Sify Enterprise Solutions :: Extensity Newsletter

Until a year ago, whenever anyone spoke about enterpries Applications, one usually meant CRM, ERP, SCM or some other vertical application. But organisations that have already 'been there' and 'done that' want to take this a step further. In 2004, the emphasis will be on a collaborative work environment involving business associates and employees who are beyond the boundaries of the enterpries. enterpriess will leverage technologies such as SMS, XML, chat and web-enablement. At higher levels, enterpriess are also integrating its systems with those of its business partners. This will give both parties direct access to systems and facilitate quicker transaction data exchange. These predictions are closer to reality, for Indian enterpriess are now conducting pilot trials for enhancements made to its enterpries applications.

Indian enterpriess are looking to make its systems more proactive. This means applications will continuously monitor data, and proactively alert or advise users on important business moves. The other major focus area will be simplification and optimization of the supply chain.

We now dwell on trends in the following areas: 1. Sales Force Automation; 2. Mobile Applications; 3. Application Integration; 4. Network Management; 5. Information via SMS.

Oldest : Phase I. Contact Managers - Track and organize business contacts into a database for activity scheduling and reporting daily calls.

Next : Phase II. Sales Force Automation products - extension of calendar management, mail-merge, MIS reports of the contact managers.

Key Attributes : Moderately priced, reasonably easy to implement, can be customized .

Now : Phase III. Web-enabled sales force automation tools - complemented by improvements in note-book technology, emergence of smart hand held devices, expanded use of VPN's and high speed internet access.

Key Attributes : Higher price, Higher mobility, Can be customized to suit any objective.

Complexity of business, need for process governance, global competition, and productivity enhancement have been driving more and more organizations to start using SFA tools in one way or the other .

Organisations have started looking for more than just mere Contact Management and Opportunity Management

The SFA would become the daily operating platform of the sales force. Hence this will have to be integrated with

e-Mail, Tele-sales
A workflow engine - For the ability to track leads,create and assign tasks and sub-tasks, and implement a notification and escalation system
Customer Service Information
Account Receivables Information
Document Management System (to manage copies of the proposals, corporate presentations, case studies and other sales collaterals like brochures, fact-sheets,company profiles, product configuration guides, press-releases etc.)
Proposal Generator and sales Configurator
Inventory and Shipping statistics (could be even pulled from an independent backend application that the organization may be using)

The application will need to be WAP enabled and the field sales force would need to be able to access the SFA through their mobile devices and also get automated meeting reminders

User friendliness and effective security would become the clear differentiators between the market leaders in the SFA space and the also-rans.

With the criticality of the data that will be available on the tool and the necessity to provide access to the tool for executives from various locations, secure connectivity to the application without compromising on ease-of-use.

Ease of Use - The person using the tools must perceive the value of the tools, and enough value must be perceived by the user to overcome the effort and cost of using the tool.

- One of the fastest growing areas of data transfer predicted that 67 percent of all wireless data subscribers will use SMS in the near future. India today boasts of a record-breaking revolution where GSM and CDMA are yet to explode into the 56M mark by 2004 end.
- Applications and hardware for SMS being upgraded to higher standards every day

- The mobile commerce market is being described as the slow but sure addiction of the future enterpries and the Indian market which has so far been one of the quickest to adapt to Mobile technology, would definitely be influenced by this.

- Despite lack of proper co-ordination and differential pricing by different operators the SMS usage in the Indian corporate sector has been fairly high.

- The steps taken by various agencies like, the banks to acknowledge receipts of payments, some cellular providers to transit passwords and Airlines to check flight delays and timings are all precursors to the information flow that would be witnessed in the near future.

- The key challenge to SMS and for that matter any mobile device has been the form factor. The convergence of mobile and PDA, advent of blue tooth has attempted to simplify matters, but at a high cost. To that extent the real explosion of mobile and SMS applications, beyond ring tones and chat will depend upon convergence and standards, and mass production of higher end devices that allow usage ease that border that of portable computers.

1. Evolution of enterpriess from deploying stand alone products for security as opposed to a holistic security readiness scenario, driven by business exigencies.

2. While enterpriess may look at deploying and managing their security infrastructure internally, the complexity and the drain away from core business will trigger outsourcing of security infrastructure as has been witnessed in the networks/datacenter spheres.

3. enterpriess will no longer need to shop with multiple vendors as there is an evident rise in players providing end-to-end security solutions ranging from products to consulting.

4. Vendors and service providers are directing their development efforts towards creating single product solutions with multiple functionalities thereby reducing time and resources currently consumed in managing multiple products. The flip side however would be that adoption of these products would create single point of failures.

5. We are likely to see the emergence of security infrastructure management solutions which would enable security personnel to effectively guage the health of the enterpries.

6. enterpriess will begin to seek security services proactively and not only as incident based seeking as is the current practise. Three aspects that are most likely to be debated this year:

The Indian enterpries generally lacks awareness and conviction, which results in failure of security initiatives. Awareness is more important than the technology being used.

IT security is undergoing a major paradigm shift from being just an 'IT prerogative' to a business sustenance need. Security policies are now being made with active involvement of the top-level management.

The Indian corporate has seen an increased leverage of the Internet to connect to partners and customers post the dot-com boom. Top management is becoming more aware of disruptive factors like viruses and security breaches, as major business risks. This has been the prime factor behind the increase in security awareness levels.

User education will be a very visible trend in 2004, than just emphasis on security policies. This is the best way to ensure that security policies do not end up as some more documents gathering dust.

