IT WEEK • 30 AUGUST 2004
CONTENTS
28 INTERVIEW Tips to plan
and roll out better projects
28 COMMENT Server-based computing
makes administration easier, and
improves security and corporate
governance. So why is it not more
widely deployed, asks Mark Street
37 INTERVIEW David Courtley, chief
executive of Fujitsu Services,
explains how a more methodical
approach to IT projects and reuse
of code can achieve better results
MANAGEMENTWEEK
WHERE TECHNOLOGY BECOMES BUSINESS REALITY
Editor: Madeline Bennett
Councils gain CRM advice
CRM USE GROWS
N
Local authorities with CRM systems
ewham council has launched a
customer relationship management (CRM) project to demonstrate how the technology can help local
authorities meet e-government targets.
Along with identifying the benefits of
CRM systems for local authorities and
their residents, the Newham project aims
to provide councils with tools for calculating the return on investment of the technology. An evaluation tool will be offered
to authorities that have already invested in
CRM systems. The programme will also
feature support networks, set up to help
councils work together and share advice
on implementing CRM systems.
Newham is scheduled to publish a
report on the project in early December.
The council’s project forms part of the
CRM National Programme, one of the
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister’s
projects for local e-government.
Mark Bassham, CRM National Programme manager, said that as the 2005
deadline approaches for getting local gov-
2004
2003
34%
16%
Source: Socitm
ernment services online, councils need to
understand that CRM is an essential element in the process. He added that by providing facts and figures to outline the benefits of the technology the CRM National
Programme should encourage councils to
adopt more CRM tools more quickly.
Separately, CRM tools provider Onyx
Software last week launched a CRM implementation centre to illustrate to local
authorities the benefits of the technology.
Onyx’s eGovernment Acceleration
Centre, based at the firm’s Bracknell headquarters, promotes the benefits of CRM
through simulations, and by offering a
methodology for faster implementation.
Local authorities will be able to work
with staff at the centre to model and analyse
their current processes. This will enable
them to determine where CRM can improve the efficiency of processes and cut costs.
Open-source boost for BI
Darryl Taft
tion with other apps, lowering the total
cost of ownership of BI tools.
eporting tools vendor Actuate annActuate said most developers build
ounced last week that it has joined the
reporting functionality into applications
Eclipse Foundation open-source organisaby hand-coding JavaServer Pages (JSPs).
tion and has launched a project to create
The firm added that the Birt project, as an
open-source business intelligence (BI) and
open-source initiative, would deliver free
reporting technology.
access to easy-to-use tools, and so cut the
At its annual user conference in Los
development costs of BI systems.
Angeles in the US last week, the firm annThe Birt Project proposal is available
ounced its membership of Eclipse as a
on the Eclipse web site for review and comStrategic Developer. Actuate also
ment over the next month.
revealed its proposal for the EcMark Coggins, Actuate’s senlipse Business Intelligence and
ior vice-president of engineering,
Reporting Tools (Birt) Project.
said the firm welcomed the chance
The Birt Project is intended to
to take a stewardship role within
produce a royalty-free reportEclipse, “the most broadly adoptdevelopment platform. Actuate
ed universal platform for tools
said the project would help to
integration”. He added, “We look
reduce technology costs for firms
forward to collaborating with the
and would create good-quality
Eclipse community to create Birt,
code. It argued that firms would Milinkovich:
a reporting and analysis tool to be
also benefit from easier integra- backing Actuate
developed following open-source
R
itweek.co.uk
Initial implementation and development testing can also be carried out on
Onyx’s site, and customised modules created for previous customers can be reused,
reducing development time and costs.
Paul Trefonas, European marketing
director at Onyx, said many local authorities are implementing limited CRM projects to meet the deadline for e-government
services, but some are not deploying the
technology at all.“This is largely due to lack
of understanding and experience, and a
fear of not getting it done in time,” he said.
Trefonas said the centre could encourage more authorities to deploy CRM systems, by offering them a safe environment
for testing simulations and by exploring
the potential benefits of more comprehensive programmes.
Recent research from public sector IT
association Socitm shows CRM adoption is
uneven. Socitm surveyed 339 organisations
for its annual Application Software Survey,
of which around 300 are local authorities.
