ERP products from India

When we think of ERP product coming from an Indian company, we can think of only Ramco. I just went on their site and found that they have now come up with ERP on Demand, which is nothing but a SaaS offering. What I found interesting on their site is one whitepaper in which they have addressed the security concern, which is associated with any hosted application. They have compared keeping data on capus against in vendor's data center with keeping family valuables in home against in bank's lockers. In India, where bank lockers are perceived to be quite safe to put family valuables, this comparison really connects with Indian psyche. Obviously they have provided quite a few details on the security of their data center and have mentioned their 27001 security certification. It's worth reading this whitepaper fully!

While Tally is a leader in accounting packages in India, its site also mentions an upcoming ERP product, named TallyAscent. It will be interesting to see how much market can be penetrated by TallyAscent.

Finally, I was pleasantly surprised to see an ERP product from Godrej Infotech. eNccompass - ERP claims to have leveraged Godrej group's experience of running various manufacturing companies. It seems it has been implemented in various Godrej companies so it must have got matured by now. It will be worth watching its market penetration in coming time.

Billing Boss

While surfing net, I came across this interesting online business solution called Billing Boss. It is a free online invoicing tool, targeted for small businesses and freelancers. One can create, email and track the status of invoices. After watching the small video demo hosted on its site, it looked very easy to use this tool.

Since I neither run a small business nor I am a freelancer, I can't use it. But I guess it will be interesting to see how this site gets used in future.

mentor, trainer, consultant and counceller

Just came across this interesting way to classify mentor, trainer, consultant and counselor. It's as follows:

Mentor or Coach asks solution.
Trainer tells solution.
Consultant tells problem.
Counselor or Therapist asks problems.

One can also make a 2-by-2 matrix to put these roles in each grid!

SAP Enterprise Services Workplace

When I first heard of SAP Enterprise Services Workplace, I wondered why would SAP share complete interface details of its all enterprise services. Today I got some time to look at the website and was amazed by the availability of details available there. It seems to be quite an information overload though I plan to explore it for few days in coming weeks.

The Right Way Towards SOA

While browsing the web site of Diamond Management and Technology Consultants, I came across this interesting article on SOA adoption. Here are my notes:

In this article, the authors have identified two kinds of SOA: Technology SOA and Business SOA. An organization can go for Business SOA only after doing Technology SOA. The focus of Technology SOA is on reuse of technology components and IT productivity leading to faster and cheaper IT. On the other hand, the focus of Business SOA is on rapid reconfiguration of business processes and/or providing trading partners and customers with access into corporate systems, leading to better and faster IT.

The authors have then adapted the MIT CISR research, to construct an SOA maturity model as shown below:

Level 0: Ongoing Service Delivery
Level 1a: New Project Delivery
Level 1b: Governance and Alignment
Level 2: Technology SOA
Level 3: CIO/CxO Relationship
Level 4: Business SOA

It's worth reading the whole article to understand more details about each of these six capabilities.

Learning resources for process modeling using BPMN

Today I found following two very useful learning resources for process modeling using BPMN:

1. process modeling using BPMN - article series
2. process modeling using BPMN - eLearning series

I am still reading them!

Courage as a Skill

The January 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review has focus on the leadership. One of the articles that I read yesterday was from Kathleen K Reardon from USC Marshall School of Business. In this article, the author has argued that courageous action in business is rarely impulsive, rather it is a special kind of calculated risk taking. She has coined a term, "courage calculation", which has been defined as a method of making success more likely while avoiding rash, unproductive or irrational behavior. Following six discrete processes make up the courage calculation:

1. Setting primary and secondary goals, which are reasonably within reach, not pie-in-the-sky ambitions.
   
2. Determining the importance of achieving them
3. Tipping the power balance in your favor
4. Weighing risks against benefits
5. Selecting the proper time for action, which requires a deep sensitivity to one's surroundings and a great deal of patience.
   
6. Developing contingency plans

Let me quote the last para of this article, which very well sums up the entire article.

