IT WALKS THE TIGHTROPE

It’s often said that the problem with IT is that it is disconnected from and out of step with the business.  This is interesting because, very often, they are the only people who actually understand how the business operates from end to end. 

One of the things I have often found when dealing with organisations is that the real gap is the one that exists between the executive management team and the operational management layers.  The difference between the strategic thinking and getting the job done is about the widest of any you find in mid to large organisations.  Where IT often gets caught is walking the tightrope between the two.

It’s easy to get caught in the crossfire, or to appear as though you aren’t quite on the same page as either of these camps as you try to introduce ideas and solutions that satisfy both. 

The role of IT is not simple:  Keep the lights on, keep the work flowing, manage the information, support continual improvement in effectiveness and efficiency and then provide reporting mechanics that demonstrate how well the business is delivering on its goals.  More recently a new facet – that of providing the key interfaces between the customers and the business has propelled IT and the systems, software and infrastructure they support right to the heart of the organisation.

The question is which goals to address – getting the work out, keeping the customers happy or delivering on the strategy.

The difference between average and great generally comes down to a few key differences in approach and this starts with an understanding of the business model…from the customer’s perspective.

Let’s start with a simple question – what is it that you do differently that makes customers want to deal with you?  This is really the one key question when looking at changing or evolving a business model.  Apart from regulatory or compliance issues, this should be the key driver behind the design of your processes and the systems that support them.  You want to remove latency so you can improve customer service, you want to reduce cost to make more money to invest in the customer experience, you want to increase your quality to drive customer satisfaction and ultimately retention.

Your strategy will be aimed at driving growth and becoming the biggest / best / only / most prolific / most forward thinking business in your sector.  You will do this by delivering against customer expectations in the areas of innovation, quality and service.  Operational and strategic objectives should be aligned at this level, delivering against these goals, but the devil is in the detail.

The job of a technology consulting organisation is three fold…firstly -  identify what the business model needs to look like (or change to) in order to deliver the strategy.  Secondly – examine how the current technology is deployed and how well this can support the objectives and the new model, either in its current form or if it was better utilised.  Finally, identify what the ideal technology roadmap should look like to support the growth of the organisation over the next 3-5 years. 

This isn’t about detailed mapping of every process, or deep down in the areas of database consolidation or data management; it’s not about unified communication or virtualisation or in fact any of the major technology initiatives that many businesses are working through today.  We are talking here at a level that will give the teams who are executing these tasks the context for their work – the reason why things need to happen mapped to real business drivers and with both an ROI and a clear statement of the risks of not acting. 

This is real technology alignment – understanding how technology needs to be deployed to underpin your business model, deliver your objectives and be seen as truly value add to the future of the organisation – and as a critical success factor for everything the business is trying to achieve.

Value exists only so far as there is understanding.  If you want the business to see value in what you do, make sure you understand how the world looks to everyone else and then explain what you do in their terms – how it will benefit the customer, and where it fits in taking the business you have today into the organisation you want to run tomorrow.One final thought – RISK is one of the biggest factors in business decision making.  The risks of making a change are often under-researched and over simplified.  This is bad enough until you consider that the risks of NOT making a change are normally not even considered.  Sometimes, not taking a risk can be the biggest risk of all.  This is the subject of one of our latest white papers:   Risk in Business Decision Making.  Register now and download this white paper at http://www.keyedin.com/.

MAKING TITANIC MISTAKES

The last ship that anyone dared call ‘unsinkable’ was the Titanic, and we all know what happened to that.  The tragedy around the story of the Titanic is that 1500 people lost their lives, not because an unsinkable ship sank, but because of the thought processes that followed on from that belief.

The Titanic set sail from Southampton with nearly two thousand people on board but only 16 lifeboats.  The original design allowed for 64 but these were reduced to allow more space for luxuries.  After all, why frighten the first class passengers and clutter the desks when the ship was ‘unsinkable’?  Similarly, costs were cut on the quality of the ship’s rivets which popped out like press studs when the iceberg hit. 

Add to this the fact that no evacuation procedures were drilled by the crew; its captain insisted on sailing through a known ice field at full throttle to keep on schedule; and life boats couldn’t be launched or were launched half empty.

All of these were decisions driven by the wrong belief that the ship couldn’t possibly sink.

What really caused the loss of 1500 lives that night wasn’t a ship sinking, it was a series of bad decisions brought about by complacency based on a wrong piece of information. 

Luckily, very few of us are responsible for life and death in our everyday jobs – although some people are, of course.  But whether it’s product faults or bad service, the lessons are the same.  If a particular piece of information is taking you down a specific process, then make sure that information is right!

In my next blog I’ll be discussing the difference between risk and gambling, and what motivates us to do both.

CAN YOU LEAD A RISK-FREE EXISTENCE?

Anyone reading the newspapers and seeing the activity of the health & safety organisations might believe it’s possible to live a risk-free existence.  Well, common sense tells us it isn’t.  Whether you’re crossing a busy road, ordering Sushi, or backing a racehorse, everything in life carries an element of risk. 

You might not always be taking your life in your hands but when it comes to business, risk-taking can have far-reaching consequences on the company’s survival, your own income and your employees’ livelihoods.

That’s not to say that everything you do can always be a success.  With most entrepreneurs who’ve achieved a runaway success story, there are at least two failed projects they would rather forget.  That’s partly because successful business people don’t always rein in their bullish approach to risk management. 

