From one of my all-time favorite movies, Tommy Boy.
I just caught Mr. Ted Simpson (not wearing his cool oraclenerd t-shirt) in this short video on the Oracle OpenWorld blog.
HEUG, or Higher Education Users Group, pronounced "hug."
All this means is that Ted no longer has time to share with us...he's too busy actually doing stuff. :)
Showing posts with label tsimpson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tsimpson. Show all posts
Friday, March 19, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
The Costs and Benefits of Enterprise Technology
My technology chops lag a bit behind the writers and readers of this blog. While I am taking the Piwowar EBS challenge along with Chet, Floyd and others, my day to day activities are more focused on trying to blow hot air onto the frozen middle of enterprise technology management. Chet recently retweeted a good question that got me thinking, reading and (now) writing. The question was:
That post linked to a super article called Upper Mismanagement from The New Republic. It discusses how many executives, having risen up from finance instead of operational backgrounds, are probably incapable of leading American manufacturing today.
We see many of those same problems in IT. Those leaders who come from a finance background tend to be focused on showing the money (or the savings), while the technical leadership are just as focused on innovative technology. That often leaves the more operational business folks hanging in between, trying to keep the business going - doing more with less.
One problem seems to be that the wrong people are making the decisions - for the wrong reasons. This is an organizational problem: the right people are not in the right place. Technical, financial, and business folks all need to work together to create the solutions that will best advance the organizational mission. Too great a focus on any of those areas will potentially endanger the goals of the others. Jake spoke to part of this divide in his OOW 08 presentation (slide 9):
What about solutions?
In a recent seminar on financial management for IT, we worked with Intel's Business Value Index model. When you have a few minutes, read this white paper: IT@Intel White Paper Using an IT Business Value Program to Measure Benefits to the Enterprise. I'll provide the first line as a teaser:
I encourage all of us to read this paper. It explains how Intel's model "works by evaluating IT investments along three factors: IT business value, impact on IT efficiency, and the financial attractiveness of an investment." I love how they are ranked.
The key to the success of the Intel model seems to be accurate measurement of all three factors. Cost is frequently measured, but not always accurately. How often have you seen a solution implemented without provisions for its total cost? IT efficiency is measured less often. Business value is typically implied in requirement gathering, but I often see operational metrics missing once a solution goes into production. One example comes from a business intelligence project I am working on. In all of our work to help our business owners develop KPIs, we came up short on defining those metrics that would indicate how well IT was performing. See a good post from CIO magazine on developing metrics for IT.
So, if it is easy and obvious to do the right thing around measuring the benefits of IT to the enterprise, why is it not done consistently? I used to think it was just me, or just my organization, or just my industry (Higher Education and Research). Since I have been in school and doing a bit of consulting, though, I find my peers in all industries are singing the same tune. Perhaps one answer is implied in the New Republic article referenced earlier in this post. Perhaps we are not preparing ourselves and those around us to take the lead in this area.
Here is a good recent publication from my industry highlighting the shifting roles in IT leadership. I would argue it is not that different in other industries. Nor would I argue that any of this is new. Here is a similarly good recent publication from the CIO Executive Council called the State of the CIO 2010. I also recently read some great old school management principles from IBM's heyday. They are enjoyable and still applicable. Check out especially the "IBM management principles and practices" and the "Quintessential quotes."
Please find the comments if you love or hate any of the resources I've included. Please also drop a comment if you have an answer to the question of "will 'show me the money' kill IT?"
Thank you @oraclenerd and @brhubart for getting me thinking, reading, and writing. Now I can shed the slacker tag for a spell and get back to my work on the Piwowar EBS challenge (I am still on hardware and OS, ugh).
Ted [ linkedin | twitter ] is Vice President for Communications at the Higher Education User Group, MBA and MSIS student at the Johns Hopkins University, Director of Administrative Systems at MICA, and slacker at badgerworks.
That post linked to a super article called Upper Mismanagement from The New Republic. It discusses how many executives, having risen up from finance instead of operational backgrounds, are probably incapable of leading American manufacturing today.
