
The enterprise strikes back - billclerico
http://sufficientlyadvanced.net/the-enterprise-strikes-back
======
edw519
_Design matters more than the feature checklist_

Not in any enterprise I've ever serviced.

What enterprise people really need to know:

I already know from existing reporting that 984 orders (18% of our backlog)
are already past due. For those 984 orders:

    
    
      - How many are for one item and how many are for multiples?
      - Do we own what we owe those customers?
      - If we do own it, is it in the proper warehouse?
      - If it is in the proper warehouse, can we find it?
      - If we can find it, is it undamaged and certified?
      - If it's shippable, do we have enough labor to ship it?
      - If it isn't certified, how soon can QA certify it?
      - If it isn't in the right warehouse, can we move it?
      - If we don't own any, where can we get some?
      - Which vendors have it on the shelf?
      - Which vendors do we have blanket purchase orders with?
      - Which vendors do we have contracts with?
      - Which orders can be split to satisfy a partial?
      - Which orders are for customers already on credit hold?
      - Which customers are threatening not to renew with us?

and (ironically) the most asked question of all: \- Which orders must be
shipped to hit our quarterly numbers?

Enterprise solutions better answer these questions. If they're pretty, that's
a bonus, but well designed tools that don't answer these questions are just
lipstick on a pig.

~~~
mbesto
_Not in any enterprise I've ever serviced._

Nor I. However, mobile _is_ indeed changing they way IT thinks. I've recently
attended both a large mobile conference (AppsWorld) and an SAP conference
(SAPPHIRE/TechEd). Every person that is implementing mobile in the enterprise
is saying the same thing - capturing the mobile experience is important. But,
there are so very few organizations doing it right now.

At SAP SAPPHIRE/TechEd this year there was a massive (I mean took up a very
substantial area of one of the entrances to a conference hall) that was
dedicated entirely to UI/Design Thinking[1]. This has _never_ even had a tiny
booth dedicated to it.

That being said. 2013 is _not_ the year. 2013 is the just the beginning. I
suspect design will become more of the norm in 2014 and beyond. I also suspect
as my generation becomes more and more influencers in enterprise technology we
will see that design creep in. But until the dinosaurs hold the budgets, it
ain't happening anytime soon.

[1]-
[http://www.sapdesignguild.org/community/design/design_thinki...](http://www.sapdesignguild.org/community/design/design_thinking.asp)

~~~
roc
Mobile is changing the way enterprises think the same way the web did: very
slowly.

They will recognize the need long before they act on it. And when they act on
it, it will be on an offering built to their specifications, with data
connections to other enterprise systems that they have millions invested in.

And most of the initial mobile rollout for enterprise will be shoddy half-
assed stabs in the dark by the same enterprise vendors they already have, that
are neither well designed, nor disruptive, nor will they deliver on the
promise of mobile particularly well.

~~~
akiselev
The adoption rate may be slow but the market is massive, probably comparable
to consumer web when you include all the medium and large business in the
world. Combined with the fact that smart phones are becoming more and more
popular among the consumers (i.e. the employees of these businesses), the
uncaptured market size is growing fast.

Even now in slow industries like ECAD and MCAD I see AutoDesk, Dassault
Solidworks, and Altium working on more collaborative software like their PDMs
(like Solidworks Vault) and more mobile applications to view and annotate CAD
models. AutoDesk especially has exploded with many web and mobile apps ranging
from 3D scanning to editing and 3d printing.

I don't think 2013 is the year but it is certainly only the beginning.

~~~
Joeri
I disagree that the enterprise market is growing that fast. Each new mobile
enterprise user used to be a laptop enterprise user. This isn't a market
that's drawing in new people, only migrating the existing ones to a different
technology.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
But that's _every_ emerging market. Facebook didn't find a billion new people,
they just got a billion people to do something different with their time, and
that's all any new market does: get people to do something different with
their time, money or attention.

So while the _enterprise_ market isn't growing, the _mobile enterprise_ market
is.

------
BjoernKW
Design and usability do matter, indeed. Most enterprise applications fail
miserably in that respect. However, I'm wondering how or if it is possible at
all to disrupt common enterprise software segments such as:

\- document management \- time tracking \- issue tracking \- project
management \- information management

For all of these there already are great solutions. Most enterprise companies
still to stick to the SAP, IBM and Oracle solutions they're used to, though.
Part of the reason for this is bureaucracy and aversion towards change.
Another issue is support. Companies like IBM can agree on extensive support
and SLAs, which startups or SMEs certainly cannot. Finally, there's this well-
know issue that the people the software is sold to most of the time aren't
those who in the end have to use it.

Anyway, I think the enterprise market is very interesting because there's lots
of money and potential in it.

So, what do you think would be interesting areas of enterprise software to
tackle?

------
vegas
Truly the only blog title which could top this would be "Return of the
ScrumMaster"

I will not be holding my breath for "Attack of the beanlet containers"

------
zerop
It is not enterprise that strikes back, it is the technology that strikes.
Cloud, IT are doing good and so are enterprises and startups in same.

------
michaelochurch
2013 is the year of _open allocation_ : [http://www.quora.com/Software-
Development-Methodologies/What...](http://www.quora.com/Software-Development-
Methodologies/What-is-Open-Allocation)

As the bubble deflates (slowly, because it came up slowly) engineers are
realizing that they're probably _not_ going to make $50 million on their 9th-
employee startup equity and retire at 27, which means they need to optimize
for something different: plan B, for most of them, is interesting work and
career development. This is to the detriment of companies that "seem like"
they could be worth billions based on macroscopics, but that really don't have
better cultures than any other corporation. However, it provides an
opportunity to drink the rest of the tech world's talent milkshake: learn from
companies like Valve and Github and build a culture actually worth caring
about.

------
dschiptsov
Problem with enterprise is not a technology or even design, it is bureaucracy
times mediocrity.)

~~~
edwinnathaniel
The biggest problem with enterprise is budget. People tend to see short-term
gain as opposed to long-term gain.

Bureaucracy and mediocrity are minor compare to the usual mindset of
budgeting.

------
rdudekul
Enterprise needs to wake up as a matter of sustaining their advantage,
otherwise a startup like Airbnb can eat them for lunch. With social media the
market can shift dramatically towards any service that can deliver superior
value to customers. So in my view Enterprises are driven much more by fear
than any inherent need to serve better. Whatever the case may be, it does open
up opportunities galore for astute startups, that have patience to deal with
Enterprise quirks.

