I've spent several months investigating a company who is a foremost innovator in the SaaS space (Software As A Service). Their approach to a feature rich solution is both inventive and powerful. They are at the forefront of Web 2.0, Marketing 2.0 and incubation of customer lead generation activity!
As a result, I decided to join ViVO Concepts (http://www.vivoconcepts.com/) as a ViVOpartner because I believe this company is actually delivering products and services that go far beyond what other companies have developed to date! They are positioned to replace or augment web and traditional marketing campaigns with incredible innovation in building campaigns and measuring campaign results, tracking performance and collecting the attributes of the respondees. Their products easily cohabitate with existing systems and processes. Their highly advanced feature that builds powerful prospecting and sales tools rivals no other product on the market.
It is for this reason that I decided to promote this product to SMB's who cannot easily acquire or build these services internally. Time is of the essence. By the time a SMB discovers what to do and how to do it in the Web 2.0 or Marketing 2.o space, their competition will be months ahead of them.
ViVO Concepts (http://www.vivoconcepts.com/) is a Florida based company that provides both enterprise and module based solutions for entire or partial websites. Features are focused on eMarketing, eTraining, eSales, and building eProduct and eResource Libraries that incubate and track user participation and user activities. These actions by visitors can be tracked, ranked and scored by a powerful business intelligence and analytics service, thus empowering organizations to learn customer and prospect preferences and respond to them with individualized highly relevant actions.
A Little Background on Me...and Why SaaS Is Important
Now that you know a little about ViVO Concepts, I provide you with a little background on my endorsement of SaaS solutions as a viable approach to IT management and IT strategy development. Sometimes certain services simply can be provided more effectively by hosted applications. As services become more complex and the challenges of generating revenue rely on highly competitive products and services, companies that can integrate next generation tools more quickly will gain the advantage. I've spent an entire career focused on that premise. I believe SaaS to be the next generation of tools that needs to be considered by organizations that wish to facilitate stronger relationships with customers and realize long term sustainability.
A Little History...
To those of you who have followed my 17 year career as CIO and the many high octane challenges I faced in this position within small and medium size businesses (SMB's), you will already know of my underlying passion to simplify, consolidate, improve, reduce costs and find new ways to provide MORE for LESS.... I am the change agent, the master of transformation, restructure and reinvention, the evangelist who incubates, teaches and inspires others to repel complacency and get on the road to innovation.
While not being reckless in this persuit, it is the passion for re-engineering the broken, eliminating the ineffective, the outdated, or the inefficient within organizations or processes that steers my ship. In this lifelong persuit of improvement, transformation, innovation, business expansion, downsizing, restructure or other goals, I have successfully built sustainable technology strategies, inspired management to invest in innovation or transfomation, lead technology teams to optimum performance and have married technology solutions to business goals for the better part of 25 years!
To that end, I recently - and happily - became a Vivopartner. That's a partner of http://www.vivoconcepts.com/. More about that later.... Back to what led up to this choice.
Just before the turn of the century (whoa....that sounds ominous..) I was in hot persuit of an "outsourced solution" that was really a hosted version of what we now call SaaS solutions. Someone else to worry about the "how"; someone else to worry about response time, software bugs, backups, disaster recovery, hardware redundancies, etc. Someone else to hire that DBA, network administrator or web developer who may or may not be able to do the job.... In the SMB profile and funding model there is absolutely no budget for all the skills needed to provide 24/7 reliability, while keeping pace with technology change and defending against the growing sophistocation of pirates and theives - both internal and external. YIKES! How does one gain the knowledge and expertise on ALL of this???
Well, it simply cannot be done. A typical IT budget for SMB's runs at minimum levels and responds to crisis. It is a calculated risk of doing business. SMB's cannot afford all the DBA's, programmers, network administrators and web developers needed to support a 24/7/365 operation. There are too many skills needed in too many areas. So, what to do?
SMB's - Wy SaaS?
I recommend looking for powerful hosted solutions (SaaS solutions) that facilitate and allow SMB's control over many of the unique processes that differentiate them. If the solutions are worth adopting, they will give you powerful features with none of the headaches and issues of installing and maintaining these features internally. SMB's can get back to the business of creating and managing business issues, not technology budgets, mandatory investments, etc.
