Archive for the ‘customer data integration’ Category

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Published on February 3, 2010 by R "Ray" Wang

IBM Adds A Leading Customer Data Integration/MDM Pioneer To Its Master Information Management Arsenal
 Buy capecitabine, With arguably 10 master information management acquisitions since 2003, IBM continues to push towards its goal of adaptive master data management (MDM) (see Figure 1).  The recent acquisition of Initiate Systems comes after the heals of Oracle's purchase of SilverCreek Systems in January 2010 and Informatica's purchase of Siperian in January 2010.  Rapid consolidation in the MDM market has effectively removed 3 of the 4 leading vendors in MDM.  The Initiate Systems acquisition brings IBM key benefits such as:


  • Strong and proven customer data integration platform. Initiate Systems brings best-in-class data de-duplication, Acquistare online gleevec, security and privacy, and strong data acquisition capabilities to IBM.  A key hallmark of the solution is the rapid real-time matching capabilities and hierarchy management.  Among all the MDM vendors, Initiate brings the most number of productive, Jotta capecitabine verkossa, live customers - about 100 of its estimated 200 customer count.

    Point of view (POV): As with rival Oracle, California CA Calif., IBM must take steps to harmonize the different MDM solutions in its portfolio.  Today, IBM offers Infosphere MDM Server for PIM based on Trigo product information management (PIM) and Infosphere MDM Server 9 based on DWL for customer data integration (CDI).  Initiate Systems adds a third and capable product into the line up that's optimized for customer data.


  • Deep healthcare and public sector experience. Initiate Systems made its mark in health care and public sector.   Today, Køb discount zometa, Initiate serves over 2400 health care sites and over 40 health information exchanges (HIE).  Key clients include Alberta Ministry of Health and Wellness, Alaska AK, BMI Healthcare (UK), Calgary Health Region, CVS/Caremark, buy casodex pill, Humana, Buy epogen online, Ochsner Health System, the State of North Dakota's Department of Health and Human Services and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.  In the past years, the Chicago, iressa pill, IL based vendor has branched out to other verticals such as financial services, Capecitabine without prescription, high-tech, manufacturing, and retail.  However, Kansas KS Kans., its gained the most ground in B2C public sector industries such as health care, Köpa casodex online, law enforcement, governmental agencies, and intelligence.

    POV: Expect IBM to augment Initiate's strengths with IBM's InfoSphere Identity Insight and InfoSphere Global Name Recognition to address the B2C public sector industries.   In health care, New Jersey NJ N.J., IBM Global Services already serves as a key reseller and this will ease the integration of this practice area into Big Blue.  Expect Initiate to continue its lead in EMPI and role in public sector projects.  Consequently, Cheap zometa without prescription, IBM will have to address how they will work with rival partners such as Raytheon, Informatica, Carefx, cheap capecitabine online, Healthvision, Ordering epogen without prescription, Agfa, and dbMotion.


  • Strong management team, Mississippi MS Miss.. Bill Conroy (CEO) and his capable management team drove an estimated $100M in revenues with a 4 year CAGR of 50% and zero debt. On top of this, they secured a $31M Series E round of funding from EMC, Informatica, Dunruth Capital, BCBS Capital, and Paladin Capital.

    POV: With arguably one of the most capable management teams in the industry and one of the sharpest sales minds, Greg Shaw, IBM adds some key assets to its management ranks.  How they navigate the Big Blue bureaucracy will be a test of how well IBM conducts integrations of high performing companies.  Given the improved collaboration culture within IBM Software Group and the rest of IBM, the future bodes well.



Figure 1, buy capecitabine. Buy iressa no prescription, IBM's MDM Acquisition Road Map

IBM's MDM Acquisition Roadmap

The Bottom Line For Users - IBM Brings Stability To Initiate's Customers And Adds A Series Of Big Blue Capabilities

Initiate customers gain access to the assets of IBM.  Customers can expect IBM to integrate the product line over 2 years but benefit immediately from synergies with other IBM Information Management products such as its knowledge base of industry models, governance, BI & performance management tools, ordering gleevec from canada, and identity and management tools.  As with most IBM acquisitions, Order cytoxan overnight delivery, key personnel in product development, support, and sales will be incentivized to stay for at least 2 years, Arizona AZ Ariz., providing enough time for knowledge transfer and account transitions.  In general, Zometa farmacia a buon mercato, non-IBM customers will gain new resources.  Existing IBM customers will find business as usual.

The Bottom Line For Vendors - MDM Moves From Best Of Breed To Foundational Software Stack Component

Given the foundational nature of MDM in any vendor's software stack, expect more rapid consolidation in the MDM market with very few independents by the end of 2010.  Potential acquirers include EMC, Illinois IL Ill., HP, αγοράσετε zometa, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, köpa rabatterade cytoxan, and SAP.  Potential targets for EMC, Köpa zometa online, SAP, and HP include Datactics, Kalido, Talend, and Visionware.   With Initiate Systems in IBM's hands,  Microsoft's most likely target would be VisionWare or Kalido as they are the only two vendors optimized on the Microsoft stack.  SAP, EMC, and HP may be better off looking at Kalido for its strong pharma, insurance, and data governance capabilities for MDM.  MDM will move more and more vertical as domain specific issues become paramount.



Your POV

Are you an IBM or Initiate Systems customer?   How do you feel about the acquisition?  Would you like to learn how to:


  • Develop an MDM strategy?

  • Select an MDM solution?

  • Negotiate an MDM contract?

  • Design a data governance program?


Please post or send on to rwang0 at gmail dot com or r at softwaresinsider dot org and we’ll keep your anonymity.
Related Links And Resources

Here's a list of resources.  They will be added on an ongoing basis and updated as appropriate.

