprise computing, IBM really gets it, and much of what it’s doing these days seems designed to strategically dominate cloud computing as a new approach to its traditional markets. The most recent example is its acquisition of business process management vendor Lombardi.

The key is not the size of the market, which market research firm IDC estimates at hitting $3 billion within a few years. It’s also not really the list of clients that Lombardi has, although it is impressive:

According to Lombardi CEO Rod Favaron, the company has about 300 enterprise-level customers with a high percentage shared with IBM. Lombardi has a shockingly impressive customer list, including Allianz Group, Aflac, Barlays Global Investors, Dell, FETAC, Ford Motor, Hasbro, ING Direct, Intel, Maritz Travel, National, Bank of Canada, National Institute of Health, Safety-Kleen, T-Mobile, UCLH, and several governmental agencies.

I’d be surprised if IBM didn’t already have most if not all of these as customers in one form or another. No, the real issue is that this puts IBM even more thoroughly in the business processes of large companies, and that’s the area where it expects the cloud to be huge. That’s why it announced its business analytics private cloud. I think that IBM sees business processes as the most likely candidates for real cloud computing, and it’s working to be there with a full suite of offerings before anyone else. And that leaves you wondering, as it’s massive financial muscle lets it continue its string of 90 acquisitions since 2003, who else will be able to get close and provide not just commodity cloud computing, but a cloud operational suite that offers enough value to entice large corporations and get them to pony up a lot of money. Microsoft (MSFT), HP (HPQ), Rackspace (RAX), and others clearly have their work cut out for them.

ERP’s Paralysis Problem and the Repercussions for Businesses Everywhere

 Eis aqui mais um post sobre ERP´s vindo do blog www.cio.com, e do mesmo autor do post “The Future of ERP” , que reproduzimos aqui no dia 20/11/2009 (Parte 1) e no dia 04/12/2009 (Parte 2).

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Tue, Dec 15, 2009 12:39 EST
ERP’s Paralysis Problem and the Repercussions for Businesses Everywhere
Another ERP survey, another indictment of ERP’s failings to the business. But this one is costly.

Posted by: Thomas Wailgum in News Topic: Applications Blog: Enterprise Software Unplugged Current Rating: Comments: 9

There’s a growing movement underway to rid the business world of the acronym ERP.

For real.

In fact, executives at SAP—the ones who practically invented the concept and related terminology—are among those leading the charge. (See The Future of ERP for more.)

The reason? ERP is an outdated, almost meaningless piece of IT jargon that crudely attempts to encompass all that enterprise systems have become and will be for today’s and tomorrow’s large, midsize and even small companies, but falls woefully short: No one does just ERP anymore.

Another reason to deep-six ERP is to ensure that there is no future association between next-generation business applications and the long-standing failings of monolithic ERP software deployments. And, of course, to put as much distance between next-gen software and ERP survey results, such as the findings from a December 2009 study conducted by IDC and sponsored by ERP vendor Agresso.

The survey, based on the ERP experience of 214 business executives across a wide variety of midsize and larger industries, found that today’s ERP systems “are not providing businesses with the architectural agility necessary to support businesses adequately in today’s high-change, global environment.”

That’s not too shocking. But what is notable about the results (and what makes them different than your garden-variety ERP study that shows sky-high TCO, or application performance problems, or unfavorable implementation odds), is that this survey actually quantifies ERP system-related failings directly to business disruption—expensive, unpleasant and career-killing business disruption.

“Survey respondents said that the inability to easily modify their ERP system deployments is disrupting their businesses by delaying product launches, slowing decision making and delaying acquisitions and other activities that ultimately cost them between $10 million and $500 million in lost opportunities,” according to the survey report. (That’s a substantial gulf in “lost opportunities,” but we’ll chalk that up to the size differences in companies surveyed.)

That related impact is costly: 21 percent of respondents reported declines in stock price; 14 percent suffered revenue losses tied to delayed product launches; and 17 percent encountered declines in customer satisfaction.

A couple of verbatim responses from respondents should make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up: “Capital expenditure priorities are shifted into IT from other high-payback projects” just to perform necessary ERP changes, noted one respondent. Said another: “Change to ERP paralyzes the entire organization in moving forward in other areas that can bring more value.”

