When people refer to silos, or stovepipes, they mean it in a critical way. Silos refer to something inefficient because it is insulated, disconnected, uncoordinated. There are organizational silos. There are information silos. There are communication silos.
In some cases, silos successfully fulfill a business case. Successful silos provide promised cost or revenue, but all businesses evolve over time and to evolve with the business, silos that succeeded need to shed their insulated, disconnected, uncoordinated characteristics -- the organization, information, and communications need to be de-siloed.
In other cases silos never achieve their planned business case. In case of failure, the need for integration and coordination may never have been understood or articulated. Like the successful silos adapting to a changing business, the failed silos also need to be de-siloed.
Silos are created and dismantled in cycles driven by business and technology trends. Silos crop up the “Silo-investment” portion of the cycle. They are folded back into the enterprise during the de-silo portion of the cycle.
Portals were envisioned as a way to foster cross organizational communication and many portal initiatives delivered on this promise successfully. The late 1990s and the early years of the 21st century saw much investment in portals. Technologies from Plumtree, Epicentric, and Vignette flourished in the silo-investment phase. The business continues to change and continues to embrace the portal concept, so those portal technologies have begun to be folded back into the enterprise during the de-siloing phase. Portals continue, but they continue in a way that is connected with the rest of the enterprise.
Consider that we are now in the silo-investment phase of web 2.0 social networking technology. There is investment in technologies such as Jive’s Clearspace and Atlassian’s Confluence to realize the value in web 2.0 functionality. This is the silo-investment phase of web 2.0. As before, there will also come a time for de-siloing.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Content Consolidation to Become Increasingly Common
In a 2008 Gartner survey of nearly 400 respondents, 69% of enterprises indicated they had more than six repository technologies in production use. These enterprises can benefit from a consolidation program (http://blog.crownpartners.com/?Tag=consolidation) using content Extract Transform and Load (ETL) (http://blog.crownpartners.com/bid/17240/Enabling-Consolidation-with-Universal-ETL), and will increasingly initiate strategic action to realize those benefits.
Two factors are especially important in driving the acceleration of consolidation initiatives. First, cost of consolidation is borne once, but the cost-saving, service-level, and “content de-siloing” benefits are perpetual. In times of revenue uncertainty, the guaranteed return of these perpetual benefits becomes increasingly attractive. Second, consider that increasingly sophisticated automation of content ETL reduces the cost of consolidation efforts. Prior to the development of content ETL, custom programming and manual effort made consolidation error-prone and costly.
Consolidation programs are typically made up of a “hub” and “spokes”. The hub portion of the program ensures the readiness of the strategic content management platform and coordinates one or more spokes. Each of the spokes addresses one of the non-strategic content management technologies, by folding it into the strategic content management platform. Whether the spokes are pursued serially or in parallel, the start-to-finish time required for the consolidation should be minimized to accelerate the returns.
Consolidation at user firms will continue to drive shake-out among content management technology providers. Vignette, Plumbtree, and Fatwire are among likely losers in the continuing shakeout. Weakening among providers such as these will accelerate consolidation efforts as user organizations move to the better-funded, more-rapidly-evolving, better-maintained products from the apparent-survivor providers.
Crown’s Buldoser technology and related professional services capabilities can enable and accelerate your consolidation. Ask us about a consolidation assessment to help you understand and realize the benefits of consolidation.
Two factors are especially important in driving the acceleration of consolidation initiatives. First, cost of consolidation is borne once, but the cost-saving, service-level, and “content de-siloing” benefits are perpetual. In times of revenue uncertainty, the guaranteed return of these perpetual benefits becomes increasingly attractive. Second, consider that increasingly sophisticated automation of content ETL reduces the cost of consolidation efforts. Prior to the development of content ETL, custom programming and manual effort made consolidation error-prone and costly.
Consolidation programs are typically made up of a “hub” and “spokes”. The hub portion of the program ensures the readiness of the strategic content management platform and coordinates one or more spokes. Each of the spokes addresses one of the non-strategic content management technologies, by folding it into the strategic content management platform. Whether the spokes are pursued serially or in parallel, the start-to-finish time required for the consolidation should be minimized to accelerate the returns.
