The post outlines 4 steps that every organization must take prior to (and while doing ) a search for the right Software developer or team. From our perspective, these steps are both logical and necessary to ensure the success not just of your association with the software developer, but also the business itself.

Too many engagements have started with just a vague, high level idea of an opportunity and the discovery of a low cost software developer or a senior developer in some third world country. The approach here seems to be more one of ”define the idea through multiple software development iterations”. Many months (and tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars ) later, comes the realization that not only is the solution not financially viable, but that the opportunity itself may not really exist. Naturally the end of the association is usually not very smooth either.

• Number of times their business is viewed via a Yelp mobile app
• How many calls were made to their business via a Yelp mobile app
• Directions to their business requested via a Yelp mobile app
• Check-ins

Yelp will soon be releasing these metrics as an add-on tool with their mobile app. What’s interesting to note is the growing demand for intelligence from business owners, not just information. Most social sites and social directories need to gear towards turning their massive warehouse of information into business intelligence in people’s pockets - accessible, simple to decipher, intuitive and intelligent.

What companies like Yelp or Foursquare, however “social” they get, may not do is this: to make these metrics more “social” or let consumers dabble with their own metrics. They will get there someday, but not just yet. Till such time, we’re always around when someone “yelps!”.

As part of the desgin of a software for a client we had to architect roles and permissions for different users of the system . The organization seemed to have a number of roles, some of which were permanent and some were temporary. In addition, some of these roles were distinct (they had permissions that no other role had), whereas some others had common permissions (plus some unique ones). Since the number of roles were less than 20, we decided not to have a “Role management” functionality, where the administrator would allocate permissions to roles in a dynamic fashion.

Our finest minds went to work on this problem, and we came up with a two category solution, where one set of roles were primary roles (the permanent roles) and some roles were secondary(the temporary roles ). Moreover, in the primary role category, most of the roles were hierarchical (moving up a chain of command), so every higher role encompassed the permissions of the lower role (along with a few new ones). We also gave the facility for users to have a primary and one or more secondary roles. Naturally, we were quite pleased with what we came up with.  

However after we developed the solution and deployed it, the customer quickly became quite dissatisfied with the solution. What we missed out in our design was that there were two primary roles that were quite distinct and separate from the other heriarchically arranged roles. The customer was shocked to find that while he could choose one primary and any number of secondary roles, he was unable to choose two primary roles (one heirarchical and the other distinct). It had never occured to us that in the organization, there may be people who held two primary (??) roles simultaneously.

It taught us an important lesson. Business intelligence (the old fashion way) is not just about creating fancy reports, it is also about questioning every assumption and making sure that the software architecture maps are as close to the real business as possible.

Is it any surprise then, when the CEO looks at his IT manager, and grumbles that IT just doesn’t get the business? Nothwithstanding the advantages of running numerous “Align IT with Business” initiatives” (advantage for the consultants, that is), I’ve always wondered why CIOs / IT Managers don’t start their software architecture/design by first defining reports that clealy show whether the problem is being solved, and to what extent.

In many cases, these metrics were never defined, and it is here that IT can bring in the first “business level” contribution. Once these metrics (and reports) have been defined, then the next step would logically be to measure the current “as is” situation. Again, here too there may be instances where business function has no idea of how the problem is currently being managed, and again, IT can contribute to the business by mapping the exisiting business processes. 

As a CEO, this information now allows me to confirm whether an IT intervention is actually needed, what it’s “core business benefits” should be, and what are the absolutely essential features of the software that needs to be developed to solve the problem/ improve the situation. I distinguish “core business benefits” from a more generic ‘cost/ benefit” exercise in that while a Cost / benefit analysis normally looks at an “inside out” picture (what all the software can do versus how much it will cost to build them in) a “core business benefit” gives an “outside in” perspective (what the essentially few things that the software must do well to solve a business problem).

As an Intelligent Business software provider, at Stylus, this is a challenge we have taken on, and our RadicalRootingTM process looks at software requirements backwards, starting from the reports that tell us what problem the software seeks to solve and then allow that insight to define what the software should and should not do. It’s amazing what we’ve learnt through this, but I guess that’s the subject of another blog in the near future. It isn’t an easy ride, but as we see our clients’ businesses succeed, it confirms that it’s a worthwhile one.

As business leaders, this puts additional pressure on us. Should I now plan and invest now to take advantage of the growth that I hope to see over the next 12 months, or should I wait just in case the whole recovery stalls and/or slows down? One thing I have found out over the last year is that while IT investment cannot be kept on hold any longer without degrading business capability, it is possible, even in this environment to look at IT as more than just maintenance, as an investment that can improve the business decision making capability.