It found that 114 had CRM systems in
place, up from 54 the previous year.
www.crmnp.org www.onyx.com
Dennis Callaghan
ACTUATE JOINS ECLIPSE FOUNDATION
specialist Actuate has
• Reporting
joined the open-source Eclipse
•
•
Foundation as a Strategic Developer.
The firm has set-up the Birt project
to enable the creation of opensource BI and reporting tools.
Birt should aid integration and lower
the total cost of ownership of BI tools.
principles of transparency and meritocracy,
where the best ideas and methods will be
incorporated.” He asked the open-source
development community to offer feedback
and comments over the next 30 days.
Mike Milinkovich, head of the Eclipse
Foundation, welcomed Actuate’s move and
said it gave the Eclipse community an opportunity to leverage specialist enterprise
reporting technology. “Actuate’s participation will further the Eclipse open-source
project and contribute to the expansion of
the Eclipse ecosystem, so it remains a nucleus for innovation in the software industry.”
www.eclipse.org/proposals/eclipse-birt
www.actuate.com www.eweek.com
© eWeek USA 2004
Madeline Bennett
Giants team
for process
outsourcing
Siebel and EDS last week announced
they would jointly offer business
process outsourcing services.The
move could lead to improvements in
firms’ contact centre operations.
Software vendor Siebel Systems
announced its Global Business
Process Outsourcing (BPO) Alliance
Programme, and IT services firm EDS
signed up as a charter partner. Under
the deal, EDS plans to add Siebel’s
software to its BPO services.
The pact calls for EDS staff, who
run customer-facing business operations for other companies, to use
Siebel’s customer relationship management (CRM) applications.The Siebel
applications will be integrated with
other business processes managed by
EDS, such as human resources and
inventory management.
The move could help companies
use CRM technology at a lower cost,
avoiding some of the high overheads
normally associated with managing
what can be costly and complex systems. And this in turn might enable
firms to concentrate more resources
on their core areas of business.
Siebel plans to agree more partnerships for BPO, as it shifts the
focus of its business from licence revenue to service revenue.
Some Siebel users said the deal is
more likely to attract new customers.
“It’s more cost-effective for us to run
Siebel ourselves.We’ve been running
[Siebel apps] for five or six years and
have become very efficient,” said
Saeed Hosseiniyar of Alcatel’s Enterprise Networking Group.“But if
you’re just looking to do CRM now
and you’ve got an implementation
ahead of you, then you’re more likely
to turn to outsourcing.”
www.siebel.com www.eds.com
www.eweek.com
27
© eWeek USA 2004
28 COMMENT How companies could benefit from
making greater use of server-based computing
MANAGEMENTWEEK
IT WEEK • 30 AUGUST 2004
Server-based computing pays off
Server-based computing makes administration easier and improves security and corporate
governance. So why are firms not making more use of the technology, asks Mark Street
s IT directors bemoan their
lack of resources and wilt
under the demands of corporate
governance rules, I increasingly
find myself asking why they don’t
make life easier by moving to server-based computing (SBC).
According to analyst firm
Forester, 90 percent of Fortune
1,000 companies deploy SBC
technology such as Citrix
MetaFrame and Microsoft Terminal Server. But on average less
than 10 percent of desktops in
those companies connect to applications using the technology.
I cannot fathom why so few
companies adopt SBC desktop
and application management.
Consider the facts. SBC leads to
easier administration, a seamless
and common experience for all
users regardless of where they log
on, a declining need to replace
hardware, and better security.
SBC gives firms a much better
handle on IT security audits, so it
A
makes it easier to comply with corporate governance laws. At the same
time the centralised administration
helps IT directors to keep a closer
eye on which applications are being
used by which individuals and at
what times if things go wrong.
SBC could also end the phenomenon of the “knowledgeable” users
who try and fail to fix faulty applications on colleagues’ desktops, wasting their time and often making the
problems a whole lot worse.
According to Forrester, one
of the major hurdles to SBC is the
fact that some applications must
run on the desktop because of
resource requirements. In particular, this affects older applications
and processor- or graphics-intensive software, such as CAD/CAM
or statistical analysis tools.
But is that really such a big deal
given all the huge advantages?
So why don’t more firms install
thin clients for their employees
instead of giving them expensive
PCs to muck around on? If you
work on the basis that users are
often technologically incompetent
and/or extremely lazy, surely it
would be better to give them a client
device that only allows them access
to the tools they need to do their
job rather than the capability to
download the latest computer games
and music tracks.