Consolidation at user firms will continue to drive shake-out among content management technology providers. Vignette, Plumbtree, and Fatwire are among likely losers in the continuing shakeout. Weakening among providers such as these will accelerate consolidation efforts as user organizations move to the better-funded, more-rapidly-evolving, better-maintained products from the apparent-survivor providers.
Crown’s Buldoser technology and related professional services capabilities can enable and accelerate your consolidation. Ask us about a consolidation assessment to help you understand and realize the benefits of consolidation.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Crown’s Value Proposition: The Software First “Hybrid” Advantage
Unlike its competitors, Crown is not a typical firm. Rather, Crown’s value is demonstrated through its software offerings. Crown frequently uses engagements in order to leverage and grow their technology solutions.
Traditional IT consulting firms follow a prescriptive approach to client engagements. The process involves a detailed assessment of a particular client need and the creation of a customized solution to meet that need. The consulting firm will follow a series of steps in its process: conduct a strategy analysis, identify an appropriate technology solution, and implement that solution to meet the client’s need. This process is repeated over and over for each new client with little modification to the overall process or project timeline. The value of a traditional consulting firm is based on their understanding and application of “best practices”, or lessons learned from previous engagements, to solve a current client need; not necessarily in the process utilized.
By following this process, a traditional consulting firm is able to expand its knowledge base of best practices and create unique solutions for its clients. The consulting firm leaves the project with additional knowledge on how to solve a problem, but often leaves behind the customized technology solution that made the project a success. Because a traditional consulting firm is compensated on a time and materials basis, the firm is incented to create longer project timelines with customized solutions for each client.
For traditional firms, this model meets their financial goals:
· Keep billable hours as high as possible
· Avoid software that will eliminate the need for human capital
· Grow bigger, but not more efficient
Crown’s model rejects the traditional prescriptive methodology. Rather than only provide the next client the benefits of learned strategies, Crown also provides the customer with enhanced software solutions from each previous, and future, engagement. In this way, Crown can deliver the same technology solution adopted at one client site to another client without having to repeat the entire project timeline.
For Crown, this model meets their goals:
· Create a highly utilized, knowledgeable staff that can streamline the project
· Provide customized software solutions built on best practices
· Capture more market share and grow
· Establish reputation as the low-cost provider due to lower price and higher efficiency
Further, the client is able to own and maintain those best practices, and software, after the project has ended. Crown will continue to update its software solutions through future client engagements, providing updates to previous clients who own earlier versions of the same or similar software. Crown, in that respect, is able to continually service clients long after the engagement is over.
Crown’s Software First model provides several benefits to its customers:
· Rapid, skilled implementation of customized solutions
· An in-house software solution with ownership rights
· Benefit of previous product enhancements based on best practices
· Benefit of future product enhancements based on best practices
· Half the cost of the competition and twice the value
In addition to benefiting its customer base, Crown’s software model differentiates it from its competitors in the following ways:
· Continuously growing intellectual property
· Research & development is funded by the clients since it is developed on a case-by-case basis on the client site
· Software updates have created a new channel of recurring maintenance revenue year over year
· Crown’s software replaces manual processes
· Ability to take on more engagements and grow to include more software offerings
· Brand development and increasing ability to serve repeat customers
· Overall lower cost of ownership
By the efficient nature of this model, Crown continues to thrive despite the current economic downturn. When IT professionals are encouraged to seek low cost alternatives, they rely on an organization able to consolidate software solutions and provide the highest ROI possible.
Note: Thanks to Crown Managing Partner, Richard Hearn, for the text in this post.
Traditional IT consulting firms follow a prescriptive approach to client engagements. The process involves a detailed assessment of a particular client need and the creation of a customized solution to meet that need. The consulting firm will follow a series of steps in its process: conduct a strategy analysis, identify an appropriate technology solution, and implement that solution to meet the client’s need. This process is repeated over and over for each new client with little modification to the overall process or project timeline. The value of a traditional consulting firm is based on their understanding and application of “best practices”, or lessons learned from previous engagements, to solve a current client need; not necessarily in the process utilized.
By following this process, a traditional consulting firm is able to expand its knowledge base of best practices and create unique solutions for its clients. The consulting firm leaves the project with additional knowledge on how to solve a problem, but often leaves behind the customized technology solution that made the project a success. Because a traditional consulting firm is compensated on a time and materials basis, the firm is incented to create longer project timelines with customized solutions for each client.
