What are your priorities in your digital transformation?

So, do you have a plan? What are your priorities in your digital transformation?

Digital disruptions continue to weigh heavily on businesses of all sizes and in all sectors, as consumers, customers, employees and partners now expect everything to be accessible on demand, at all times; in short, everyone and everything needs to be fully connected.

Beyond customer experience, we are talking here about the global brand experience, regardless of the user’s identity.

To thrive in the digital economy, businesses need to become more agile. They must also develop and market new products and services more quickly.

If your business is already in tune with the digital age, great!

If on the contrary, your company has incurred a technological debt in the last years, “it’s time to wake up or else”. In this post, we report on a MuleSoft survey of 650 IT decision-makers in companies with more than 1,000 employees from the US, Australia, Germany, England, the Netherlands, Singapore and China.

(more…)

Plea for an IT Business Partner or adopting the Startup attitude when facing challenges and problems

Does the IT function receive all the credit it deserves? Not really!  Surprising, considering IT key role and technologies’ contribution to business success. Maybe business leaders should start adopting the Startup attitude when facing new challenges or consider someone who does as a real Business Partner, like IT Consultants. Here’s why?

I understand that all CFO, CMO and CHRO will tell you that their function is the most valuable within the enterprise but one can’t fail to see that without IT, all these guys would be in trouble, right… or elsewhere!

Nevertheless, even 15 years later, the year-2000 bug still feels like a big knot in the throat for most C-levels, CTOs & CIOs have lost a lot of credibility there. On the other hand, slowly but surely, CTOs & CIOs are slowly gaining higher decision-levels within enterprises.

The CIO & CTO Dilemma regarding its IT Business Partner

(more…)

tablets

Are Tablets finally penetrating the enterprise?

The world changes… mostly due to new technologies proposing or enabling new ways of doing things, new visions of the world!  And that’s the way to look at Tablets which are now standing in between Smartphones and Laptops but will soon stand, in our opinion, above both!
(more…)

Is your enterprise environmental footprint, green?

I am an SMB owner and like many others, I feel more and more not only questionned but also concerned with the global environmental situation and, honestly, quite worried for my children’s future. As a SMB owner, I want to have a green envitonmental footprint.  So, here it goes…

For more than a decade now, the conssumer has been the target of many awareness campaigns in regards to the environmental impact of his choices and decisions. More so, in recent years, there’s not a month that goes by without having Mother Nature reminding us one way or another that something is not right with the climate and the environment.

It comforts me to think that average Joe has come a long way in terms of awareness of the environmental impact of his every moves and decisions but what about all these SMBs’ owners?  but what is your SMB’s environmental footprint?

The green environmental footprint enterprise – myth or reality?

(more…)

Real-Time Marketing for the Enterprise on-the-go

In today’s business reality, not only do we take for granted that the right information will be accessible anytime, anywhere but also that it will help us make more enlightened decisions instantaneously, on-the-go !

The ability to adjust our business offering in real-time, to make some real-time Marketing. It can constitute an undeniable competitive advantage.

Real-Time Marketing – first, a corporate vision

(more…)

The true nature of tailor-made software development

When Analystik starts a new mandate with a client; the main goal is almost always to automate a business process and the methodology is, all things considered, quite simple:

  • Analysis of the process
  • Analysis of possible enhancements to the process itself
  • Creation of the software solution automating the process
  • Integration to existing related technologies and processes
  • Implementation

One spontaneously sees that a tailor-made software solution will fit more like a « glove » for the enterprise compared to a commercial software which is more of a « mitt ».

Shall we point it out over and over; although it calls upon a superior initial investment compared to a commercial software which answers roughly from 50% to 75% of requirements; a tailor-made software solution will always respond to 100% of requirements.  And let’s not forget, while adaptation to existing technologies and processes is always included with tailor-made software solution; it is always necessary as well with commercial software solution but never included !!!  We’re talking extras here; sounds like a story you’ve heard recently?

(more…)

IT dilemma, of course! Tailor-made mobile Application?

Last week, we were discussing The Eternal IT Dilemma; tailor-made software development or commercial software solution?  How about this dilemma from a Mobility perspective; how does it go about Smartphones and Tablets? Does enterprises go for a Tailor-made mobile Application?

The vast majority of enterprises that put into play a Sales Force are thinking about integrating Mobility to their IT development or among the needed IT solutions.  The laptop seems to be getting slower and slower to get started and not always easily « networked »; which can be accounted for the fact that more and more representatives leave them at the office and fall back to their Smartphones, even to get strategic information much needed for outdoors client activities.

(more…)

The eternal IT dilemma: commercial software product or not?

It’s the burden of all enterprises at one point or another; we often meet with business prospects which have very precise business needs and requirements, and that are confronted with multiple options as much in terms of technology as finance, and this story unfolds itself on a landscape of functionalities and satisfaction.  Let’s put things out just the way they are: contrary tocommercial software product, custom-made development frightens a lot of people, because commercial software product is concrete to start with which is both more appealing and securing for a decision-maker.  But when you take a closer look at it, you’ll see that reality is not that simple.

We will try in this post, and as much as we can, to identify the pros and cons of both IT options: custom-made software development or commercial software product.

(more…)

Web or Windows? No, Web & Windows! (Part 1)

The debate has been raging for over a decade and the heights the confrontation and rivalries at the turn of the Millennium. So, what is it, Web or Windows? At the time, these two diametrically opposed visions each had hard core advocates who had sworn allegiance to the death. Much water has passed under the bridge since then and today we understand that reality is not quite so simple; not everything is black or white.

The vast majority of businesses have purchased numerous office software programme licenses from Microsoft (Windows, Office, SharePoint, etc). Since the arrival of Windows and a great many of these have invested in the development of applications custom built in Microsoft’s .Net framework. And today, almost all IT managers are turning to the Web where they are seriously considering or at the very least evaluating their options there.

(more…)

Obsolete IT applications – issues for entrepreneurs

So let’s jump merrily into the depths of the nightmare of every entrepreneur: IT investment. I say nightmare because it’s a field of expertise for which the vast majority of entrepreneurs have absolutely no basis for appreciation or evaluation.  There is little or no reassurance for a decision-maker faced with a 100, 200, or even $500,000 decision, which choice will likely have a major impact on productivity, thus profitability and the future of the business.

So… to help the entrepreneur in this situation, and I believe there will be more and more who need help in the years to come, because the stakes are the same and are just as important as ever: Business Process Automation, increasing productivity, mobile workforce, accessible information, increased quality of Business Intelligence, improved decision-making processes, integrity and security of company data, etc., all of course with the ultimate goal; increase Profitability and improve Customer Satisfaction.

The Problem

(more…)

Mobility: custom or off-the-shelf business applications?

Two articles on enterprise applications coming from the same publisher, businessmobile.fr, caught our attention recently. They’re interesting because they appeared less than a week apart and were in fact contradictory:

Mobility for business: complex business applications are slow to gain acceptance

In the first article based on a Forrester study, it says “the use of specific business applications is still limited and trails far behind the adoption of email or calendaring functions.”…

Hum…

(more…)

The IT and the Sales force with mobility and their productivity.

This is the first opus of a series of posts and comments published by « Enterprise Mobility Matters » which will be the subject of a “parallel blogging” experiment with Analystik, editor of the « Productivité + » blog, onto which you will find a reply to these posts and comments. 

(more…)