The emergence and increasing usage of social media and other Web 2.0 tools has dramatically altered the ways in which companies interact with their customers. For instance, buying advice, product information and technical help is increasingly being disseminated from consumers to other consumers, in some cases without involvement or oversight by the provider. Clearly, this shift presents both opportunities and risks to companies.
ERP, CRM, and other business systems have been around for 30+ years. Historically, these systems were implemented as large monolithic systems focused on running large portions of your business. Over the past decade, technology and industry standards had evolved that has finally made these technologies available to smaller less cash rich companies. But unfortunately, these systems have not lived up to their promise of automating business processes and entire businesses. All too often they have become too large and difficult to use, and thus have not returned the value that was promised. In addition, these systems provided little value within the space of unstructured ad-hoc information workers. The requirements of these information workers proved to be too unstructured, collaborative, and fluid to be met by the large monolithic business systems.
The least disruptive way to update business computing applications is through an incremental approach to application modernization, says evolveIT’s (www.evolveit.com) vice president of client technical resources, Dan Hogan. Headquartered in Tustin, California, evolveIT focuses on IBM i platform modernization and RF warehousing technology.
The teleconferencing business is increasingly a commodity business. Most market participants offer roughly the same services at roughly the same price points. Mike Swimelar, president of Advent Conferencing, understood that the only way to differentiate his company from the pack of competitors was through technological innovation. By 2006, he was already offering the very the latest in secure collaboration technologies with the best sound quality and richest feature set. Its audio conferencing network, bridges, and processes were the most reliable in the industry. But he was looking for even more of an edge. “I realized there was more we could do,” said Swimelar.
For many local communities, it is nearly impossible to meet the every day expectations and requests of its citizens efficiently. Why? Because most communities do not have an enterprise-wide mechanism in place to answer questions, track requests, and initiate the required processes to fulfill those requests within an appropriate timeframe. Citizens expect to be able to call their local government about any issue and receive a timely response, whether it is about general community information, an abandoned car, a missed garbage pick-up, or a burglar breaking in. With limited funds and resources, it is a difficult task for local governments to keep up with the requests that pour in daily. Therefore, it is critical to set in place an enterprise-wide system that can help improve local service delivery for citizen inquires and requests and improve the quality of life in the community.
In tough economic times, businesses have three choices: ignore the situation, accept defeat, or take control. The first two options — doing nothing and riding out the storm or accepting the pounding — can be paralyzing, with devastating consequences. However, by taking control, businesses can stay ahead of competitors, grow market share, and ensure viability in all types of market conditions.