Road ahead for enterprise business applications

The technologies that industry analysts are predicting as the top pillars driving innovation as we transition into 2013 are Cloud, Mobility, Business Analytics, Unified Communications, and Social Networking. I see an interesting mix of demand for such creative and innovative use of technology, as also a element of risk averse cautious approach.

CLOUD COMPUTING

We see in relation to enterprise business applications there are both drivers and inhibitors to cloud computing in its various forms. The key drivers are the same as in other parts of the IT industry, namely lower capital expenditure through resource sharing with other users, which reduces internal competence requirements and faster implementation by shortcutting the process of hardware procurement and software installation.

Inhibitors include the need for application customization and integration with on-premise legacy systems; issues related to placing confidential and secret information in an environment outside the control of the company; laws that may limit where data is located; and availability of the required application.

We see the demand for cloud computing from asset-intensive operations in:

● Deployment of the full enterprise business applications in a private cloud, and
● Extending the options for the enterprise business applications with other cloud-based applications.

Single-tenant cloud deployments are preferred over multi-tenant for the next few years at least. During that time, the interest in public cloud hosting to emerge as organizations become acquainted with these public clouds through the use of other cloud-based peripheral applications.

The key to the success of these would depend on the simplifying and streamlining application maintenance and management for situations where multiple installations of enterprise business Applications are operated in the same data center, private or public cloud.

Software plus Services refers to the existing software product being augmented or enriched by integration of cloud-based services and applications. In particular using cloud-based services for functions that require highly varying compute capacity, that need to access or process large amounts of cloud based data, or that serve peripheral or mobile users.

 

Mobility

Having access to the internet via smartphones or tablets has dramatically changed users' behavior and their perception of user experience. Organizations perceive a higher level of success and competitive advantage by deploying these in their daily routines.

The first demand is to include mobile process, which by its very nature requires users to work in the field. Classic examples are field services technicians, transporters, etc. Key characteristics of a mobile process scenario are that the users are in a known geography and the mobile solution is the only solution they use in their regular work. Consequently, the mobile solution must work under all circumstances.

For the mobile process, organizations need Mobile Clients, which provides deep functionality coverage and the possibility to work offline to circumvent unreliable or unavailable networks.

The other reason the workforce is going mobile is the mobile individual. The mobile individual is someone who is not necessarily required by the business process to work in a mobile manner, but who chooses to do so to gain efficiencies or simply to optimize the balance between work and private life.

It could be working from home or outside office hours, from the hotel room during travels, or while on a flight or in a taxi. A key characteristic of mobile individuals is that they roam the world.

Unlike mobile process users, however, their mobile solution is just a complement to the tools they regularly use in the office. Consequently, the mobile solution does not need to handle every eventuality.

We expect organizations to equip their key employees "on-the-move" with such devices that they can stay always connected and find free minutes to tick of some quick tasks. This could be while sitting in a taxi, while waiting in the hotel lobby for a colleague, while standing in the security queue at the airport, or in the family TV couch during a commercial break.

In these situations, the smartphone is the device of choice. However, due to limitations of such a device-for example when it comes to typing longer texts-and because of the high risk of being interrupted at short notice, focus is on quick and easy tasks that can be completed in minutes or even seconds.

Need is for Applications designed to target the needs of the mobile individual on the move. Such applications need to address three personas: casual, professional, and transactional. Examples of such apps are Time Tracker - addresses project time and attendance reporting, confirmation, etc.

Trip Tracker simplifies travel expense reporting. Sales Companion helps sales professionals manage their accounts, tasks and opportunities. Quick Reports provide the ability to create and view ad-hoc reports on a mobile device. Quick Facts enables fast keyword search of any object in the enterprise business applications.

Flight Log allows the management of platform operational data in the aerospace and defense industry. Support Companion delivers interaction with Support centers. Organisations also expect more touch apps to address areas in CRM, HR, reporting, search, and projects.

Business Analytics

Executing strategy and managing the performance, risks and processes are two big challenges that many companies face. The clear demand from organization is to move further from a BI tool there or a configured analysis there to a company wide connected management cockpits, designed from a business perspective.

They expect to see one version of the organizational truth. The CEO's cockpit, for example, should display the entire company. It shows the end-to-end value chain from a strategic perspective.

 

Over and above the deployment of BI tools, organisations now need the cockpits that are pre-defined, industry-specific, role based and connected. This means that you capture your entire business while giving everyone the data and tools they need for the day-to-day decisions.

User Experience

We see the same trends in India that we found in a recent global study conducted among manufacturing executives and professionals of middle market to large manufacturers to understand how usability challenges may cause individuals to work outside the system of record. This causes the manufacturer to lose value as employees use other systems. This results in:

- Barriers to the enterprise-wide visibility that ERP and other enterprise software are designed to provide
- Enterprise risk as, work is performed outside of the security and traceability provisions of enterprise software
- Places enterprise data in online repositories where data ownership and security are even more questionable.

The common feedback was "Take lessons from the most popular software interfaces -Microsoft Office, Google, iTunes, etc. There is nothing more frustrating than using an interface that looks like it's from an AS400 in the 80's but was purchased last year."

Enterprise business applications such as IFS have an enterprise explorer user interface providing a consistent intuitive experience through-out the entire application.

Risk Averse / Cautious

Over 10,000 organizations in our country have implemented Enterprise Business Applications and invested significantly in bringing their organisation together to adopt these systems. While the technology is mature and there is sufficient expertise in the market to support such deployments, what most organisations have achieved so far are benefits of integration and other points of brilliance here and there. Organisation wide pro-active decision support environment is yet to be achieved, particularly in larger organisations.

 

While there are constant improvements in technology and innovative products are being released, the organisations who have already implemented an Enterprise Business Application are cautious and risk averse, due to the lower return on investments so far achieved by them.

As I see, the organizations who have already invested significantly are trying to get more out of such investments - rather than making further significant investments. Many of them are now focusing on addressing their last mile problems so the implemented system could be put to better use.

Most of the industries that we work with are facing ripple effects of the global recession and the infrastructure industries in particular are going through cash crunch. We see all major decisions for IT systems in coming year will get either delayed or down-sized.

The alternate approach seen being taken by organisations is a shift from Capital Expenditure on technology to Operational Expenditure based investments.

We see a trend of CEOs taking active interest in upgrading the system and in most cases the decision is not just driven by the technology advancement available. It is based on what business impact such an upgrade would bring in.

This also leads to many organisations obtaining additional software applications from third parties and not necessarily obtain it from the base application platform they have. Interestingly, Oracle has been advertising that a significant number of customers of SAP, chose to deploy other applications surrounding SAP. We see the involvement of the CEOs in such decisions will drive more and more of 'Best of Breed' mode of selection of applications going forward.