"In the end, courage in business rests on priorities that serve a personal, an organizational, or a societal philosophy. When this philosophy is buttressed by clear, obtainable primary and secondary goals, an evaluation of their importance, a favorable power base, a careful assessment of risk versus benefits, appropriate timing and well-developed contingency plans, managers are better empowered to make bold moves that serve their organizations, their careers and their own sense of personal worth."

Becoming an architect in a system integrator

My colleague, Amit Unde, recently wrote an article, titled Becoming an architect in a system integrator, in the latest issue of The Architecture Journal. In this article, Amit has described variations of architect role, explained the architect competencies and has provided useful advice to aspiring architects.

Amit has captured following three variations of architect role by putting them on a two-by-two matrix with Technology Focus one one axis and Strategy Focus on the other axis:

1. Technical Architect on higher side of Technology Focus (indicating technology depth) and on lower side of Strategy Focus (indicating project scope).
2. Enterprise Architect on lower side of Technology Focus (indicating technology breadth) and on higher side of Strategy Focus (indicating organization scope).
3. Solution Architect exactly at the center of matrix

While there could be varying opinions on this way of defining architect roles, I tend to agree with these definitions.

Amit has also explained the architecture competencies. He has constructed a pyramid in which the foundation consists of leadership, relationship management and variety of experience. The middle layer for skills consists of domain knowledge, project management, technical acumen and communication skills. Finally the top layer consists of strategic mindset.

The advice for aspiring architects contains pointers to educational resources, certifications and groups and forums. But what are more interesting are the tips on how to choose employer for availing desired development opportunities!

In all, it's a good read for any practicing or aspiring architect.

Our SOA article got published in IT Professional magazine

I co-authored an article titled "Where do you want to go in SOA adoption journey?" some months back. It is now published in IT Professional, which is an IEEE magazine. If you have access to IEEE Digital Library then you can read the article at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/6294/4525527/04525540.pdf?tp=&isnumber=&arnumber=4525540

Please share your feedback on the article with me.

Today is 125th jayanti of Swatantryaveer Savarkar

Today is 125th jayanti of Swatantryaveer Savarkar.

Today is the day to remember him for his patriotism and his sacrifice for the nation.

What the CEO wants you to know

I recently read this book, "What the CEO wants you to know", which is authored by Prof Ramcharan. The sub-title of this book is "Using Business Acumen to understand how your company really works". IMHO, the sub-title is what correctly describes the content of the book though the title is the one which is more catchy!

In less than 150 pages, the author has provided time-tested advice to each one operating in the business. What I liked the most about this book is a list of eight questions that one should ask about a company to understand its total business. These eight questions are as follows:

1. What were your company's sales during the last year?
2. Is the company growing? Or is growth flat or declining? Is this growth picture good enough?
3. What is your company's profit margin? Is it growing, declining or flat?
4. How does your margin compare with your competitors? How does it compare wit those of other industries?
5. Do you know your company's inventory velocity? its asset velocity?
6. What is your company's return on assets? (ROA = After-tax margin * Asset Velocity)
7. Is your company's cash generation increasing or decreasing? Why is it going one or the other?
8. Is your company gaining or losing against the competition?

First Pardhi to clear UPSC (India) exam

It was heartening to read a news story about Sajjansingh Chavan, who is first in his pardhi community to clear Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exam in India. The Pardhi community is (wrongly!) considered to be a criminal tribe though the Criminal Tribe Act was repealed in year 1949. Born in Mumbai's Aarey Milk Colony slum, Sajjansingh is son of Ramsingh who worked hard to make his son earn MTech from IIT Delhi.

My heartiest congratulation to Sajjansingh! And salute to his father, Ramsingh!!

open source software guide for SMEs

Today I came across very good reading on open source software. FLOSSMETRICS/OpenTTT free/libre open source software guide for SMEs has following TOC:

1. What's Free/Libre/Open Source Software?
2. Ten myths about free/libre open source software
3. Basic FLOSS adoption models
4. Finding and selecting software
5. Best practices for FLOSS adoption
6. FLOSS-based business models

You may like to read it too!

