Serving customer experience

Last few days I went through two separate incidents reminding me of poor business applications resulting into bad customer experience that can easily be avoided – should customer view point is considered while automating any business process. 

1. My elder daughter who is now 17+ was in the process of buying a car. I decided to have her apply for an auto loan where she can be a secondary co-applicant with me – hoping it will start to establish her credit history. We spent multiple hours at one of the major national bank filling out the paper work, etc. only to be reminded after few days that loan can’t be granted with her as a co-applicant given she is a minor. How hard it is to have a simple work flow in the loan application process to error out on the age of a minor while filing the application when certain conditions are not valid? Think about the countless hours wasted of the banker; someone from their lending department and leaving customer with a bad taste who unnecessarily have to go through this long process. 

2. A national university suggests we pay bill on-line to get student registered to their college. We all conduct commerce on-line and now assume certain level of service. However, this university only accepts MasterCard as an acceptable form of payment. It does not accept Visa cards or other popular on-line payment forms. Visa and MasterCard are the big gorilla in the credit industry. In fact, hands down Visa is #1 in the industry with 60% of the market share. MasterCard comes second with close to 30% market share. We happen to be fortunate and had few days left before the deadline for us to apply snail mail way posting cheque in mailbox. Why tout on-line when you can only serve a percent of the customers? 

Anyway, it brings me to the point – automating business processes are to provide improved customer experience. Making business applications usable and customer connected is important.

We experience similar trend in the enterprise software industry – particularly products that have been around for decades and has accumulated lot of features over time. But if those features are hard to use and don’t provide basic reminders or simple error checks – what is the point as they anyway end up in lost productivity and unsatisfied customers. Just ponder – how few features get used when the product is difficult to navigate and hard to use. Feature rich is good – but product build without customer experience in mind is simply not a recipe for success. Applications has to be usable and not just functional to serve desirable customer experience.

Usability matters and it is much more than just cosmetics.

Bookworm

I love reading books. Books have been helpful and insightful in guiding me all along. Beside several great mentors  who supported, coached and guided me along – I credit few good business books in shaping my thought process thus far.

My younger daughter, Mansi, is another bookworm. Over the last 2 years or so – I hardly find her sitting idle. If she has no home work or other chores to do – a good chance is that she is reading some book. She usually read fiction books that come in series.

Yesterday, I asked her to provide me a list of the series of books that she has read during the last 2 years or so. Here is what she provided me a short while later – complaining she can’t remember all. I also asked her to include number of books in that series she has read.

1. Keys to the Kingdom                                                                          7
2. Spiderwick Chronicles                                                                        8
3. Heir series ( Warrior Heir, Wizard Heir, Dragon Heir)                       3
4. Harry Potter                                                                                       7
5. Series of Unfortunate Events                                                                         13
6. Nancy Drew                                                                                        57
7. Flora series ( Flora Segunda, Flora’s Dare)                                        2
8. On The Run                                                                                         7
9. Pendragon                                                                                          10
10. ( The City of Ember, The People of Sparks)                                       2
11. ( The City of Stars, The City of Flowers , The City of Masks)           3
12. Twilight Saga                                                                                      4
13. (Nobody’s Princess, Nobody’s Prize)                                                 2
14. Secret of Droon                                                                                   8
15. Chronicles of Narnia                                                                          7

Total                                                                                                                140 

Incredible!!! I hope she keeps up with her book reading spirit as she grows up. It also explain all those trips to the local library every other week or so to drop off and haul the next bundle.

Me Inc.

Are you the CEO of your destiny who is  investing towards your future – learning and sharpening the game?

Great musicians never stop trying to improve; great athletes never stop trying to improve – so why should that not be true for everyone else.

However, it is rather common that many of us stop investing towards learning once formal education is over. Class room education may stop but quest for learning and keeping up with the changing landscape should remain high on the personal agenda. Whatever it is that one want to be better at – can be better – should a person keep hunger in the belly to learn and create opportunities to apply.

It remain a key difference that set apart individuals who succeed from others. Successful individuals never stop applying new learning. They can be gauged by their curiosity to learn and apply everyday. One key metrics – just check their book shelf. It is common for them to read several books a month.

So ask yourself – what is competing for your time that takes away personal obligation towards investing in yourself and learning?

