I have been running BlastAsia, a professional software service company since last 10 years and before that has been in-charge of running two other professional service organizations doing consulting work for business strategy and surprisingly never came across any good integrated software that would let me run my business and give me actionable information to make strategic business decisions. There are software which does point solutions like accounting, HR, payroll and Project Management, which we have been using for all the three companies at various stages, however when it came to making decision like:
- what is our current resource utilization rate? (how many of the billable resource are being billed)
- in the next 3 months are we going to need more people or will we have excess people on the bench? do we need to plan certain training or hiring people with specific skills that would be needed for upcoming projects?
- will all the committed expense over the next 6month be covered by the cash-flow or are we going to need to arrange alternative financing to cover some of the strategic expenses?
- how is our performance compared to our yearly budget? are we in proportion or some areas are running out of control?
- are we profitable for the various accounts?
- how are all the ongoing projects, are they more or less as per plan, when will the resources be free?
simple questions, and i am sure any of you running a company or is a decision maker in a professional service company would be asking the same every months. But you would also know how difficult it is to get the answer from one person let alone one screen, and I am not talking about companies that did not go for automation, they probably have a fully working accounting system, CRM system and HR, in addition to tools like MS Project and others. Most of the time different people help prepare the answer pulling info from different systems and reprocessing them in excel.
Isn't it an irony that 'professional service' companies also called 'knowledge service' companies have limited knowledge/information about their own business and not much has been done to help. Makes you wonder why? Since some of this category companies can actually do it themselves, build software and sell to others.
Actually on researching some more I found that there are some solutions emerging in the industry, a PSA or professional service automation and SRP, service resource planning are some effort in this direction, however they focus primarily to the need of IT service companies rather than the Professional Service Industry need in general.
So going back to the question how come there are not many/any solution to help provide the players in this industry with integrated information, my take would be the following reasons:
- majority of this companies are small to mid and can only afford to spend limited fund for automation.
- running a ERP type of system requires lot of hardware and support team in-house and most of this companies would consider those to be billable resource and putting them for internal use is always difficult.
- ERP type of systems have known to be difficult to learn and use, and most of the time they require dedicated resource to maintain data and produce reports per business unit, this is difficult to do for Professional Service Companies due to size of operation and billable roles of resources from business units.
- lastly lot of this companies, like Manufacturing and Distributions counterparts want systems to confirm to their business process and reporting, rather than adapting best practice that do not affect any of their strategic USP. This leads to the need of major customization, which equates to cost and complexities.
All of the above are legitimate roadblocks for automation, but the scenario has changed with 'cloud computing' which addresses most of the issues above well enough. Renting against owning, online over installing and running it in-house along with easy to use rich client interface enables adaptation easier. However the companies have to agree and let go some of their typical business process to adapt best practice as offered by system, as customizing would be the last thing any cloud provider would go for.
This is the thesis we are betting on for our next offering 'xamun', the integrated solution for Knowledge Enterprise Management. Visit http://www.xamun.com/ to know more, we are starting with CRM offering by August, soon to follow are Project Management and Human Resource, all integrated to the Decision Support System providing critical info to the decision maker in one screen. Integrated with various popular applications used by target market, we are looking at providing the solution the industry has been long waiting for. The system offered over the cloud, provides the infrastructure stability of Microsoft Azure Hosting and cost saving coming from majority of our operation being run out of Philippines. We at BlastAsia have been building world class commercial software products for ISVs all over the world over the last 10 years and now with Xamun we are looking forward to put the strength and knowledge of the organization to provide the service and stability that a great global cloud solution deserves.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
The Magic of Software
Many times I have asked myself what got me interested in the software industry and why it did not interest me as much when I was a student of Engineering. The answer is fuzzy affected by many factors like, the kind of software available in the mid to late 80s, what was available at the Engineering college I got admission to and also how much I knew about software and what it can do.
My first introduction to software was in 9th Grade, when we were brought to the 'computer lab', which was the proud new possession of my school at Jabalpur. A BBC machine connected to a TV and after few months when time came for the annual science fair, our 'computer sir' help write one of the first software program that I still remember. It was stored in the cassette of a tape recorder and all it did was drew 3D circles floating in the center of the TV screen. And I was amazed, and still remember that, though we actually were taught a bunch of other programs in BASIC, can't really recall anything else.
