Tags Change, Collaboration, Data management

Inspiring change

Taking advantage of the latest developments in collaborative software and services oriented architecture (SOA) can bring lasting benefits to your business, as Oliver Cann discovers.

The word interoperability crops up a lot these days. Inspired by the need to navigate across different IT architectures, getting your multiple systems to exchange and use information offers real benefits to your business.

Making your systems talk to another has always sounded easier to do in theory than in practice, especially if you don’t have the benefit of a large IT budget.

But new developments in collaborative software – involving building ready made services such as document sharing, instant messaging and online learning on to a services oriented architecture (SOA) – makes interoperability available to SMBs for the first time.

“Collaboration is all about the ways in which individuals work together,” says Tim Davies of MERISIS, a York-based IBM business partner rolling out Workplace solutions to existing and new SMB customers. “We’ve moved on from organisations where everyone is based in the same office to having lots of people based at home, in different locations or geographies. Email was the first form of collaboration, now we’ve moved beyond that to give members of a team the right tools to collaborate in different ways, including document sharing, instant messaging or Web-based conferencing.”

John Kerry is IT executive at Dewhirst Group Plc, a UK based manufacturer of high street clothing and sportswear. MERISIS recently worked with Dewhirst to implement IBM’s Workplace Services Express (WSE) collaborative environment, to improve team working across its 18 UK and overseas sites. According to Kerry: “Collaboration software is the natural successor to the system we’d been running for the past two years. Historically we’d used MRP [Manufacturing Resource Planning] for the core manufacturing, distribution and finance areas of our business, but we identified that the product development phase of our business process would benefit from improved systems.

“Common versions of documentation need to be shared and easily accessed from all our business locations, and this new system replaces the emailing of documents to team members.

“Now, everybody knows exactly where to look, and that they are all using the same version of information,” Kerry explains. The cost savings behind a portal-based collaborative environment such as this are not always tangible, but the main business benefits will come from a more efficient product development cycle.

This is critical as 90 per cent of Dewhirst’s revenue comes from one customer, Marks & Spencer – productivity and accuracy are key to maintaining a close business relationship.

Having said this, Kerry says an actual return on the investment will soon be delivered: “The benefit of the new system is that it allows us to present a variety of IT services and applications through a common look and feel. The vast majority of today’s users are familiar with a browser environment in the home and this has made a significant difference in the learning curve for new systems. We’ve seen hard evidence of this with the introduction of applications such as the new product development system, which we were able to deploy rapidly to users within a matter of hours rather than days.

“It makes systems so much easier to roll out,” adds Kerry, “especially to our sites in the Far East and Morocco.”

Dewhirst also intends to deliver other collaborative applications such as a product quality audit system, together with possible expansion of its capabilities to enable better communications to suppliers.

“We have a framework in place now that meets all our short- and medium-term requirements. There’s a need for further improvements, but if the standard product doesn’t meet our needs, we can always supplement it with something that does: as a platform, it integrates very well,” says Kerry.

And as for the customer side, M&S determines to a large extent how the two firms communicate. New communications are going to be Web-based, rather than through traditional means such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), and Kerry believes that “WSE positions us well for such developments.”

For now, the early adopters are reaping the benefits of the improved opportunities for interoperability that are entering the marketplace.

However, talk to most businesses about interoperable, collaborative networks in the workplace and the response usually involves eye rolling comparisons with that other seemingly impossible dream, the networked home (which is still unattainable for all but the wealthiest or most persistent early adopter). Thankfully, signs are that things are going to change.

“IBM has a reputation for dealing only with enterprises but this couldn’t be further from the truth as there is a huge portfolio of software aimed at the SMB. A lot of customers we talk to didn’t know there was an alternative to Microsoft, especially one that was out of the box and build on open standards, rather than the proprietary software they’re used to.”

The thinking is that businesses will start moving towards implementing collaboration-based software in ever larger numbers. The smart thinking on SOA, which is widely held to be the most efficient way to enhance interoperability between business systems, is that it will only enter the mainstream this year. And with greater adoption will come the legitimising benefit of having specific standards being written around it.

As Davies at MERISIS says, “By creating a more collaborative environment for business, through WSE, we’re bridging the gap between the various systems already in place. We became aware of it last year and saw it was going to big: we wanted to be right at the top of the wave.”

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