One way is to make a commitment – find books/on-line material/social networking groups/etc. that are relevant to an individual profession and get started. Good books can be the single best personal investment and life mentor. 

I say let’s start today.

Twitter Frenzy

Now you know why anything and everything I think any given moment is so important for the whole world to know. It is not just an isolated case of having short attention span.

I gotta run and tweet… make sure you are following me on the twitter <grin>

Enjoy!!!

Is the world round again?

While no doubt we are living through one of the tough economic times – probably the most difficult we can remember in the recent time. But are the policies that promotes protectionism the way out of the current economic mess?

Here are some of the discussions happening at our policy makers circle:-

• Protectionism as part of the latest stimulus bill may spark trade war
• Microsoft layoffs add more fuel to H1-B fire 
• Stimulus bill barring H1-B hiring
• EU warns Obama on protectionism in stimulus bill

Seems like Europe is not far behind…it is all about protecting that we care most – our own first.

• Protectionism on the rise in Europe

This is not an easy question. Even in my family, my wife and I usually end up on the opposite side (and kids somewhere in the middle) of this discussion. She is more conservative in her thoughts than probably I am.

Let’s look at the other side of the discussion. Our world now is so inter-related that it is hard to untangle countries to shore up just by itself. Can you fix economy of one country at a time? Look at how the global market now work in tandem. This is a chart of DOW (New York), FTSE (London), Hangseng (Hongkong) and Nikkei (Tokyo) during the peak of market crash in Sept/Oct 2008.

In some regard, we are part of one big system with our own uniqueness and differences - knitted together. It is one BIG market that goes up and down together.

Current global recession is about choices that will determine how America and the world shapes up in the decades to come. Will we remain on the path of open economy, free trade;  global competition; etc. or we start to see the rise of nationalism and protective policies. Will we fight or flight? It is about the choices we will make. 

Thomas Friedman recently penned his opinion in New York Times discussing the same.  I like how he captured the spirit of America.

“Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history. It wasn’t through protectionism, or state-owned banks or fearing free trade. No, the formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat.“

I say – let’s go stir and repeat…

Visualization Techniques

If you ever need to know any kind of charting/visualization technique  - look no further. Check out the periodic table of Visualization methods.  It is interactive – so give it a try and hover over.

Be a fisherman

While driving back home yesterday, I tuned in to the NPR as a routine habit. At that time, I happen to catch a story on Fishermen’s life – particularly how they deal with the highs and lows in their life. In fact it is the only way of life a fisherman knows. Various thought sparked in my mind and prime being – what a tough life!!! One would wonder how to tackle life when nothing is predictable or usual. To top off the story – it is amazing that fishermen encourage their kids to follow the same profession. It must be the love of fishing.

Anyway, I thought the story appropriate to share given current tough business environment. Check it out or listen to the audio.

(The audio is 5 min or so long)

3 thoughts, I picked up:

1. Cooperate and Collaborate – foster your community; commit to it, help and support each other

2. One has to love the line of business so much to encourage your kids to follow the same

3. Above all – have a positive ATTITUDE. It is THE difference

Find good people around you who share your enthusiasm and “can-do” attitude and let’s go to bat (fish) together. Enjoy!!!

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won

Tough time present opportunities otherwise not available. Current economic environment is just one such opportunity.

Much depend on how we as individuals act and enable others to act to make the best of it. It is  our collective attitude that determine how an organization will fare as the rough weather passes.

Few thoughts:

1. Know yourself – recognize your strength and weakness. Position where your strength can make a difference

2. Work with people, regardless of their position, who share optimistic perspective on things (equally important shield yourself from individuals with negative attitude)

3. Know where you are going; bring focus on critical few; and make hard choices necessary to accomplish

4. Have sense of urgency to achieve. It should be driven out of what you plan to accomplish and not fear. Fear usually motivates but in the wrong direction

5. Roll up your sleeve and get involved directly with your customers, products or whatever your line of work. It helps appreciate perspective otherwise missing

Lastly –  communicate openly and candidly.

Remember, in the current environment – it is high time to demonstrate the winning attitude and make a difference. Opportunity is knocking at our door step – question is who is prepared to respond?