Many of the services provided by IT - both applications and services, can be provided more effectively and/or more economically and/or more reliably elsewhere. Remember, when calculating the cost of internal IT services, you must factor in the cost of attrition, hiring and training new IT resources. Then there are the technical trainings, conferences and certifications, not to mention the new issues that involve research and investigation. All of this time is spent learning how to acquire, manage and repair existing or new services. It is not at all involved in generating sales or adding more customer service features. Now what if someone quits? Loss of a 3-5 year technical employee can take up to 2 years to acquire full replacement skillsets in the new employee. Add placement fees and other incidentals and a single replacement involves significant "hidden costs". Non-productive time. Non-productive costs.
Having lived this scenario over and over again, I believe that certain hosted applications and tools can provide far more value to the organization than internal IT services can deliver- at any cost. Even if cost were not the issue, time then becomes the issue. How long will it take for internal IT to deliver what I can buy today?
As an ex-CIO, I have first hand experience on what makes sense and what does not. Some processes and services are better provided internally. That's certainly a fact. However, not all services need to be delivered in that manner and in fact, it may be detrimental to keep certain services internally. Does your CIO support external services? If not, why?
I Like ViVO Concepts!
ViVO Concepts has successfully actualized the goal of removing the technology barriers for business people and has provided a flexible, configurable, expandable toolkit of hosted features and resources so that companies can focus on customers to produce added value in the market. This translates to better information (analytics), more sales, better service, and stronger customer loyalties.
How refreshing. I’m so happy it is finally 2009 and we now are beginning to see so many more options for SMB's!! And, I'm particularly happy to be a partner with ViVO Concepts! You can find them at http://www.vivoconcepts.com/
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Musings On An Evolution.... SaaS
A long time ago, when I was CIO for a large enterprise with lots of locations that had from 3-15 users in each location, I needed to place a dedicated IT network engineer at each site for the initial install and to be on hand for the occasional technical support crisis. This was costly.
I decided I needed to find a better way to support the basic desktop needs of the company without compromising quality of service. I found a European company, based in Florida, who was in the business of providing outsourced desktop support. Wow! This could eliminate the need to have an on-site network engineer at each site!
Let’s go through the scenario of what was really going on at these remote company locations. The VP’s in each site insisted on personal on-site technical support. In most cases these engineers were hired “just in case” they needed to fix a computer, install software, replace a router, etc. Most of the time these $50-75k employees were doing PowerPoint presentations for the VP’s, setting up internet access, installing laptop software, buying mobile phones, etc. These employees were providing more of what I would term as an IT Valet Service than delivering any real technical support. In any case, they were much more likely to be running their own private consulting services while on the company payroll than delivering any real value to the Company. No on-site supervision and woefully under-utilized in their chosen technical profession, what else could one expect?
The European company had the perfect solution! Turn each phone, PC or laptop into an "appliance". Provide hot swap capability in the event of a failure. With each employee’s laptop or desktop configuration and personal data stored remotely, the hardware could be swapped out in minutes with no loss of functionality or data. With minor adjustments for special circumstances and the needs of company executives, the solution seemed flawless!
The PC hardware was just the hardware. Given any particular location, we could purchase a spare PC for much less than the annual cost of an employee. If a PC was corrupted or disabled, the spare from the back room would be deployed and that user’s desktop would be completely restored to mirror the disabled equipment with a simple network download. In effect, the PC became just an appliance since it was completely field swappable by any non-technical individual. What could be better?
The ROI and the annual savings were incredible! Every scenario was challenged and addressed with solutions that resulted in minimal impact on individuals and the business as a whole.
The project was promoted and showed tremendous promise. But it never got off the ground.
Why? At the time this was completely “out of the box” thinking and there was a general lack of trust in relying on “the network” as remote host for the “computer”- especially MY computer! Having an IT-provided computer valet right there, no matter how talented or inept was far more comforting than reliance on some remote service. Yes, we very much liked our IT Valets who come to your desk on demand, and help you!
That was in 1998. We were all less proficient back then…. And truly, much of the software was more “challenging” to learn. Client-server applications were delicate and often required some on-site or individual tweaking…. All of this support incidentally, could have been provided more effectively from the remote provider, but comfort once again was derived from having a human appear, maybe talk to you (or maybe not…we IT folks…are not very chatty…) and then fix it for you!
My how far we’ve come! Clearly, business was just not READY – in 1998 - to let the network be the source for information, process, data, feature and function. .