Official IBM Press Release

20100203 Spend Matters - Jason Busch "IBM Takes the CDI/EMPI Initiative with its Initiate Acquisition"

20100203 ZD Net: Between the lines - Larry Dignan, Sam Diaz, Andrew Nusca "IBM buys Initiate; Bets on Healthcare IT"

20100203 IDG News Service - Chris Kanaracus "IBM Buying MDM Vendor Initiate Systems"

20100203 SearchCRM.com - Jeff Kelly "IBM to Acquire MDM Vendor Initiate Systems"



Copyright © 2010 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Published on December 22, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

Keep In Mind Basic Rules Still Apply Regardless Of Deployment Option

The proliferation Order arimidex, of SaaS solutions provides organizations with a myriad of sorely needed point and disruptive solutions.  Good news - business users can rapidly procure and deploy, while innovating with minimal budget and IT team constraints.  Bad news - users must depend more on their SLA guarantees and deal with a potential integration nightmare of hundreds if not thousands of potential SaaS apps.  Though the 7 key benefits of SaaS outweigh most downside risks, organizations must design their SaaS apps strategies with the same rigor as any apps strategy.  Just because deployment options have changed, this does not mean basic apps strategy is thrown out the window.  Concepts such as SOA, business process orchestration, and enterprise architecture will be more important than ever.  Here are 10 strategies to consider as organizations take SaaS mainstream:


  1. Begin with the business process and desired business value. Understand the desired business value and outcome.  Map back the key performance indicators (KPI's) to the business processes. Identify what processes will be covered by the SaaS solution.  Determine overlaps and hand-offs between on-premise and SaaS to SaaS that are required to measure the desired KPI's.

  2. Engage stakeholders early and often. Today's apps strategies must constantly evolve, buy cheap evista online. Change is happening so fast that line of business leads and IT leaders must collaborate in real time.  The result - an ever changing list of requirements.  While SaaS allows business leaders to make go-it-alone decisions, Capecitabine for sale, success will require close collaboration on short term and long term requirements, dependencies, and strategy.

  3. Bet on future suites, District of Columbia DC D.C., SaaS platforms or PaaS (Platform-as-a-service). Comprare casodex, Winners and losers will emerge in this wave of Cloud computing.  Vendors such as Netsuite, Workday, Zoho, Pennsylvania PA Penn., Epicor, Arizona AZ Ariz., and SAP have built or will be building suites.  They provide safe bets as more and more functionality will be rolled into their offerings. Concurrently, organizations should also choose vendors who bring a vibrant and rich ecosystem to the table because those vendors will win in the market.  Salesforce.com and NetSuite already provide users with a platform to build on apps.  Other vendors such as as Google Apps Engine, Microsoft Azure, IBM, and Zoho provide rich developer communities.  Partner and customers will drive innovation which is why platform adoption (i.e, order arimidex. today's middleware) makes a difference.

  4. Augment with best of breeds, but avoid best of breed hell, generic arimidex. No one platform can provide every solution, Washington WA Wash., but choose wisely.  Best of breeds provide deep vertical capabilities and rich last mile solutions.  However, no one wants to manage hundreds of vendor relationships.  Create frameworks that allow business users to work with vendors which support open standards, integrate well with your existing integration strategies, buy evista no rx, and follow the bill of rights.   Reduction in the number of vendors will become a priority in 2010 going on into 2011.

  5. Assume hybrid will be the rule not the exception. Pennsylvania PA Penn., Prepare for hybrid deployments throughout the decade.  Despite the benefits of SaaS and broad adoption in 2010, legacy apps will not go away.  Just count the number of mainframe and client-server apps still in use today.  Many on-premise apps will take time to migrate to SaaS. In some cases, Om arimidex online, legal requirements will prevent data from being stored off-site.  Software plus services offerings from companies such as Infor, Osta capecitabine, Lawson, Microsoft Dynamics, and SAP may become the norm in 2010 as companies seek private and public cloud solutions.

  6. Design with good architecture, goedkope cytoxan apotheek. Order arimidex, Keep your enterprise architects (EA's) or hire some more.  Inevitably, more and more SaaS solutions will enter the organization.  EA's will proactively plan for new scenarios and account for future business requirements.  Organizations should keep some rigor in terms of standards for solution adoption while accounting for the need to rapidly innovate.  Business leaders will need some frameworks on which solutions to adopt.

  7. Choose the right integration strategy for the right time. SaaS integration strategies will evolve based on the organization's SaaS adoption maturity.  The first set of solutions will probably require point to point integration of data.  Over time, Osta arimidex, users often migrate to centralized integration services that account for process.  Some will go full enterprise service bus (ESB) and look at business process orchestration as well.  Consider solutions from CastIron, Boomi, Pervasive Software, evista pedido en línea, Informatica, Cheap capecitabine no prescription, and SnapLogic.  Going forward customer data integration and master data management will be more important than ever.

  8. Minimize long-term storage costs with archiving. Storage represents a significant long term SaaS cost.  Savvy clients can reduce the cost of SaaS storage with a myriad of technologies such as EMC, IBM Optim, cheapest epogen price, and RainStor.  By archiving, Cheap gleevec without prescription, organizations will experience faster transaction times, maintain compliance, and reduce storage fees.

  9. Hedge risk with SaaS escrows. Most SaaS vendors will require 5 to 7 years to achieve profitability.  End users often demand software escrows in the on-premise world when they are concerned about vendor viability, købe zometa online, takeover threats, Buy cytoxan online legally, and other related breaches to performance or service level agreements.  Software escrows vendors serve as the trusted third party independent organization which holds a copy of the software code.  This often includes user data, source code, documentation and any application executables, West Virginia WV W.Va.. SaaS escrows work in a similar way.  Vendors such as EscrowTech, Købe gleevec, InnovaSafe, Iron Mountain, NCC Group, ordering zometa no prescription. and OpSource can provide such services.

  10. Protect your rights. Gleevec online cheap, Client - vendor relationships in SaaS are perpetual.  Organizations have one shot to get the contract right and begin the relationship with the right tenor.  Apply best practices from The Customer Bill of Rights: SaaS. Work with vendors to find the right balance in approach.


The Bottom Line For Customers - Build Frameworks That Support Easy Line Of Business Adoption

The broad adoption and trajectory of SaaS solutions requires organizations to rapidly replace edicts and 5 year plans with guidelines and policy frameworks.  The goal - enable anyone in the organization to procure a SaaS solution that meets key guidelines and standards.  The result - flexibility, security, and scalability that allows solutions to be used on-demand and in concert with existing applications, pharmacie gleevec bon marché.

Your POV.