Globalization of R&D

As world continue to flatten and economies become increasingly inter-connected – globalization of R&D remains a successful approach. Booz & Company published its recent study of 1000 public companies sharing the trend; rationale and geographic growth. The study is pretty recent and it was published in Winter of 2008. 

Check out the study here. 

This study emphasize – what I have always believed in – that globalization of R&D is just not about lower cost. Although cost gets more touted than the overall perspective that globalization can bring. It is about Innovation, access to better talent pool and market proximity otherwise not available. 

I also believe that doing it right require time and commitment.  There is no quick fix. In fact, more established an organization – harder it can be. It is like any other execution effort where there are companies that has successfully implemented the model as there are countless others who tried and failed.  

 

 

Snippet of message that sums up the study:

“… companies that invest wisely in a multinational innovation footprint are gaining far better returns on their R&D investment than companies that exclusively keep their laboratories at home — or that fragment them across a wide variety of locations.”

Here is a data point pertaining to the globalization of R&D as it relates to US: 

“At first glance, observers might think that this represents a loss of jobs, intellectual power, and influence for the home countries of these companies. But innovation spending seems to flow in both directions at once. Even as the companies based in the U.S. performed $80.1 billion worth of R&D in other countries, companies headquartered elsewhere poured $42.6 billion into R&D conducted in the U.S.  In fact, 40 percent of the money spent on R&D in the U.S. is spent by companies headquartered elsewhere. The total amount of R&D spending in the U.S. is 2.7 times as great as in Japan, whereas the spending generated by companies headquartered in the U.S. is only two times as great.”

Starting a business

Peachtree team posted a video discussing the merit of having a good accounting system on your side to help with your startup business. Sage is your business partner who want to see you succeed and grow your business. 

Check it out.

Opening up source code

Some good pointers to consider making a close source effort to open source. Here is an example of Ingres and how it transition from close source to open source.

Key points – and SCO/Unix fight has contributed to this learning.

• Comb every line of the source before opening it up and remove questionable references/code snippets
• Pick the right open source licence
• It takes some promotion and effort to attract open source community
• Security concerns are not any more vulnerable in Open Source than Close Source (Re-engineering usually attributes to similar security vulnerability than what one may find reviewing the source)

I would probably add following to the list:

• Understand business need. Both Closed Source and Open Source (or a combination) has its merit – so understand what problem is being tackled by opening the source
• Consider what open community suits the need and how it helps the community
• Consider business model and structural changes required 
• Consider the stage of product life cycle

Fake cloud?

I liked this blog entry on 15 ways to tell it is not cloud. Among them, I liked these the most:

• If they are trying to sell you hardware… its not a cloud.
• If there is no API… its not a cloud.
• If you need to re-architect your systems for it… Its not a cloud.
• If it takes more than ten minutes to provision… its not a cloud.
• If it only runs one operating system… its not a cloud.

One thing, I would have added to the list and see cloud succeed:

• If you can’t transfer your existing software licence… its not a cloud.

Cloud computing is maturing and progressing well. It continues to become reliable and available at cheaper cost than businesses otherwise would spend. Time will tell its success. One trend to observe will be small-mid businesses broadly adopting cloud to run businesses-critical core applications beyond adjacency services.

Innovation stumbling block

Innovation is hard. It is usually hard in an established organization. Why?

Top 3 reasons, in my mind, that hurt innovation in an established organization:

1. Knowledge – It is a double edge sword. While past experience helps but many smart brains get caught up to the learning or failed experiences of the past talking themselves (and unfortunately others too) out of good ideas prematurely.

2. Being perfect – On the other end, smart people looking for the perfection doesn’t help either.  Smart folks finding themselves rat-holing a conversation on obscure things making an idea too hard to conceive at the onset or too costly to tackle. Some time perfect is the enemy of good enough that stop conceiving a great idea from taking shape. Innovation evolves by shaping the idea one day at a time to its greatness.  

3. Afraid of failing – Smart people trying not to stick the neck out or taking chances that may make a difference because the potential of an effort may fail. It is our desire to act ordinary and remain on the proven path hence avoiding what best could have been achieved. It is amazing how conspiracy theorists (and they exist) attract smart brains keeping them just acting ordinary.

Sage MAS Community

Visit the new MAS community site which is being launched.

