If you’re an ISV for Microsoft, SalesForce or one of the many ISV focused software vendors then you’re busy and looking for ways to improve your offering, enhance customer retention, and to boost profitability.
We frequently meet with ISV’s and note a recurring theme in relation to project and operations management; the need to integrate project delivery and operational management together into a single system.
This theme is fostered by two repeating factors: a) an increase in business and a corresponding or exponential increase in the quantity of work and challenges related to that work; and b) an awareness of IT capability borne from their own appreciation of information technologies and how they can improve business process.
When ISV’s talk about “Operations Management” they are not talking about ITOM, which is something completely different. ISV’s are referring to the work that the organization does to deliver projects and services to the customer. It can include EVERYTHING in the business and almost always includes the delivery of projects and the ongoing services related to those projects when they become operational activities.
More specifically, a project which, when completed and delivered, then becomes an operational activity that is repeated on a periodic cycle. Each new project increases the load on the organization substantially, permanently and with each addition the problems resulting from lack of integration increase exponentially.
ISV’s have identified significant benefits to their businesses and customer relationships resulting from the combining of project and operational work streams into a single work spectrum. These include:
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- More appropriate resource management: The Project and Operational resources often overlap which can result in resource overload, slipped timelines, and missed tasks. Having all of the information about resource usage and allocation in a single system means more appropriate resource management.
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- Improved work intelligence: A single view of projects, tasks and operational activities improves team member and manager intelligence thus providing insight on what’s really happening across their work spectrum.
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- Enhanced project management: Awareness of resource work spectrums allows for improved scheduling and resource risk mitigation.
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- Enriched customer communication: The quality and quantity of information available to customers improves and increases respectively when information is captured and reported in a unified system.
- Increased capacity: A streamlined approach to projects and operations increases capacity through expanded project and operations management. Managers are working with better information so there is better management occurring.
If you’re a busy ISV and looking for ways to improve your offering, enhance customer retention and to boost profitability then you may want to consider integrating projects and operations. Converging these two steams into a single work spectrum that includes all of your client work will increase your capacity and profitability.