Many executives will have signed off business cases in the past 12 months.  If every one had actually delivered on its promise then your business would probably be turning over $1 billion a year and costing around 24 cents a month to run.  The truth is, we accept that what we are presented with probably won’t come about.  This means we’re making decisions based upon something other than promised rewards.  We’re making them on risk.

In my next blog, I’ll be discussing a Titanic mistake that can lead to a whole series of bad decisions.

US SOFTWARE VENDOR TO TAKE YORKSHIRE-GROWN BUSINESS SOFTWARE GLOBAL

Investors back acquisition of Atlantic Global PLC

KeyedIn Solutions, the new American owners of Atlantic Global PLC, officially   took the reins after gaining the support of more than 90 per cent of the company’s shareholders in an $8 million (USD) deal.

George Klaus and Lauri Klaus, owners of international software and consulting company KeyedIn Solutions, arrived in Bradford from Minneapolis, Minnesota to celebrate the formal handover with the Atlantic Global Directors and employees.

The new owners have committed to keeping the company in Yorkshire, significantly growing the team in the UK and to a major investment programme which will see its software on sale worldwide – including in the birthplace of information technology, Silicon Valley, California.

Atlantic Global has developed world-class software that helps businesses to plan, resource and manage complex projects and enterprise transformation programs.   Customers include: Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Kingston Communications and Serco.

The acquisition is KeyedIn Solution’s first PLC purchase. “In terms of the complementary skills of both organisations, the stage that the company had reached in the business cycle and the products it’s developed, it’s a perfect fit,” said Lauri Klaus, CEO of KeyedIn Solutions.

The deal was engineered by Yorkshire-based entrepreneur, James Waterhouse, who has been appointed Managing Director of KeyedIn (UK).  Former Atlantic Global CEO Eugene Blaine will remain with the company to head up its technology operation.

 “The Atlantic Global product suite provides an essential set of tools for any business running high-capital or business-critical projects. Together with our consulting offer, we now provide a complete risk management and compliance solution that will transform the way our customers deliver successful business change,” said Waterhouse. 

Commenting on how this fits into the overall product strategy, Waterhouse added: “KeyedIn products bring a new flexibility to the enterprise software marketplace, replacing the ‘one size fits all’ approach.  We are offering agile, cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions that can be implemented by a wide range of businesses — from SMBs to larger enterprises  — as and when they’re needed, quickly delivering value.“

KeyedIn Solutions Announces Formal Offer for Purchase of Atlantic Global PLC's Issued Share Capital

Following December’s announcement of its majority ownership of Datacom International, the new international software and consulting company KeyedIn Solutions this morning confirmed a formal, recommended offer for the acquisition of Atlantic Global PLC, a leading author of Professional Services Automation and Project Portfolio Management solutions, at a price of 22 pence per share.

“The team at Atlantic Global has created a world-class solution that has been adopted by some of the most successful and expanding companies around the globe,” stated Eugene Blaine, Atlantic Global’sCEO. “The synergies between what Atlantic Global needed to drive the next phase in our expansion and what the KeyedIn team offered were startling. Bringing together our world-class products and the international sales and marketing experience of the KeyedIn team made this a compelling proposition for our employees, customers and shareholders.”

Atlantic Global has been of keen interest to KeyedIn since August 2011. This $8M (USD) deal was put together by Yorkshire-based entrepreneur James Waterhouse, whose boutique consulting house, virtualdirection, has also been acquired by KeyedIn.  With 15 years’ enterprise software and consulting experience, Waterhouse saw the value in both the products that Atlantic Global had developed and a fit with the vision of the KeyedIn founders.

“It is fantastic to see what this team has achieved in the last 15 years with very limited sales and marketing resources,” said Waterhouse. “It is a privilege to be able to attract U.S. investment to a great British company and protect Yorkshire jobs during these difficult times.”

”We are quickly building a new company with new technology, new teams and certainly new passion,” said KeyedIn co-founder and Chairman of the Board George Klaus, former Chairman of the Board and the CEO of Epicor Software, where he led that company from $30M (USD) to a valuation of $980M (USD).

“Our culture is customer-centric with a basic philosophy that our priorities are customers, the team and the investor – in that order,” says Lauri Klaus, KeyedIn’s co-founder and CEO. “Put simply, we are a results-oriented business that goes the extra mile to make sure our customers get the most out of their enterprise applications.”

KeyedIn expects to quickly integrate Atlantic Global into the core business model and roll out products into new geographies and new markets. The leading-edge architecture of the product will allow easy integration and rapid localisation, allowing it to be deployed into new markets and verticals immediately. 

In the words of Lauri Klaus, “This is an extremely exciting acquisition that provides both the products and the development capability that allow us to complete our vision.  We have exciting plans for the ongoing development of the product line and are already geared up to take the products into the U.S. and mainland Europe.”

As Executive Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Services at Epicor Software, Lauri Klaus managed more than 1,400 sales and services professionals worldwide, generating nearly $200M (USD) in annual revenue, ensuring global methodologies and standards across the company’s worldwide sales and consulting operations.

About KeyedIn Solutions:

KeyedIn Solutions, Inc. was founded by a team of technology leaders with considerable experience in developing and delivering technology applications in areas such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), professional services automation and project management. The company offers both SaaS(Software as a Service) solutions and consulting services to help mid-market organisations gain control and visibility over their resource capability and deployment, streamline workflow processes, increase operational efficiency, and achieve cost savings and improved business performance.  Learn more at http://www.keyedin.com.