New Social Apps to Speed the Demise of ERP Hegemony
“Mr. CIO, tear down these walls.”
OK, so that’s not exactly what President Ronald Reagan said as he stood outside the Brandenburg Gate nearly 25 years ago. But it is how many employees feel when forced to use ERP systems when what really need is software that is faster to learn and deploy, and easier to use and customize.
“Mr. CIO, embrace social.”
Believe it or not, it was 10 years ago when the Big ERP vendors began talking about offering composite apps to over come the limitations and inflexibility of their software.
As envisioned, composites were going to paint the white spaces left uncovered by their transaction systems. Never happened. Sure, there were some point solutions, but most of these planned apps ended up with an X through them.
Yet, the idea had merit. There will always be a large market for role- and team-based software that can cut across arbitrary application borders, integrate with analytics, and support structured and unstructured content.
Unfortunately, it’s too late for composites as we knew them. What we need instead are social apps that map to how our business processes actually work. For most of what we do each day, we need to collaborate with others. That’s not how ERP or most enterprise apps works.
In fact, one could make the case that many ERP systems were designed to be anti-social. They embrace process automation, not human interaction.
Let’s look at how social apps contrast with traditional software. Here are three case studies:
All Selling is Social
Mary is a new sales rep selling a highly configurable product that has a lot of different features and options. When a customer requests a quote, she turns to a guided selling system to help with the configure-price-quote (CPQ) process.
Now most systems will provide expert guidance on the proper configuration and show the profit potential of the new system. But, what if as she prepares this on her iPad, the software lists the configurations based on the highest customer sat scores? As she scrolls down, the roster of reference accounts automatically changes.
Still, she is a little nervous given that it is the last week of the quarter and this is one of the company’s first deals in the medical device space. She uses her company’s collaboration application to crowdsource answers to some of her questions and for some last minute coaching or advice? As Mary sweeps her finger over the proposed configuration, and quote, up pops up the faces and backgrounds of available expert resources. She selects the pre-sales expert who has earned a badge for her short video on “Overcoming 11th Hour Objections.”
Social performance reviews
It’s near the end of the year and Tony is getting emails from the HR department reminding him that he has to complete the annual performance reviews for the eight people in his group. He’s dreading this. During his own review with his boss, he thought that the feedback didn’t reflect all that he had accomplished in the previous year.
As Tony gets set to type a response to HR, he wonders why his company doesn’t re-invent the yearly exercise and replace it with a continuous feedback loop. And why leave it to only the manager? Let’s open it up so that others can comment on employees’ contributions to projects, deals, events and other ongoing activities.
When HR responds, Tony is thrilled to find that his company is going to begin using a new social performance software application. This will enable him to provide continuous feedback, recognition and coaching for the people on his team. He will also be able to do this for people from other groups in his company, too. Tony also learns that HR is also planning to link the new application into the new collaboration software so that he will be able to do faster summary cycles.
The Social Product Launch
Knowing her passion for wanting to build a social supply chain, the CEO named Ellen as the team leader for the key launch of a first-to-the market consumer appliance. In this new role, Ellen anticipated that she would be inundated with a continuous streams of information on new product requirements, development schedules, costing estimates, pricing plans, sourcing updates, forecast information, competitive intelligence, packaging proposals, launch plans, marketing campaigns, sales and channel training, and the like.
Her first move was to work with IT to set up a couple of collaboration groups based on the specific needs and need-to-know requirements of employees and selected, trusted third parties. What she especially liked about collaboration app was that it would serve as the system of record for all of the team’s communications and approvals.
Ellen also knew that she needed to know what the market was saying about her industry. Her CMO recommend that they invest in for social intelligence software. This would allow the team to “hear” posts on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. As it turns out, this social listening app would become a very valuable tool for the sales and service teams, too, as it uncovered new sales opportunities and acted as an early warning system for any customer issues.
Make Social Happen -- Tear Down the Barriers
The three scenarios cited above all shared the same characteristics: users were driven by the need for speed and relative simplicity. These are attributes not normally associated with transaction systems. They also required some forward-thinking leaders who recognized that they could best run their social business processes by leveraging social software.
CIOs that continue to rely on ERP to run all of their company’s business processes are building an growing barrier between their department and the business. It’s time to tear down that wall.
