Businesses benefit from having fewer technology tools in their 'enterprise stack'. Yet CIOs still need to encourage innovation and employ software tools as an enabler for growth and cost reduction. This white paper focuses on the role of Situational Applications platforms to reduce the number of technology platforms whilst increasing opportunities to serve the long-tail of applications demands from individuals and communities of users whose needs are unfulfilled by core enterprise platforms.
In this executive guide to Encanvas Applications Fabric, the company has brought together a series of articles that form a useful overview for executives on why code-less software is so important to businesses wishing to 'go digital'
Policy Administration Modernization: Four Paths for InsurersCognizant
The pivot to digital is fraught with numerous obstacles but with proper planning and execution, legacy carriers can update their core systems and keep pace with the competition, while proactively addressing customer needs.
Five Priorities for Quality Engineering When Taking Banking to the CloudCognizant
As banks move to cloud-based banking platforms for lower costs and greater agility, they must seamlessly integrate technologies and workflows while ensuring security, performance and an enhanced user experience. Here are five ways cloud-focused quality assurance helps banks maximize the benefits.
The Work Ahead in Manufacturing: Fulfilling the Agility MandateCognizant
According to our research, manufacturers are well ahead of other industries in their IoT deployments but need to marshal the investment required to meet today’s intensified demands for business resilience.
Operations Workforce Management: A Data-Informed, Digital-First ApproachCognizant
As #WorkFromAnywhere becomes the rule rather than the exception, organizations face an important question: How can they increase their digital quotient to engage and enable a remote operations workforce to work collaboratively to deliver onclient requirements and contractual commitments?
The Work Ahead: Transportation and Logistics Delivering on the Digital-Physic...Cognizant
The T&L industry appears poised to accelerate its long-overdue modernization drive, as the pandemic spurs an increased need for agility and resilience, according to our study.
In this executive guide to Encanvas Applications Fabric, the company has brought together a series of articles that form a useful overview for executives on why code-less software is so important to businesses wishing to 'go digital'
Policy Administration Modernization: Four Paths for InsurersCognizant
The pivot to digital is fraught with numerous obstacles but with proper planning and execution, legacy carriers can update their core systems and keep pace with the competition, while proactively addressing customer needs.
Five Priorities for Quality Engineering When Taking Banking to the CloudCognizant
As banks move to cloud-based banking platforms for lower costs and greater agility, they must seamlessly integrate technologies and workflows while ensuring security, performance and an enhanced user experience. Here are five ways cloud-focused quality assurance helps banks maximize the benefits.
The Work Ahead in Manufacturing: Fulfilling the Agility MandateCognizant
According to our research, manufacturers are well ahead of other industries in their IoT deployments but need to marshal the investment required to meet today’s intensified demands for business resilience.
Operations Workforce Management: A Data-Informed, Digital-First ApproachCognizant
As #WorkFromAnywhere becomes the rule rather than the exception, organizations face an important question: How can they increase their digital quotient to engage and enable a remote operations workforce to work collaboratively to deliver onclient requirements and contractual commitments?
The Work Ahead: Transportation and Logistics Delivering on the Digital-Physic...Cognizant
The T&L industry appears poised to accelerate its long-overdue modernization drive, as the pandemic spurs an increased need for agility and resilience, according to our study.
The Work Ahead in Utilities: Powering a Sustainable Future with DigitalCognizant
Utilities are starting to adopt digital technologies to eliminate slow processes, elevate customer experience and boost sustainability, according to our recent study.
The Work Ahead in Intelligent Automation: Coping with Complexity in a Post-Pa...Cognizant
Intelligent automation continues to be a top driver of the future of work, according to our recent study. To reap the full advantages, businesses need to move from isolated to widespread deployment.
While many leading companies have the building blocks in place to participate in and leverage social media, many are pausing and asking deeper questions around how they can best evolve and transform their technology systems and operating processes in order to maximize the benefits social media offers.
Our latest market report highlights some of the key themes for our clients this year. Please get in touch with one of the team if you'd like to discuss any aspects further
AI in Media & Entertainment: Starting the Journey to ValueCognizant
Up to now, the global media & entertainment industry (M&E) has been lagging most other sectors in its adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). But our research shows that M&E companies are set to close the gap over the coming three years, as they ramp up their investments in AI and reap rising returns. The first steps? Getting a firm grip on data – the foundation of any successful AI strategy – and balancing technology spend with investments in AI skills.
In this White Paper we provide some insights into the differences between Live-Wireframe applications authoring and programming using traditional tools.
Core Transformation: How Pekin Insurance Modernized Its Systems on AWS - FSI2...Amazon Web Services
Pekin Insurance has undertaken a strategic core transformation program to increase revenue and accelerate product rollout. This program requires modernizing Pekin's core systems, including policy, claims, and billing, by leveraging Guidewire Software and other insurance applications. To meet this requirement and become more agile, Pekin worked with Deloitte to devise a cloud-first strategy of shifting to a hybrid cloud model with AWS and adopting DevOps methodologies. In this session, AWS, Pekin, and Deloitte outline the benefits of running core Insurance systems like Guidewire on AWS. They also explore ways CIOs can transform organizations by converging emerging born-in-the-cloud technologies with business-centric DevOps operating models.