We see many of those same problems in IT. Those leaders who come from a finance background tend to be focused on showing the money (or the savings), while the technical leadership are just as focused on innovative technology. That often leaves the more operational business folks hanging in between, trying to keep the business going - doing more with less.
One problem seems to be that the wrong people are making the decisions - for the wrong reasons. This is an organizational problem: the right people are not in the right place. Technical, financial, and business folks all need to work together to create the solutions that will best advance the organizational mission. Too great a focus on any of those areas will potentially endanger the goals of the others. Jake spoke to part of this divide in his OOW 08 presentation (slide 9):
What about solutions?
In a recent seminar on financial management for IT, we worked with Intel's Business Value Index model. When you have a few minutes, read this white paper: IT@Intel White Paper Using an IT Business Value Program to Measure Benefits to the Enterprise. I'll provide the first line as a teaser:
Intel's IT business value (ITBV) program has shifted our IT investment decision making process to a customer-focused, data-driven model that demonstrates the impact of IT on Intel’s bottom line.Yes! Right on! Isn't that what we all do?! I'd argue that if we all did this even half as well as Intel we wouldn't have as many questions about "finance killing IT" or "IT costing too much" or "IT not serving business needs."
I encourage all of us to read this paper. It explains how Intel's model "works by evaluating IT investments along three factors: IT business value, impact on IT efficiency, and the financial attractiveness of an investment." I love how they are ranked.
The key to the success of the Intel model seems to be accurate measurement of all three factors. Cost is frequently measured, but not always accurately. How often have you seen a solution implemented without provisions for its total cost? IT efficiency is measured less often. Business value is typically implied in requirement gathering, but I often see operational metrics missing once a solution goes into production. One example comes from a business intelligence project I am working on. In all of our work to help our business owners develop KPIs, we came up short on defining those metrics that would indicate how well IT was performing. See a good post from CIO magazine on developing metrics for IT.
So, if it is easy and obvious to do the right thing around measuring the benefits of IT to the enterprise, why is it not done consistently? I used to think it was just me, or just my organization, or just my industry (Higher Education and Research). Since I have been in school and doing a bit of consulting, though, I find my peers in all industries are singing the same tune. Perhaps one answer is implied in the New Republic article referenced earlier in this post. Perhaps we are not preparing ourselves and those around us to take the lead in this area.
Here is a good recent publication from my industry highlighting the shifting roles in IT leadership. I would argue it is not that different in other industries. Nor would I argue that any of this is new. Here is a similarly good recent publication from the CIO Executive Council called the State of the CIO 2010. I also recently read some great old school management principles from IBM's heyday. They are enjoyable and still applicable. Check out especially the "IBM management principles and practices" and the "Quintessential quotes."
Please find the comments if you love or hate any of the resources I've included. Please also drop a comment if you have an answer to the question of "will 'show me the money' kill IT?"
Thank you @oraclenerd and @brhubart for getting me thinking, reading, and writing. Now I can shed the slacker tag for a spell and get back to my work on the Piwowar EBS challenge (I am still on hardware and OS, ugh).
Ted [ linkedin | twitter ] is Vice President for Communications at the Higher Education User Group, MBA and MSIS student at the Johns Hopkins University, Director of Administrative Systems at MICA, and slacker at badgerworks.
2009 - In Review
Crazy year...but that seems to be the norm. Is crazy my normal? I wouldn't be suprised.
Numbers
Pretty Pictures
Here's a screenshot from my Google Analytics page...in July, I hit 5,000 Visits for the first time
I'm still not real clear what happened here
That was a 2,000 visit jump. I originally thought it had to do with my shameless pining to go to OOW 09...but that was late August, early September.
And to give you an idea of the progression since I started
The 2,000 hit jump is much more dramatic in that picture.
Guest Authors
Back in July (well, technically in May), I opened up the blog to guest authors. Mainly I wanted to give people of all experiences an opportunity to try out their writing skills...to see if they would like it. I didn't exclude established bloggers though. Of the 5 who participated, 4 already had blogs and 1 had been considering it.
