IT WEEK • 16 AUGUST 2004
CONTENTS
32 INTERVIEW PeopleSoft’s
George Ahn discusses CRM
32 COMMENT The speed and efficiency
of instant messaging mean it is set
to replace email as the top business
communication tool, but are firms
ready for it, wonders Mark Street
37 INTERVIEW PeopleSoft general
manager George Ahn explains why
integration and the involvement of
end-users are key to successfully
implementing CRM systems
MANAGEMENTWEEK
WHERE TECHNOLOGY BECOMES BUSINESS REALITY
Editor: Madeline Bennett
BI vendors simplify tools
BI SOFTWARE NOW EASIER TO USE
•
Information Builders, Spotfire and
number of vendors of business
Hyperion are upgrading their busiintelligence (BI) software have
ness intelligence tools to improve
recently announced plans to upanalysis and integration capabilities.
grade their products or improve integraNew self-service and guided worktion. These changes could offer firms betflow tools may help users to analyse
ter analysis capabilities and reduce the
data without help from IT staff.
workload of the IT department by making
the software easier for staff to use.
Version 8 of DecisionSite, released last
Information Builders recently outlined
week, includes new data visualisation and
plans to upgrade its WebFocus BI software
workflow capabilities, designed to make
with improved data visualisation tools. The
advanced statistical analysis accessible to
update will include self-service capabilities
users such as sales and marketing manso that business users can query multiple
agers. Such capabilities are used in highdata sources and generate reports without
tech industries, including life sciences,
needing help from IT staff.
research and manufacturing.
The upgrade, expected within
DecisionSite’s step-by-step
a month, will also include bunworkflow capabilities, known as
dled data integration technology
Guided Analytics, walk users
from Information Builders’ iWay
through the process of analysing
subsidiary to deliver more realsets of data while allowing them
time data analysis capabilities.
to interact with the analysis at any
Meanwhile, the latest release
time. These features are comof Spotfire’s DecisionSite BI appbined with new data visualisation
lication allows businesses to extools to deliver information in a
tend advanced statistical analysis Garry: access
more visual, easier-to-understand
to critical data
capabilities to more staff.
format, said DecisionSite.
A
•
Another BI vendor, Hyperion, recently announced a partnership with business
process management (BPM) specialist
Metastorm, to integrate Hyperion Intelligence into Metastorm’s E-work software.
The system should offer firms an integrated BI and BPM system, which will deliver
personalised dashboards and advanced
reporting and analysis capabilities.
Through Hyperion’s dashboard interface, users will be able to drill down and
analyse critical process data collected by
the Metastorm software. They can then
automate and manage business processes –
such as new customer set-ups and order
management – and use the data to make
decisions to improve overall processes.
This could cut process cycle times and
operational costs and boost productivity.
Metastorm’s chief marketing officer,
Eileen Garry, said the firm would be able to
provide a full lifecycle BPM system. “Because we specialise in addressing our customers’ unique, human-centric business
processes, the ability to access, analyse and
take action on critical data is an important
element for success,” she added.
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Viruses spread more ills
BATTLE AGAINST VIRUSES INTENSIFIES
the whole of 2003, the company said.
Carole Theriault, security consultant
dramatic increase in the number of
at Sophos, said that companies’ efforts to
virus attacks over the first half of this
stop viruses were being hampered by an
year has caused security experts to quesoverload of information on security as well
tion whether companies are doing enough
as by a lack of in-house security experts.
to protect their networks.
“Companies are not ignoring security
Antivirus software specialist Sophos
warnings; it’s just not always the top pridetected 4,677 new viruses in the first six
ority,” she added.
months of 2004, an increase of 21 percent
Theriault said firms should shore up
compared with the same period last year.
their defences to combat the growing comIn July the largest number of new
plexity of viruses, and added that criminals
viruses was discovered in the wild for
are increasingly using trojans for financial
almost three years – 1,157
gain. She said that firms
new viruses were recorded.
should ensure they have
VIRUS NUMBERS RISE
Figures from security
proactive systems to comThe number of new viruses
firm McAfee also indicated and worms recorded
bat threats and she advised
that the severity of attacks
them to set up automated
Jan-Jun
3,865
increased. By the end of the
patch checks.
