Dynamic process management – dream or reality?

I was helping an NGO as they did a food hand-out to hundreds of poor children in Alexandra, Johannesburg. As we were doing the hand-out, the original plan for the hand-out process had to be adjusted on-the-fly as we discovered there were problems with the process. We didn’t stop to review the process in detail, then present a proposal to change it. Someone had an idea how to re-organise some tasks, and we adjusted to it, and continued on.

That experience made me wonder if organisations could ever get to that stage of dynamic process management. In the past, processes had to be defined, documented and agreed, and neither the levels of technology nor communication enabled that to be done quickly in the first place, or when processes needed to change.

However, with the rise of social networking and collaboration in the organisation (the Enterprise 2.0 phenomenon), the speed and channels for communication have increased such that rapid communication across and between groups should not be so difficult. That means that if a problem is found in a process, there should be no reason why the situation cannot be immediately communicated to the people in the organisation who can review and change it.

On the technology side, process management software now allows organisations to graphically create and manipulate processes that will be performed. Software like SYSPRO Process Management connects directly to the enterprise software applications that the business runs, so that as a process is configured, the underlying ERP system is also configured. That means that if a process is found to be problematic, the process management software could be used to re-configure the process and the ERP system more quickly than has been possible before.

There are obviously other issues that need to be considered when changing processes, it’s obviously not as simple as I am describing; for example, there might be performance and testing considerations. But I am starting to wonder whether dynamic process management could become a reality in business, in other words almost real-time process management and change. Or is that just a dream?

Safra Katz’s false analogy

Use of an analogy is one way of trying to get people to understand your proposition. Joint President of Oracle, Safra Katz, is reported by Michael Krigsman -  Oracle’s integration strategy: Customer trade-offs – to have used the analogy of buying a car vs buying technology to explain Oracle’s acquisition strategy.

… we would go online to buy thousands of disconnected parts from many vendors, which our children would assemble into a completed car because the parts would not come with instructions. Just as we finished assembling the car … a light would go on indicating that an upgrade or patch is required. Katz said, “We would then do it all again.”

Katz used this car assembly story as a metaphor for product complexity in the enterprise … Oracle reduces this complexity by bringing together under one roof infrastructure, hardware, and database products that are “engineered to work together.”

The problem is that analogy is false – its trying to make out that purchase decisions by consumers and businesses are the same. As a marketing colleague has pointed out about information, there a significant differences between the consumer and business market.

When you buy a car, you don’t have to consider whether the wrong car choice will change your personal or family life (unless you can’t pay or buy an old, unsafe car). Business decisions on enterprise software are far more complex and have a different set of considerations.

As Michael points out:

Even though integration can reduce implementation complexity on customer projects, large vendors may introduce another set of risks.

While a large end-to-end vendor can offer greater simplicity, the trade-off involves the customer transferring power to that vendor. In a single-vendor world, customers who invest in large systems can become beholden to the large vendor, which gains greater control over pricing, product features, maintenance costs, and future development.

When do acquisitions make a company too big?

There seems to be a belief in some quarters that when it comes to IT companies, the larger the better; for example, Acquire Me! Oracle’s and SAP’s Next Likely Targets which quotes:

"A move by Big Blue, say on a midmarket ERP partner like Lawson or Infor, could presage further consolidation in that arena by Oracle and SAP." (The 451 Group report – Where Might Old Foes Oracle and SAP Each Look Next to Stave Off Apps Hunger Pangs?)

However, from a customer (and a partner) point-of-view, dealing with some larger ERP vendors means going through the bureaucracy to get even small things done. Also, large software vendors seem to go for a centralised control model. It might be old news, but at a conference in 2008, I was told by a senior local representative that Oracle’s process for confirming quotes for SA companies could only be done by Head Office in the US, this required a wait of several weeks before a quote could be approved.

Waiting that long for a quote might be OK in some countries, but South African business people are not typically enamoured by long decision cycles.

SAP’s Social Media Guidelines

SAP have done a very interesting job of publishing guidelines for its employees when using social media, like blogs, Twitter, Facebook – SAP Social Media Guidelines 2009.

There are some very good points that anyone using social media should adher to:

- Write in the first person
- Identify yourself
- Be Honest
- Be Respectful
- Separate Opinions from Facts
- Add Value
- Be Engaged and Be Informed
- Aim for Quality, not Quantity
- Don’t Pick Fights
- Protect Your Privacy

Update: I have been alerted to Intel’s Social Media Guidelines as well, which has some sensible Rules of Engagement:

- Transparency
- Be aware of legal issues
- Write what you know
- Be careful how you are perceived
- Value add
- Responsibility

Enterprise 2.0 early adopter feedback

Back in the dot-com era, you often saw articles about new Internet technologies that would revolutionise business. The Enterprise 2.0 phenomenon has not reached the hype levels of the dot-com period, but sometimes I am a bit sceptical of some claims made about social networking for the enterprise – and I mentioned that in a blog last week.