Thanks to all of you who participated...I can't say that enough.
So I hope you enjoyed 2009 as much as I did. I'm not sure how long I can keep this up...it's a lot of work. I think it's worth it though.
Numbers
- 289 - Number of posts this year.
- 37 - September had the highest number of posts.
- 18 - February - lowest
- 24 - Average posts per month
- 76 - Number of days not covered by a post. In reality though, there were numerous occasions where I posted 2 or more times.
- 439 - Number of posts it took to get to the magical $100 mark with Google AdSense. I don't even want to do the math on that. BTW, I reached the $100 mark on December 28, 2009. Here's to perseverance.
- 94,998 - Pageviews according to Google Analytics
- 66,313 - Visits according to Google Analytics
- 465,963 - Page Requests according to my web server (GoDaddy)
- 1,015,934 - Server Requests according to my web server
Pretty Pictures
Here's a screenshot from my Google Analytics page...in July, I hit 5,000 Visits for the first time
I'm still not real clear what happened here
That was a 2,000 visit jump. I originally thought it had to do with my shameless pining to go to OOW 09...but that was late August, early September.
And to give you an idea of the progression since I started
The 2,000 hit jump is much more dramatic in that picture.
Guest Authors
Back in July (well, technically in May), I opened up the blog to guest authors. Mainly I wanted to give people of all experiences an opportunity to try out their writing skills...to see if they would like it. I didn't exclude established bloggers though. Of the 5 who participated, 4 already had blogs and 1 had been considering it.
- Ted Simpson - Ted was first, and now owns a ORACLENERD T-Shirt! His angle is more high-level; the decisions concerning IT implentations and how to do more with less (using Oracle of course). He's written 2 articles so far
- Gary Myers - I owe Gary a T-Shirt...if he didn't live in Australia it wouldn't be so difficult, but it's like a million dollars to send it there (plus, I haven't had a steady paycheck in some time). He'll get one though...as soon as we get back on our feet.
- Kellyn Pederson Kellyn was either contemplating or had just started her own blog, DBA Kevlar (she has the domain name too, just hasn't migrated over yet). She had a great response on the oracle-l mailing list and I asked if she'd like to write something up. I'm glad she did. She gave us UNDO Brain Damage. Yes, I owe her a shirt as well. Thankfully she's in the States and it won't cost 1 million dollars to send it.
- John Piwowar John has a T-Shirt already, but I suppose I could send him a black one. Though now that he resides in BFE, it probably costs 1 million dollars to send it there too. Not to disparage the other guest authors, but John has been killing me. Three posts in December...really 4, but I delayed that one until after the holidays. Let's not forget the 3 (4) companion pieces that he's written on his site. I consider this my own personal guide to installing the E-Business Suite, even if I haven't gotten it installed quite yet.He's also the proud father of The EBS Challenge (though he didn't know about the birth)
- Tiffany Morgan came with a writing piece, Top Ten Grammatical Errors That Make People Look Stup-Silly...., which shows up at number 22 for the year in terms of visits.
Thanks to all of you who participated...I can't say that enough.
So I hope you enjoyed 2009 as much as I did. I'm not sure how long I can keep this up...it's a lot of work. I think it's worth it though.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Intelligent Business Intelligence: 4 Keys to a Successful BI Approach
Ted claims he had more than 3 readers (mom, sister, wife) last time, so he's back for more.
One of the things I really like about this piece is the view into Ted's mind as he is going through the process. I think many of us can (ultimately) can figure out the technical side, it's the When, What and Why that become the bigger questions. Enjoy!
One of the greatest challenges business intelligence (BI) customers face is the adoption of BI solutions. Vendor selection and procurement, implantation and validation, and technical skill acquisition are challenges that can be met with some inspiration and perspiration. Many of the critical organizational components are often in place for successful BI adoption (executive, managerial, technical, functional), but too often they are not orchestrated and sustained properly to ensure success. (Full disclosure: I am learning these lessons through full and repeated BI fail of my own.)
