Jim Panos

In my last blog entry, I spoke about the "enterprise" vs. the "ecosystem" and some of the technology that has enabled this. But there are also business drivers that are pushing companies in this direction as well.

As companies enter the age of digital marketing, evaluation of "green" products, advanced CRM, complex analytics, and a myriad of new enterprises that focus on a microsegment of the market, executive leadership is beginning to realize that a focus on point to point direct relationships of the enterprise is insufficient to address the needs of the market or evaluate their suppliers and business partners. And even if this were not the case, the ability to focus on all of these relationships in a traditional way is becoming more and more cumbersome. As has been seen in recent threads in this forum (e.g., 60% of CRM projects fail), this leads to unrealistic expectations of what technology can do when the business and technical architecture of the ecosystem and the information supporting it is not well or consistently defined.

Think about it -- the "easy" projects, such as implementing a financial planning system or internal supply chain planning have been done and are those systems are increasingly becoming obsolete. Now, in the supply chain arena, analysis of not only your internal supply chain, but the supply chains of your customers and suppliers (and their customers and suppliers) is part of the definition of being "World Class". Innovative companies are using third party information and working together in partnerships where much of the information previously regarded as confidential is being shared, albeit in a controlled manner. But without architecture, this process is slow and reinventing the wheel/throwaway solutions are a constant risk.

The advantages of the ecosystem architecture are enormous. Areas of functionality where successful implementation has been difficult as best can now be addressed. Customer Relationship Management (or should I call it “Relationship Management� given the bi-directional nature of relationships and communication), with the appropriate architecture, can now be appropriately addressed. But, the changes to the way enterprises are evaluated, the way executives build their businesses, and the skills needed within the enterprise are equally enormous. If you thought the change management required to do Enterprise Requirements Planning was a challenge, just wait and see what the next decade will bring!