The Vendor-Client Relationship

By Nick Hortovanyi

Anybody involved in enterprise sales will enjoy this
video

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Rethinking IT truisms

By Nick Hortovanyi

I hear this all too often, "We don't do software development" inferring that preference is given to buying software packages. What about this one, "We are in the process of vendor consolidation and procurement don't like adding new vendors"?

Is it time to rethink these truisms? Why would you want to?

Vinnie Mirchandani, on his deal architect blog , wrote about "How the crash will shape Corporate IT" (follow the link also to his Information Week article). It really hit the spot for me and summed up what I've been feeling about some of these IT truisms for a while.

What I'm finding is that internal IT departments are losing the ability to write software programs and to understand the organisation through various disciplines of architecture. Their strongest skills, that is the internal IT department, now is in managing vendors in acquisition and in contract administration. Through losing their software development capability, they become an internal support organisation and not a center of leadership for change or efficiency improvement in the business.

When the business wants to do something new, the IT department on behalf of the business, hire external consultants to interview the business. The consultants then collate requirements to prepare a Request for Quote/Tender document for a COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) or MOTS (Modified Off The Shelf) package. Vendors with possible solutions, preferable with existing relationships, are approached and one is selected. This process can be very time consuming and all parties involved will expend significant effort. Mean while the business has changed, some of the requirements change or even worse no one can remember why a particular requirement was required in the first place. See how quickly the costs mount up. Not to mention the additional cost of the annual maintenance and support fees!

With the explosition in cloud technology there are so many ways to reduce not only your software costs but also your operational expenses. So if you are being asked to reduce your op-ex budget by at least 10%, or maybe even 50%, question those truisms. They are costing you!

Tags software truism development vendor it   |  Comments 0

Getting off of SaaS

By Nick Hortovanyi

The SaaS purist are always suggesting that a key characteristic of a true SaaS service provider, is to have the ability for it's clients to easily take their data and move to another service. Whilst in principle I agree with this, I think clarification is required.

If you've been using a properitary system like SAP, your data is in their format, stored in some relational database system. Its near impossible to migrate to another ERP, without a considerable amount of work.

The key point is that for the most part, there is no common way, to describe and hence then store your data in some intermediate format. This would hold true, regardless if the service was on-premise or off-premise.

Now I'm looking at Salesforce.com, and am trying to investigate the work required to move to say SugarCRM, either hosted myself or by an on-demand provider. Are there tools available for me to export my complete CRM data from Salesforce.com and then import into SugarCRM? Not that I can find.

I'm not saying that I don't like Salesforce.com. In fact, I'm liking the tool but believe there may be cheaper options that are more appropriate for our circumstances. For example I want to integrate to our existing LDAP server and also maybe to my local Apple Address Book on my Mac Book Pro.

Now Salesforce, gives me means to export data through reports. I haven't tried it yet, but looking at the process, it seems to have all the fields, including the additional ones that I created. Thus I can export data in some form, to potentially be loaded elsewhere. But this is not the same as the expectations that I think most users would have to then be able to utilise it quickly on the new service. Whilst there is some flexibility on importing information into Salesforce, for existing accounts and contacts. I can already see that the history of what has occurred would possible be lost.

But Salesforce is regarded as a leader in the SaaS space. Yet the capabilities are not there as readily, I would say, as the purists would expect to export or import my complete data. I think, for most users, once the commitment has been made to utilise the service, that they acknowledge that the real commitment, will be longer then the life of the initial subscription.

The need to export data, and in what format, can only be determined, at this time, once a new service has been selected. Correct me if I'm wrong here? SaaS providers can tick the box, they can placate some of the Purists, but is it really what the person paying the bills want?

Tags sugarcrm salesforce crm saas data vendor life+cycle   |  Comments 0