Webb Insights: Business & Technology

I'm a proponent of user engagement throughout the SDLC. I think you should be too. Taking a people first approach to understand key stakeholders, their workload, workflows and processes today is a foundational piece of any technology project at the enterprise level.  People are an organization's greatest resource and, thoughtful engagement and utilization of your human capital is essential to your organization's growth and sustainability. After you take care to understand the current state of affairs and its various inputs,  you can effectively partner with an organization to due-fully plan, chart, organize and execute a technology initiative.  Critical to this phase is understanding what you wish to change: what works today, what doesn't, and what may be made more efficient or beneficial. Where does your organization want to be? A beneficial approach here is to take a step back and look at processes from a Pareto Optimal or Lean approach: who...

Here is another way to think about the question: Once you hit a certain level of scale, there is no way you can effectively manage your business without having connectivity in your processes. Not having an ERP can lead to: 1. Late deliveries 2. Poor quality 3. Poor responsiveness 4. Poor support All of this will ulitmately lead to dissatisfied customers and that might cost your company customers and new business! Truly, the kind of ERP you choose and how you implement it determine its usefulness in your business. Yes, ERP generally enables you to keep track of inventory and automatically updates you on changes therein. There are other ways that ERP can save your business money for the long haul, as well. Because every operation within the business in monitored and recorded on a central system, administrators can get a much clearer picture of the strengths and weaknesses within the business' systems - aka what's working and what needs improvement - so they...

In my last few blogs I've discussed integration on a more technical level. I now want to approach it high level. Why are new-generation companies like Apple, Salesforce, Google and prosperous start-ups like AirBnB and Uber more successful than the majority of (traditional) businesses? True, a major part of their success is their courage to leave the beaten path and adopt different, often disruptive business models. However, the other real commonality is their understanding that, nowadays, business success is dictated by customers rather than operations. If companies want to be successful in this era, it is high time to shift focus from internal processes (operations, ERP) to external activities (customer marketing, CRM), not in an isolated, siloed approach, but integrated into all disciplines. An effective strategy in this regard needs to be the foundation for your organization's execution in the 21st century.

Consider Democratizing Information Access with a Data Integration Having the right technology in place that puts actionable information - “meaningful data,” in the hands of your analysts, decision makers and executives at the right time is more than just a talking point. There are many advantages of providing not just power users but business users with a data-driven enterprise strategy. Fostering a culture of information sharing and empowering your end users with the tools that make it possible are a prerequisite to compete in today’s “real-time” economy. A data integration is one such mechanism to democratize information access. Typically, this is a process that heavily involves your IT department . Done ineffectively, this process can invariably leads to delays in insight that can be costly to the business. Done effectively however, they can prove to be an invaluable starting point for a data driven, customer-centric strategy. In 2015, integration capabilities are not just li...

As consultants, sometimes we encounter scenarios where, due to M&A activity, client growth, competitive factors, discovery or by other means, an organization might wish to migrate or integrate data from other business applications or disparate systems. In this blog post, I'd like to define the difference between these two terms and highlight some powerful options for your organization's needs. Up to bat first: What is the difference between a migration and an integration? MIGRATIONS A data migration describes the process of transferring data between different file formats, storage types, or computer systems. Oftentimes, data migration scenarios present themselves during system implementations. Traditionally, this was an incredibly tedious task - it required numerous human resources dedicated to the project. Today however, data migrations are usually performed with much more ease, less resources and more programmatically through a well automated solution. Database...

Today, even as you read, traditional ways of conducting business are being rewritten by technology. As part of this shift, key words such as agility, cloud, customer stories, big data, the Internet of Things, and the customer experience have come to propel a data driven, client-centric business model. Incredibly, the culmination of these innovations and insights can be leveraged in a unique business solution known as CRM. In this blog post, I'd like to touch on CRM from a high level and uncover what it is and why it is important to any organization, big or small, start-up or Fortune 500 company. CRM is an acronym for customer relationship management. It is therefore, a platform with which to manage connections and interactions with customers. These must be scalable, flexible and customizable enough to support how your organization does business: B2C, B2B, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, etc. However, CRM is even broader than just technology. It describes the strategy that a company uses t...