So why do I remember that circles on the air or what made me take up CAD and STAAD, the computer aided design as my thesis for Civil Engineering Finals, is connected to the question I started this blog entry with, 'what is it that got me interested in software?'
In line with this, begs to ask the question why did iPhone take the market away from Nokia, though Nokia or Motorolla phones had more features. Why does a 2.5yr old kid like using iPad and not any of the other computing options in the market today.
While at Microsoft World Partner Conference last week, one of the booth in front was from a well know so called open source CRM company called SugarCRM, which is going to be another topic of discussion another day, that why do this companies call them self open source when all they are interested in is getting others to bug fix and use there software till they can start selling it commercially. So the line of SugarCRM slides running in loops said one thing that caught my attention, which said something like 'complex process and interface of other CRM software makes it difficult to use'; funny thing is, SugarCRM when you see is as complex and difficult to sue as any of them. Or for that matter other leaders in the market like Salesforce or Netsuite, and the other two present at the exhibition AutoTask and ConnectWise in addition to Dynamics CRM, all have quite difficult to use menu and process flow, like 'Nokia' for hand phones.
So the question or the inspiration that has been going around in my mind for sometime is, what is that magic that Apple brought into iPhone and iPad that others in the industry missed. Admittedly they made a great hardware, but its not the hardware, or not hardware alone that makes the product irresistible, or even kids start using it, its the 'magic of software', the User Experience or UX that makes it different. The transitions, the easy to use functions, the ease of finding what you want with out having to get drowned in 50 other things, the color, the candy like buttons with wonderful sounds, that's what makes it irresistible, the hardware is just there to support doing all that, to think of it the battery actually sucks, cant think of any Nokia phone that would survive at this time with only 1/2 a day worth of battery power.
Yes, the magic of software is in the user experience, not in the complexity of the architecture or codes or even the depth of configurable functions that most software engineers love to brag about. And perhaps the saying of Occam's razor is most applicable for software design and keeping the magic alive for the users. The principle that "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity".
Yes there is a market for easy to use business software, like easy to use business phone (yes iPhone is now called a business phone, like it or not) and the new Microsoft Windows Mobile 7 also following the principles (I hope so from what I saw at WPC).
So here we are now betting on 'the magic of software' the UX in delivering great user experience and ease through our latest cloud offerings of Xamun, only market can tell how well we got it, so wish us luck and some 'magic'.
Xamun.com
My first introduction to software was in 9th Grade, when we were brought to the 'computer lab', which was the proud new possession of my school at Jabalpur. A BBC machine connected to a TV and after few months when time came for the annual science fair, our 'computer sir' help write one of the first software program that I still remember. It was stored in the cassette of a tape recorder and all it did was drew 3D circles floating in the center of the TV screen. And I was amazed, and still remember that, though we actually were taught a bunch of other programs in BASIC, can't really recall anything else.
So why do I remember that circles on the air or what made me take up CAD and STAAD, the computer aided design as my thesis for Civil Engineering Finals, is connected to the question I started this blog entry with, 'what is it that got me interested in software?'
In line with this, begs to ask the question why did iPhone take the market away from Nokia, though Nokia or Motorolla phones had more features. Why does a 2.5yr old kid like using iPad and not any of the other computing options in the market today.
While at Microsoft World Partner Conference last week, one of the booth in front was from a well know so called open source CRM company called SugarCRM, which is going to be another topic of discussion another day, that why do this companies call them self open source when all they are interested in is getting others to bug fix and use there software till they can start selling it commercially. So the line of SugarCRM slides running in loops said one thing that caught my attention, which said something like 'complex process and interface of other CRM software makes it difficult to use'; funny thing is, SugarCRM when you see is as complex and difficult to sue as any of them. Or for that matter other leaders in the market like Salesforce or Netsuite, and the other two present at the exhibition AutoTask and ConnectWise in addition to Dynamics CRM, all have quite difficult to use menu and process flow, like 'Nokia' for hand phones.