As you work out your SaaS apps strategies, drop us a line and let us know how you are deploying, what challenges you've faced, and what successes have you achieved.  We're happy to weigh in.  Feel free to post your comments here or send me an email at rwang0 at gmail dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org.

Copyright © 2009 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Buy Evista

Published on December 11, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang


Boston Park Plaza Lobby Buy evista, nTag at SAP Summit Schwarz and Becher The Future Leadership of SAP?
(Photos by R Wang & Insider Associates, LLC.   Copyright © 2009 All rights reserved.)

Re-innovation Now At The Heart Of SAP's Focus And Strategy

SAP has faced a rough two years.  From the continuing market pressure on new license revenue, false-start launch of Business By Design (ByD), comprar gleevec de descuento, management restructuring, and issues with user groups and Enterprise Support, one could kindly say its been a brutal period.  Looking forward to a fresh start in 2010, senior executives and key personnel have been hard at work "re-innovating" SAP at both the product and marketing level.  As intended, Cheap gleevec overnight delivery, many of the 275 analysts, bloggers, customers, influencers, and media attendees of this year's SAP Influencer Summit left Boston with the perception that the company is in the midst of such transition. However, epogen en ligne afin, the clarity of that message and the perception of innovation depended on the topic at hand.

Five key themes drove most formal and informal conversations throughout the event:


  • SAP continues to be innovative. John Schwarz, SAP Executive Board Member, keynoted on stage that " We are not your grandmother's SAP" and addressed SAP's aspiration to become more customer focused and innovative.  Jim Hagemann Snabe, παραγγείλετε online zometa, Executive Board Member in charge of Business Technology and Solutions, touted the product vision.  Vishal Sikka, SAP's Chief Technology Officer (CTO) focused his conversation on Timeless Software and SAP's cloud orientation.  He emphasized the size of future data volumes and the case for why In-Memory applications would provide the access speed and key meta-data required to draw inference for usage in business intelligence and analytics.  Meanwhile, John Wookey, who leads SAP's OnDemand for Large Enterprise effort commented on the Cloud by stating, "SAP sees On-Demand as the next major change in computing models and we're very serious about on-demand, For cytoxan online. Innovation in on-demand (deployment options) is still largely in front of us."

    Point of view (POV): SAP's working hard to highlight its innovations.   With €1.6B spent a year in R&D, innovation exists in SAP Labs but management and tribal politics often keep good ideas from becoming productized.  Users will need to work closely with SAP to identify needs and requirements and help SAP prioritize what should go to market.  Cloud strategy remains hazy in specifics, buy evista. In-memory approach will benefit customers but will take time to develop across all products.  OnDemand for Large Enterprises could slow in-roads by pure-play SaaS vendors.




  • Business analytics and intelligence play a key role in the platform. Executive Vice-President and General Manager, Marge Breya spent much time talking about SAP's support for heterogeneous data sources.  As the BOBJ assets integrate into NetWeaver, her emphasis would be to deliver information across new platforms and use cases.  Project Kona for business intelligence (BI) OnDemand in mobility would play a key role in changing how users access SAP information.

    POV: Customers need better information in order to make key decisions.  BI plays a significant role in delivering such value to customers and the Business Objects acquisition provides the enabler.  However, SAP users still find data quality and data governance to be a key hole in the SAP information strategy.  SAP will need to address the different approaches in master data management (MDM) and help customers understand which set of tools should be applied in each customer scenario.




  • Future growth rests with success in small and medium enterprises.  With most of the large enterprise saturated with packaged apps such as ERP, Oklahoma OK Okla., SAP's future growth rests on its ability to move down market.  The SME team led by Hans-Peter Klaey shared progress on their 3-prong product strategy with Business One (B1), Business All in One (BAiO), and Business by Design (ByD).   B1 continues to gain traction in the small end of the market and SAP has published a product road map well past 2014.  The key issues remain the future of ByD and how SAP plans to scale growth.

    POV: With hopes of getting ByD to scale, Feature Pack 2.5 promises to bring in-memory analytics, multi-tenant support, mobile device enablement, iressa online kaufen, Microsoft Silverlight UI's, and a software development kit based on Microsoft Visual Studio.  Scaling remains a big issue but now becomes technically feasible.  Conversations with Rainer Zinow, Senior Vice President for SME Strategic Solution Management; Christoph Behrendt, Senior Vice President for Midsize Enterprises; Peter Lorenz, Illinois IL Ill., Senior Vice President, SME Solutions; Jeff Stiles, Senior Vice President for SME Marketing; and others, highlight the advanced progression in SAP's SME thinking.   Early indications show promise that they will eventually approach the market with the right scaling, go to market plan, comprare gleevec, and cost structure to succeed. Movement towards more Microsoft technologies will help attract B1 partners, especially many at Sage who may be disgruntled but technically competent and customer service oriented.


  • Sustainability is more than a trend.  Building on its Clear Standards acquisition, SAP continues to drive mind share in the field of sustainability tracking.  Key topics include the usual suspects of carbon emissions, Generic epogen, energy consumption, and compliance. The Business Objects Sustainability Performance Management offering showcased new areas such as product and workplace safety.  Its recent Sustainability Report highlights how SAP uses its own software to achieve its corporate objectives.  Sustainability shows growth as a board-level topic and issue of concern.

    POV: More than just buzzwords, SAP's making a considerable investment in sustainability.  By providing the right templates and KPI's for external reporting, SAP will transform social responsibility aspirations to reality for its interested customers.   Peter Graf, SAP's Chief Sustainability Officer, αγοράζουν φτηνά arimidex, has harnessed the do-good spirit of SAP's employees in building out SAP's offerings.  Expect sustainability to be a key area in repairing SAP's current image.  Conversations with customers indicate that sustainability may not be a primary reason to choose SAP today, but SAP's investment and commitment in this arena brings SAP into conversations with key business leaders and has led to deal flow.  However, long term success in sustainability will require good master data management (MDM) and SAP must rapidly address this issue or face the prospect of false promises.


  • Partners and ecosystems matter. The partner ecosystem team continues to evolve and innovate with new programs that not only attract new partners, but also improve partner readiness.  SAP currently works with 7000 go to market partners and the SAP Developer Network boasts 2.5M developers.  Efforts such as the SAP Mentor program, Cheap evista no prescription, SAP Partner Edge, SAP EcoHub, and SAP Community Network by Zia Yusuf and his successor, Singh Mecker, Senior Vice President of GEPG provide proof points of progress and success.