Roll forward to 2009. We are in a completely different place! We’ve learned the many lessons of security breaches, spammers and the need for filters, the need to prevent hijacked email servers, pfishing pirates, wireless spies, laptop vulnerabilities and learned the hard way that we don’t want the only copy of critical company information stored on individual laptops or computers. Now we know that the NETWORK linked to a secured application or repository is the answer! We no longer feel so vulnerable. In fact, we actually like having it somewhere else! We know that our data is safe – and accessible. We know that we don’t need our own laptops or desktops WITH us to get to our data. And we know that we can connect to the network from anywhere, including Disneyland, Starbucks or from our cars, hotels, or vacation spots via internet, cell or satellite connection!
Slowly we’ve migrated more and more of “our stuff” to centralized, controlled, managed and secure places. We have relinquished a lot of control at the local level. Why? We can GET MORE FOR LESS and….. we can ACCESS IT FROM ANYWHERE !!
My dream from 1998 is being realized in many new ways! Let go of your local stuff and let someone else worry about the details. Focus on your business, your goals, your markets, your customers and take the technology issues off the table! Centralize and rely on the network to deliver what you want, when you want it and how you want it.
Is this a panacea for all things technical? No, not at all. Somebody, somewhere in your organization must chart the course, steer the ship and train the stewards. But, the tools and resources today are much more intuitive, user friendly, user configurable and responsive. What is new is that more and more basic and advanced tools are becoming indigenous to the network and are being provided by “experts” who do NOT work for your company!
Take Salesforce.com. IT did not provide this product and has nothing to do with it. They probably don’t even know what it does and why it’s important. If this tool, can be completely embraced, deployed and managed by non-technical business units, why not other business tools?
Well, the time has come! Those tools are now migrating into business use. While the transformation is still underway, there are some innovators and leaders who are paving the way to elevate and empower business users by removing the IT complexity and replacing it with very powerful user tools! Adoption becomes more of an integration task than a development and engineering task. The question becomes, “How do I blend this new feature or data into what I already have in place”? (vs. How many IT people will I need? How much hardware? What skills? When will it be ready? Etc. etc. etc.!). Well, there are plenty of experts and tools to integrate new features with existing information and processes!
Wow. What progress.
Now, let me throw in a little commercial here…a little bonus to those who have read this far!
I've spent several months investigating a company who is a foremost innovator in the SaaS space. Their approach to a feature rich solution is both inventive and powerful. As a result, I decided to join ViVO Concepts as a ViVOpartner because I believe this company is actually delivering products and services that go far beyond my dreams of 1998! Business should be focused on business issues, not the underlying technologies. Technology challenges are long-standing distractions and resource vampires to SMB’s in particular! As a 17+ year CIO in SMB's I know the issues well and believe the next generation of software will be delivered by hosted solution providers with tools rich in individualized tailoring features that allow businesses to maintain their own methods and market differentiators!
ViVO Concepts has successfully actualized the goal of removing the technology barriers for business people and has provided a flexible, configurable, expandable toolkit of hosted features and resources so that companies can focus on customers to produce added value in the market. This translates to better information (analytics), more sales, better service, and stronger customer loyalties.
How refreshing. I’m so happy it is finally 2009 !! And, I'm particularly happy to be a partner with ViVO Concepts! You can find them at www.vivoconcepts.com
I decided I needed to find a better way to support the basic desktop needs of the company without compromising quality of service. I found a European company, based in Florida, who was in the business of providing outsourced desktop support. Wow! This could eliminate the need to have an on-site network engineer at each site!
Let’s go through the scenario of what was really going on at these remote company locations. The VP’s in each site insisted on personal on-site technical support. In most cases these engineers were hired “just in case” they needed to fix a computer, install software, replace a router, etc. Most of the time these $50-75k employees were doing PowerPoint presentations for the VP’s, setting up internet access, installing laptop software, buying mobile phones, etc. These employees were providing more of what I would term as an IT Valet Service than delivering any real technical support. In any case, they were much more likely to be running their own private consulting services while on the company payroll than delivering any real value to the Company. No on-site supervision and woefully under-utilized in their chosen technical profession, what else could one expect?
The European company had the perfect solution! Turn each phone, PC or laptop into an "appliance". Provide hot swap capability in the event of a failure. With each employee’s laptop or desktop configuration and personal data stored remotely, the hardware could be swapped out in minutes with no loss of functionality or data. With minor adjustments for special circumstances and the needs of company executives, the solution seemed flawless!
The PC hardware was just the hardware. Given any particular location, we could purchase a spare PC for much less than the annual cost of an employee. If a PC was corrupted or disabled, the spare from the back room would be deployed and that user’s desktop would be completely restored to mirror the disabled equipment with a simple network download. In effect, the PC became just an appliance since it was completely field swappable by any non-technical individual. What could be better?