It will feature product specific forums; blogs; discussion board; tips and tricks; etc. 

Also, my colleagues and I will use the community site to blog all things that matters MAS. Here is my blog on the MAS site. Some day – I will attempt to link and aggregate posts from both sites.

I am excited about the community forum and look forward to seeing a vibrant community growing. Check it out (http://community.sagemas.com)

Weekend wrap

Few stories caught my attention as I wrap up the weekend:

1. Use of hologram during election coverage by CNN. I am not sure how many saw it during the telecast on Tuesday. It looked cool on TV. Although technology remains some what weak.  Also, some time back Cisco shared its telepresence initiative that is making buzz as well.

Anyway – Gizmodo has details on how holograms were brought to life during election coverage. Check it out.

2. Need entrepreneurs. While I am on the topic of election – I was reading an article on Forbes written by Sramana Mitra about President Obama and his promise to create 5 million jobs. Her point to create 5 million jobs will require creating 50,000 entrepreneurs. I agree. Listening to entrepreneurs and nurturing a supportive environment is what will take get economy back on track.

3. Is humility and ignorance a missing trait in business environment? This article from James Montier on investment captures the thought well. Somewhere along the line people start to appear know-all; can’t-fail, over-confident bunch. Anyway, few nuggets from the article that caught my attention: 

Quote from Confucius: “To ask a question is but a moment’s shame, but to live in ignorance is lifelong shame”

“…that we need to learn more and more about less and less until we know everything about nothing…”

Summit 2008

From Nov 16th to Nov 20th, I will be in Denver attending our annual customer conference – Sage Summit.  

I am double excited to attend Summit this time. One – another opportunity to connect with customers and partners that use our product. Second – this is the first time I will be back in Colorado since my family and I relocated to California. I have lot of friends in the city and I look forward to meeting several of them.

Denver – here I come.

Buy American

To say the least – last couple of weeks have been rough in the financial market. It is hard to bring trust back in the system particularly after seeing retirement or life savings getting wiped off. It takes a while to come to term with things.

On the other hand – it is the time for leadership to reassure the masses. Particularly who can pave the path and put down their own money where their mouth is. Warren Buffet is one such leader. Beside being so successful – he remains as someone who touches lot of hearts due to his down to earth personality; simple living and high thinking.

 
Warren recently penned down an Op-Ed in New York Times titled: Buy American. I Am. It captures the essense why it is time to believe the market and invest. I like Warren so much that I stole the title from his Op-Ed. It is simple and powerful to convey the thought. 

It is glass half-full not half-empty.

So here are the few investments I made recently. It will be interesting to see how these pan out in the long run.

Exxon Mobile – XOM

Home Depot – HD

Lowes – LOW

Diamond Offshore – DO

Stryker – SYK

3M – MMM

Can east keep its edge

Both China and India largely used to be the nation of bicycle. Both countries are growing leaps and bounds. I just hope both countries can find a good balance between modernization and tradition to keep the pendulum from moving too far. Also, hopefully learn from what West is trying to do to encourage more eco-friendly environment.

Now at much of Europe you can rent a bicycle (and it is gaining prominence) to go around locally – particulalry when you are travelling in the heart of the city.

Here is a sampler – from Europe, China and India – all happily biking away.

iCloud

Cloud computing is the buzz.

Cloud computing is on the rise.

Cloud infrastructure is becoming cheap and broadly available. Just check out the Amazon EC2 pricing.

Cloud grows (or shrinks) with my need. Infect there is a term for this aka “elastic cloud“. 

Cloud can support my on premise license software copy. 

Cloud computing has lot of cool acronyms – Saas, PaaS, HaaS, S+S, etc.

Moore’s law will continue to drive the cloud cheaper, reliable and readily available.

Some say – Cloud – like other essential services – is recession proof.

Only computer hardware that I need (someday) should be some plug on the wall.

So why buy my own hardware? when I can rely on the professionally managed, well administered, and reliable computing infrastructure for my personal or business use?

I want total control over my little cloud – including pulling it back on premise as and when I deem right.

I want computing infrastructure to be a matter of personal choice – whether I want it on premise or I want it on my cloud.

I want my cloud – mine…and good thing it is getting there.