Competing with the Best

I just finished reading this book named, Competing with the Best. It is authored by Dr Rajnish Karki. Since he had taught us strategic transformation course in SJM School of Management of IIT Bombay, I found myself familiar with most of the contents of this book.

This book is quite well-written though it is definitely not a light reading. It provides both theoretical discussion as well as case studies. The students of strategic management in Indian context will find this book quite useful.

The Art of the start

After reading the sample chapter of this book in January, in the month of April, I got to read this book entirely. I needed to wait so long because a copy was not available in India. We imported it from USA, which took fairly long time. But it was worthwhile to wait!

While Guy Kawasaki has covered the essence of the book in its first chapter, he has provided more details in subsequent chapters. Some of my takeaways are as follows:

• Positioning boils down to the answer for a simple question, "what do you do?".
• 10/20/30 rule for pitch: 10 slides, 20 minutes and 30-point font.
• Sales prospect pitch should contain following ten slides: title, problem, solution, sales model, technology, demo, competitive analysis, management team and next steps.
• A bootstrappable business model is characterized by low up-front capital requirements, short (<>
• Start as a service business.
• Hire "infected" people.
• A chart showing what you and your competition can and cannot do is useful to show how you are superior to the competition.
• Define deliverables and objectives for partnerships. Put an "out" clause in the deal.
• Top five lead generation methods include: conducting small-scale seminars, giving speeches, getting published, networking in a proactive way and participating in industry organizations.
  

Requesting your contribution in my research work

I am working on a research project with my friend who is a PhD Student at IIT Bombay. This research project aims to evolve a methodology for selection of web services during development of composite applications. As part of this research work, we are conducting a survey to seek opinions from software architect community for identifying the most important parameters in selection of semantic web services. This survey consists of 29 multiple-choice questions grouped into eight categories. Our initial respondents reported that it took them less than 15 minutes to complete this survey.

I have two requests to you:

1. If you work as a software architect then please respond to the survey at http://www.ikenstudio.com/Demoapplications/WebServices/Questionnaire.htm

2. Please pass on this request to your friends, who are also software architects.

By spending at most 15 minutes of your time, you will help us collect the quantitative input required for our research work. We will be more than happy to share the findings of this survey with you, if you wish.

Thanks!!!

Book Review: The Case of the Bonsai Manager

This book written by R Gopalakrishnan is a must-read for any middle-level manager. What I liked the most about this book is that it made me think whether I am slowly becoming a stunted manager! The advise given by the book is quite valuable and convincing.

HBS Case on Wikipedia

Today I came across a Harvard Business School (HBS) case on Wikipedia. The case begins with a story of addition of the "Enterprise 2.0" entry in Wikipedia. It then gives some history of encyclopedias and that of Wikipedia. It explains the transition from Nupedia to Wikipedia before getting into detailed account of Wikipedia in 2006. There are quite a few exhibits that provide background data. Finally it describes some debates and controversies regarding accuracy, expertise, authority, anti-elitism and bureaucracy with a mention of philosophical differences between inclusioninsts and deletionists camps.

This is a well-researched case, worth reading to get a good perspective on Wikipedia.

Trends underlying Enterprise 2.0

I came across this very impressive blog on trends underlying Enterprise 2.0. Prof Andrew McAfee has explained following three trends in quite convincing manner:

1. Simple, free platforms for self-expression
2. Emergent structures, rather than imposed ones
3. Order from chaos
   

Worth reading!

Andrew McAfee

The art of the start

Today I took a "test drive" of Guy Kawasaki's latest book, The art of the Start, by reading its first FREE chapter from his web site. It's interesting! And has prompted me to buy the book! The first chapter titled The Art of Starting, provides five important things that an entrepreneur must accomplish, a mini-chapter on the Art of Internal Entrepreneuring and FAQ.

The list of five important things is as follows:

1. Make meaning - Complete this sentence: If your organization never existed, the world would be worse off because _________________________.
   