Now AMR has brought some reality into the debate with a report about results from Enterprise 2.0 early adopters. The early adopters failed to find benefits in the areas of customer and partner relationshipships, but get results in terms of internal collaboration. That doesn’t surprise me because, by their very nature, early adopters look for the value in new technology, while everyone else considers it ‘pie in the sky’.

Having been involved in some technology-driven initiatives several years ago that didn’t go anywhere in the business - artificial intelligence, executive information systems – I have a mental checklist of issues to evaluate. AMR repeats the decision agenda that a business should follow for any new technology project:

What is the urgent business objective that the technology can address?
What project will be easiest to implement?
Where can you get the most business value for the least complex implementation?
What departments will be able to best exploit the new opportunities?

There is also the recognition that social networking is a technology that will require engaging with customers, partners and employees, for quite a period of time, just to get them to start understanding the implications of such an initiative.

Meanwhile, one innovation from social software that I can appreciate is a disaster watch for Hurrican Ike on Twitter.

The Microsoft-IBM analogy again

Last year, having come out of a period as a Microsoft ERP partner, I blogged how it reminded me of IBM in that company’s ‘old days’. My impression was that:

It doesn’t matter if there is better software, if Microsoft promote it the organisation might just take it.

IBM had a monopoly cash-cow in mainframe hardware and operating systems, Microsoft has their one - Windows and Office …

IBM was good in some areas and terrible in others, but still continued in the terrible areas, so too is Microsoft …

We thought that IBM should maybe not do AS and AD/Cycle, and now some of us think Microsoft should maybe not do ERP and Search.

No I see Larry Dignan has blogged about Microsoft’s “IBM moment of clarity“. He comments how Microsoft is being diverted by:

chasing Yahoo, plotting to be an advertising empire and pining for consumers with things like the Xbox and Zune

IBM had its crash in the late 1980s, and as a result has now focused on “enterprise and helping business get stuff done.”

Where I disagree with Larry is when he supports Microsoft as an enterprise player with all these opportunities (as quoted by Microsoft CEO Ballmer):

“We see the most fantastic growth opportunities of all time in the enterprise. Desktop value, mail and collaboration, business intelligence, business applications, the server market despite virtualization is still exploding, enterprise search, the move of enterprises to host their infrastructure in the cloud that we call Microsoft Online, conferencing and IP telephony, management, virtualization software, the database and database application platform. I think palpably we are about this close, Microsoft, able to claim that we’re the number one enterprise software company in the world, which nobody would have been able to say 20 years ago, and yet we see nothing but opportunity.”

In my opinion this is Microsoft trying to be like IBM of old. Where is the synergy in, for example, business intelligence vs conference and IP telephony; or desktop value vs virtualisation.

I also disagree that Microsoft is the number one enterprise company in business intelligence and business apps (unless they justify that with Excel), enterprise search and conferencing.

I agree with Larry that Microsoft needs to learn to focus, as IBM did, but I believe that the areas of focus need to be trimmed even more.

South African Internet and mobile status

An interesting blog from the New Media Marketing conference gives a status update on where SA stands in relation to its Internet and mobile adoption.

For fixed line we are still behind the times (thanks to Telkom) but seem to doing OK on the mobile side.

The Microsoft-Yahoo news

Not a lot of people outside IT seem to be aware of the news about Microsoft’s proposed take-over of Yahoo, but to those I have spoken to reckon it obvious that the plan is to stop Google.

A BBC report on it has the graph below that shows how the two companies share price is dropping

In another article, the BBC describes it as a shotgun marriage – referring to any hasty marriage which is arranged less out of the desire of the participants to marry, but rather to avoid embarrassment.

Africa is fit for business

What I love about the blogosphere is how a stream of discussion starts and how facts and opinions get accumulated. This has happened recently starting with a blog by Jason Busch that claimed Africa is not fit for global sourcing. It was interesting to me that the opinion came from the US, a place not known for a good understanding of my continent.

A quick response came from South African ex-pat Thomas Otter giving lots of evidence why Jason’s view was mis-guided. Shortly after that, Dennis Howlett got involved in the debate, on the side of Thomas, even managing to reference one of my ‘good news’ blogs.

I am now very pleased to see a report from AMR referring to the rise of Africa. This is the view of global giant IBM who see Africa has a growth engine in the 21st century. The article mentions SA companies SAB/Miller, ShopRite, and Woolworths, and has some quotes that Jason should be aware of:

To the skeptic who still sees Africa as a hopeless mire of starving orphans and gun-toting thugs, consider what may be the most important fact of all: 25 years ago, Africa boasted only three democracies. Today there are 40. 

10 years ago, the likelihood of economic growth in Africa overall was 25% and decline was 22%.  Today the likelihood of growth is 45% and decline 12%.

Jason – I reckon Africa is actually very fit for business.