Written by Sramana Mitra
I have written several pieces recently about the Extended Enterprise trend, covering Segments such as Collaboration, CRM and PLM.
In the same vein, that I have proposed a framework for Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS), I would like to discuss in this piece, a framework for Enterprise 3.0.
Fot those working with web technologies, and focused on business applications, the trend to watch carefully is the Extended Enterprise one, which hasn’t quite become mainstream yet.
Saas (Software-As-A-Service) or OnDemand is already a well understood and accepted trend. Nick Carr wrote in November 2006:
“Large companies appear to be jumping en masse onto the software-as-a-service bandwagon, according to a new survey of CIOs by management consultants McKinsey & Company. The survey found that 61% of North American companies with sales over $1 billion plan to adopt one or more SaaS applications over the next year, a dramatic increase from the 38% who were planning to install SaaS apps in 2005.”
However, to come up with new ideas, or to position your existing SaaS technology on a problem that matters to customers today, I suggest you focus on the Extended Enterprise trend.
So, let’s recap the vocabulary again. What is the Extended Enterprise (EE)?
The modern enterprise is no longer one, monolithic organization. Customers, Partners, Suppliers, Outsourcers, Distributors, Resellers, … all kinds of entities extend and expand the boundaries of the enterprise, and make “collaboration” and “sharing” important.
Let’s take some examples. The salesforce needs to share leads with distributors and resellers. The Product Design team needs to share CAD files with parts suppliers. Customers and Vendors need to share workspace often. Consultants, Contractors, Outsourcers often need to seamlessly participate in the workflow of a project, share files, upload information. All of this across a secure, seamlessly authenticated system.
Few of these Extended Enterprise stakeholders are inside the firewall. They don’t necessarily have accounts in the Enterprise IT network, posing challenges and creating friction in the workflow.
If you are designing an application that does either Expertise Location, Talent Management, or Contract Management using web 2.0 technologies, remember that you need to provide access control options to include these off-enterprise team members.
The reason I like this framework, is that companies are facing the full impact of globalization today, and yet their IT systems were designed a long time back - without any provision for managing this Extended Enterprise architecture. Thus, if you do come up with an architecture that successfully manages the workflow of EE, focused on a specific application, chances are you have hit some ready CIO painpoint and, therefore, appetite.
So, let’s try to use this framework: Enterprise 3.0 = (SaaS + EE), and see if it can help us hone the architectural design, as well as the application positioning.
Sramana Mitra is an Entrepreneur, Founder CEO of 3 companies, Strategy Consultant to 50+ companies, and Author of a popular technology business blog, Sramana Mitra on Strategy.
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Darn, I thought this was about Star Trek...
Posted by: Mikael Bergkvist | February 26, 2007 4:27 PM
you say:
So, let‚Äôs recap the vocabulary again. What is the Extended Enterprise (EE)? ... The modern enterprise is no longer one, monolithic organization. Customers, Partners, Suppliers, Outsourcers, Distributors, Resellers, ‚Ķ all kinds of entities extend and expand the boundaries of the enterprise, and make ‚Äúcollaboration‚Ä? and ‚Äúsharing‚Ä? important.
This isn't really a definition. Your first sentence is what it ISN'T and the second is vague and merely an attribute that in this idea x and x are "important"
Posted by: Jonas Peters | February 26, 2007 5:00 PM
Jonas,
Please read the example - the paragraph following what it's not. An Extended Enterprise is an Enterprise + its Partners, Suppliers, Customers, Outsourcers, Resellers, Distributors.
The challenge that I am bringing to focus is the issue of designing application software workflows that can seamlessly straddle the boundaries of these entities.
If you follow the links, you can read the examples specifically in the context of CRM, PLM, Collaboration.
Thanks,
Sramana
Posted by: Sramana Mitra | February 26, 2007 6:21 PM
Sramana,
You hit the nail on the head.
We are developing exactly this application to do what you describe (...The salesforce needs to share leads with distributors and resellers. The Product Design team needs to share CAD files with parts suppliers. Customers and Vendors need to share workspace often. Consultants, Contractors, Outsourcers often need to seamlessly participate in the workflow of a project, share files, upload information. All of this across a secure, seamlessly authenticated system...)
Our aim is around project and program management.
The feedback so far from our (current) customers is that the advantages (low cost, low risk, small teams, trails) outweigh the disadvantages( security, large financial burden, large technical involvement).
The TCO is dropping dramatically and what you see is that small groups will start to use SAAS. And once this exercise starts to get traction, CIO's and alike could start to host their own instance within their firewalls. But for now, they are happy as is.
If you are interested please follow is at the link provided
Cheers,
Bart
Posted by: Bart Stevens | February 27, 2007 8:15 AM
Very interested, Bart. What's cookin'?!
Cheers, Sramana
Posted by: Sramana Mitra | February 27, 2007 9:51 AM
Sramana,
To lift a tip of the veil:
We consolidate work from your to-do lists, project plans, meetings, emails and alike. Everyone’s progress (!) is reported back to these sources.
But follow progress at www.somethingiscooking.com ... and you be be positively surprised ... ;)
Cheers,
Bart
Posted by: Bart Stevens | February 28, 2007 4:22 AM