Often BI is thought of in terms of a technology solution provided by IT. Less often it is thought of in terms of a functional solution provided by various report writers and developers employed across an organization. Less often still, BI is thought of in terms of a sustained function of the executive team. Obviously, it is all three of these working together. Everyone knows that and speaks and writes about it everywhere. So why are many BI projects less than successful? (See Business Intelligence Software Adoption Lags BI Vendors' Perception and Business Intelligence Adoption Low and Falling.)
From what I have seen in my own organization and through a few consulting engagements, successful organizations do these four things really well around their BI approach:
Filling Key Roles
Quite a bit of emphasis seems to be placed on filling roles at the management level and at the subject matter expert (SME) level. The idea being that if you can pair up a good IT director with a good, say, payroll expert to work on BI then good things will happen. Good things may happen, but it is seldom enough. Two roles I see as critical to success are a committed, long-term C-level champion and a hard-core and committed BI ninja to grind persistently and patiently on data validation. Here is a good article that describes key roles well . If the pressure from the top and from the bottom are not consistently applied, then those in the middle tend to stay comfortably frozen.
Thinking Full Circle
This is hard to do and usually takes imaginative thinkers. My current organization usually does a good job at thinking creatively - even about its business challenges. The idea here is to structure data collection in such a way that you anticipate using that data for BI. One of our vice presidents has made this jump. He develops surveys that will align with existing ERP data, will add valuable and actionable information to his decision making, and are repeatable and repeated every year. This was difficult for him to start because he really needed to focus on the end result before most of the data was collected. Here is a good article that spells out some of the considerations needed to think full circle. You may also want to read some of what Gartner has to say about BI.
These first two are fairly standard keys to success. I've seen a couple of "softer" elements, though, that really make a difference when it comes to BI adoption.
Balancing Quantitative and Qualitative Information
This is where fear creeps in. It seems that many executives I have met are just a little skittish about making decisions based on quantitative analytics. This is the promise of BI, isn't it? Most pitches I see have some version of "cost control through real-time analytics." Our vice president for operations wants real-time analytics on overtime hours so that he can spot trends and possibly curb peaks. That is good stuff. When the idea of basing decisions on quantitative analytics comes up in a group of executives, though, they often balk at it. They see it as a binary choice between basing decisions on the numbers and basing decisions on their experience or knowledge or instinct. This is when we need to step in. I'll extend Jake's recent medical analogy and suggest that we may need to also act as psychologists. It isn't a binary choice; it is both. It is okay to inform your decisions. It is okay to overrule the numbers. Relax . . . just don't be a blinker.
Accepting Incompleteness
This is a tough thing for a lot of people to do. Many people assume that if something is not completely finished it is not usable. When it comes to information, though, being incomplete is natural. Still, when it comes to BI, many consumers will argue that it only gives them "half of the story" or "part of the big picture." That is usually true. I argue that with or without BI, most critical business decisions are made with incomplete information. Even the most complete set of information will still only give an indication of how key areas of your business are performing. (KPI anyone?) The idea here is to understand and accept that BI is incomplete and emerging. It is okay to get your Wabi Sabi on about the big picture and know that it may have blurred edges. After all, most executives I know want to use their own experience and knowledge to fill out the big picture (see above).
If you want to call me out or talk me down, hit the comments section or send me a note. If you prefer to call me out in person, I'll be at Open World , at Circuit in DC , and always at Alliance.
Ted [ linkedin | twitter ] is Vice President for Communications at the Higher Education User Group, MBA and MSIS student at the Johns Hopkins University, Director of Administrative Systems at MICA, and blogger at badgerworks.
One of the things I really like about this piece is the view into Ted's mind as he is going through the process. I think many of us can (ultimately) can figure out the technical side, it's the When, What and Why that become the bigger questions. Enjoy!