I don’t have an MBA, but I’m pretty sure that paralyze is not a word you want associated with your department right now—or ever.

Today’s business environment is, of course, changing much faster than most businesses can keep up with, and any type of technology that impedes the ability to adapt and be flexible is most unwelcome. Which leads to another interesting data point from the survey: ERP systems are constantly being modified, updated and, well, changed. Just 3 percent of respondents had not made changes to their ERP systems, and nearly half (43 percent) are continuously making changes as needed.

As the sun finally sets on the first decade in the new millennium, it’s high time we say good night to ERP. A new day will be starting soon, and the blemished legacy and failings of ERP’s nearly four-decade-long reign will be a distant memory.

Do you Tweet? Follow me on Twitter @twailgum. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline.

The Universal, Entrepreneurial Concept of “Jugaad”

Este post (de 14/12/2009) veio do blog do Prof. Mark Perry (http://mjperry.blogspot.com/)!

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The Universal, Entrepreneurial Concept of “Jugaad”

Nick Schulz at The Enterprise blog points today to a news report featuring a Legatum Institute study about India’s entrepreneurial sector, and a separate related blog post, which both discuss the concept of “jugaad,” a Hindi word describing entrepreneurial ingenuity in the face of adversity, equivalent in English translation to “making do,” “jury-rigging,” or using a “duct-tape arrangement.” 

According to the “Our Delhi Struggle Blog,” the concept of jugaad is:

Best illustrated by a common rural sight that people actually refer to as “a jugaad”: a homemade vehicle made by cobbling together a wooden cart with the kind of diesel water pump farmers use for irrigation (see photo below).  Fitted with makeshift steering and braking mechanisms, these jugaad vehicles are used for everything: for transporting people from one village to another, with dozens of riders crammed together tighter than the bundles of sugarcane they are also used to transport; for trips to regional markets; and for transporting the pump itself. Farmers share or rent these pumps, and this arrangement lets the pump actually transport itself to wherever it’s needed next. These vehicles reflect the true spirit of innovation in rural India.

Here’s another fine example of Indian jugaad ingenuity:

Of course, jugaad is not unique to India and is a universal philosophical outlook that applies whenever entrepreneurs are trying to solve problems with what they have, not with what they wish they had. For example, here are some fine examples of American “Redneck-jugaad,” see more pictures here and here:

A smarter approach to enterprise architecture from IBM

Interesting video about Enterprise Architecture from IBM. I thank this hint to Schindlwick, from http://twitter.com/EA_Consultant!

Four Quadrants of Innovation

O post abaixo foi publicado no Continuous Innovation Group da rede social LinkedIn!

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Sunday, December 06, 2009

Four Quadrants of Innovation

Incremental versus Disruptive
by Hutch Carpenter

I recently wrote up a post, “Innovation Perspectives – No Shooting Stars.” In it, I discussed the issue of organizations myopically focusing on only disruptive innovations to the exclusion of more incremental or sustaining innovations.

In doing more research on the subject, I began thinking about the dynamics that apply when a firm pursues different kinds of innovation. A post by Venkatesh Rao, Disruptive versus Radical Innovations, was very useful for distinguishing between disruptive and radical innovations.

Building on that, I wanted a framework for delineating innovations based on their technology and business impacts. Because they’re not necessarily the same. The four quadrants below describe the dynamics for innovations according to their technology and market impacts:

In each quadrant, there are different rationales and issues that apply. Let’s take a look.

Existing Tech, Manage Existing Market

The lower left quadrant represent innovations that leverage existing technology, and service existing customers. This is every day innovation. The block-n-tackle innovation that keeps companies nimble and operating at rates above industry averages.

Example? See how Wal-Mart improved the fuel efficiency of its vehicle fleet:

“Wal-Mart has taken a number of steps, including the installation of diesel Auxiliary Power Units on all its trucks, and applying aerodynamic skirting. On the tire side, Wal-Mart is working with super single tires. and is testing nitrogen-filled tires and an automatic filling process to maintain constant tire air pressure.”

Improving the customer experience is also a critical opportunity. In an era of social-media empowered customers impacting your brand, the consequences of failing to improve the customer experience are higher than ever.