Accelerate Business Growth and Outcomes with AICognizant
Here’s how 10 organizations are using AI to accelerate decision making, improve processes, enhance user engagement, reduce costs and drive business performance.
Just as computing and the World-Wide Web progressed through stages of maturity on the way to full acceptance, artificial intelligence is destined to do the same. By understanding the comparable challenges that were overcome and benefits achieved with earlier technologies, organizations can better see today where AI is heading and ensure that they are properly positioned to reap its full value.
Business and technical requirements of software as-a-service implications in ...ijfcstjournal
Software
-
as
-
a
-
Service (SaaS) is a viable option for some companies bearing their business processes.
There is a considerable adoption rate, with companies already using more than two services for over
two
years. However, while some companies have plans to put more bu
siness processes supported by these
services in the near future, others do not know if they will. They have several concerns regarding t
he
software providers’ service level. These concerns are
mainly technical and functional issues, service
availability an
d payment models.
There are major changes compared to the traditional software that have
implications on how the software is developed and made
available to the users. The existing research
addresses specific aspects and few studies give a broader view of the implications of SaaS for anyon
e who
develops and provides software, and also for those who consumes it as an end user. What are the real
n
eeds of the Portuguese market? What fears and what is being done to mitigate them? Where should we
focus our attention related to the SaaS offering in order to create more value? Thus, to analyze the
se
questions four exploratory case studiesare used to ass
ess the possible implications of SaaS on software
developers or software providers based in Portugal and also on end
-
users.
This article appears in the context of a realistic and deep research that includes the involvement o
f
managers, leaders and decisio
n makers of Portuguese companies, to realize what actually constitutes a
problem in SaaS and what effectively companies would like to have available in this offer. The resul
ts of
this study reveal that SaaS effectively constitutes a very interesting and so
lid solution for the development
of Portuguese companies, however there is a lack for greater efforts particularly in terms of custom
ization
for each customer (tenant) and integration with the back
-
end on
-
premise applications
Why IT Struggles With Digital Transformation and What to Do About Itrun_frictionless
To win the digital transformation race, successful CIOs need to overcome three immense challenges: Massive backlogs, legacy debt and scarce resources. And, at the same time they need to embrace new methods, better suited to fast-paced innovation.
www.runfrictionless.com
Booz Allen brings its pioneering work in advanced analytics—and the industry-leading expertise of its more than 500-member data science team—to transform our clients’ data into actions that keep them competitive in today’s data-driven economy.
Booz Allen’s industry-leading tradecraft helps clients solve problems previously considered beyond reach. We employ groundbreaking approaches in virtually every area of data science, including analytic techniques, modeling and simulation, optimization, data visualization, and infrastructure development.
To further push that envelope, Booz Allen has made major investments in transformative technologies to help clients. For the first time ever, our Cloud Analytics Reference Architecture gives clients the ability to bring together and harness all of their available data, of all types. Our pioneering breakthroughs in computer vision, machine learning, natural language processing and other capabilities are now enabling clients to drive mission and business success in new ways.
Situational applications and their role in enterprise it strategyNewton Day Uploads
In this article a describe how situational applications have come of age through enterprise situational applications platforms - and how they are helping organizations to rationalize IT platforms and empower innovation by producing tens if not hundreds of applications
Traditional application delivery is broken and cannot keep up with demands of the digital age. However, Low-code Platforms are emerging as key enablers to innovation by simplifying the development and deployment of custom enterprise apps.
The Work Ahead in Utilities: Powering a Sustainable Future with DigitalCognizant
Utilities are starting to adopt digital technologies to eliminate slow processes, elevate customer experience and boost sustainability, according to our recent study.
The Work Ahead in Intelligent Automation: Coping with Complexity in a Post-Pa...Cognizant
Intelligent automation continues to be a top driver of the future of work, according to our recent study. To reap the full advantages, businesses need to move from isolated to widespread deployment.
While many leading companies have the building blocks in place to participate in and leverage social media, many are pausing and asking deeper questions around how they can best evolve and transform their technology systems and operating processes in order to maximize the benefits social media offers.
Our latest market report highlights some of the key themes for our clients this year. Please get in touch with one of the team if you'd like to discuss any aspects further
AI in Media & Entertainment: Starting the Journey to ValueCognizant
Up to now, the global media & entertainment industry (M&E) has been lagging most other sectors in its adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). But our research shows that M&E companies are set to close the gap over the coming three years, as they ramp up their investments in AI and reap rising returns. The first steps? Getting a firm grip on data – the foundation of any successful AI strategy – and balancing technology spend with investments in AI skills.
In this White Paper we provide some insights into the differences between Live-Wireframe applications authoring and programming using traditional tools.
Core Transformation: How Pekin Insurance Modernized Its Systems on AWS - FSI2...Amazon Web Services
Pekin Insurance has undertaken a strategic core transformation program to increase revenue and accelerate product rollout. This program requires modernizing Pekin's core systems, including policy, claims, and billing, by leveraging Guidewire Software and other insurance applications. To meet this requirement and become more agile, Pekin worked with Deloitte to devise a cloud-first strategy of shifting to a hybrid cloud model with AWS and adopting DevOps methodologies. In this session, AWS, Pekin, and Deloitte outline the benefits of running core Insurance systems like Guidewire on AWS. They also explore ways CIOs can transform organizations by converging emerging born-in-the-cloud technologies with business-centric DevOps operating models.