The ROI and the annual savings were incredible! Every scenario was challenged and addressed with solutions that resulted in minimal impact on individuals and the business as a whole.
The project was promoted and showed tremendous promise. But it never got off the ground.
Why? At the time this was completely “out of the box” thinking and there was a general lack of trust in relying on “the network” as remote host for the “computer”- especially MY computer! Having an IT-provided computer valet right there, no matter how talented or inept was far more comforting than reliance on some remote service. Yes, we very much liked our IT Valets who come to your desk on demand, and help you!
That was in 1998. We were all less proficient back then…. And truly, much of the software was more “challenging” to learn. Client-server applications were delicate and often required some on-site or individual tweaking…. All of this support incidentally, could have been provided more effectively from the remote provider, but comfort once again was derived from having a human appear, maybe talk to you (or maybe not…we IT folks…are not very chatty…) and then fix it for you!
My how far we’ve come! Clearly, business was just not READY – in 1998 - to let the network be the source for information, process, data, feature and function. .
Roll forward to 2009. We are in a completely different place! We’ve learned the many lessons of security breaches, spammers and the need for filters, the need to prevent hijacked email servers, pfishing pirates, wireless spies, laptop vulnerabilities and learned the hard way that we don’t want the only copy of critical company information stored on individual laptops or computers. Now we know that the NETWORK linked to a secured application or repository is the answer! We no longer feel so vulnerable. In fact, we actually like having it somewhere else! We know that our data is safe – and accessible. We know that we don’t need our own laptops or desktops WITH us to get to our data. And we know that we can connect to the network from anywhere, including Disneyland, Starbucks or from our cars, hotels, or vacation spots via internet, cell or satellite connection!
Slowly we’ve migrated more and more of “our stuff” to centralized, controlled, managed and secure places. We have relinquished a lot of control at the local level. Why? We can GET MORE FOR LESS and….. we can ACCESS IT FROM ANYWHERE !!
My dream from 1998 is being realized in many new ways! Let go of your local stuff and let someone else worry about the details. Focus on your business, your goals, your markets, your customers and take the technology issues off the table! Centralize and rely on the network to deliver what you want, when you want it and how you want it.
Is this a panacea for all things technical? No, not at all. Somebody, somewhere in your organization must chart the course, steer the ship and train the stewards. But, the tools and resources today are much more intuitive, user friendly, user configurable and responsive. What is new is that more and more basic and advanced tools are becoming indigenous to the network and are being provided by “experts” who do NOT work for your company!
Take Salesforce.com. IT did not provide this product and has nothing to do with it. They probably don’t even know what it does and why it’s important. If this tool, can be completely embraced, deployed and managed by non-technical business units, why not other business tools?
Well, the time has come! Those tools are now migrating into business use. While the transformation is still underway, there are some innovators and leaders who are paving the way to elevate and empower business users by removing the IT complexity and replacing it with very powerful user tools! Adoption becomes more of an integration task than a development and engineering task. The question becomes, “How do I blend this new feature or data into what I already have in place”? (vs. How many IT people will I need? How much hardware? What skills? When will it be ready? Etc. etc. etc.!). Well, there are plenty of experts and tools to integrate new features with existing information and processes!
Wow. What progress.
Now, let me throw in a little commercial here…a little bonus to those who have read this far!
I've spent several months investigating a company who is a foremost innovator in the SaaS space. Their approach to a feature rich solution is both inventive and powerful. As a result, I decided to join ViVO Concepts as a ViVOpartner because I believe this company is actually delivering products and services that go far beyond my dreams of 1998! Business should be focused on business issues, not the underlying technologies. Technology challenges are long-standing distractions and resource vampires to SMB’s in particular! As a 17+ year CIO in SMB's I know the issues well and believe the next generation of software will be delivered by hosted solution providers with tools rich in individualized tailoring features that allow businesses to maintain their own methods and market differentiators!
ViVO Concepts has successfully actualized the goal of removing the technology barriers for business people and has provided a flexible, configurable, expandable toolkit of hosted features and resources so that companies can focus on customers to produce added value in the market. This translates to better information (analytics), more sales, better service, and stronger customer loyalties.
How refreshing. I’m so happy it is finally 2009 !! And, I'm particularly happy to be a partner with ViVO Concepts! You can find them at www.vivoconcepts.com
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