    POV:     Buy evista, The EcoHub provides customers, partners, suppliers, and internal employees with a collaboration point for subject matter experts, trouble shooting, and fostering community.  SAP's partner ecosystem remains its strongest asset.  In order to capitalize on their success, SAP must make the necessary investment in revamping the technology platforms partners build on.  Should they fail in providing an easier platform, they will lose traction and adoption.  Partner-led innovation will move to easier platforms to work with and business models that sustain profitability.


SAP's Efforts In Strategy To Execution Rates A "B-" For Now

Applying a quick Vendor Scorecard grading system, here is a subjective evaluation of SAP's 2009 efforts to date*:


  • Leadership: "B-". Leo Apotheker and Bill McDermott failed to show up again at a key event.  While this was Q4 and a tough quarter, arimidex pharmacy, customer and influencer perceptions remain low on Leo given his decision to push Enterprise Support and the lack of clarity into his vision and approach to date.  To be fair, he has faced a tough hurdle in cleaning up mistakes from his predecessor, Henning Kagermann, and has had to streamline research and development as well as a sprawling bureaucracy.  The good news - their absence highlighted the emerging bench strength of talent within SAP.  This brought some confidence to many in attendance that SAP may have the right stuff to emerge. Order zometa pill, The bad news - rumors abound on when a successor (Co-CEO) would be announced as Leo's contract expires in June 2010.

  • Product strategy: "B+". Sustainability, integration of Business Objects componentry, Enhancement Packages (EhP), and In-Memory apps receive praise.  Meanwhile, adoption of ERP 6.0, Nevada NV Nev., remains slow.  SAP cites 50% of all product instances on to ERP 6.0.  However, actual customer counts may be less given the fact some customers have 25 to 50 instances of SAP.   Only 3500 customers have used Enhancement  Packages.  Customers remain confused on the value of Business Suite 7, upset with paying twice for BW and Business Objects, and disappointed with SAP's slow approach to SaaS and onDemand.  Successful relaunch of ByD in 2010 may help SAP gain traction.  Customers await delivery on OnDemand offerings for Large Enterprise but can not wait much longer.  InMemory Apps planned for 2014 must be delivered on-time to compete with Oracle's Fusion Apps.  Despite the lack of clarity, Acheter cytoxan, SAP still has the richest set of business functions and ability to handle the greatest set of complex scenarios.

  • Technology strategy: "C+". Middleware strategy remains murky at best.  SAP should revamp NetWeaver or junk it.  NetWeaver is to Blackberry as Salesforce.com's Force.com is to iPhone.  It's so much easier to build apps on Force.com and iPhone than it is for SAP's NetWeaver and RIM's Blackberry.  The decision to emphasize the NetWeaver ABAP stack over the NetWeaver Java stack will leave customers and partners confused despite how much more efficient it is to build on ABAP.  In addition, the lack of good business process orchestration at both run time and design time remains a critical hole for investment and gives vendors such as IBM and Cordys opportunities to sit on-top of SAP apps.  Mobile strategy at first seems less emphasized with the rare mention of native apps development on Blackberry and other platforms.  Nevertheless, SAP's decision to leave mobile platform integration of Blackberry and others at the NetWeaver Mobile layer may prove to be the most efficient and effective approach.  The move to in-Memory will help with future development, yet customers lack confidence in SAP's execution of the Timeless Software argument, despite its best intentions.  It appears that SAP will have 2 OnDemand strategies.  Lighter applications will be built on Java.  More complex applications to be built on the OnDemand stack.

  • Go to market strategy: "B+", cheap evista tablet. "Best Run Now" packages deserve credit for bringing business value from analytics into core business processes.  Slow adoption can be blamed on a sales teams who treated this as a new license sales opportunity instead of an entry point to showcase SAP value.  Customers could see the sales reps salivating with each interaction for a new sale.  Kudos go to SAP for finally admitting failure with ByD and working hard with customers and partners to revamp efforts.  SAP's marketing team remains the most innovative and effective.  Just wait till they get products that keep up with their marketing.

  • Innovation agenda: "B-", buy evista. SAP's making in-roads in the right areas.  Project Constellation, integration with Google Wave, and social networking investments highlight some movement towards disruptive technologies.  SAP must rapidly productize innovations from the SAP Imagineering team, worldwide SAP Labs, Alaska AK, SAP COIL, and its consulting partners.   SAP needs to tap into its ecosystem and bring out innovation.

  • Service and support: "C+". Customers continue to self-support and question SAP's value.  As more customers consider third party maintenance, SAP will have to fight harder to demonstrate value.  On the positive front, SAP's Value Academy shows promise in helping customers optimize their SAP investments.  Initial discussions with Chakib Bhoudary, SAP's Chief Value Officer, Kaufen gleevec, indicate the deep level of experience and data provided.  Customers will want to see how to access these services with minimal investment or redirected maintenance investment.

  • Customer satisfaction: "C+". Conversations with over 400 customers in 2009 highlight severe disappointment with their SAP relationship.  Sales reps compensated on net new license sales no longer invest in guiding customers through the SAP offerings.  Customers fail to adopt due to lack of knowledge.  They no longer trust their SAP sales reps nor do they have high confidence in the system integrators to guide them to the most cost effective solution.  SAP sales reps need to understand their products better.  Those customers who are able to make a trip to Walldorf (WDF), find solace that the old SAP still exists with passionate and dedicated engineers.  Customers appreciate the honesty in WDF about what can or can not be accomplished with SAP.  However, this is not a scalable model for SAP.  SAP will need to retrain and reincentivize its sales reps.  Applying social enterprise methods to the great SAP ecosystem may prove to be fruitful in scaling out more personalized approaches.

  • Execution to date: "C-". Order capecitabine from canada, Failures abound in execution in Enterprise Support, NetWeaver adoption, ByD roll-out, Duet usage, and Solution Manager capabilities.  SAP's current state is similar to Microsoft's prior to the launch of Bing and Windows 7.  SAP needs a success story soon to not only raise morale, but also gain customer confidence in its ability to deliver.  Jim Hagemann Snabe's efforts at streamlining and centralizing development provides at least a positive indicator.