So the question or the inspiration that has been going around in my mind for sometime is, what is that magic that Apple brought into iPhone and iPad that others in the industry missed. Admittedly they made a great hardware, but its not the hardware, or not hardware alone that makes the product irresistible, or even kids start using it, its the 'magic of software', the User Experience or UX that makes it different. The transitions, the easy to use functions, the ease of finding what you want with out having to get drowned in 50 other things, the color, the candy like buttons with wonderful sounds, that's what makes it irresistible, the hardware is just there to support doing all that, to think of it the battery actually sucks, cant think of any Nokia phone that would survive at this time with only 1/2 a day worth of battery power.
Yes, the magic of software is in the user experience, not in the complexity of the architecture or codes or even the depth of configurable functions that most software engineers love to brag about. And perhaps the saying of Occam's razor is most applicable for software design and keeping the magic alive for the users. The principle that "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity".
Yes there is a market for easy to use business software, like easy to use business phone (yes iPhone is now called a business phone, like it or not) and the new Microsoft Windows Mobile 7 also following the principles (I hope so from what I saw at WPC).
So here we are now betting on 'the magic of software' the UX in delivering great user experience and ease through our latest cloud offerings of Xamun, only market can tell how well we got it, so wish us luck and some 'magic'.
Xamun.com
Monday, July 5, 2010
Aquiring Lead and Converting them to Sale in the Internet World
It used to be; you go out and start calling and knocking on the doors to identify potential leads and then depending on your product or service convert this leads into sale/account. So companies invested on this aspect a lot in terms of sales force, direct mailing campaigns and telesales team. The idea was customers have need that they are actively seeking out yet, just with a little nudge we can convert them to a buyer.
This worked very well for a long time, of course it evolved along the way into different form and format, but essentially the idea remained the same. Push for lead generation & generate pull through advertising on mass media. Still works to some extend but with globalization, internet and changing of demographics the consumer behavior has been changing rapidly. Like so many marketing books say it, consumers don't trust what they hear on the advertisements. Rightly or wrongly they now trust there own online research more and listening to the experience of others they know over marketing campaigns or the PUSH.
So in this information age, the roles and responsibility as marketers have been changing a lot. My first experience on this aspect was some what accidental and out of the circumstance rather than some great plan and knowing what is coming. While we were bootstrapping and growing our 'Outsourced Product Engineering' service business in the early part of 2004 globally, we realized we did not have the resource to do it like the traditional companies. That is to open a office in US and Europe, have a great sales person on the ground who goes about developing network and contacts with big accounts and ultimately get those million dollar sales. For us we just had enough resource to focus on our website, that's one thing I could do myself along with help from my wife who was our webmaster then. Also coming from failed dot com era I knew the importance of Search Engine and SEO, so we invested time on that. Does not mean we did not try some of the other means like sending emails to well researched prospects or calling them up, participating on exhibits etc, but nothing really worked much.
By now you might be thinking so how the heck did we survived and did we grow our business. To our surprise we started bagging a good amount of business year on year and growing from 4 people company to today 110 plus resources and business in over 6 countries from US, to Europe, Asia and Australia and New Zealand.
Today's customers have a very narrow window of interest and time, specially in our business. The technology manager gets his mandate from senior management that 'OK, we will outsource xyz. find some provider'; and he starts looking around, where does he go first, google it, after that ask some friends and contacts what are they doing about there needs. Then probably read some blogs and so called experts what they have to say about this, chances are there will be contradictory opinions and directions according to each experts experience and though it wont be useless the tech manager would come out with more questions and doubts, which he would go about asking to his friends and getting there feel. Parallel to this probably he is searching and sending out mails to possible providers that comes up on his search by target countries that he chose as per popular opinions of what is a good outsourcing destination along with his personal preference as he would probably be going there often to make this work.
The above phase lasts for probably 30 days or so, and then he narrows down to a short list that he starts doing due diligence and negotiations. My point from the above scenario is the window of interest for the buyer representative last for only short period of time and it would be quite a challenge if the seller can target exactly that window. If you contact him before he got the mandate they will drop the phone and say 'another rabbit', as they call all the incoming calls from offshore vendors, that just disturb them during work. And interestingly after they have decided and bought into the service of a vendor they will not be interested again any more for long period of time.