One of the greatest challenges business intelligence (BI) customers face is the adoption of BI solutions. Vendor selection and procurement, implantation and validation, and technical skill acquisition are challenges that can be met with some inspiration and perspiration. Many of the critical organizational components are often in place for successful BI adoption (executive, managerial, technical, functional), but too often they are not orchestrated and sustained properly to ensure success. (Full disclosure: I am learning these lessons through full and repeated BI fail of my own.)
Often BI is thought of in terms of a technology solution provided by IT. Less often it is thought of in terms of a functional solution provided by various report writers and developers employed across an organization. Less often still, BI is thought of in terms of a sustained function of the executive team. Obviously, it is all three of these working together. Everyone knows that and speaks and writes about it everywhere. So why are many BI projects less than successful? (See Business Intelligence Software Adoption Lags BI Vendors' Perception and Business Intelligence Adoption Low and Falling.)
From what I have seen in my own organization and through a few consulting engagements, successful organizations do these four things really well around their BI approach:
Filling Key Roles
Quite a bit of emphasis seems to be placed on filling roles at the management level and at the subject matter expert (SME) level. The idea being that if you can pair up a good IT director with a good, say, payroll expert to work on BI then good things will happen. Good things may happen, but it is seldom enough. Two roles I see as critical to success are a committed, long-term C-level champion and a hard-core and committed BI ninja to grind persistently and patiently on data validation. Here is a good article that describes key roles well . If the pressure from the top and from the bottom are not consistently applied, then those in the middle tend to stay comfortably frozen.
Thinking Full Circle
This is hard to do and usually takes imaginative thinkers. My current organization usually does a good job at thinking creatively - even about its business challenges. The idea here is to structure data collection in such a way that you anticipate using that data for BI. One of our vice presidents has made this jump. He develops surveys that will align with existing ERP data, will add valuable and actionable information to his decision making, and are repeatable and repeated every year. This was difficult for him to start because he really needed to focus on the end result before most of the data was collected. Here is a good article that spells out some of the considerations needed to think full circle. You may also want to read some of what Gartner has to say about BI.
These first two are fairly standard keys to success. I've seen a couple of "softer" elements, though, that really make a difference when it comes to BI adoption.
Balancing Quantitative and Qualitative Information
This is where fear creeps in. It seems that many executives I have met are just a little skittish about making decisions based on quantitative analytics. This is the promise of BI, isn't it? Most pitches I see have some version of "cost control through real-time analytics." Our vice president for operations wants real-time analytics on overtime hours so that he can spot trends and possibly curb peaks. That is good stuff. When the idea of basing decisions on quantitative analytics comes up in a group of executives, though, they often balk at it. They see it as a binary choice between basing decisions on the numbers and basing decisions on their experience or knowledge or instinct. This is when we need to step in. I'll extend Jake's recent medical analogy and suggest that we may need to also act as psychologists. It isn't a binary choice; it is both. It is okay to inform your decisions. It is okay to overrule the numbers. Relax . . . just don't be a blinker.
Accepting Incompleteness
This is a tough thing for a lot of people to do. Many people assume that if something is not completely finished it is not usable. When it comes to information, though, being incomplete is natural. Still, when it comes to BI, many consumers will argue that it only gives them "half of the story" or "part of the big picture." That is usually true. I argue that with or without BI, most critical business decisions are made with incomplete information. Even the most complete set of information will still only give an indication of how key areas of your business are performing. (KPI anyone?) The idea here is to understand and accept that BI is incomplete and emerging. It is okay to get your Wabi Sabi on about the big picture and know that it may have blurred edges. After all, most executives I know want to use their own experience and knowledge to fill out the big picture (see above).
If you want to call me out or talk me down, hit the comments section or send me a note. If you prefer to call me out in person, I'll be at Open World , at Circuit in DC , and always at Alliance.
Ted [ linkedin | twitter ] is Vice President for Communications at the Higher Education User Group, MBA and MSIS student at the Johns Hopkins University, Director of Administrative Systems at MICA, and blogger at badgerworks.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Large-Scale Solutions for Small Enterprises: a Brief How (and Why) To
This is the first (technically, second I guess) in what will (hopefully) be a series of guest posts, from Ted and others.