Accelerate Business Growth and Outcomes with AICognizant
Here’s how 10 organizations are using AI to accelerate decision making, improve processes, enhance user engagement, reduce costs and drive business performance.
Just as computing and the World-Wide Web progressed through stages of maturity on the way to full acceptance, artificial intelligence is destined to do the same. By understanding the comparable challenges that were overcome and benefits achieved with earlier technologies, organizations can better see today where AI is heading and ensure that they are properly positioned to reap its full value.
Business and technical requirements of software as-a-service implications in ...ijfcstjournal
Software
-
as
-
a
-
Service (SaaS) is a viable option for some companies bearing their business processes.
There is a considerable adoption rate, with companies already using more than two services for over
two
years. However, while some companies have plans to put more bu
siness processes supported by these
services in the near future, others do not know if they will. They have several concerns regarding t
he
software providers’ service level. These concerns are
mainly technical and functional issues, service
availability an
d payment models.
There are major changes compared to the traditional software that have
implications on how the software is developed and made
available to the users. The existing research
addresses specific aspects and few studies give a broader view of the implications of SaaS for anyon
e who
develops and provides software, and also for those who consumes it as an end user. What are the real
n
eeds of the Portuguese market? What fears and what is being done to mitigate them? Where should we
focus our attention related to the SaaS offering in order to create more value? Thus, to analyze the
se
questions four exploratory case studiesare used to ass
ess the possible implications of SaaS on software
developers or software providers based in Portugal and also on end
-
users.
This article appears in the context of a realistic and deep research that includes the involvement o
f
managers, leaders and decisio
n makers of Portuguese companies, to realize what actually constitutes a
problem in SaaS and what effectively companies would like to have available in this offer. The resul
ts of
this study reveal that SaaS effectively constitutes a very interesting and so
lid solution for the development
of Portuguese companies, however there is a lack for greater efforts particularly in terms of custom
ization
for each customer (tenant) and integration with the back
-
end on
-
premise applications
Why IT Struggles With Digital Transformation and What to Do About Itrun_frictionless
To win the digital transformation race, successful CIOs need to overcome three immense challenges: Massive backlogs, legacy debt and scarce resources. And, at the same time they need to embrace new methods, better suited to fast-paced innovation.
www.runfrictionless.com
Booz Allen brings its pioneering work in advanced analytics—and the industry-leading expertise of its more than 500-member data science team—to transform our clients’ data into actions that keep them competitive in today’s data-driven economy.
Booz Allen’s industry-leading tradecraft helps clients solve problems previously considered beyond reach. We employ groundbreaking approaches in virtually every area of data science, including analytic techniques, modeling and simulation, optimization, data visualization, and infrastructure development.
To further push that envelope, Booz Allen has made major investments in transformative technologies to help clients. For the first time ever, our Cloud Analytics Reference Architecture gives clients the ability to bring together and harness all of their available data, of all types. Our pioneering breakthroughs in computer vision, machine learning, natural language processing and other capabilities are now enabling clients to drive mission and business success in new ways.
Situational applications and their role in enterprise it strategyNewton Day Uploads
In this article a describe how situational applications have come of age through enterprise situational applications platforms - and how they are helping organizations to rationalize IT platforms and empower innovation by producing tens if not hundreds of applications
Traditional application delivery is broken and cannot keep up with demands of the digital age. However, Low-code Platforms are emerging as key enablers to innovation by simplifying the development and deployment of custom enterprise apps.
The ecosystem equation collaboration in the connected economy @harvard biz @i...Diego Alberto Tamayo
IT infrastructure will play a vital role in enabling organizations to become
connected economy leaders. With an IT infrastructure designed for cognitive workloads, you can
act at the speed of thought. It accelerates technology breakthroughs through open architectures
that foster collaborative innovation. Finally, it works with your cloud platforms to extend the value
of your systems and data. Put it all together and instead of observing change unfold, you can seize
the opportunities created by the connected economy.
White paper achieving the most economically advantageous applications solutio...Newton Day Uploads
This is a White Paper that I produced in 2010 on the subject of how organizations have the potential to always achieve the most economically advantageous application solution for their business by insourcing IT thanks to the evolution of near-real-time applications authoring.
The importance of effectively using EDI and expanding the
value proposition to mid-sized businesses is paramount.
This white paper discusses how your business can integrate
EDI into its ERP software, improving efficiency and
reducing operational costs by eliminating mistakes and
chargebacks.
How Agile Application Portfolio Rationalization Delivers Digital SuccessCognizant
Application portfolios benefit from frequent tweaks based on honest user feedback; this enables IT to provide the right mix of applications with the least delay and cost to advance business objectives.