Convergence

We live in a time of convergence where examples are littered show casing various technologies or products converging to enhance end user experience. One case in point digital media and home entertainment serving to improve everyday experience. Just pick one category of your liking and you will soon find someone is pushing the envelope either bringing adjacency services closer or building one if it doesn’t already exist.

Same is true for the business software community. It remains an emerging trend to converge and deliver enhanced experience for business users.

I usually put the convergence in three categories that overtime gets delivered as one unified solution. These are:

 

 

1. Improve a person’s productivity in the workplace.

2. Improve the ability to make decision easier based on historical or projection based heuristics

3. Improve an individual social standing in the peer community

 

 

 

Vote for my daughter – Next President

Call about creativity. There was a time when producing such a video would have been an effort. Now it is child’s play.

Anyway – Ayushi, my elder daughter nominated to run for the Presidency by her friends. Easy to pull such pranks now.

Here is the video link – check it out!!! and may be vote for her when you hit booth on Nov 4th.

Guess who?

I grew up in India so not sure how I would have looked during 70’s and 80’s in US. Particularly how my high school yearbook portrait would have been. Now one can visit yearbookyourself and travel back in time to create portrait from yester-years. Check it out:

 

Alienus Non Diutius

Pixar motto “Alienus Non Diutius” (Latin for ”Alone no longer”) speaks volume. Pixar is probably the only Hollywood production house that emphasizes collaboration where crew remain employed one movie after another. This is considerably different from other production houses where everyone is on a contract for one movie. Once the movie is over folks moves on to their next production forming another crew with other production houses or whatever else they can lay their hand on.  

Is it just a coincidence that Pixar continues to deliver hit after another hit? or is it the team work that make Pixar stand out. Consider Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Bugs life, Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Cars, Wall-E, etc.

“Alienus Non Diutius” hits the nail for software organization. Gone are the days of lone rangers where organization rode on the back of heroes only to find they can’t scale. Heroes are still needed (actually by a lot) – but someone who knows how to be part of a team environment. Such heroes bring sea change in an organization. These gifted individuals groom other strong players bringing high tide in the organization and make it play on a level field otherwise not possible.

Ouch!!!

$4 Trillion and counting – that is how much market cap of the financial sector has reduced in the current meltdown taking with it the nest egg of so many…

New York times has a good interactive map showing the meltdown and change among major players. Check it out.

Here is an interesting punch – this has wiped off wealth almost equal to the GDP of Japan, 2nd biggest economy after us. This data is from 2007. 

Ouch!!!

Imagineering

Last couple of week, I watched Discovery channel “Project Earth” series. It showcases ideas that environmental engineers are working on to reverse the global warming and reduce carbon dioxide in our environment.

One thing that occured to me watching the series is the imagination of people involved. Although, most of the ideas are still scratching the surface of the huge environmental problems and true large scale deployment remains elusive – but the thought process is simply remarkable.

Consider these ideas:

1. Cover the ice cap with reflective material to reduce the polar cap melting

2. Re-ciruclate the ocean water from far deep to start the fertilization process in the Ocean that can help soak carbon dioxide from the environment and over time green vegetation sink taking carbon to the watery grave

3. Shoot some mirrors in the sky to reflect sun light back cooling the earth

4. How about creating clouds in the Ocean and use wind pattern to help cover the earth with clouds again blocking sun rays resulting in cooler temperature

5. My personal favorite – how about building a helium filled (kind of blimp) rotationary wind turbine high in the sky tethered with wires to the ground generating electricity using wind energy. Essentially mining winds at high elevation thus making wind energy feasible around the globe.

and on and on…how bright brains are tackling to help slow down the melting process or some how soak carbon out of our environment.

It just speak to the human spirit who on the face of seemingly impossible task find a way to make it happen. All the global warming and over $4 a gallon gas has created enough sense of urgency for us to put planet first and find solution that remove our dependency on fossil fuel.

Keep on trying…

I enjoy watching Olympics and this inaugural weekend was no exception. It was fun. It is amazing how host country keep setting a new bar every time during these mega opening shows. This one was no cheap and came at a price of $300M.

I like knowing about various other countries, its athletes and their stories. Traditionally, Olympics weekend are littered with life examples of people after people; country after country desperately trying to participate and win. There is no lack of inspiring stories talking about adversity; struggles; losses; and every other odd one can imagine but people still prevail and keep up their determination to succeed.

