Rules to Compete in the Enterprise Software Game

Posted April 30, 2012 by Jeetu Patel
Categories: Enterprise and Social Implications
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Guest Blogger: Rohit Ghai

Rohit Ghai, Head of Products, IIG Division

Are you worthy?

To play in the enterprise you must be worthy…. So it is with enterprise software as well. In addition to enterprise worthy support, enterprise worthy services one has to build enterprise worthy product in order to even be in the consideration set.

Before I get to the traits of enterprise software lets look at the typical traits of a corporation that we deem to be an “enterprise”:

  • Some things are really BIG. These organizations are giants – think really really BIG footprints. A big digital footprint (think vast quantities of data produced and consumed), a big carbon footprint (think big data centers, big factories, big operations, reams and reams of paper pervading thousands of business processes), a big geographical footprint (think a global organization with offices and people all across the world) and finally a big customer footprint (think thousands of customers across different segments and geographies using the company’s products or services).
  • Some things are really small. These organizations have extremely small tolerance for brand or reputation degradation (think floors full of lawyers and compliance maniacs even in unregulated industries), miniscule tolerance for downtime or business discontinuity (think people obsessing over the next flood in Thailand), very little patience in terms of time to value (think constant flux and a breakneck pace of change), a pretty small shared context (think thousands of people touching different parts of the elephant but no one sees the elephant) and finally a very small degree of homogeneity (think people of all ages, cultures, backgrounds and preferences).

So its pretty straight forward: to be enterprise worthy – you have to be able to handle Read the rest of this post »

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Next Generation Enterprise Support

Posted April 23, 2012 by Jeetu Patel
Categories: Enterprise and Social Implications
Tags: , , , , , ,
Michael Montoya, Head of Support, EMC IIG

Michael Montoya, Head of Support, EMC IIG

Guest Blogger: Michael Montoya

I have spent the past 20 years of my career working in several technical support capacities, in roles ranging from supporting enterprise IT environments to customer product support. Over that time, I have witnessed and taken part in the transformation of support teams as the application, use and user dependency upon technology have transformed. These changes have been primarily driven by the dynamics of a more sophisticated user and a shift in delivery toward the Cloud. Throughout these changes, the defining aspect of excellent technical support has remained the same: great people capable of helping customers. The operative words here are Read the rest of this post »

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3 Critical Areas to be an Enterprise Worthy Software Company

Posted April 19, 2012 by Jeetu Patel
Categories: Big Data, Cloud, Enterprise and Social Implications
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Megatrends like Social, Big Data, Cloud and mobile are driving fundamental shifts in the business in this Post PC era.  One of those shifts is around the consumerization of IT where the user is in control of the devices and the applications they use to be more productive.  User experience is of paramount importance and the message is clear.  Users will not put up with complex user interfaces and find alternatives to enhance productivity by self-provisioning apps in the cloud.  As I’ve said before, a software company cannot be successful unless they minimize friction in the user experience.  The user gene must be developed in every software organization.

However, IT still remains a critical constituency within an organization.  Many that started from the consumer side of the house like Google have had some hiccups in catering to the CIO.  Three key areas must be evaluated closely when a software vendor claims to serve the enterprise.  They are around how a software company provides support for the enterprise, how a software company builds products for the user, but keeping in mind enterprise requirements, and how a software company enables an ecosystem of services, education and training for an enterprise.  What I thought would be valuable is for some of the leaders in EMC to discuss how they think of these very serious enterprise needs.  I’ve asked Mike Montoya, our head of support, Rohit Ghai, our head of products, and John O’Melia, our head of services to impart some wisdom on each of these areas on what it takes to effectively serve an enterprise while still ensuring that the user is who the software is designed for.

Hope you enjoy the 3 blogs that each of these very talented individuals have been kind enough to contribute to my blog.

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Cloud, Big Data, and Case Management: Transforming Business to a Predictive Enterprise

Posted April 9, 2012 by Jeetu Patel
Categories: Big Data, Cloud
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“A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin. Methods have to change. Focus has to change. Values have to change. The sum total of those changes is transformation.” – Andy Grove

I was recently interviewed by Tom Koulopoulos, President of the Delphi Group, during the Adaptive Case Management Virtual Summit 2012 (or ACM Live) on the major forces that are shaping business today and how case management and complementary technologies can help enterprises manage this change. The replay of this interview and demo is available here. I encourage you to check it out.

There’s little debate that social, mobile, cloud, and big data are changing our lives in ways we haven’t even imagined, and Read the rest of this post »

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6 Behaviors Large Enterprise Software Firms Can Learn From Startups

Posted April 2, 2012 by Jeetu Patel
Categories: Enterprise and Social Implications
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Being in Silicon Valley, working for a large software company, and conditioned to be paranoid about the next big thing, I often reflect on what large software providers can learn from the startup mentality.  Tech startups are a truly admirable bunch, a critical part of our fabric and a great source of inspiration for creative ideas.  Yes, they do lack a lot of critical ingredients that large enterprises look for in a technology company; but there are several areas where large enterprise software companies can benefit from the startup thinking.  Here are a few: Read the rest of this post »

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9 Reasons To Choose A Corporate Job Over A Startup

Posted March 21, 2012 by Jeetu Patel
Categories: Trends and Predictions
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I recently came across an article in FastCompany that almost reflects conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley.  The article was titled the– “8 Reasons to Choose a Startup Over a Corporate Job” – this inspired me to write a post from the opposite perspective.  This is more for those that haven’t had the opportunity to work in both environments and are Read the rest of this post »

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A Better Approach to Compliance – Pervasive Governance

Posted March 5, 2012 by Jeetu Patel
Categories: Pervasive Governance
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Compliance easily tops the list of concerns for business leaders, regardless of industry.   To understand why, you just need to look at the headlines – fraud, theft of customer data, lost information, industrial espionage, and the disclosures from Wikileaks. The tremendous growth of information combined with increased regulation, makes it easy to see the incredible pressure organizations are under to reduce risk. Yet, 77% of organizations today still do not have enforced retention policies over their paper and electronic information (according to AIIM).

But there is an even greater set of compliance challenges affecting organizations – driven by the demands of the New User.  These “New Users” are people in the workforce who have become much more mobile, social and increasingly reliant on cloud applications to drive greater productivity and organizational responsiveness.  As a result, information no longer rests just within the 4-walls of the organization; it’s extended out to remote offices, and contractors and now SaaS-based applications. It’s stored in file shares, desktops, laptops, paper archives, portable media and out to tablets and smartphones and other mobile devices.   IT now faces the daunting challenge of balancing the benefits of this new choice computing model against the overriding corporate obligation to manage and protect information – regardless of its location.  As a result, Read the rest of this post »

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