The development of new platforms and tools in the Business intelligence space ( cloud, mobile and on premise) means that now, more than any other time in the past, it is possible to analyze and make sense of data more quickly and relatively inexpensively. This means that rather than spend on new software that will collect even more data, now may be a good time to build/buy robust analytics software that can better use the existing data locked away in your existing systems, in order to make better decisions. And it needs to do so in an easy to use manner, so that business leaders can do the job themselves and not have to rely on expensive human analysts to download data and slice and dice them on ubiquitious spreadsheets.  

Businesses today can neither afford the time not the cost for this spreadsheet mania. Our own research has discovered amazing ways by which companies today can leverage low cost BI solutions to ensure that their software doesn’t just provide data, but track KPIs that are closely linked to the business health of the firm. After all, if the recession has forced our people to rise to the challenge, shouldn’t we expect the same from our existing business software applications as well?

A powerful purpose almost always doesn’t have “I” at the center.

I would have been glad had the problem stopped at just music. But it didn’t. An entrepreneur once came to us at a time when his business simply wasn’t escalating and his funds were drying up. He didn’t come to us with the problem, rather with a solution he thought might work and hoped that we could create the solution for him after studying his requirements. But our folks were curious about his business. We worked along-side him asking him some candid, thought-provoking questions about the purpose of the solution. Quizzing him not only gave us a handle on the problem to be solved, but gave him new insights about the giants he was facing.

It helped him see with crystal clarity that it wasn’t “he” who was actually facing the problems, but his clients!

Once the entrepreneur saw value in our rooting process, he also saw value in roping us in for the solution conceptualization phase. But the real problem cropped up when we began developing the solution. Three months post the business analysis phase, one day, he let out a cry “I don’t like the idea of the solution being owned up by the users – it’s my solution and I want to have control over it!” To the entrepreneur, the solution, firstly, met an intrinsic need in him, more than solving the problem of his clients. The purpose of that solution finally spiraled down to a big ‘I’!

As an analyst and a BI enthusiast, I figured that for a business to be successful, a solution provider has to brace himself and ask some smart, sound and solid questions about the purpose, goal and plausible business impact of the solution, not with skepticism but with curiosity. If you turn to third-world countries like India or China for your business solutions, then you may want a consulting outsourcing partner with a business outlook. Questioning the premise of the solution not only gives a good context for the solution creator but also gives the client an outside-in perspective of the value the solution brings to his users. More than once, our clients have found value in our RadicalRootingTM approach where we ask, answer and solve business problems and measure solution performance. RadicalRootingTM helps us to not just create solutions, but steward the client’s projects responsibly by maximizing value for the clients through proposed alternatives. Well, I think we just about understand that our purpose at Stylus is not about “Us”!

Tell me more about RadicalRootingTM!
For which clients have we taken to this approach?
I like your approach and I want to contact you.

But all this is about to change in ways that can cause wide impact. Over the last few years, Microsoft has been deliberately building up their Business Intelligence services into their MS SQL server software. I believe that these services will make Microsoft SQL server the database of choice for small and midsize companies. Why? Because of two main reasons:

a) With these services, Microsoft, which has traditionally been a strong contender in the SME segment, has effectively combined a transactional database and data warehouse into one server. This has significant implications with respect to both, cost of licenses, and the IT infrastructure that is required (both in terms of hardware and people). Now customers don’t have to spend on expensive BI tool licenses such as Cognos, Web focus, etc. when they come to Stylus as Stylus uses MS SQL database server for all customer’s applications and SSIS, SSAS, SSRS all come as free add on services with MS SQL enterprise edition.

b) Secondly and more importantly it allows for the creation of what we call the “intelligent business applications”. These are applications that not only have clear linkages to one or more business level KPIs, but they also allow the business users to do their own analysis and create their own reports. If customers already have existing applications built with MS SQL and require further customization, Stylus is well equipped to handle it, as it understands the advantages of MS SQL over the other BI tools available. To illustrate our expertise, please click here, to learn how healthcare BI services developed by Stylus can help improve a hospital’s operations, productivity and profitability.

But has this been a core feature of any BI solutions in the past? Yes, but the important thing to note here is that this will become (IMHO) an integral part of every software application that comes out in the near future (at the very least, that will be the case for every software we make at Stylus). BI will no longer be a separate technology with it’s own army of high priests (read Data warehousing experts) and prophets (read BI analysts) but an essential component of every software application that the business will use, be it ERP, CRM, MIS etc. In addition with minimal extra work, users will be able to quickly connect these individual KPIs (from separate applications) into Performance Management Dashboards that give a quick view of not just their performance but the Performance of the area of the business they are responsible for.