One thing I really liked was the small shop that Ted talks about. So often you see IT become the cost center typically due to a lack of planning. 5 people supporting 3000? That's pure awesome. Speaks volumes for Ted and the choices he has made.
Wouldn't it be great if you could effectively run a major ERP suite on a tight budget with only a handful of staff? That is one of the things I do, so Chet asked me to write a bit about it. Specifically, he asked me "how have you integrated Oracle into a small shop? How much work? Hard? Easy?" Hopefully this post will cover those questions.
The What
The enterprise I manage runs a large and scalable ERP application suite: Oracle PeopleSoft Financials, HCM, Campus Solutions, and Enterprise Portal (all on application version 9.0 on PeopleTools 8.49). We have those applications running on an essentially Microsoft technology stack (Windows servers, SQL Server, Active Directory, ILM, and so forth). Our environment is heavily virtualized using VMware. Our mission has always been to maximize functionality and minimize cost. We do a fair job at that, as we deliver this ERP suite to a user base of ~3000 with an IT staff of 5 and a very small budget.
The How
Our modus operandi is basically to run our applications very near vanilla and to keep them as current as possible. This allows us to take full advantage of vendor and peer support and leverage the latest delivered functionality. Staying vanilla keeps operating costs down (no development costs, quick patch cycles, etc.) and allows rapid upgrades. We also do not diversify the technology within our enterprise architecture unless absolutely necessary. That allows our staff to use one skill set across multiple applications. That, in turn, allows us to hire ambitious generalists who are comfortable moving across applications. We minimize training costs by maximizing peer collaboration (very common in the Education and Research industry) and staying very active in user groups (our industry has an exceptional user group, -1 for my bias). We also rarely use consultants and never use implementation/upgrade partners anymore.
The Why
A colleague from a large university asked me recently why, for an organization our size, we did not use a much smaller solution (I think he suggested QuickBooks, +1 for snark). It is a fair question with a simple answer. While our organization is smaller than a larger university, the complexity of our business requirements is comparable. For example, our payroll contains all of the variations of a larger university: full time and part time staff, faculty contracts of every imaginable period of time, student employees, contingent workers, and so on. To use a smaller solution to handle that complexity would require a larger and far more specialized payroll staff, at least some custom application development, and a different IT support structure. All of those things are costly. Instead, we let Oracle worry about providing the functionality to meet those requirements, we let our payroll staff adjust their business processes around that functionality (we are mean that way), provide general IT support from our small pool of staff, and leverage our user group for strategic direction and answers to tough questions. So, to answer my colleague's question, we use a large solution like Oracle PeopleSoft to accomplish our mission: to maximize functionality and minimize cost.
The Importance
I am no analyst, but it does seem to me that business requirements, regulations, and compliance issues are getting more complex. It is probably safe to assume that they will not get simpler any time soon. We are also in a massive recession and resources are scarce. It is probably safe to assume this won't change anytime very soon, either. One way to meet these challenges is to take advantage of the benefits of larger enterprise solutions (to handle increasing complexity) and operate them as efficiently as possible (to handle decreasing resources). The major enterprise technology players (Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, IBM) are spending time and money focusing on small and medium enterprises (SME) recently. I think this is mostly for sales (what isn't?) but I also get the sense that they want to know how SMEs actually run these applications. I wrote a white paper last year (Effective ERP Practices for the Small Institution) that got a good bit of attention from Oracle. I also spoke at Open World last year about this stuff [http://www.slideshare.net/badgerworks/higher-education-acheives-oracle-peoplesoft-roi-presentation] (and went for free, in true oraclenerd style).
I hope that answered some of Chet's questions and maybe raised some new ones. If you have questions or comments drop them here. You might also want to hit my blog for the top 5 FAQs that I get when I speak, write, or consult on this topic. Thanks for reading!
About
Ted [ linkedin | twitter ] is Vice President for Communications and Membership at the Higher Education User Group, MBA and MSIS student at the Johns Hopkins University, Director of Administrative Systems at MICA, and blogger at badgerworks.