So the lesson from this would be since we invested more on information on our website and SEO, we were like the spider who build a large web and waiting for its food. The key to remember here is when you get a inquiry, to respond to it immediately and professionally, to convert the lead to prospect and sale.
If we generalize the above experience I believe we can learn what today's marketing is moving towards. Its less of PUSH and more of providing information and presence, to make it easy for the ones looking find you. Once they find you, then comes the professional approach on how to handle them, remember they have very little time, patience and several choice. They are not going to wait for you if you don't respond to the first knock, of if the response is not reassuring enough to convince them to commit and risk it with you.
Think about it and let me know if you have something to share on this.
Have a nice day.
This worked very well for a long time, of course it evolved along the way into different form and format, but essentially the idea remained the same. Push for lead generation & generate pull through advertising on mass media. Still works to some extend but with globalization, internet and changing of demographics the consumer behavior has been changing rapidly. Like so many marketing books say it, consumers don't trust what they hear on the advertisements. Rightly or wrongly they now trust there own online research more and listening to the experience of others they know over marketing campaigns or the PUSH.
So in this information age, the roles and responsibility as marketers have been changing a lot. My first experience on this aspect was some what accidental and out of the circumstance rather than some great plan and knowing what is coming. While we were bootstrapping and growing our 'Outsourced Product Engineering' service business in the early part of 2004 globally, we realized we did not have the resource to do it like the traditional companies. That is to open a office in US and Europe, have a great sales person on the ground who goes about developing network and contacts with big accounts and ultimately get those million dollar sales. For us we just had enough resource to focus on our website, that's one thing I could do myself along with help from my wife who was our webmaster then. Also coming from failed dot com era I knew the importance of Search Engine and SEO, so we invested time on that. Does not mean we did not try some of the other means like sending emails to well researched prospects or calling them up, participating on exhibits etc, but nothing really worked much.
By now you might be thinking so how the heck did we survived and did we grow our business. To our surprise we started bagging a good amount of business year on year and growing from 4 people company to today 110 plus resources and business in over 6 countries from US, to Europe, Asia and Australia and New Zealand.
Today's customers have a very narrow window of interest and time, specially in our business. The technology manager gets his mandate from senior management that 'OK, we will outsource xyz. find some provider'; and he starts looking around, where does he go first, google it, after that ask some friends and contacts what are they doing about there needs. Then probably read some blogs and so called experts what they have to say about this, chances are there will be contradictory opinions and directions according to each experts experience and though it wont be useless the tech manager would come out with more questions and doubts, which he would go about asking to his friends and getting there feel. Parallel to this probably he is searching and sending out mails to possible providers that comes up on his search by target countries that he chose as per popular opinions of what is a good outsourcing destination along with his personal preference as he would probably be going there often to make this work.
The above phase lasts for probably 30 days or so, and then he narrows down to a short list that he starts doing due diligence and negotiations. My point from the above scenario is the window of interest for the buyer representative last for only short period of time and it would be quite a challenge if the seller can target exactly that window. If you contact him before he got the mandate they will drop the phone and say 'another rabbit', as they call all the incoming calls from offshore vendors, that just disturb them during work. And interestingly after they have decided and bought into the service of a vendor they will not be interested again any more for long period of time.
So the lesson from this would be since we invested more on information on our website and SEO, we were like the spider who build a large web and waiting for its food. The key to remember here is when you get a inquiry, to respond to it immediately and professionally, to convert the lead to prospect and sale.
If we generalize the above experience I believe we can learn what today's marketing is moving towards. Its less of PUSH and more of providing information and presence, to make it easy for the ones looking find you. Once they find you, then comes the professional approach on how to handle them, remember they have very little time, patience and several choice. They are not going to wait for you if you don't respond to the first knock, of if the response is not reassuring enough to convince them to commit and risk it with you.
Think about it and let me know if you have something to share on this.
Have a nice day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