  • Partner ecosystem: "A", acheter zometa bon marché. Buy evista, The team has built one of the best technology partner ecosystems in the market.  The emphasis on community outreach, influencer participation, and investment in a partner's success continues to be a differentiator.  SAP's ecosystem strategy should be credited with saving SAP during this round of crisis.  A move towards Microsoft technologies such as SharePoint and Silverlight will help in gaining developer traction and adoption.  Fix NetWeaver and the ecosystem will have a tool they can innovate from.

  • Overall reputation: "B". SAP carries significant brand presence in emerging markets and the SME space.  Many companies equate ownership of SAP as a sign of success in their markets.  Yet, existing customers have soured on the brand and continue to wonder when SAP will innovate in their requirements and not be distracted by other pursuits.  In general, SAP still carries considerable brand equity which will buy it time as it reinnovates.


* A=4.0, A-=3.7., Epogen without prescription, B+=3.3, B=3.0, B-=2.7, C+=2.3, C=2.0, C-=1.7, New Mexico NM N.Mex., D+=1.3, D=1.0, D-=0.7, F=0

The Bottom Line  - SAP's Turning The Corner

Credit must be given to SAP for charting a new course.  A shift in the management philosophy and product direction will take years to realize, Capecitabine online kaufen, however, its not too late for change.  SAP must remember its roots and become more German and less American.  The renewed focus must put customer requests and priorities ahead of SAP's bureaucracy.  The emphasis must focus on the relationship.  When that reemerges in how SAP works with customers, partners, influencers, and its own employees, SAP will be back in good graces.  In the meantime, ostaa halvalla cytoxan, it's  time to get to work and deliver.  Oracle's Fusions Apps are coming soon and competitors such as IBM, Microsoft, Epicor, IFS, and SalesForce.com will not relent.

Your POV.

If you get a chance, let us know:


  • Which SAP products do you use?

  • What do you think about the progress with SAP?

  • Are you considering alternatives to SAP?

  • Do you feel SAP is innovating fast, ok, or slow enough?

  • What do you think of SAP's new reinnovation strategy?


Feel free to post your comments here or send me an email at rwang0 at gmail dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org.
Other related links and good resources

SPECIAL: Video clips from the SAP Influencer Summit from SAP

20091211 ZDNet Software & Services Safari - Brian Sommer "SAP Business ByDesign Update: Multi-tenancy, In-Core Memory DB and More"

20091211 MichaelFauscette.com - Michael Fauscette "SAP Coming Out From the Clouds"

20091210 ZDNet Collaboration 2.0 - Oliver Marks "SAP: The clear path forward for the supertanker..."

20091209 ZDNet IT Project Failures - Michael Krigsman "Is on-premise ERP obsolete?"

20091209 ZDNet Social CRM: The Conversation - Paul Greenberg "SAP Business Influencers Summit: A Clear Path Forward?"

20091209 Spend Matters - Jason Busch "SAP Influencer Summit, Dispatch 1: On-Demand Differentiation and Vision"

20091209 Monkchips - James Governor " SAP: Out with the Old, Shrugging off the Tag"

20091209 Merv's Market Strategy For IT Suppliers - Merv Adrian "SAP Promises Acceleration on a "Clear Path" - Will it Be Enough?"

20091209 CIO Reinvented Blog - Prasanth Rai "Interesting Data/Statistics About SAP...(Influencer Summit)"

20091209 DealArchitect - Vinnie Mirchandani "SAP and The Boston Park Plaza"

20091209 Cloud Avenue - Zoli Erdos "Twitter in the Enterprise - Round 56745327"

20091208 ZDNet IT Project Failures - Michael Krigsman "SAP Influencer Summit: First Impressions"


Copyright © 2009 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Published on October 26, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang

Market pressures and organizational maturity drives new master data management (MDM) trends Buy casodex no prescription, Conversations with 31 leading edge organizations seeking business transformation highlight shifts in the MDM trends of the past.  Organizations awash in data need to move beyond the clutter and get to the information.  More data does not equate to more information.  In order to make sense, MDM initiatives now move to align with a new set of focus - business transformation and optimization.  Seven key trends now drive the new world of MDM as we enter a new decade. Epogen price,


  1. Master data management must go vertical to succeed in business. Customers no longer want horizontal solutions.  MDM must tailor to industry specific requirements.  Results must be relevant to how an industry works.

  2. Structured and unstructured content will evolve into the MDM ecosystem, ordering zometa online legally. Kjøp Discount arimidex, Customers seek tools to tie hierarchies and relationships back to unstructured data in the effort to achieve value in information.

  3. Data in the cloud and SaaS will force hybrid approaches. Cloud based and SaaS models change where and how data becomes augmented.  MDM systems must support hybrid models in real-time.  Proven data integration must be a given not an afterthought.  Data integration must be event driven.

  4. Master data management styles no longer matter, cheap casodex, Nevada NV Nev., just the results. Issue of styles get relegated to the IT owner, buy casodex no prescription. Business users seek results and actionable insights.

  5. Data governance and stewardship more important than ever, cytoxan. New Hampshire NH N.H., Processes must align with use cases.  Data hygiene needs to be omnipresent but not cumbersome

  6. Social CRM creates demand for trusted profiles. Organizations now need to understand their advocates and detractors  Today's social and connected world requires more targeted marketing, sales, buy capecitabine, Comprar capecitabine, and service/support programs.

  7. Business optimization and transformation will require MDM to cover more data types. MDM moves beyond customer, Jotta zometa verkossa, Order arimidex overnight delivery, product, accounts, For gleevec online, Acquistare a buon mercato iressa, and employees.  New forms of content such as location, images, cheap cytoxan online legally, Kansas KS Kans., video, and tweet streams will enter the equation.


Expect to see more details on each one of these trends in the coming year, evista discount. Texas TX Tex.,

Your POV


Where are you with your MDM strategy?  Have you deployed?  Are you redeploying?  Do these trends resonate with you ?  Let us know how we can assist or please post or send on your comments to rwang0 (at) gmail (dot) com or r (at) altimetergroup (dot) com and we’ll keep your anonymity.