The survival kit for your digital transformationrun_frictionless
To go digital, you need an IT organization, an enterprise architecture, IT processes, and tools that allow for new projects to go live tomorrow instead of next week. The ability to do this will give you a competitive advantage and it will also reduce costs. But how do you get there? This white paper will get you there.
https://runfrictionless.com/b2b-white-paper-service/
Changes in the business environment brought by technologyShakthi Fernando
This document is about changes which have occurred within business environment due to technology. Layout of this report is based on the Table 1-1 of the Laudon’s book "Management Information Systems: Managing the digital firm".
Streamline your digital transformation for a future ready venture.LCDF
Streamline your digital transformation for a future ready venture. How the Pandemic How the pandemic impacted DACH Industries the unexpected catalyst for digital Transformation ?
How Can Enterprise App Development Help Your Business Growth.pptxXDuce Corporation
Organizations have seen growth in the demand for enterprise app development. It has made
developers build multiple apps that help their clients to grow business with enterprise
applications. Such as Automated billing systems, Payment processing systems, Email
marketing systems, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP), Business Continuity Planning (BCP), Enterprise Application Integration
(EAI), Enterprise Content Management, Enterprise Messaging Systems (EMS), HR
Management
A conversational path helps B2B marketing professionals to align product management, marcomms and sales activities around profitable conversations that produce predictable sales pipelines. Read more at https://newtonday.uk/what-is-conversational-marketing/
This brochure introduces Encanvas Information Flow Designer, software for creating rules-based information flows. With its rich Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) capabilities, Encanvas IFD is an integral part of Encanvas' Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Suite.
This brochure introduces the subject of the Internet of Things (IoT) and explains how Encanvas can bring value to organizations by providing a cockpit to managing devices.
What sort of technical options does Encanvas offer to extend its capabilities with existing technology tools and data sources? Find out in this technical briefing document.
For businesses looking to drive their digital transformation with a bi-modal IT (two-speed) approach, the majority are looking to grow DevOps (Development Operations) teams. And those teams will need software to build apps faster than ever before. This data sheet explains how Encanvas meets these needs.
The Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data are two hot topics in IT - but what does it mean to your business? This data sheet by Encanvas helps to explain where the value of these innovations lies and how Encanvas helps to lever value from IoT and big data initiatives.
Neuro-symbolic is not enough, we need neuro-*semantic*Frank van Harmelen
Neuro-symbolic (NeSy) AI is on the rise. However, simply machine learning on just any symbolic structure is not sufficient to really harvest the gains of NeSy. These will only be gained when the symbolic structures have an actual semantics. I give an operational definition of semantics as “predictable inference”.
All of this illustrated with link prediction over knowledge graphs, but the argument is general.
Generating a custom Ruby SDK for your web service or Rails API using Smithyg2nightmarescribd
Have you ever wanted a Ruby client API to communicate with your web service? Smithy is a protocol-agnostic language for defining services and SDKs. Smithy Ruby is an implementation of Smithy that generates a Ruby SDK using a Smithy model. In this talk, we will explore Smithy and Smithy Ruby to learn how to generate custom feature-rich SDKs that can communicate with any web service, such as a Rails JSON API.
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
Builder.ai Founder Sachin Dev Duggal's Strategic Approach to Create an Innova...Ramesh Iyer
In today's fast-changing business world, Companies that adapt and embrace new ideas often need help to keep up with the competition. However, fostering a culture of innovation takes much work. It takes vision, leadership and willingness to take risks in the right proportion. Sachin Dev Duggal, co-founder of Builder.ai, has perfected the art of this balance, creating a company culture where creativity and growth are nurtured at each stage.
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI support
Serving the long tail white-paper (how to rationalize IT yet produce more apps)
1. Serving the Long-Tail
of Demand for Enterprise Software
Fewer, better
software platforms
for less $$$s
WHITE PAPER
Originally published in September 2010
Updated in May 2014
Ian Tomlin and Nick Lawrie
2. 2
WHITE PAPER | SERVING THE LONG-TAIL
Introduction
This document describes how Chief Information
Officers and IT procurement leaders can achieve
greater economies and drive through more
process efficiency savings by delivering fewer,
better information systems.
It examines the reasons for a growing long-tail
of demand for situational business applications
and explains why off-the-shelf software
applications may represent both high cost and
high risk answer.
It then qualifies why platforms able to
repeatedly produce and operate situational
applications at very low cost may represent the
best-fit solution to meet long-tail demands.
CONTENTS
A New Economic Imperative
The Bottom Line
Serving the Long-Tail
Codeless Situational Applications Tools
Known Roadblocks
Technology to Empower Process Improvement
Evidence of Results
Qualifying the ROI
3. 3
WHITE PAPER | SERVING THE LONG-TAIL
A New Economic
Imperative
For decades, well established large
organizations with robust business models have
enjoyed IT budgets of relative plenty. But the
slow-down in economic growth of recent years
has installed a new economic reality.
The role of IT in organizations has not changed
fundamentally – even while operating in a
depressed economic period organizations need
information systems to fuel process
improvements, creative innovation, growth and
front-line customer services. What HAS changed
fundamentally is the size of IT budgets, probably
forever. The world of corporate IT is facing a
permanent change in its funding.
To achieve significant cost reductions whilst
avoiding direct impact on frontline services and
growth, organizations are re-visiting how they
run IT and procure services. Decision makers are
pressured to inject innovation into procurement
approaches and to take marginally more risk
where the promise of step-change rewards
exists.