2. Make Mantra: Mantra is something short and sweet such as Authentic athletic performance (Nike), Fun family entertainment (Disney), Rewarding everyday moments (Starbucks), Think (IBM), and Winning is everything (Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers).
   
3. Get going: Follow these key principles: Think big, Find a few soulmates, Polarize people, Design different, Use prototypes as market research.
   
4. Define your business model: Here the advice is be specific, keep it simple and copy somebody!
   
5. Weave a MAT (Milestones, Assumptions and Tasks): Seven milestones viz., Prove your concept, Complete design specifications, Finish a prototype, Raise capital, Ship a testable version to customers, Ship the final version to customers and Achieve breakeven. Assumptions about product or service performance metrics, market size, gross margin, sales calls per salesperson, conversion rate of prospects to customers, length of sales cycle, return on investment for the customer, technical support calls per unit shipped, payment cycle for receivables and payables, compensation requirements, prices of parts and supplies and customer return on investment and finally tasks such as renting office space, finding key vendors, setting up accounting and payroll systems, filing legal documents and purchasing insurance policies.

The list of recommendations for internal entrepreneurs is as follows:

1. Put the company first
2. Kill the cash cows
3. Stay under the radar
4. Find a godfather
5. Get a separate building
6. Give hope to the hopeful
7. Anticipate, and then jump on, tectonic shifts
8. Build on what exists
9. Collect and share data
10. Let the vice presidents come to you
11. Dismantle when done
12. Reboot your brain
    

People and Performance

Today I started reading a book titled People and Performance. It is a collection of essays written by Peter F Drucker, on the topic of management. Published by Harvard Business School Press, this book consists of 26 essays , divided into six parts. Let me share some of the points that I noted from this book.

1. Alfred Marshall (1842-1924) added management to the factors of production, land, labor and capital.
2. J.B. Say (1767-1832) coined the word, entrepreneur, who he said, directs resources from less productive into more productive investments and who thereby creates wealth.
3. A Scottish industrialist, Robert Owen (1771-1858), actually became the first manager. In his textile mill in Lanark, Owen, in the 1820s, first tackled the problems of productivity and motivation, of the relationship of worker to work, or worker to enterprise and of worker to management.
4. The problems where the job is to restore or maintain the operation at a preset level, traditionally require decision. However, in reality they are not decisions as there is actually only one right answer. Then there are so-called managerial decisions for situations such as allocation of existing resources, especially people. Here there is no right answer but a range of optimal solutions, each with a definable risk or a balance of risks. Finally there are entrepreneurial decisions where there is no one right answer and not even a range of optima.
5. Management has to do following three tasks:

1. Fulfilling the specific purpose and mission of the institution, whether business enterprise, hospital, or university.
2. making work productive and the worker achieving.
3. managing social impacts and social responsibilities.

And all these tasks are to be done in a balance between the demands of today and the demands of tomorrow.

---------------
I hope to complete this book in next week.

Managing the Professional Service Firm

For last two days, I am reading this book by David Maister. Though I have not yet finished it, I found some of the points covered in this book, quite relevant to my work. Let me share them with you.
------------------------
Almost every professional services firm, has three goals to perform: deliver outstanding client service, provide fulfilling careers and professional satisfaction to its own people and achieve financial success.
------------------------
There are three types of client work: Brains, Grey Hair and Procedural. Brains type of work involves new solutions to new problems. Grey Hair type of work requires some prior experience while Procedural type of work requires efficient delivery of solution. The types of practices needed for these types of work could be termed as Expertise-based Practice, Experience-based Practice and Efficiency-based Practice respectively.
------------------------
The Dupont formula for profitability of industrial companies is as follows:
Profits/Equity = Profit/Sales * Sales/Assets * Assets/Equity = Margin * Productivity * Leverage
The author has similarly derived the profitability formula for professional firms:
Profits/partner = Profits/Fees * Fees/Staff * Staff/Partners = Margin * Productivity * Leverage
The author has further provided the formula for productivity as given below:
Productivity = Fees/Staff = Fees/Hours * Hours/Staff = Value * Utilization
------------------------
We can put all practice development activities in following five categories:

