Registration

The first and most significant thing about going to the Earnest Morial Conventions Centre and seeing inside is the bland look of the place. I know when I arrived at about 10AM Sunday it is early and there are only a few people about but the place feels drab. Also when talking to regular attendees it seems that there is a low key feel compared to previous years. I’m sure it will pick up Monday when the conference starts in earnest. Sorry about the pun!

Anyway I had a very constructive morning passing the time with the original CEO of 7global Karl Roe. Karl looks after SPLA for Microsoft in the Middle East and Africa which is no mean feat. And has possibly the most stamped passport I’ve ever seen.

Even though it’s early in proceedings I’m starting to meet more people including another ex 7global guy Nick Caw who works in the UC arena again for Microsoft in the UK. 7global currently has 3 ex employees who work for Microsoft the other being Martin Walker who mirrors Karl by looking after SPLA in the UK and is due in later today, good to see so many of our people in prominent positions in Microsoft, this probably reflects the fact that we’ve been in the business for a long time providing ASP services back in 2000 and now still out there with SaaS, Incubation Centre and S + S in 2009, ok advert over. I’m just about to have my first meeting of the week. If it goes well it will mean we have found a great addition to our Hosted Dynamics CRM service....

Well the meeting went well, and I hope to progress things when back from WPC. Now there is jazz band playing at maximum volume only a few yards away, great music, just a bit too LOUD. The ability to meet potential partners and add products to our portfolio is my prime objective for the week and although it’s difficult to mention product specifically you will be unsurprised to know that my focus on Mobility, UC, BI and collaboration.

After spending the day in and out of the conference I think that overall there seems to be a big push on Dynamics and the inevitable Windows 7 hype. I also think that there are going to be some big announcements that will have far reaching consequences to hosters like 7global; wave 14 and all that. Talked to some really great people in the 'meet and greet' sessions form places as far apart as Scotland, Mexico and the Middle East.

The most standout thing in that was we all had similar problems and experiences, it is a small world and this certainly is that case when I talk to people at that WW Hosting Summit. That's it for today it's 20:45 and high time I carried on networking, you know what I mean!

Christmas is coming, the inbox is getting fat

Christmas. It has come around with alarming, terrifying speed. It seems like what has already been a manically busy year is getting more manic, like some kind of crazed Greek dance.

Anyway, there's plenty of time for mince pies. What I really want to talk about is the mad, bad and dangerous world of product development. Not what necessarily springs to mind when one thinks of untrammelled anarchy but it can be unless you're disciplined. Having done this a thousand times, and I'm currently doing it again, this focuses the mind.

We're currently reviewing 7global's hosted services, and working on an addition to come out in the New Year. It's one of these products we've been doing in a 'soft' way for years. Now we're re-engineering it for public consumption so I'm eating and sleeping R & D at the moment.

I've found unsuccessful (or at least overlong, underwhelming products and services) are 100% always the result of lack of process. The best ideas, the most original concepts, the most fecund potential markets mean nothing when execution is poor. The result can resemble a bar room brawl in a Western:

*Smash* the CTO shatters a whisky bottle over the Marketing Director's head.
*Crash* the Support Manager hurls the Sales Director onto the ubiquitous poker game table.
*Thunk* the FD floors the Presales Lead before being thrown into the piano player, bringing the rendition of Camp Town Lady to an abrupt halt.

To avoid these unseemly scenes I think there are 5 key steps to take to get this right, forged over the years on the anvil of failure and success. Like so many sensible steps they look simple but are harder to stick to. Worth re-iterating, though.

1. Getting started.

This needs to be the loosest stage. Brainstorming, looking at the competition, establishing clear ambitions for the product. Make sure people are relaxed- some of the best ideas can follow on from the worst at this stage. And vice versa.

2. Planning

You need to look hard at the intended scope. What can it do? What benefits will it deliver? What do people want? Too many times, people focus on the technology without thinking about the customer.