Nowhere is the potential for rewards greater or
more achievable than in the supply of business
software applications that satisfy stakeholder
demands to source innovation in information
systems, improve the efficiency of processes and
inject new ways of engaging with customers and
finding new markets.
4. 4
WHITE PAPER | SERVING THE LONG-TAIL
The Bottom Line
The total cost of IT for organizations should not
exceed 1% of income. For many organizations, a
target outline cost for IT in the order of 0.5% of
turnover is achievable.
Organizations that have already thoughtfully
engineered their IT function, like easyJet in the
United Kingdom, can today run their IT
operations at a cost that represents less than 1%
of total revenues. This compares to the majority
of organizations whose IT costs will range from
1.5% to 6% of income. easyJet is profiting from
moving its core platforms to cloud computing
and adopting Software as a Service solutions for
utility applications like email, calendaring and
office software.
This paper argues that yet more rewards can be
achieved through more thoughtful approaches
to IT procurement without significantly
increasing risk. For organizations that face more
extreme changes to compliance and market
conditions, more can be done to deliver
adaptive, better-fit IT to proportionately more IT
users.
A myopic focus on cost reduction can result in an
inward looking culture that ignores the potential
to power growth through technology innovation.
The potential of IT to create competitive
advantage, boost customer service performance
and streamline business processes to create
operational excellence has taken a knock over
the last two decades – but the potential still
exists for IT to do just that.
5. 5
WHITE PAPER | SERVING THE LONG-TAIL
Serving the Long-Tail
The majority of large enterprise have by now
adopted core platforms for business computing
to service the ‘majority need’ for software
applications. But a faster pace of change in
business markets, the need for greater
compliance and control, greater access to data
made possible by ‘big data’ technologies and
the joint impacts of social networking,
consumerism and mobile working have led to
greater demands by individuals and
communities of users for ‘enterprise-grade’
software applications to meet their ever
changing information needs.
In most large enterprises, the majority need for
applications is met by a small number (i.e. the
top 20%) of enterprise applications. Sourcing
and deploying these ‘big wheels’ of enterprise
computing architecture - that underpin the core
mission-critical processes of the enterprise - has
been the focus of enterprise computing for
decades. Economies from these deployments
come from the adoption of best practice and the
consolidation of business operations to shared
service centres able to fulfil business needs
across the enterprise.
The last decade however has seen an ever
growing demand for additional applications to
respond to the ever changing needs of
individuals and communities. While the net
number of users for these applications may be
lower, the importance of the information, and
the role of these individuals as innovators and
change agents in the enterprise, has placed
greater pressure on IT and procurement
departments to source an ever increasing range
of business applications.
This demand by smaller numbers of users for
higher numbers of applications has become
known as the ‘Long-Tail’.
Situational applications platforms meet this need
by providing a common technology platform able
to repeatedly author applications and deliver
them to individuals or communities of users in a
fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost
of traditional tools. This is made possible by
their adoption of codeless authoring and use of
ready-to-use templates and design building
blocks that negate use of traditional best-of-
breed platform tools and coding skills.
The first ever situational application platform
was the spreadsheet. Times are changing.
Information workers need to deal with much
bigger data sets and IT leaders must ensure that
data is organized, always-secure and any
software application must adhere to necessary
standards of governance and compliance. The
new generation of situational applications
platforms like Encanvas (www.encanvas.com)
are engineered to meet ‘IT hygiene standards’ of
security, performance and scalability, yet they
provide unrivalled self-service tooling to enable
web workers to exploit existing systems data.
The ‘long-tail’ of demand for situational apps
6. 6
WHITE PAPER | SERVING THE LONG-TAIL
Encanvas was created 2002 by the founders of
NDMC Consulting. The founders believed that
business users would seek to work in social
groups that would span across and beyond
enterprise boundaries and, having experienced
this new form of business workplace, key
knowledge workers and creative contributors to
business processes would seek to be able to
author applications for their communities in a
form purposely sculptured to the needs of the
community of use.
This idea of socially-centric, built-for-purpose
and potentially thrown-away software was
unknowingly endorsed by technology thought-
leader Clay Shirky in his essay ‘Situated Software’
published in March 2004 when he wrote, “Part
of the future I believe I'm seeing is a change in
the software ecosystem which, for the moment,
I'm calling situated software. This is software
designed in and for a particular social situation
or context. This way of making software is in
contrast with what I'll call the Web School (the
paradigm I learned to program in), where
scalability, generality, and completeness were
the key virtues.”
In August 2007, Luba Cherbakov and a team
from IBM wrote the first of two articles on what
they described as ‘Situational Applications’.
In their paper titled ‘SOA meets situational
applications, Part 1: Changing computing in the
enterprise’, Cherbakov and her colleagues
defined the attributes of Situational Applications,
stating, “The loosely accepted term situational
applications describe applications built to
address a particular situation, problem, or
challenge. The development life cycle of these
types of applications is quite different from the
traditional IT-developed, SOA-based solution.
SAs are usually built by casual programmers
using short, iterative development life cycles that
often are measured in days or weeks, not
months or years. As the requirements of a small
team using the application change, the SA often
continues to evolve to accommodate these
changes. Significant changes in requirements
may lead to an abandonment of the used
application altogether; in some cases it's just
easier to develop a new one than to update the
one in use.