Outsourcing of IT security is another area which is going to show major increase. Management of major e-commerce application servers is likely to be outsourced to the datacenter hosting them. Or companies may outsource the function of monitoring the organization's IDS logs to detect breaches. The reason behind this trend is that IT security requires highly specialized and dedicated teams. This may not be a core priority for many companies who may prefer to concentrate more on their core business. Therefore it makes more sense for such companies to outsource security. The level of security outsourcing however, will depend on the company's comfort levels and are bound to vary in each organization.

Periodical IT audits is another aspect of security that will be outsourced. These audits are of great use in evaluating the strength of an organization's security infrastructure.

Security requires independent treatment, separate from IT. This realization has led to many organizations going in for a team of dedicated security professionals focusing full time on IT security.

A Chief Security Officer (CSO) is yet another IT security trend that many Indian organizations will adopt in 2004. The CSO will be responsible for handling the security infrastructure of an organization.

As usual, the BFSI segment is the forerunner on this front with many financial institutions already having CSOs.

Evolution of enterpriess from deploying stand-alone products for security as opposed to a holistic security readiness scenario, driven by business exigencies will be seen in 2004. While enterpriess may look at deploying and managing their security infrastructure internally, the complexity and the drain away from core business will trigger outsourcing of security infrastructure as has been witnessed in the networks/data center spheres. enterpriess will no longer need to shop with multiple vendors as there is an evident rise in players providing end-to-end security solutions ranging from products to consulting.

Projection by market research firm, IDC, puts the global market for outsourced IT services at $27 billion. IDC estimates that managed services, which is growing at a CAGR of 16%, constitutes only 30% of the total spend of IT companies. Hence there is a huge latent demand still untapped. These figures are corroborated by a study conducted by META Group. The META Group study states that in 2006, nearly 95% of global 2000 companies will outsource atleast one strategic IT function. The report goes on to add that 20 per cent are seriously considering so.

According to analysts, hosting providers will be major players in this arena. META Group expects 50 per cent of their revenue to accrue from MNS (Managed Network Services). Most of the larger independent software vendors have also entered the MSP space, and today include MNS in their portfolio of services. Even conservative estimates project a 45-50 per cent growth rate in the managed network services sector.

Connectivity requirements will grow :

The requirement for connectivity will grow as more and more enterpriess realize the importance of being online with the latest business information. The demand for connectivity will also be driven by voice and video requirements.
More of buy and less of build :

A number of enterpriess will move their new requirements to public networks rather than building additional capacity on their own existing networks.

enterpriess which are small and have connectivity requirements will definitely build their networks over public networks as cost advantages of doing it on a public network will outweigh building it on their own.
Optimal resource utilization will be in focus :

As enterpriess try to get more out of their spends, resource utilization optimization will be in focus. Quality of service policies will be the order of day to ensure that the enterpriess get the best out of their networks.
Converged networks will be the only choice :

While network requirements will grow because of more and more data being exchanged, the need for increasing efficiency within the organization will drive voice and video traffic. This in turn means that the same network will have to carry all the traffic and pure data networks which would be rare to see.

International connectivity will be on VPN's: More and more of enterpriess will adopt VPN (Virtual Private Network) as the preferred technology for international connectivity.
Extranets will become simple :
Connectivity between the various enterpriess will become more and more simple as every enterpries will be geared up to handle Internet connectivity. Public networks would be touching every single enterpries in the future.
Security awareness will increase :
Network security will become an important factor that will be considered everytime a network touches another enterpries network.

Wireless is one segment that looks really promising. Gartner predicts that there will be 70 million users in public hotspots by 2007. Even in India, wireless networks are on the rise, moving beyond enterpries LANs into public hotspots and (very soon) into homes.

Although wireless technology has gained substantial mindshare, it has yet to gain proportionate market share. This is because organisations are still waiting for wireless technology to mature and stabilise. However, steps like the delicensing of the WLAN spectrum will help the market grow. Last mile connectivity is the key driver for wireless. Wireless will also be a major enabler for broadband services. If India has to add 150 million telephone connections by 2010 it will require brand new transmission networks, but these will be difficult to build in the next six years. Wireless is the definite solution here.

An increase in productivity linked mobile usage in the enterpries segment is driving demand for Wi-Fi. There has been growth in the notebook and PDA user base in the BFSI, retail and FMCG segments. This, along with the requirement for relevant mobile applications, is spurring wireless growth. The growth of the customer base in GSM and CDMA telephony will also create a pull for rich data services. Location-based Wi-Fi networks will complement today's 2.5G networks, and a mixed handset client will become a reality.

The governement will also be a key user of and a role model for wireless technology. E-governance projects could be rolled out with ease using wireless to reach difficult-to-access areas.

Managed Network Services (MNS) offers a total networking solution that reduces operational costs and frees enterpriess to focus on their core business. According to Gartner, 32 percent of a company's IT budget is spent on internal resources to service IT.

Research has proved that a company with about 5,000 employees can benefit in the range of $9 million to $18 million every year by outsourcing its IT infrastructure management. This can be achieved through MNS.
Although globally organisations have recognised the great opportunity in outsourcing, in India, apart from large corporate houses, not many companies are going in for MNS. One major factor that prevents many enterpriess from outsourcing their network management - or more importantly, their networking needs - are information security concerns. However, the recent move to adopt IP VPN as the main back bone will provide an impetus to India Inc to outsource its networking needs.

VoIP's growth is being driven by multiple factors on three fronts: applications necessitating voice convergence, the spread of broadband, and cost benefits.

Corporates have started running their internal networks on IP. The first wave saw different houses deploying station gateways across various branches to lower communication costs. Next IP phones came in and now basic IP-PBX solutions are being installed. But the issue of VoIP being restricted to closed user groups is still a problem that deters widespread acceptance. In spite of that, VoIP is expected to grow substantially and BPO units, service companies and enterpriess will drive growth.