Product Team: "Oooh- look what it can do!"
Customer: "So?"
Product Team: "But look! It does that!"
Customer: "So?"

Strategy and scope are essential. Timelines, costs, resources must all be finalised to make sure everyone is on the same page.

3. Delivery

Making sure everyone is communicating is one of the most important aspects. Working in splendid isolation usually means things don't fit together when you sit down to review. "Oh, I see. You wanted it to do that."

Making sure there's strong project management is essential, too. If you've not done your bit there better be a pretty bloody good explanation.

4. Control

It's essential to keep revisiting the plan. If it's a good one, then it will adapt. The course of technology product development rarely runs smooth. On the plus side, new angles, features and benefits always emerge to enhance your product too. Be careful to manage these new developments (positive and negative) and keep to the objectives and strategy.

5. Launch

Launching a product is often the hardest thing of all. There you need to pull in all the elements of your organisation to understand, market, sell, deliver and support your new clients. Kicking it off in style is also imperative. Never miss an opportunity to sing and dance about the work you've done!

As I say, these are almost truisms. However, I read other people's truisms feeling slightly sheepish that despite their innate truth, I don't follow them myself. So now it's my turn.

Right, time for a bourbon and a game of cards...

Musings on the channel

Living in the business development world like I do I'm always looking closely at (obsessing over?) where we succeed and where we fail. It's essential to understand both (although I much prefer looking at the former rather than the latter for obvious reasons). It's also hard to get to the real truth as it can often be a case of success having many parents and failure being an orphan.

We have built a very successful, vibrant channel for Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM in a very short period of time (less than a year) despite a very real initial scepticism about the hosted model and in the face of some very stiff and very slick competition.

One thing has been our resolute and complete insistence on a channel model. We do not sell direct. We do not offer consultancy, training, development or any of that good stuff our partners do. On one level this has been hard. There's a lot of good money in adding these services. On the other hand it was a 'no brainer' and I'll tell you why.

We're a hosting company! We're not a CRM house. Our people, skill sets, expertise, business acumen, infrastructure, ongoing investments, [deep breath] internal mechanisms, ideology, partnerships and approach have been forged on the anvil of hosted services, not Microsoft Dynamics consultancy. By not trying to fix what ain't broken I think we've been able to provide something that the Dynamics Partner community, largely, really wants. A specialist Microsoft-based hosting provider which is really rather good at delivering applications on demand. As opposed to a really rather rubbish Dynamics Partner that happens to do hosting, which was the alternative.

By grasping this nettle I think we've carved a good niche for ourselves. We're not a telco-doing-hosting-as-well nor are we a Dynamics-Partner-doing-hosting-as-well. We're a hoster doing hosting. Makes sense really.

Please ignore the fact that this post has sidestepped what we do badly- I will go into this, probably on a Monday morning when I'm feeling hacked off. :-)

Partners- a conduit to the real world.

One of the great things about our model is we work with a large number of partners day in, day out. These are typically ISVs who are using us to manage their infrastructure and have a number of individual mini platforms (I say mini. Some are pretty bloody huge but you know what I mean). We get a real insight into the sectors of the economy in which they work which we would never have if we were working in a vertical niche ourselves.

The same is true (more so?) of our Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM partners. We’ve created a network of some really first class and really rather interesting MS CRM partners over the last year or so. One of the things I always find illuminating is what their drivers are and how they tackle the marketplace. Like our ISVs it varies, sometimes fundamentally, from partner to partner and indeed geography to geography.

Take the financial crisis. Not the best place to go looking for new business- or so you’d think. Some of our partners who are targeting this sector (Mayfair, admittedly, rather than the City) are getting a lot of traction with the hosted message. The opex versus capex attraction weaving its magic. Because, ultimately, people need software- it’s just paying for it, and the infrastructure to deliver it, that becomes a bit tricky. One to watch I think.