1. Broadcasting - generating leads and inquiries
   
2. Courting - selling and proposing
   
3. Superpleasing - ensuring client delight with current matter
   
4. Nurturing - marketing to existing clients
   
5. Listening - gathering market intelligence

------------------------
Following are the means of listening to clients

• User groups
• Reverse seminars
• Attending client industry meetings
• Market research
• Senior partner visits
• Engagement team debriefings
  
• Systematic client feedback

------------------------
The marketing tactics in descending order of effectiveness are as follows:

1. The first team
1. Seminar (small-scale)
2. Speeches at client industry meetings
3. Articles in client-oriented (trade) press
4. Proprietary research
2. The Second string
1. Community/civic activities
2. Networking with potential referral sources
3. Newsletters
3. Clutching at straws tactics
1. Publicity
2. Brochures
3. Seminars (ballroom scale)
4. Direct mail
5. Cold calls
6. Sponsorship of cultural/sports events
7. Advertising
8. Video brochures

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Quantifying Busing Agility

While talking about SOA, we routinely make a claim that agile business needs agile IT and SOA is required for having agile IT. But then sometimes the questions comes, how do you determine whether the business is agile or not? I have got one possible answer for this question from the book titled “Enterprise Architecture as Strategy”.

“While there can be many ways, one indicator of agility is a company’s percentage of revenue generated from new products. MIT research on 147 companies found that, from 1998 to 2002, on average, 24% of a company’s sales were from new products introduced in the prior three years. But this percentage varied greatly from company to company - even between those in the same industry. For example, in manufacturing the average was 24%. However, a third of companies achieved 50% of sales from new products. These more-agile companies also had a high percentage of their core business processes digitized.”

I am now SAP Certified Associate Enterprise Architect!

Yesterday I appeared for SAP Certification test for Associate Enterprise Architect and could pass it! The test covered topics such as SAP NetWeaver stack, SAP EAF and Enterprise SOA. There were 80 multiple-choice questions for 3 hours. I could complete the test in half the time. Many questions were tricky and needed careful reading. I found some questions where recommendation was asked for a given scenario while rest of them were more details-oriented.

It's a good feeling to know that I am now SAP Certified Associate Enterprise Architect!

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Wikipedia on my laptop!

Want to know some details of something? No problem! I just go to Wikipedia and search for it. Rather in my Firefox browser, I have set up Wikipedia search engine so I can simply search an item on Wikipedia at a single click. During leisure time, I simply search a random term on Wikipedia and get into reading something interesting and useful stuff. However, the problem comes up when I am not connected to internet. But now I have got a solution to this problem too.

I have downloaded Webaroo software on my machine. It allows me to download many web packs, the logical collection of web pages, specially created by Webaroo team. One of these web packs, the largest one is the Wikipedia. Yes, they have seemingly packed whole of Wikipedia in less than 10GB, which can be downloaded on local disk (and mobile!). I have downloaded it on my hard disk and now I can search through it and read required articles, even when I am not connected to internet.

So do I get the same experience of Wikipedia browsing as I get online? Not really! Firstly, the images are not part of this web pack. So I miss on them. Secondly, only Wikipedia articles are downloaded so I can't surf out from Wikipedia to referred external sites. But then does it bother me? Not really! It's alway better to have something to read than not having anything of it! -:)

BTW the Webaroo also allows to download the web sites. One has to provide a link and the depth of web site to be downloaded in terms of number of links. This becomes a little dicey because a typical web site may have many links, in which I am not interested. Nevertheless, this facility also seems to be exciting. I have just downloaded the IASA IT Architect Skills Library. While it downloaded quite a few pages not required by me, I could get all pages needed by me. So now I will not have an excuse of not being connected to internet for not reading Wikipedia and IASA IT Architect Skills Library!