Someone said it rightly – life is about the struggle not the triumph.  In some regard, it is the battle within your mind. If you care about something than keep giving your best try.

So with all the show and pomp and fun – Olympics is a fine example of human struggle and our endurance.

Brick wall are there for a reason. Failure goes along with the success. Even an NBA starred US dream team becomes a redeem team in Beijing. So keep trying on whatever Olympics size quest that you care.

Another observation about Olympics and living in Southern California – it is probably you are surrounded by more Olympian than any other part of the world. Just look at the US team and you will find players from Irvine, Costa Mesa, Riverside, Orange, LA, San Diego,… you name the county/city and there is someone at Beijing representing the country. Infect, my daughter’s badminton coaches are in Beijing representing US. Now where else you will find the opportunity to be coached by someone of that talent.

Go World!!!

Last lecture

Video of Randy Pausch’s last lecture. He was a CS professor at CMU. He was suffering from Pancreatic Cancer when he gave this lecture couple of months before his death. One need to watch the video to gain a sense of his personality. Worth watching and inspiring.

Simplicity – an example

NYTimes published this interactive chart showing statewide voting trends of democratic primary.

Just plain simple and easy chart - allowing information to dice and slice; form individual opinion and navigate the trend.

Consider the amount of multi-dimensional data that this chart shows. It consists of 16 dimensions; 50 data points; each data point suggesting additional attribute of %age point gain; etc. times 2 – one for each candidate. This easily require decent amount of data crunching to capture the information.

Also, consider how many ways this information could have been rendered to show various scenarios effectively.

Isn’t this chart easy? Instead of getting drowned in the whole bunch of statistics and data – this chart allows connecting dots and seeing the trend otherwise not visible.

Similar opportunities exist for browser based business applications in improving user experience that enables an individual to be informed; help make decisions; manage individual relationships and network along with the variety of tasks he or she need to get done.

Well done is better than well said…

Earlier today, I was watching an interview of Arnold Schwarzenegger on ABC. In response to a question he quoted his belief around “Well done is better than well said”. I love it…

Action just speak louder than the words. It is great to be of creative mind and think new ideas. But the fun is in converting those ideas and making it real.

Which idea do you want to work on today?

PS: This quote gets originally attributed to Benjamin Franklin.

People process

Bob Bennett from Sage Payment Solution Division recommended “The Future of Management” and also send me a copy to read. It is an interesting read and the book compares the management practices of the yesteryears to what is needed now to build an innovative/high performance organization. Management Innovation is called out repeatedly touting empowered employees in a self managed, transparent organization where peers hold each other accountable to build a high performing organization.

Truly, at the end of the day an organization success is a direct product of the people it employs. I like the example of Toyota’s TPS (Toyota Production System) fondly known as “Thinking People System” is a good example of how it can be a differentiator in tough industry environment. It is keeping Toyota healthy despite all the challenges within the automobile industry.

A team from Detroit once took the tour to Toyota to find out the difference. Initially, success was attributed due to the Japenese culture and different work ethics resulting in Toyota (and similar other Japanese auto marker) an edge over its Detroit counterparts. It soon got belied as Toyota expanded its manufacturing base in US. Now, even within the same cultural context and country Toyota continues to make the difference that has made it famous.

The key to the success, as people find out, is the constant change that happens at Toyota – mostly driven by its employees who are always looking to optimize or making things better. It is widely touted as “Kaizen“. Contrast this with other companies where change is induced from the top when the need is drastic and employees resist change resulting in half hearted adoption akin to too little too late. Thus companies struggle to remain agile and difficult to keep up with the market need.

In mature market and competitive industry landscape where margins are hard to acheive and average growth remains minimal - it is such a boon for Toyota where employees bring gradual change among themselves ensuring organization to remain current with the need. Also, it fosters a culture of team work, collaboration, and change that thrive to remain agile. Essentially, Toyota is successfully reaping on the bright brains it employs.

Learning here is no different for other industries including enterprise software. Key to success remains empowering employees who regularly reflect on day’s work and adapt; fostering a cross functional team environment; and an environment where peers hold each other accountable for the joint success.