The emergence of BIG DATA technologies has led
to the rediscovery of the important role of
expert situational applications tooling as
organizations acknowledge the need to equip
analysts and middle-managers with self-service,
community-centric applications to assimilate,
analyse and act on the actionable insights
they’re surfacing.
Nevertheless, situational applications remain a
largely misunderstood concept in enterprise
computing due to many misguided pre-
conceived notions that are now proven to be
fatally flawed. These include:
•Applications that can be designed cheaply
enough to ‘throw-away’ can’t possibly be
expected to meet enterprise data integration,
security, performance and tuning expectations.
•It’s not possible to create the critical-mass of
building blocks and tooling required to remove
the majority of programming overheads.
•Organizations are better off buying best of
breed solutions, to then mackle them together.
•There is no competitive advantage to be gained
from IT as companies now use the same
platforms.
•If players like Microsoft, Google, Oracle and
IBM haven’t made it work then it isn’t possible!
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Codeless Situational
Applications Tools
SITUATIONAL APPLICATIONS represent the
MAJORITY of emerging demands for software
‘systems’ beyond the core platform
components of Financial and Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) systems.
Situational Applications Platforms are cloud-
based tool-kits that support repeated production
of situational applications. Their commercial
licensing or rental models presume that
organizations will produce a near-infinite
number of business applications. They offer an
alternative approach for the provision of new
applications to serve the long-tail of demand.
Before engaging a procurement process or
custom coding development, the majority of
‘systems’ requirements are considered for
internal delivery by business analysts embedded
into change management teams (and motivated
through targeted remuneration packages to
improve the process areas they serve).
Situational applications development is
performed on software platforms that analysts
can use themselves to create applications in
consort with stakeholders to support
improvements in business processes without
having to code or acquire tools and skills that
would necessitate an ‘IT project’.
This approach places focus and rewards on
process improvement and business outcomes
rather than the technology componentry.
Situational Applications offer a practical
alternative to custom coding, software
procurement or outsourcing.
Benefits of this method:
Project complexity and risk is removed
by creating applications in workshops
No programming skills and competencies
are needed.
No dependencies exist for middle-ware
software or third party tools in areas
such as business intelligence, geo-spatial
intelligence etc.
New applications are created without
additional software costs
No costs are associated with browser
compatibility testing, applications re-
working, de-bugging or performance
tuning.
No version upgrades or maintenance
costs apply.
Economies of self-authoring business applications
without custom coding (Source: Encanvas Inc.)
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Known Roadblocks
A series of road-blocks have prohibited
innovation in IT procurement approaches to
serve the long-tail of demand for software
applications. Thanks to developments in the
science and application of computing, these
roadblocks have now been overcome.
Norms of IT buying behaviour
Problem: There is a widely held view in business
IT procurement circles that ready-built software
represents a lower risk than custom-built
software. This is mainly because buyers presume
projects will require custom programming.
Furthermore, IT buyers are pressured to consider
outsourcing as a means of offsetting cost
without being able to monetize the ‘downside’ of
outsourcing strategies, or consider alternative
insourcing strategies.
IT buyers must look beyond accepted sourcing
approaches if they are to achieve step-change
cost and efficiency benefits made possible by
new innovations in computing.
Overcoming limitations of Web browsers
Problem: Until very recently it wasn’t possible to
provide assurances to corporate IT buyers over
the performance, security and usability of
applications delivered via web browsers owing to
the limitations of operating systems platforms
and browsers. The presumption continues to
pervade that applications installed on a client or
server internally are somehow ‘better’.
Recent events in the development of web-
based computing such as increased competition
in the web browser market resulting from
Google’s entry, market acceptance of AJAX
technology, the release of HTML 5, the launch by
Microsoft of Active Server Pages (ASP) 3.5 etc.
have collectively made possible the design,
deployment and operation of Rich Internet
applications in a client server architecture that
perform just as well as (if not better than) pre-
installed desktop and server software.
Project cost and complexity resulting from
custom programming
Problem: It is presumed that custom
applications can only be developed by custom
programming.
New innovative (so-called ‘codeless’) software
like Encanvas Secure&Live facilitates the design,
deployment and operation of sophisticated Rich
Internet Business Applications without the need
for custom programming. Applications are
developed by business analysts working closely
with stakeholders and users. Applications are
designed in workshop environments without the
need to programme.
Use of multiple development tools
Problem: It is presumed that new applications
developments will require multiple separate
technology components to discharge the varied
functions of a business application – such as
database, workflow software, intranet and
content management software, reporting and
dashboarding (business intelligence) software,
mobile computing software, geo-spatial
information and mapping software etc. For each
of these software tools, unique IT competencies
are needed, leading to large project teams and
complex projects.
New codeless software development platforms
like Encanvas adopt an approach similar to
LEGO® whereby building blocks of technology
are ready-made so that applications designers
can create new applications with all of the
necessary features supplied ‘out-of-the-box’
without custom programming.
