Dave's Workday

PeopleSoft founder Dave Duffield's new venture, Workday, has just released a new product, an HCM solution based on the SaaS model. From the press release:

"About Workday:
Taking a fresh, modern approach, the company aims to provide mid- to large-sized companies with a compelling alternative to traditional enterprise software.........

Workday Enterprise Business Services are comprised of four suites of services, the first of which, Human Capital Management, is being announced and is generally available today(6th November). The subsequent suites—Workday Financial Management™, Workday Resource Management™ and Workday Revenue Management™—will be rolled out beginning in 2007. All of the Workday Enterprise Business Services share a common foundation:

• On demand: offers web-based delivery, multi-tenant architecture, 24x7x365 availability, and enhanced security
• Agile and Global: quickly adapts to meet your changing business needs
• Intuitive: built for today’s generation of information workers; offers native reporting and analytical tools to help businesses make more timely and informed decisions
• Built-in Auditing: enables tracking of all changes for governance/compliance purposes
• Web Services Integration: offers out-of-the-box, standards-based integration capabilities, minimizing complexity and implementation time

About Workday HCM:
Workday Human Capital Management (HCM), the first service to be offered by Workday, is an on-demand solution that helps businesses dynamically align their people and organizations to adapt to fast-changing business strategies. With Workday, organizational changes that typically require weeks or months of IT support can now be done independently in hours or days by authorized business managers.

Built around a flexible organizational model and capable of managing all types of workers, Workday HCM addresses key functional areas such as Staffing, Compensation and Performance Management and is generally available as of today, November 6, 2006."

IMHO: Well, haven't we heard this before? Sounds very similar to the pitch of all ERP, and specially SaaS, vendors. But Workday already has a couple of customers (Biosite, and KANA software, both Calif.-based companies), and has signed up a few more. The way Workday is trying to differentiate itself is by eliminating the need for developers to go from RDBMS to what they call an Object Management System and back. Here's more on this. Let's hope that, at least technologically, Dave gives us a product as satisfying to work with as PeopleSoft.

SaaS Snippets

Am back after a long lay-off. Here are some relevant snippets:

SalesForce Winter Update: SalesForce announced Dreamforce (registeration required), which included the launch next year of its custom development platform called Apex. Apex is a SQL/ Java based proprietary language, which will allow customers to deploy there own code customizations on SalesForce. It is an interesting development, and one which pushes the SaaS model even closer to a hybrid with on-premise. Details of how this will be managed in a muti-tenancy model, as well as how upgrades and such things will work are still lacking though.

Oracle On-Demand: Staying with SaaS, Oracle announced the launch of On Demand offerings on PeopleSoft Enterprise suite, and Siebel CRM. Appears to be a watered down version of their on-premise software, the pitfalls of which have been well documented. Remains to be seen whether their self-proclaimed "leaders in on-demand" tag holds up.

Will try to keep up with regular postings. Keep visiting for updates....

Update: Netsuite has announced SuiteFlex, it's own version of a development platform. SuiteFlex is targeted at Service providers, developers and VARs, and allows building of vertical-specific functionalities and business processes. In addition, NetSuite has also launched SuiteSource Directory, a source of free, open-source Suitelets hosted on Source Forge. Well, these SaaS guys really know how to make things interesting....

Category:Oracle, Salesforce, SaaS, CRM

Standardization in Sales

Vinnie has a great post up on Reengineering the Sales Process.

"I would break the product discovery process into 3 steps each with varying levels of customer self-service and vendor sales involvement:

a) From the thousands of RFPs vendors have already responded to, they should have an A,B,C analysis of most requested/somewhat requested etc. features. Expose that on-line to users (in a password protected area to keep from prying competitor eyes) using a requirements traceability tool. Let prospects navigate and fill their own feature/function checklists, if need be. Then it would be ok for vendors to refuse to fill out requests for 400 page feature lists in RFPs – encourage users to do so on a self-serve basis. And I mean refuse. JetBlue decided it was only going to have instant ticketing business model - no reservations on hold for 24-48 hours. I am sure they lost a few customers but they stuck to the model and it is becoming industry standard.

b) For horizontal functionality – common across verticals, geographies - expose major process flows in on-line demos, architecture in well structured documentation etc. so customers can self-navigate through the look and feel, flow etc. Make reps available by on-line chat, telephone – remotely - to answer questions. Organize product marketing collateral on those lines. This functionality should not usually require demos at the client site.

c) For more unique vertical or client specific functionality, invest in on-premise, scenario based demos. Vendors should encourage buyers to define likely real-life business scenarios and then diligently walk them through how their solution delivers it. And tell the truth – what is available as a standard feature, what comes from partner functionality, work arounds etc. Too many vendors fight scripted scenarios. Or they will only do them grudgingly if a competitor is likely to invest in them. This is where the sales person should be focused, because this is likely where the differentiation will be most acute."

IMHO: Vinnie has hit the nail on the head, yet again. There is a need for standardization, of greater automation in the sales process. We, especially in the IT services sector, need to cut down on this needless expense by leveraging already existing (at most places) technology infrastructure. It would also help us showcase the effective use of the very technology that we are pitching, lending credibility to our claims. The biggest benefit would be a smaller, more productive, more responsive sales force, and an efficient, trustworthy brand image. We also need to learn to say no to unrealistic expectations, be honest with our claims, and deliver a consistent, high quality experience to our customers. Standardization helps cut down inconsistency and wildly fluctuating results from Sales and Delivery alike.

Category:Sales, CRM, SFA, Process Automation