Now if that isn’t change you can believe in, I don’t know what is.

Comparison of cars based on Engine power

Comparison of car based on Speed

Business Intelligence is like this and offers much more. The need for Business Intelligence is ubiquitous in today’s industry. This should not be surprising since BI in its rudimentary form is used by all of us in our everyday lives. As can be inferred from the previous example, Business Intelligence is indispensable for any organization regardless of its current size and or volume of revenues. In other words BI is needed as much for the SMBs as it is needed for the Blue Chip companies.

Why is BI so crucial for SMBs? Why would they need it? SMBs worldwide are faced with a situation to improve efficiency while managing costs. The following finding in Gartner research reveals something very telling: 50 per cent of all SMBs (small and medium businesses) will go out of business within three years if they can’t retrieve their data in 24 hours. An IBM research titled “Inside the Midmarket: A 2009 Perspective” goes even further – SMBs have started using BI not just to survive but to thrive.
One of the first things BI accomplishes for an SMB is to provide a single source of data for research and analysis from disparate sources of information. BI technologies help integrate data from databases, Access files, Excel spreadsheets, flat files and even emails into one reporting store. Data validation before collation is also a feature many tools afford. This way SMBs can save themselves the headache of collating tons of data, accumulated over a period of time, manually, and still lack confidence in its accuracy. At first an investment will be required to hire an IT partner to implement ETL (Extraction Transformation and Loading, as this process is known) but in the longer-run the benefits far outweigh the costs.

SMBs also need to understand their data to monitor and predict the health of their organization. Answers to questions such as
• What are my best-selling products? What is the profile of the customers who buy them? (say for a products company) or
• What is the number of website enquiries received in the last month? Which technology is most sought after for - SOA, BI etc? (for a company like mine!)

can be found using BI classification technology (also known as facts and dimensions). BI can enable the user to view the data from multiple angles – Product sales can be viewed in terms of quarters, sales representatives, customers, geographical locations– all at one time and without the need of actively involving the IT staff. Access to such information can pave way to those crucial business decisions that bring in much success.

In addition to this BI empowers the business user by providing reporting interfaces such as dashboards, slice and dice reports (where various factors can be dragged in or out), KPIs. Many of these reports are “very loose” in nature and can be customized by the business user to exactly build the report he desires. These reports can further be exported in well-known formats such as excel and flat files. SMBs can leverage these features to constantly get a bird’s eye view of their organization – an essential habit to follow even if they become an industry giant!

BI also provides tools to predict future trends for the organization by flushing out the existing data for not-so-visible patterns. This can help many SMBs have a competitive edge in the market and also predict its own future challenges.

Finally, setting up a BI Systems for SMBs may at first sight seem daunting. However, they can take comfort from the fact that many BI players are now concentrating more and more on providing them tools which can be set up in quick time and with limited investments. For example, Oracle recently announced its BI packages that are tailor-made for SMBs. Business Object’s BusinessObjects Edge 3.0 and Crystal Reports Server 2008 are specifically aimed at SMBs. Microsoft has always claimed that its tools are a cost-effective solution for SMBs when it comes to BI.

With all these advantages in view, every intelligently-run business will not shy away from embracing Business Intelligence.  If you’d like us to help you get a sense of your business through BI, contact us and we can work something out together.

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The Gen X version of phones need to be smart enough to start making sense of the master’s web browsing or phone browsing actions and proactively deliver results or signal alerts. With new customized search technologies which Microsoft’s Bing or Google pioneer, technology comes close to analyzing usage patterns of the users, and tagging the same through user IPs or cookie files and then displaying close to what the user would like to see when he next comes to search. If Amazon’s “You might be interested” features which tags useful products based on the user’s previous search or on similar buyer profiles is applied onto smart phones, information truly comes close to the user’s accesses. What’s more, users also get to monitor work data from wherever they are – alerts on sales figure jumps, operational hazards, quick bites into daily scorecards, server performance monitoring keeps you on top of everything that you need to manage and spearhead.

What the web age called “You’re just a click away”, smart phones have replaced with “Touch me and go anywhere, anytime”.

Our folks here have worked on an iPhone app which helps the client manage server performance remotely through his smart phone. They’ve also been dabbling with dashboards, database integration, et al developing the capability to access data through mobile OS powered by Google, Microsoft, Apple and Blackberry. Feel free to buzz us ( with your smart phones of course! ) or even just write to us, to know where and how we can help you with your smart phone requirements.