One thing I really liked was the small shop that Ted talks about. So often you see IT become the cost center typically due to a lack of planning. 5 people supporting 3000? That's pure awesome. Speaks volumes for Ted and the choices he has made.
Wouldn't it be great if you could effectively run a major ERP suite on a tight budget with only a handful of staff? That is one of the things I do, so Chet asked me to write a bit about it. Specifically, he asked me "how have you integrated Oracle into a small shop? How much work? Hard? Easy?" Hopefully this post will cover those questions.
The What
The enterprise I manage runs a large and scalable ERP application suite: Oracle PeopleSoft Financials, HCM, Campus Solutions, and Enterprise Portal (all on application version 9.0 on PeopleTools 8.49). We have those applications running on an essentially Microsoft technology stack (Windows servers, SQL Server, Active Directory, ILM, and so forth). Our environment is heavily virtualized using VMware. Our mission has always been to maximize functionality and minimize cost. We do a fair job at that, as we deliver this ERP suite to a user base of ~3000 with an IT staff of 5 and a very small budget.
The How
Our modus operandi is basically to run our applications very near vanilla and to keep them as current as possible. This allows us to take full advantage of vendor and peer support and leverage the latest delivered functionality. Staying vanilla keeps operating costs down (no development costs, quick patch cycles, etc.) and allows rapid upgrades. We also do not diversify the technology within our enterprise architecture unless absolutely necessary. That allows our staff to use one skill set across multiple applications. That, in turn, allows us to hire ambitious generalists who are comfortable moving across applications. We minimize training costs by maximizing peer collaboration (very common in the Education and Research industry) and staying very active in user groups (our industry has an exceptional user group, -1 for my bias). We also rarely use consultants and never use implementation/upgrade partners anymore.
The Why
A colleague from a large university asked me recently why, for an organization our size, we did not use a much smaller solution (I think he suggested QuickBooks, +1 for snark). It is a fair question with a simple answer. While our organization is smaller than a larger university, the complexity of our business requirements is comparable. For example, our payroll contains all of the variations of a larger university: full time and part time staff, faculty contracts of every imaginable period of time, student employees, contingent workers, and so on. To use a smaller solution to handle that complexity would require a larger and far more specialized payroll staff, at least some custom application development, and a different IT support structure. All of those things are costly. Instead, we let Oracle worry about providing the functionality to meet those requirements, we let our payroll staff adjust their business processes around that functionality (we are mean that way), provide general IT support from our small pool of staff, and leverage our user group for strategic direction and answers to tough questions. So, to answer my colleague's question, we use a large solution like Oracle PeopleSoft to accomplish our mission: to maximize functionality and minimize cost.
The Importance
I am no analyst, but it does seem to me that business requirements, regulations, and compliance issues are getting more complex. It is probably safe to assume that they will not get simpler any time soon. We are also in a massive recession and resources are scarce. It is probably safe to assume this won't change anytime very soon, either. One way to meet these challenges is to take advantage of the benefits of larger enterprise solutions (to handle increasing complexity) and operate them as efficiently as possible (to handle decreasing resources). The major enterprise technology players (Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, IBM) are spending time and money focusing on small and medium enterprises (SME) recently. I think this is mostly for sales (what isn't?) but I also get the sense that they want to know how SMEs actually run these applications. I wrote a white paper last year (Effective ERP Practices for the Small Institution) that got a good bit of attention from Oracle. I also spoke at Open World last year about this stuff [http://www.slideshare.net/badgerworks/higher-education-acheives-oracle-peoplesoft-roi-presentation] (and went for free, in true oraclenerd style).
I hope that answered some of Chet's questions and maybe raised some new ones. If you have questions or comments drop them here. You might also want to hit my blog for the top 5 FAQs that I get when I speak, write, or consult on this topic. Thanks for reading!
About
Ted [ linkedin | twitter ] is Vice President for Communications and Membership at the Higher Education User Group, MBA and MSIS student at the Johns Hopkins University, Director of Administrative Systems at MICA, and blogger at badgerworks.
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