Copyright © 2009 R Wang, buy cheap casodex online. Cheap iressa online, All rights reserved.

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Monday’s Musings: Why Every Social CRM Initiative Needs An MDM Backbone

Published on August 31, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang
Proliferation and access to new social tools creates significant challenges for organizations Organizations engaged in Social CRM initiatives often start out by monitoring the chatter and conversation across a few platforms and channels such as Facebook and Twitter.  As these organizations increase their savviness, they quickly realize the enormity of the challenge.  The exponential number of touch points and algorithmic channel complexity puts to shame yesterday's eCommerce strategy and the dated tools designed to address multi-channel.  In order to cut through the high noise to signal ratio, organizations must determine how best to manage the complexity and scale of data being generated, amidst a transforming landscape where:
  • CIO's no longer determine technology adoption - business leaders and individuals initiate a groundswell.
  • Consumer technologies provide more innovation, usability, and reliability than what's available to the enterprise.
  • Disparate systems results in fragmentation of key information despite new deployment options.
Basic business questions must be addressed in every Social CRM initiative Despite the massive scale of collected, fragmented data, Social CRM initiatives complement other relationship management initiatives in asking and answering key questions such as:
  • Do we know the identity of the individual?
  • Can we tell if there are any apparent and potential relationships?
  • Are they advocates or detractors? (added 8/31 07:25 am PT)
  • How do we know whether or not we have a false positive?
  • What products and services have been purchased in the past?
  • Have we assessed how much credit risk we can be exposed to
  • What pricing and entitlements are customers eligible for?
Organizations seek automation technologies to resolve master data issues. Master data management (MDM) provides a set of technologies that address the acquisition, cleansing, enrichment, and distribution of data.  With so many channels and so many sources, Social CRM initiatives require MDM technologies that (See Figure 1):
  • Resolve matching of a broad range of data types. Organizations will want to associate individuals to products, services, orders, contracts, incidents, location, etc.
  • Deliver consistent and accurate enrichment of data.  Organizations will want to append trusted data sources, hierarchies, and relationship information to cleansed information.
  • Provide timely synchronization in federated environments. Organizations can expect their data to be federated as social media tools and SaaS deployments push data beyond centralized repositories.
Figure 1. Consistent Information In Social CRM Requires A MDM Backbone
[caption id="attachment_3029" align="alignnone" width="800" caption="Figure 1. Consistent Information In Social CRM Requires A MDM Backbone Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved."]20090831-ccm2[/caption]
Recommendations - apply continuous customer management (CCM) processes before implementing MDM technologies Form follows function. MDM technologies should not be implemented without a clear understanding of how customer management and data governance processes will be adopted.  Five hallmarks of CCM include (see Figure 2):
  • Proactive sourcing of data. How can data be kept up to date at every touch point.
  • Right time delivery of information. What should be delivered when, where, why, and to whom?
  • Links to action. What can be done to create actionable insight?
  • Assessment of results. What metrics help paint the overall picture?
  • Refinement of process.  What lessons learned can be applied to future initiatives?
Figure 2.   Continuous Customer Management (CCM) delivers 5 unique stages
20090831-ccm
Your POV Have you begun your Social CRM strategy without MDM?  What MDM issues do you face?  If you have put MDM to use in Social CRM, let us know any lessons learned.  Post your comment here or reach me direct at r at altimetergroup dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org. Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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Best Practices: Debunking Eight CRM Myths

Published on August 25, 2009 by Erin Kinikin
Erin Kinikin When I read about CRM failure rates, I tend to focus on the positive – a majority of companies now are at least somewhat satisfied with their CRM deployments. Why?  The front office is full of free-wheeling knowledge workers -- impatient, process-averse, and led by revolving door executives.  So, why are the expectations so much different than reality? CRM benefits are still oversold, and the work and time (and organizational change) required is still woefully underestimated. Trying to find a short cut to customer delight isn’t new; in fact, I wrote about it in 2002. But the myths of CRM still seem to be getting in the way of effective deployments.
  • Myth 1: CRM can be bought. Despite vendors' claims of "best practices," the reality is that the "secret sauce" of CRM comes from your own customer processes, not the functionality of your CRM product. Lack of functionality or channel coverage can hurt - and newer industry specific solutions are more likely to include the industry terminology, functionality, and integration points you need. But for the most part, CRM technology is only a foundation upon which a CRM strategy can be built and evolved.
  • Myth 2. CRM can be built. A CRM system is never done. Companies change, products change, customers change. And that means that CRM is less about initial deployment and more about ongoing incremental improvement. In the new Enterprise 2.0 world, the best CRM solution is the one that most easily allows the business user to tailor and evolve their own CRM vision (without heavy IT support). A realistic "best by date" for any given CRM deployment is about 12 - 18 months - don't start if you don't have the resources to continue.
  • Myth 3: CRM can be delegated. It's no wonder that CRM implementations sometimes underperform executive expectations when strategy work is delegated to line employees or consultants. Changing CRM processes is HARD. Only executives can weigh the trade offs between customer experience, staff time (and cost) and strategic importance. Executives need to be involved up front to set goals and priorities, ensure adequate IT staffing, check in through the process to mediate departmental conflicts and set priorities, and be front and center during and after implementation to lead adoption and assess (and act on) results.
  • Myth 4: A 360 degree view is a CRM strategy. While understanding everything about customers is a great long term goal (or at least desire), it doesn't prioritize what customer information to get first, provide incentives to line workers to get it, or ensure that the information will be effectively used. A good CRM strategy is specific about the business goal (revenue, retention, etc.), the target customer (existing or new customers, business type, industry, geography), the desired change (more orders, deeper relationships, higher satisfaction), and the steps (business process and organizational changes) - and customer information (metrics and data) -- to get there.
  • Myth 5. CRM means good customer data. Customer data management is a separate discipline, and companies relying on vanilla CRM applications to capture high quality customer information will likely be disappointed. Good data defaults and pick lists and data quality add-ons for address standardization and duplicate detection can all help improve the quality of CRM data. So can getting the right data loaded up front -especially if the business users own the data and the results. But only data stewardship and ongoing user education (and monitoring) will make CRM data a true corporate asset for the long term.
  • Myth 6. CRM follows vendor product boundaries. Pesky customers often interact with multiple departments across multiple channels - some of which aren't even part of the front office. That means that a key part of selecting CRM software is making sure it integrates well with the operational systems and channels with which customers interact. Any task that customers can request or perform themselves should be CRM aware - whether that's ordering a product, requesting service, managing a project, or participating in a forum or event. The best CRM is in line - performed in the process of accomplishing a task with or for the customer.
  • Myth 7. Metrics and reports are a follow-on project. Few people would consider a surgeon who operated in the dark without instruments. And yet, companies often seem perfectly willing to implement CRM with very little exploratory work to see what's wrong or follow up plan to assess results. It's not enough to decide to increase sales. Concrete metrics -- such as number and quality of sales leads, lead freshness, cycle time and win/loss rates, and repurchase or upsell rates -- can help management prioritize what to do first, measure CRM gains, identify adoption issues, and target areas for further improvement. Build a data warehouse when you can - but don't wait to get basic progress indicators in the meantime.
  • Myth 8. Social CRM is different...but the same. There have always been customers (and front office employees) who are influential beyond their own purchasing power or revenue contribution. Social CRM technologies allow companies to find and facilitate important peer-to-peer interactions -- such as online recommendations and discussions, community-based service, and idea sharing. But without a clear purpose (awareness, lead generation, service resolution, referrals), it's hard not to drown in the social cyber noise. CRM principles - such as starting with the process and desired outcome, deciding what to measure, recording/ tracking each interaction, and incorporating results (such as "top influencers") in other customer interactions - make the difference between "cool" and game-changingly effective.
The bottom line - choose based on business strategy I recently helped a nonprofit select a CRM solution. The decision came down to two very different finalists. One met all their current requirements. The other was more aspirational - less deep in pragmatic areas like membership but designed for innovative community building and outreach. They choose the more aspirational product, which better matched the strategy they'd defined. The COO then identified the additional people resources needed to execute the strategy - and tied both together in the funds request to the board. They have a long journey ahead of them - but they're off to a good start.
Your POV. What myths ring more true to you?  Are there other myths you'd add to the list.  Please share your thoughts in the post/comments section. Copyright © 2009 R Wang & Erin Kinikin. All rights reserved.