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Dependence on middleware
Problem: When data is held in different systems
and in different formats, it has been traditionally
very difficult to acquire and return data to and
from new software applications. Another
presumption therefore exists that it’s not
possible to easily acquire and return data to
different systems at the same time, or robustly
govern the security and organization of data.
The advent of enterprise mashup technology
and services oriented computing has overcome
these obstacles. It means that new applications
can be rapidly created that re-use data that
exists in internal systems or is accessible via the
web without compromising security or systems
resilience. Products like Encanvas include
sophisticated data acquisition, data
transformation, data aggregation, data query
design and database creation features thereby
removing any dependency for middleware tools
to exist.
Software development project complexity
Problem: Decades of failed IT projects have
convinced IT buyers that custom software
applications are high risk. IT projects often fail as
the result of several associated factors that
combine to create complexity:
1. Organizations have been traditionally
required to use many tools to develop
software applications.
2. Use of multiple tools demands multiple
competencies; therefore the number of
people required for projects swell.
3. Communications between project
outcome specifiers and deliverers break
down. Applications are programmed
‘offline’ in backrooms against a design
specification that must be authored at a
time when it’s difficult (if not impossible)
to envision the end solution and whether
it will deliver an ROI.
4. The need for programming (particularly
in the area of logic scripts and user
interface appearance) leads to large
volumes of custom code that is non re-
usable yet must be tested for cross-
browser compatibility, security, server
performance and resilience. This results
in a major cost overhead for testing and
debugging on any custom project.
5. Owing to poor communications between
project sponsors and deliverers, it’s
common for large amounts of re-
working and editing of applications to be
required amounting to as much as 15%
of project total costs.
In simple terms, demands for custom
programming and large number of tools results
in project process complexity and poor
collaboration between project sponsors and
delivers resulting in high project cost, long
delivery timeframes, unpredictable ROIs and
high risks.
The solution to these challenges is to adopt
agile design software that business analysts can
use to deliver applications without needing to
resort to programming and complex IT projects.
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Technology to
Empower Process
Improvement
The internal delivery of situational applications
by business analysts (embedded into change
teams) presumes the existence of development
tools business analysts can master to build,
deploy and support robust applications by
themselves - without custom coding - in order
to embed IT expertise into change teams.
To adopt SITUATIONAL APPLICATIONS DELIVERY
three things need to happen:
1. A codeless platform for situational
applications design and delivery should be
selected and installed.
2. Analysts should be trained in situational
applications project delivery.
.
3. IT procurement ‘norms of behavior’ should
consider suitability of situational
applications before turning to off-the-shelf
software solutions.
These three key steps are described in more
detail here:
1. Installing tools
Provision of an integrated applications platform
that supports design, deployment and delivery of
situational application means that analysts are
able perform both design and delivery roles. This
bleed of the IT function into change teams
dramatically reduces the number of people
engaged in IT projects and the level of expertise
required of candidates. It dramatically reduces
dependencies on internal programming teams
and outside consultants.
Organizations like Volkswagen Group have for
several years adopted Process Improvement
Managers as part of change teams. These
individuals are expert IT professionals
(traditionally business analysts or IT project
programme managers) and possess both an
understanding of business processes and
technology. Motivated by remuneration plans
associated with process improvement targets
and achievements, the focus of process
improvement managers is to instigate and
deliver perpetual improvement in core business
processes, rather than simply build applications.
2. Equipping the analysts
For situational applications delivery to be
successful, analysts require a common toolset
(computing platform) that can design, deploy
and operate potentially hundreds of secure and
live portal spaces containing hundreds of
applications without creating a burden on IT
resources or creating performance, security and
systems resilience issues.
The economics of the platform must enable
applications to be designed and then discarded,
modified or sustained without high costs to
encourage innovation and the creative use of IT.
It’s important that business software
applications can be iteratively designed in real
time by analysts working in workshop
environments without requiring programming
teams or advanced IT programming skills; or the
need to work with multiple technology tools that
would demand too high a level of skills and
competencies for any single person to master
application design.
It’s important that the selected software
application platform delivers Rich Internet
experiences and levels of collaboration now
expected of modern applications – a benchmark
standard that is guided by the quality of
applications offered to consumers by both Apple
and Google.
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3. IT procurement norms should adapt
Unless IT procurement practises adapt,
possibilities for insourcing through situational
applications delivery can never be achieved as
successive applications requirements are
packaged into boxes for procurement without
consideration being given to alternative sourcing
approaches.
Encanvas Secure&Live is an example of a
purpose-built technology platform to support
situational applications delivery by analysts.
Encanvas Secure&Live adopts technology
architecture similar in ethos to LEGO
,
employing ready-made building blocks of
technology by a single person with a single skills-
set to author applications that install new ways
of capturing, analyzing, presenting and sharing
information. No programming skills are required
to use the software.
All of the components of Encanvas are built in
the same way – including design elements for
business intelligence, mapping, social networking
and collaboration etc. – so one person can ably
deliver cradle-to-grave software applications
without exhaustive knowledge of traditional IT
competencies.
Situational Applications - Achieving a step-change in
applications delivery
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Evidence of Results
Moving to situational applications delivery for
business applications is a proven formula for
rapid ROI in the creation of cost-effective, low
risk projects as evidenced by these examples
kindly provided by Encanvas Inc.