Corporate governance laws are
getting tougher and tougher, but
there is a growing danger of networks being compromised by staff
accidentally downloading Trojans
and viruses from the internet.
And increasingly draconian
laws on copyright protection mean
that firms could face huge fines as
a result of the actions of their staff.
Surely the answer is simple –
don’t give users the means to cause
trouble. Thin clients are cheap,
durable and effective. So why don’t
more firms adopt them?
One key factor must be resistance
to change, an attitude that most staff
Steps for better IT projects
David Courtley, chief executive of Fujitsu Services, aims to
promote a more methodical approach to system development
SERVICES INTERVIEW BY LEM BINGLEY
IT Week: Fujitsu Services is probably still
best known as the former ICL. As the
firm’s chief executive, how do you think
the company has changed?
David Courtley: We started by fixing basic
problems like poor contracts and waste.
Since then we’ve worked on service quality and productivity – both the engineering
and customer satisfaction aspects. The
next step is to build up business. We have
been successful in our heartland of government, but we can also be more assertive
in the commercial sector.
You have won some joint bids with, for
example, Capgemini. Are
such partnerships just a
matter of gaining scale?
I think that we recognise how appro½ Courtley:
reuse is key
28
priate partnering is, and how well it goes
down with big customers and with government. We’re a big fan of the Intellect IT
Supplier Code of Best Practice that the
OGC [Office of Government Commerce]
has championed. Part of it is about being
responsible about resourcing and so on.
Partnering is one way of dealing with that.
It stops single points of failure.
You mentioned improved service quality.
How do you measure that?
We have many measures. First of all there’s
the contractual service level agreement
[SLA]. We monitor those closely, and we
know we have an improving performance.
Service guarantees matter when a system
is up and running. But problems can often
arise before that stage...
As far as big projects are concerned, we do
very systematic reviews and, in addition,
our customer satisfaction programme is
pretty comprehensive. We use a third party
[research firm] and our satisfaction scores
are monotonically increasing. Partly we’ve
recognised that meeting SLAs isn’t enough.
These days customers expect suppliers to
be proactive: to work with them on strategy, to help with innovation. And if things
go wrong, they expect a sensible response.
The first resort shouldn’t be the contract,
it should be fixing the problem.
So what makes projects go wrong?
Project management is a constant challenge, and I don’t think the IT industry is
as mature as other sectors. Much has been
made of [the potential benefits of] software reuse. But in fact the big integrators
don’t really do reuse. Expertise is reused,
and not everything is built from scratch,
but large, distributed IT systems have typically been wrought a piece at a time. The
result has been some very complex systems. When it comes to reliability and
maintainability, there’s a problem.
What’s your answer?
We’ve been looking at how Fujitsu works
with customers in Japan. Typically, the
Japanese are very good at taking concepts
share. The other key factor must be
fear of a user rebellion.
IT departments are scared of
appearing too draconian, and
having the users bemoan the loss
of all their toys. At the same time,
it remains certain that those who
are at the top of the managerial
echelons will continue to require
their state-of-the-art PCs with all
the trimmings, resulting in a
mixed environment that could be
tricky to maintain.
However, as the IT director’s
burden grows as quickly as their
budgets shrink, they will need to
take some radical action if they
want to keep the corporate engine
running smoothly. ITW
¾ [email protected]
ABOUT DAVID COURTLEY
Courtley was appointed
• David
chief executive officer of Fujitsu
•
•
Services in April 2004.
He joined Fujitsu Services in July
2001 as chief operating officer.
Courtley has also served as managing director of services giant EDS
in the UK, and as chief executive
officer of E-people-serve – a
BT/Accenture joint venture.
and, frankly, implementing them properly.
The attention to detail that pervades a
company like Toyota led to the sea change
in quality [of cars]. Fujitsu is trying to do
the same for IT. We call it Triole. It’s about
destruction-testing of systems in a laboratory setting before deployment. That enables a step-change improvement in
reliability and cost of ownership. These are
not new words, but a new attitude.
The downside could be slower delivery.
Absolutely, and that’s why you’ve got to be
disciplined about reuse. This is really taking off in Japan, where Fujitsu is dominant
with 40 percent of IT services. So we’re in
a great position to deploy this. What we’re
finding is a lot of interest. CIOs have their
tactical battles, but they also need to talk
about long-term strategy. ITW
itweek.co.uk