2003
Jan-Jun
first quarter, more viruses
Graham Smith, security
4,677
2004
had been given a medium
expert at telecoms specialist
Source: Sophos
or high risk rating than in
Energis, said firms must set
cent on the same period last year.
Research also shows the severity of
the attacks increased.
Criminals are increasingly using
trojan attacks for financial gain.
Claire Pope
A
itweek.co.uk
the first half of 2004, 4,677 new
• Inviruses
were detected, up 21 per-
•
•
up good risk assessment processes if they
want good security.“Everybody knows virus
risks are out there and puts antivirus protection in, but have they put it in the right
place?” he asked. “Firms may put antivirus
protection on their emails but then fail to do
all the laptops in the business.”
Smith added that organisations often
waste money by installing or using the
wrong technology, and relying too heavily
on it. “Technology is a tool to mitigate the
risk that has been identified in a business
continuity policy. It will not cover all risks,”
he warned. “When a virus does break
through, staff must be educated enough to
know not to open unknown attachments.”
Renee Boucher Ferguson
© eWeek USA 2004
Madeline Bennett and Dennis Callaghan
Supply chain
tools refine
collaboration
Oracle plans to enhance the supply
chain management capabilities of its
E-Business Suite to help firms collaborate more effectively with partners
and suppliers in global networks.
The improvements, which will be
wrapped into E-Business Suite 11i.10,
due this autumn, will provide better
manufacturing, globalisation and
compliance features, said Oracle.
New features will help firms manage the paperwork for cross-border
shipments and enable shipment transfers from one area in an organisation
to another and across territories.
Oracle will also embed capabilities that will enable lean manufacturing – a concept that helps to eliminate waste and inefficiencies across
the supply chain – into its production
engineering, supplier management
and service management applications.
Tools will include a scarce-inventory
allocation function to help users fulfil
orders to maximise profitability.
The product will also offer a
lot-specific costing feature in the
Process Manufacturing application,
which will enable staff to assess costs
on a batch of products that may have
a different ingredient from other similar products. Oracle will also enable
use of radio frequency identification
(RFID) tagging technology.
Randy Kjell, chief information
officer and vice-president of IT at
Knowles Electronics Holdings, welcomed the prospect of the lotspecific and RFID features.“We’re
doing a fair amount of lot tracking
and processing products through the
system,” he said.“We’re interested in
being able to track the lot-specific
manufacturing processes because of
the nature of our new product lines.”
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31
© eWeek USA 2004
32 COMMENT IT departments should get ready now
for the transition from email to instant messaging
MANAGEMENTWEEK
IT WEEK • 16 AUGUST 2004
IM: the modern-day email
Instant messaging seems set to replace email in the not so distant future, so savvy IT
directors will develop strategies now to cope with the transition, writes Mark Street
T
here is little doubt that instant
messaging (IM) is the new
email. Those who try to buck the
trend may go down in history
alongside the record company
executive who famously said that
he did not think that an emerging
band known as the Beatles had any
commercial potential.
As software suppliers and trade
bodies attempt to iron out their
differences and make this method
of communication as interoperable
as possible, IM’s usability and
attractiveness is growing by the day.
Recently Microsoft announced
it will enable messages to move
between its enterprise messaging
system and public IM systems.
Meanwhile e-business organisation
Eema plans to release a best practice guide on how to get the most
out of the medium. The reasons to
use IM are increasing all the time.
But the biggest sign that the use
of IM is set to rocket is the fact
that many business users already
find the technology indispensable.
It’s widely accepted that the
financial industry is one of the
pioneers of the IT world, and sets
the trends for other industries to
follow. In this sector IM is now an
essential business tool, particularly
in the money markets where it has
become the communication tool
of choice, powering the rumour
mill that dictates crucial changes
in stock prices.
The truth is that none of this
should come as a big surprise. It
doesn’t take a genius to realise that
something that enables communication twice as fast and twice as
efficiently is likely to seize email’s
crown as office communication
tool extraordinaire.
If IT departments are to meet
this hot technology head-on, they
must act now, and formulate a
cohesive strategy with the support
of senior management. The first
step is for firms to overhaul or
modify their existing security poli-
cies to ensure that they cover IM.