For traditional firms, this model meets their financial goals:
· Keep billable hours as high as possible
· Avoid software that will eliminate the need for human capital
· Grow bigger, but not more efficient
Crown’s model rejects the traditional prescriptive methodology. Rather than only provide the next client the benefits of learned strategies, Crown also provides the customer with enhanced software solutions from each previous, and future, engagement. In this way, Crown can deliver the same technology solution adopted at one client site to another client without having to repeat the entire project timeline.
For Crown, this model meets their goals:
· Create a highly utilized, knowledgeable staff that can streamline the project
· Provide customized software solutions built on best practices
· Capture more market share and grow
· Establish reputation as the low-cost provider due to lower price and higher efficiency
Further, the client is able to own and maintain those best practices, and software, after the project has ended. Crown will continue to update its software solutions through future client engagements, providing updates to previous clients who own earlier versions of the same or similar software. Crown, in that respect, is able to continually service clients long after the engagement is over.
Crown’s Software First model provides several benefits to its customers:
· Rapid, skilled implementation of customized solutions
· An in-house software solution with ownership rights
· Benefit of previous product enhancements based on best practices
· Benefit of future product enhancements based on best practices
· Half the cost of the competition and twice the value
In addition to benefiting its customer base, Crown’s software model differentiates it from its competitors in the following ways:
· Continuously growing intellectual property
· Research & development is funded by the clients since it is developed on a case-by-case basis on the client site
· Software updates have created a new channel of recurring maintenance revenue year over year
· Crown’s software replaces manual processes
· Ability to take on more engagements and grow to include more software offerings
· Brand development and increasing ability to serve repeat customers
· Overall lower cost of ownership
By the efficient nature of this model, Crown continues to thrive despite the current economic downturn. When IT professionals are encouraged to seek low cost alternatives, they rely on an organization able to consolidate software solutions and provide the highest ROI possible.
Note: Thanks to Crown Managing Partner, Richard Hearn, for the text in this post.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Content Management Platform: A Critical Element in a Knowledge Intensive World
Business is increasingly knowledge intensive. The most successful businesses have the knowledge to do the right things and do things right. That knowledge, whether nascent or explicit, whether instructive or persuasive, produces value when it’s in the mind of an employee, a supplier, a distributor, or a customer. Getting knowledge into those minds drives business results.
Content refers to the documents, web pages, images, videos, and audio segments that enable business results by delivering knowledge to people. Managing content is essential for achieving compliance, efficiency, quality, and other business objectives. Fortunately, software to manage content is reaching new levels of maturity and Crown provides solutions for content management using industry leading products from EMC, Oracle, and Microsoft.
Assembling and delivering knowledge in the form of content is most efficient when supported by a “content management platform”. A content management platform consists of standards, hardware, and software, supported by specific operations and personnel. A platform typically accommodates multiple business needs and serves multiple departments, cost centers, divisions and business units. A platform provides cost advantages that result from sharing expense across a large number of users or applications and the related economies of scale. It also increases service levels, because service-enabling investments that could not be afforded for a single application can be afforded for a collection of applications.
A content management platform provides greatest knowledge advantages when it is used to add and preserve value in each step of the enterprise value chain. Conveying content and knowledge via a single enterprise platform is more consistent and economical than stringing together islands of content management. Below are a few examples of the content produced and used at each section of the value chain. Just as value snowballs through the value chain, content critical for later sections of the value chain should reference and incorporate content in the earlier sections of the value chain.
1. Supply steps in the value chain: raw materials, component, and capital equipment specifications; contractor services descriptions; job skill requirements; capital or financing plans.
2. Central steps in the value chain: procedures that define the integration of inputs with additional sources of value within the firm; management reports; go to market plans; work-in-progress and finished output specifications.
3. Distribution steps in the value chain: sales and marketing material, product documentation, warrantees and guarantees, service descriptions.
With more than 500 content management “go-lives” using industry leading software from EMC, Oracle, and Microsoft, Crown understands the importance of knowledge and how to deliver it throughout an enterprise using content. We look forward to exploring the ways that experience can help your organization get the most out of its knowledge.
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