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Monday’s Musings: Master Data Management – Do Styles of MDM Matter Anymore?

Published on February 2, 2009 by R "Ray" Wang
Three Architectural Styles Represent Different Technologies To Build MDM In 2003, customer data hub (CDI), product information management, and master data management (MDM) vendors strived to differentiate themselves by architectural style.  Each approach had its advantages and disadvantages.  A religion about styles emerged overnight along with a hard core following.  Here's a quick recap (see Figure 1): Figure 1.  The Three Architectural Styles of Master Data Management Three Common Styles Of Master Data Management The bottom line - choose a style that aligns with your project's business driver While these approaches still exist, leading vendors such as D&B Purisma, IBM, Initiate Systems, Oracle, Oracle-Siebel, SAS DataFlux, and Siperian now have offerings in more than one style. This may make the question seem less relevant, however, its still important to understand the trade-offs while beginning your MDM journey.  In fact, it's best to align the style and approach based on your business driver.  Here's a high level summary:
  • Cross-referenced registry delivers rapid results for operational efficiency business drivers. This approach is best suited for rapid implementation scenarios such as POC's that prove the value of master data.  Also valuable when data can not be stored on-site. Pro's: Rapid implementation without having to agree on a common enterprise data model.  Utilize existing source systems. Con's: Deduplication of source systems not addressed.  Data quality must be solved in each independent source system.
  • Hybrid harmonized reference enables compliance and regulatory business drivers. This approach allows the best of both worlds, especially when moving to a transactional operational data store is not politically feasible and data governance and stewardship activities are just starting up. Pro's: Single master copy of reference data.  Uses links to access source system records.  Model allows data quality efforts to be applied to shared master  reference data. Con's: Synchronization with source systems can create some complexity if changes are not made in the hub.
  • Transactional operational data store supports strategic business drivers.  This approach provides a long term path for how legacy applications utilize data. Pro's: Single master copy of data.  No fussing with latency or synchronization issues.  Minimal mapping issues. Con's: Requires an agreed upon common enterprise data model to be used by all applications.  History must be harmonized and requires extensive key mapping.  Assumes homogeneity and requires tons of ETL and dedupe.
Your POV. Which MDM style are you deploying? What successes have you seen?  Post your thoughts or send me a private email to rwang0@gmail.com. [poll id="2"] Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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Monday’s Musings: A Year of Extremes Brings Us Back Full Circle to the Beginning of the Dot.Com Bust