Ernst & Young
The senior partners of one of the largest and
most successful professional services firms were
finding it extremely difficult to evidence their
supplier credentials for new projects owning to
weaknesses in their IT systems. Whilst much was
known about past projects, clients and staff
expertise, none of this information was in a
single place. As a consequence, much manual
work was involved in bringing together
evidentiary content for inclusion into bids. In the
full knowledge that no off-the-shelf solution
existed, and with many varied expectations
being outlined by the many country leads, the
project lead for the international Power and
Energy Knowledge Center elected to use
Encanvas to work iteratively with business
analysts to develop a solution. Over a period of
6-weeks a series of forms and data structures
were designed that aggregated data and
presented a ‘single page view’ of past Ernst &
Young projects. With the advantage of iterative
development, the system was seen to offer a
best-fit solution after 12 weeks of User
Acceptance Testing and was later adopted as an
enterprise system.
Transport for London
In 2003, the world’s largest metropolitan
transport authority, responsible for both the
strategic planning and provision of transport
services for London found itself challenged to
meet new compliance requirements as the result
of the 2004 Traffic Management Act. The lack of
coordination of road works undertaken by street
works undertakers including its own activities
and those of the 33 London boroughs meant
there was an unnecessary frequency of
disruptive works across the region. Seldom did
on organization take advantage of work being
undertaken by another to minimize congestion.
It was recognized that a cross-industry
partnership working portal was needed that
could capture the relevant details of proposed
works, accurately plot them and then make the
proposed works available for viewing to all
interested parties in a secure environment to
enable coordination and arbitration processes
that would ensure the most efficient
implementation of the proposed works.
Having proven that, by using Encanvas, it was
possible to edit maps (plot road works) and store
spatial data in one integral record, the
application was built and deployed as a secure
extranet in 6 1/2 man-days during an elapse
period of 12 weeks.
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Canon Europe Ltd
New compliance procedures placed on its
Japanese parent meant that the
European marketing headquarters operation of
Canon Business Solutions was given a 6-week
deadline to formalize the way it managed license
distribution of the utility software tools it
provided with its hardware. An administrative
system was needed to monitor the distribution
of software utilities across Europe with 100%
traceability and full statistical analysis
capabilities. From concept to completion, the
internal team used Encanvas to develop and
deploy a solution in less than 2 weeks.
Sponsor comments - ‘Against a very tight
deadline, we’ve achieved the delivery of a
sustainable compliance management solution
that minimizes administrative overheads placed
on the team.’
West Sussex County Council
At the introduction of the Traffic Management
Act in 2004, WSCC identified the current
information management of the Council was
unworkable if all aspects of the new legislation
were to be met. Engineers were required to
reference six different systems to build a picture
of planning considerations – and even then
mistakes could be easily made. The project team
identified the sources of data from across the
department and mapped out requirements.
Samples of each of the data sources were
gathered and a ‘start-point’ proof of concept was
developed. This was presented to a workshop of
users and stakeholders who spent a day
discussing the format and operation of the
system. The systems design was completed
during workshops and a fully functioning system
was deployed in 2 days.
Sponsor comments-‘It is via Encanvas that we
were able to demonstrate regionally what true
GIS coordination was about, before any of the
later industry systems.’
West Midlands ‘Mattisse’ Project (Telent Ltd)
The Transport Authority for the West Midlands
(UK) operating a transport and travel incident
management system found their existing IT
solution consumed the annual budget on
maintenance alone leaving no resources for
improvement. This meant that new users and
uses couldn’t be accommodated although a new
legislative was leading to demand for richer,
more accessible information. Using Encanvas,
the system was redeveloped as a client - server
solution able to support no-client browser use.
The application included geo-mapping of data,
data entry/update forms and reports. Encanvas
was chosen as it presented the most
economically advantageous option, providing the
fastest application time to market and lowest
operational overhead for customer. Other
rewards included affordable economics, reduced
project risk, sustainability and adaptability.
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Qualifying the ROI
To measure the ROI advantages of insourcing
made possible by situational applications
delivery you don’t need to expose your
organization to high risk or costs.
Trial implementations from software platform
suppliers like Encanvas mean that organizations
can affordably trial situational applications
delivery by simply equipping one or two business
analysts with the skills and tools they need to
develop applications on-demand.
Vendors like US Tech Solutions, Wolfpack Risk,
NDMC, Sovereignty Technology and Ambridge
Consulting provide introductory programmes
combining training, coaching and software
provisioning to equip organizations with the
know-how and tools to move to situational
applications delivery as a sustainable model for
supporting systems modernization and process
improvement.
The Encanvas ‘ROI Builder’ programme consists
of the following:
Introduction to Situational Applications
Delivery
1-day Workshop
Training for Business Analysts
3-day training (normally onsite)
Coaching and Knowledge Transfer
Including the provisioning of knowledge transfer
for business analysts and IT departments
6-days of consulting time
Platform Supply and Installation
Supplied on 21-day trial
Copyright Encanvas Inc. 2010 - 2014. Encanvas is a registered trademark of Encanvas Limited. All other trade
names and trademarks used in this document are recognized as belonging to their respective owners.