On a legal front, it’s worth
remembering that the potential for
libelling individuals and causing
untold corporate embarrassment is
likely to be multiplied many times
because of the instant nature of the
medium. So it’s worth explaining
the dangers to employees and
ensuring that they understand why
they must follow the same stringent
guidelines that should already be in
place for email use.
With the growing burden of
laws on corporate risk management, it should also be pointed out
where it is and is not permissible to
use IM for business tasks. At the
same time, businesses’ archiving
policies should be updated to
ensure that they cover the use of
IM. Rules for monitoring also need
to be re-examined, because IM
could be harder to police than the
more static medium of email. Regulated US firms are now required
to audit IM communications,
How to reap CRM benefits
PeopleSoft’s George Ahn believes integration and end-user
involvement are the keys to successful CRM system rollouts
CRM SYSTEMS INTERVIEW BY MIYA KNIGHTS
IT Week: As the newly-appointed general
manager for customer relationship management [CRM] at PeopleSoft, what do
you think are the main reasons for failed
CRM implementations?
George Ahn: A lot of CRM technology is
sitting on the shelf. I think users try it and
find the software is not usable – it’s the two
weeks of training, the slow performance
and the complexity of it that puts them off.
Users become confused and you end up
with all these issues. Unless the organisation is a dictatorship, [poor CRM tools]
won’t get used and the
software just gets put to
one side.
What should vendors
do to ensure that firms
have realistic expecta Ahn: User
involvement
32
tions about CRM implementations?
I think that CRM is about actually delivering on what the customer needs, as opposed to managing their expectations. We
work closely with our customers looking at
what they need and deliver against that.
Candidly, if we don’t have a solution for
them, we will tell them.
wants to achieve. As long as the objective
and the requirements are clear and you
have processes in place to measure success,
you will be well on your way. A number of
our customers have done a very good job
of establishing the processes around what
they want to achieve, then they implement
it professionally. In these cases, of course,
they really do include all their business
users analysing their requirements.
So firms favour a tailored approach?
One of the things software companies can
really do within the software, which is
unique and different, centres around the
ownership and usability experience. The
personalisation capabilities of our software
at the end-user level, without going to the
IT department, is easily industry leading as
far as CRM is concerned.
Do you think the involvement of endusers is an important factor in successfully implementing CRM technology?
That’s key – this is not just about the IT, it’s
about the business users feeling as though
they are getting great value. I always like to
talk about the ‘give-to-get relationship’,
where you have to give the business users
real value in order to get them to use it.
When it’s well done the business users get
what they want out of it and then the IT
team gets what it wants, which is great
usage of the technology.
How can customers get the best value
from their CRM systems?
I think that it really starts with the organisation setting a clear objective of what it
Do customers and users have a good
understanding of what CRM can deliver to
their businesses?
The first point is, I think the hype around
which is likely to be a sign of things
to come in the UK. From a technical perspective, firms should work
out whether they will allow the use
of public systems or limit IM usage
to a dedicated corporate system.
Now is the time to identify
which public systems are safest and
which present the least difficulties
for interoperability, particularly
considering supply chain partners
and customers.
It is no longer good enough to
dismiss IM as the plaything of the
technologically over-developed for
swapping information about The
Crystal Maze and Dungeons & Dragons. IM is coming to a business near
you sooner than you think. ITW
[email protected]
ABOUT GEORGE AHN
Ahn joined PeopleSoft in
• George
April this year and is the firm’s
•
•
group vice president and general
manager for CRM.
Previously, he worked at US integration vendor Tibco, where he
was executive vice president and
chief marketing officer.
He has also held a number of
executive software and sales positions at Siebel and IBM.
CRM is over. Remembering that I was at
Siebel Systems for over three years [in the
1990s], there was enormous hype around
CRM. Now [vendors] are trying to deliver
less hype and more value. What the customer really desires is a CRM solution that
is integrated into their other IT systems.
One of the key challenges here is that there
is no magic pixie dust that enables you to
integrate. Integration is hard work.
Are there any ways in which companies
can ease the integration process?
It’s hard to get your CRM system to integrate with your back office if your CRM
provider is a standalone vendor. Users must
understand how their CRM links with
human resources, financial systems and
billing, before they can get a view of what
each customer means to their business. ITW
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