Post Author: Carroll Ross
November 24, 2009
At Collaborative Solutions we are always looking at ways to continually build value for our customers and enable organizations to better realize their investment in PeopleSoft products. It’s one of the reasons we started this Blog. Recently, this value proposition has become more important than ever and once again, Collaborative Solutions has stepped up to the plate to deliver formally introducing our PeopleSoft 9.1 Readiness Roadmap for $9.1K! For those clients who visited us at QUEST Circuit conference in Washington DC last week, you’ve already got a sneak peek at this offering.
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Post Author: Bob Maller
November 3, 2009
After spending 4 days at Workday Rising, tongue still a bit red from the vast amounts of Kool-Aid being digested, it’s time to report what we heard, saw, and felt at Workday’s 3rd annual user conference.
First, some quick facts about Workday, reported by CEO and Chief Customer Advocate, Dave Duffield:
• Current Number of Customers (coming into the conference): 104
• Workday Rising 2009 Attendees: 161 people from 65 customers; 75 from partners; 140 from prospects, deftly named “future customers”; 130 Workday employees
• Current Workday employee count: 390
• Dave’s goal: “have the happiest customers on the planet”
• Dave’s conference objectives. Attendees should leave feeling:
o “My company made a fabulous choice”
o “Workday is delivering exceptional service and trying to improve”
o “Workday listens to our feedback”
o “I can be part of a revolution!”
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Post Author: Rob Young
October 27, 2009
During his keynote to the Workday Rising conference last week (www.workdayrising.com), the partner for enterprise strategy at Altimeter Group, R “Ray” Wang (www.twitter.com/rwang0), picked up on part of Collaborative Solutions’ implementation philosophy. Our approach to minimize time to value and fully utilize consumer-oriented web native software supports more rapid implementation timelines with less up-front and maintenance costs. Ray’s comments led me to reflect on the changes in technology and work environments.
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Post Author: Bob Maller
October 8, 2009
We see it every day as we work with our clients. They embrace the need for a true talent management system. They see the value in an ATS and recruiting system that will give them all the data they would ever need about a candidate. Over time, however, the word “recruit” has became synonymous with “assess,” “track,” or “evaluate.” More time has been focused on collecting data, assessing the candidates, matching skills to needs (all very important tasks, mind you), but less time has been spent on actually recruiting these talented individuals. The task of selling these candidates on the company has often times fallen through the cracks.
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Post Author: Ryan Cassidy
September 24, 2009
Often times our clients are looking for a set of guiding principles as they embark on either a Talent Management Implementation, Business Process Workshops or even when trying to select a Talent Management Vendor. A full Talent Management Suite should not be viewed as a quick, standardized solution. Each client Collaborative Solutions has worked with has a significant number of business needs that are consistent; however each has a unique set of constraints, requirements that support their go to market approach and stated business drivers/objectives to fulfill. Regardless of which path or approach is best for our clients, we always suggest the following items be taken into consideration during the project life cycle.
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Post Author: Ryan Cassidy
July 7, 2009
Continuing our discussion on Vendor Selection, the next topic I’d like to discuss is cost.
Let’s be frank…… You don’t always get what you pay for. Clients can be just as easily swayed into believing that they are being the most cost effective going with the lowest bid while on the flip side can also believe they are getting the best of the best if they pay on the high end. As I write this entry, I can think of recent examples of both situations where firms were trying to “get in the door”. Of course the most common method is to low ball the initial bid and identify “scope creep” during the project to facilitate a higher revenue generating project for the firm. What interesting is that no one benefits in any of this. The firm wins in the short term (sometimes) but most often loses in building a long term partnership with their client and potential future revenue. The client of course loses as what they have to pay is now more than originally budgeted. Why go through that?
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Post Author: Ryan Cassidy
June 23, 2009
Welcome Back!
Continuing the Vendor Selection topic, we now turn our attention to the project team.
Experience and the Personalities of the proposed team are almost of equal importance. The team has to have the requisite professional knowledge and skills, this is obvious, but at the same time successful project teams are created when this professional knowledge is coupled with complimentary personalities.
One of the key areas here is that vendors shouldn’t be proposing just the next person in line on the bench they should be building the right team for each client. Talk to your vendors, understand their staffing methodology, understanding how they went about assembling the proposed team. Unfortunately anyone can go to a recruiting website and find “available” consultants, but do these folks have the full package required to be successful? Can you assemble a viable team in this manner?
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Post Author: Ryan Cassidy
June 3, 2009
Given all that we have been reading lately about the economy, corporate spending cut backs and the general volatility/consolidation of service providers I thought it a good idea to discuss some key points in identifying and working with that trusted provider for the long term. It couldn’t be more important today given the scrutiny on how each dollar is spent and what is received in return. Whether you are investing thousands or even millions of dollars on an ERP system you need to make sure the best decision is being made to meet your company’s objectives. Even as we are a provider of services, we also work with many vendors procuring services for us. Taking from these experiences we can identify some key attributes we think makes for a successful vendor selection.
Over the course of the next few weeks, we will try and break down each one of the key areas from both the client and the service provider perspective. So lets jump in and get started.
First and foremost don’t get caught up in the marketing!
Buy Reality, Don’t buy Perception.
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Post Author: Carroll Ross
January 27, 2009
As businesses continue to look for was to cut costs and squeeze every ounce of value out of their IT dollars, the interest and attention around SaaS solutions continues to grow. As both a partner and a customer with Workday, Salesforce and Taleo, we also continue to see the value this model provides. The following article is more proof positive on the topic.
Software as a Service Market Will Expand Rather than Contract Despite the Economic Crisis, IDC Finds
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — Recent IDC surveys and customer interviews support the finding that the harsh economic climate will actually accelerate the growth prospects for the software as a service (SaaS) model as vendors position offerings as right-sized, zero-CAPEX alternatives to on-premise applications. Buyers will opt for easy-to-use subscription services which meter current use, not future capacity, and vendors and partners will look for new products and recurring revenue streams. As such, IDC has increased its SaaS growth projection for 2009 from 36% growth to 42% growth over 2008.
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Post Author: Carroll Ross
December 6, 2008
As a sit down to write what will be the first of many blog entries, its exciting for me to reflect on how brand image at Collaborative Solutions has evolved during the last year. We set out in early 2008 with a goal of refining our visual image and clarifying our messages about who we are and what we do. The effort was intended to build on the many things we’ve accomplished during our first five years in operation and set the tone for what we will focus on for years to come. We wanted to pick some new, more impactful colors in our brand and better communicate our company initiatives. We found that “being green” was something we all wanted to do a better job at. Of course, when we started discussing the concept of “being green”, it reminded some of us what this used to mean in the consulting world. Many employees any in the company, myself included, cut our early career teeth at one of the “big six” consulting firms where “being green” didn’t evoke thoughts of recycling or alternative energy. Rather, “being green” meant being fresh off the “school bus”, out of our consulting “boot camp” and ready to take on the challenges of our first customers with little or no real world experience. (And, of course, let’s not forget the other green favorites such as “green beans” and ”greenies” since we’re talking about it). It wasn’t a term that was especially complimentary. I also recall it wasn’t a term many customers liked to hear back then.
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