Published on December 29, 2008 by R "Ray" Wang
With a few days left in the year, it's hard to believe that 2008 is almost over.  Just like our paltry .401K's and lowered gas prices, it's like we reverted to the Dot Com bust.  Extreme contrasts in positions and tremendous change made 2008 both exciting, suspenseful, and frankly sobering like 2002.  In fact, it wasn't just the pace of change, it was an intensity of change like no other.  For example in the topical areas I cover:
Software vendor economics: End user enterprise apps (ERP) strategy
  • Engaging in large vendor selection projects to reducing the number of vendor suppliers
  • Building the best SOA strategy to figuring out how to justify all the investment
  • Sole sourcing from one vendor to considering purpose built apps
  • Dismissing SaaS as as fad to embracing Cloud Computing as a cost savings tool
  • Adopting standard middleware platforms to exploring PaaS and hybrid deployment options and related integration options
  • Focusing on growth and strategy business drivers to reverting to operational efficiency and compliance business drivers
  • Crafting a long term apps strategy to recession proofing an apps strategy
  • Moving to all packaged apps to reviving custom development
Software Licensing, Pricing, and Contract Negotiations
  • Locking in new license pricing to reducing shelf ware
  • Negotiating on new license prices to zeroing in on the cost of maintenance
  • Focusing on future product road maps  to avoiding the risk of a revenue led software audit
  • Planning for upgrades to contemplating third party maintenance
  • Worrying about vendor consolidation to considering vendor viability and the need for software escrows
  • Thinking about maintenance as an insurance policy to seeking value from maintenance contracts
Master Data Management - Customer Data Integration
  • Contemplating deployment of multiple data entity MDM to proving the value of one data entity with the ambition of multiple data entities
  • Applauding rapid implementation times of 1 year to expecting results in 6 to 8 months
  • Expanding data governance roles to focusing on specific stakeholder data processes
  • Turning to the incumbent ERP vendor for one throat to choke to considering all options
  • Ignoring BI strategy and focusing on enterprise architecture to incorporating BI into MDM projects
Order Management
  • Reducing inventory to improving transportation management costs and back again
  • Focusing on multi-channel selling to driving efficiencies in multi-channel fulfillment in a perfect order
  • Emphasizing partner channels to taking back ownership of distribution
  • Moving away from piecemeal solutions to purpose built order management hubs
Project Based Solutions
  • Considering PPM apps to seeking broader Project Based Solutions
  • Standardizing on project management methodology to reducing the barriers to adoption
  • Deploying only in one option to expecting various deployment options such as mobile, SaaS, and offline
The Bottom Line - Customers Still Have High Expectations For Enterprise 2.0 Apps Despite the bleak economic outlook, like in 2002, we can expect significant innovation to emerge as new business models meet technology innovations.  Conversations with over 1000 end users this year highlight that customers still expect to see Enterprise 2.0 innovations in the next 3 to 5 years, despite any downturn.  The top seven key Enterprise 2.0 innovations include:
  1. Richer user experiences - role based scenarios across various usability paradigms
  2. Business process orientation - support for end to end business processes
  3. Configurable change - designing with flexible models and rules instead of customizations
  4. Actionable insight - pulling all the key information to make a decision in the context of business process and user role
  5. Collaboration - providing secure private interactions and open and innovative connection with stakeholders
  6. Intelligent response - responding to contextual models and business events
  7. Hybrid deployment - deploying all models from on-premise, hosted, instance virtualization, multi-tenant SaaS, and cloud based BPO.
Let's just hope these humble 2009 industry analyst predictions hold some water. Your POV. Do you believe we'll turn the corner like 2002?  Are you experiencing different trends?  You can post here or send me a private email to rwang0@gmail.com. Copyright © 2008 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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Event Report: Siperian Masters 2008 – Customers Confirm Multi-Entity MDM Trends

Published on October 22, 2008 by R "Ray" Wang

Registration Area for the Siperian Masters 2008 held at the Bridgwater Marriott

(Photo: Siperian Masters'08 registration area.  Copyright © 2008 R Wang. All rights reserved.)

About 200 attendees were present as Ramon Chen, VP of Marketing, kicked off the event to the theme of adventurers and pioneers in MDM at the Bridgewater Marriott (New Jersey).   CEO, Peter Caswell, led the keynote session with a view on where Siperian has been, where Siperian is going, and then introduced the Ravi Jagannathan VP of Product Management and Manish Sood, Senior Director of Product Management.  They presented Siperian's road map well into 2012.  Key announcements include:
  • Ongoing expansion of the partner ecosystem and alliances.
  • Announcement of semantic masters for unstructured data.
  • Focus on easier to maintain GUI
  • Continued availability of modular deployment options and other cost effective implementations
  • New state management and work flow integration tie backs to the Lombardi BPM tools
  • Visually appealing data governance dashboards.
In addition, a few key trends emerged from conversations with customers and partners:
  • Most customers who had MDM projects also were embarked on SOA projects
  • Pharma customers successfully proved ROI and justification despite being in SAP and Oracle "only" environments
  • Availability of system integrator resources has improved.
  • MDM projects need to be more pervasive and address innovation in order to gain long term political support.
  • Many customers have reached what Forrester Research considers a Level 3 and 4 MDM maturity.
  • Prospects continue to see Siperian as short listed vendors
  • Many seek more innovation from their MDM systems and are beginning to branch out of their single data entity focus.
The bottom line Siperian customers seem to be well ahead of the pioneering stage with MDM.  Customers we spoke to remain satisfied with their decisions and have been successful in proving existing value.  Many customers have transcended past level 3 on the MDM maturity model. Your POV Do these trends jive with what you are seeing in MDM and CDI?  Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.  Post a comment or privately reach out to me at rwang0@gmail.com  Check it out on the Forrester Blogs.

Ramon Chen doling out the 2008 Siperian Masters Awards

(Photo: Ramon Chen presenting the 2008 Siperian Masters Awards. Copyright © 2008 R Wang. All rights reserved.) Copyright © 2008 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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Event Report: Initiate Exchange – Customers Confirm Latest Customer Hub/MDM Trends

Published on October 2, 2008 by R "Ray" Wang
Quick thoughts from Scottsdale.  Initiate as many you know is one of the leaders in the customer hubs/MDM market.  At their annual conference, Initiate Exchange, a few key trends emerged from conversations with customers and partners:
  • Rapid deployment still key to securing buy-in a the business level. The registry style approach lends itself to demonstrating quick value.  This has led project sponsors to secure more funding for longer term MDM projects.  Conversations with Initiate customers confirm that implementation times are quicker because of the types and complexity of the initial deployments.
  • Exchanges move beyond the healthcare arena. Commercial customers are learning from the trend of collaborative Healthcare networks.  These networks typically share patient and provider data within and across their networks in order to support accurate information across the ecosystem.  Retailers and manufacturers are starting to see the value in this area.
  • Scarce skill sets abound in kicking off MDM projects. Customers confirm that staffing of technical resources has improved significantly.  But both system integrators and customers admit that scarce skill exist for project kick off activities such as setting the stage from change management, building the infrastructure for data governance, and creating and staffing effective program management.  This is a trend not just for attendees but across the industry.
  • Version 8.5 generates a lot of interest. Customers who stopped by the demo kiosk expressed positive comments about the new collaborative data stewardship capabilities, streamlined user experience, and the Initiate Inspector Inbox.  Those with Group 1 looked forward to using the geo codes in the new adapters.
The bottom line Initiate customers remain quite satisfied with their choice and the level of investment in R&D by the management team.  A growing list of partners continue to bolster Initiate's mind share in industries outside of their core pharma, health care, and public sector. Your POV Do these trends jive with what you are seeing in MDM and CDI?  Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.  Post a comment or privately reach out to me at rwang0@gmail.com  Check it out on the Forrester Blogs. Copyright © 2008 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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