But this quadrant is the one often pooh-poohed by many in innovation. I like the way PriceWaterhouseCoopers puts it in this blog post:

“An unintended consequence of the Innovators Dilemma has been that companies have begun believing that unless they were pursuing a strategy of seeking disruptive innovations, they were somehow losing out.”

Wal-Mart’s efforts have paid off. The retailer has held relatively strong during the Great Recession, as seen in its stock price. And Toyota famously gathered over million ideas a year from its employees to emerge as a global leader in the automotive industry.

Existing Tech, Create New Market

In this quadrant, existing technology is leveraged to create a new revenue streams. This is the quadrant where the following phrase applies:

“Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.”

The simple application of a technology that serves one purpose toward a different purpose can be disruptive from a market perspective. It’s not a large technological leap. It’s the intelligent application of what’s already at hand.

Twitter is a great example. The technology itself is…simple. Web form. Subscription model. Limit to 140 characters. Yet it’s revolutionized the way people share and find information, causing Techcrunch’s MG Siegler to compare it to a modern day Walter Cronkite. All for a simple little web app. Here’s what WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg says about Twitter:

“Whether the Twitter team intended it or not, they’ve built a killer and highly addictive reader platform with dozens of interesting UIs on top of it.”

The thing with these innovations is that they are very much a market-determined disruption. This isn’t some sort of EUREKA! the moment the technology is rolled out of the labs. It takes the market to say that it’s disruptive.

Clayton Christensen (Innovator’s Dilemma) types of innovation will often fall in this quadrant. Existing technologies applied in new ways to address the lower end of the market.

Venkatesh Rao has a great perspective on this quadrant:

“In fact, in most documented cases of disruption, the disruptive innovation was a minor/incremental change and well within the technical capabilities of the incumbent (and was often taken to market by a renegade spin off from the original company).”

This quadrant is the best one for producing organic growth for companies. It has lower risk, but produces meaningful revenue growth.

Radical Tech, Create New Market

If any one quadrant defines the popular view of innovation, it’s this one. And that’s not without good reason. In the previous quadrant, existing technologies are applied to new markets. Well, existing technologies have to come from somewhere. That’s this quadrant.

This is the cool stuff that the press writes about. Check out AT&T’s Technology Showcase for a great example of some of these new technologies.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has done well in this quadrant. His latest innovation, the Kindle, is an example. It includes a new “electronic ink“. Ability to read text aloud. It’s incredibly thin profile.

And it’s paying off. Amazon reports that the Kindle set a new sales record this November. Which points to the Kindle as a strong new revenue stream down the road, and a new source of sales for Amazon’s book sales. A home run in this quadrant.

These types of innovations are important for maintaining the long-term growth rates of companies. They provide needed growth, replenishing changes in existing markets.

Which leads us to the final quadrant…

Radical Tech, Manage Existing Market

There are times a company’s business is under attack, and it needs to address changing behaviors in its market. Innovations in this quadrant share the high risk profile of the previous quadrant, but they have a defensive nature to them. They don’t seek to find new opportunities, they seek to address changes in customer behavior.

Hulu strikes me as an example of this. A joint venture of NBC, Fox and ABC, Hulu lets users view shows on computers. This initiative addresses the emerging market shift away from televisions to viewing on all sorts of devices. It’s a better answer for this shift than the music industry initially had for the proliferation of MP3 songs on various P2P sites.

Gary Hamel has noted the increasing volatility of markets across the globe. Customers have better access to information about new options, and are willing to shift their spending more quickly. With this dynamic, expect some increase in activity for innovations in this quadrant.

Companies Need a Portfolio of Innovation Opportunities

In a recent Accenture survey, 58% of executives said their organization is looking for the next silver bullet rather than pursuing a portfolio of opportunities. When I hear that, I think first of the upper right quadrant (radical tech, create new market). These types of innovations are incredibly important, and should be part of a company’s innovation efforts.

But there’s really a good basis for expanding that view to look at the other types of innovation: technology vs. market, disruptive vs incremental.

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Hutch Carpenter is the Director of Marketing at Spigit. Spigit integrates social collaboration tools into a SaaS enterprise idea management platform used by global Fortune 2000 firms to drive innovation.