hen we enter Jan Baan’s study at castle De Vanenburg, the leading character of this story is busy connecting a hip MacBook Air to a flat screen on the wall. The change-over to the Apple-platform was something to get used to, but meanwhile Baan is an enthusiast user. “This made me really do it”, says Baan pointing at his black iPod Touch. “There are more than 5,000 photos on it and I wanted to do something with them. Also to see whether it is possible to escape the Windows  ‘prison’.” To add laughing that with Cordys he makes it possible to escape the grip of large, inflexible software applications.

The principle of ‘his’ Cordys is really rather simple. First the various IT-components within the business process are uncoupled, disengaged from each other and in a sense also from the technology behind them. Then on the basis of the optimum business process all this is again brought together and orchestrated. Adding new applications or end-user functions, for instance in the form of software as a service (SaaS), is moreover rather simple. The advanced technology that this Lego-like approach makes possible stays to the user for the greater part under the hood. The user interface is a browser dashboard that the business user himself can compose. The final result is that the business users can carry out their tasks easier and more efficiently in these business processes and the process owner will simultaneously get a better streamlined process with clear and direct insight into the operational performance indicators.

Jan Baan likes to use analogies during his explanation. The car is thereby his favorite. During the 90 minutes of the interview we will hear him regularly mention sparkplugs, cables, dashboards and accessories such as the TomTom navigation system, mostly in a striking comparison. After all, the automotive industry, at which the final product is composed on the basis of loose (standard) components, has already gone through the development that has meanwhile also been initiated within the information technology. That transformation started already some dozens of years ago for Jan Baan when he was still in charge of Baan Company. But neither time nor technique were then ripe for it.



Processes
 “Highlighting processes started in the middle of the nineties, a trend that was boosted from consultancy”, the energetic and tuned-up Cordys top executive says. “In a way it was also rather logical, for a lot of money could be saved by better attuning the supply chain. The throughput times could be considerably shortened. One did try to work process-directed, but eventually it came to nothing. It was a great idea, but until the end of the nineties we were still caught within large systems such as SAP, PeopleSoft and Baan.”

The idea was to adjust these enormous systems according to own insight and needs with tools such as 4GL. But according to Baan that was also the beginning of part of the misery. The costs of the systems were many times larger than the original package, not just because of all the customization, but also because 4GL-customisation made things very complex, with all consequences for controllability and costs. “Just compare it with a car engine: once you start sawing and welding in it, it will usually be much more difficult to fit in new parts.”

Baan then says: “Hundreds of millions had been invested in these systems, and that’s not something you want to throw away just like that. If you want to pursue improvements with the current technology, you must respect the legacy. Though you must try to do it vanilla. You can then still use best practices to then build something around it. That part around it is the element that we add.  For insurance companies and logistical businesses we support for instance dynamic workflow cases and ad-hoc activities, enabling them simultaneously to drastically increase their grip on their business processes whereas core front office and back office systems continue to function.” Baan then makes the comparison with the renovation of his castle. The old was partly respected, sometimes restored to its original state and here and there supplemented with new elements such as trees, paths and ponds.

Millions
With the same passion Jan Baan talks about the estate, he speaks about his brainchild Cordys. In both projects the necessary money has meanwhile been invested. “More than two hundred million Euros were put in Cordys. But you must really add another twenty years of Baan experience to it. The period before it was almost a condition to be able to set up a business like this.” But don’t think that the company depends entirely on the person of Jan Baan. A second investor has guaranteed the financial continuity. Also when it comes to the development of the product, one could in principle continue without the contribution of the visionary from Putten.

Back to the software: according to Jan Baan, the basis of his product must not be seen as an ‘ordinary’ services-oriented architecture but rather as a super-SOA. Baan talks about a ‘real-time SOA-grid’: a structure that does not only ensure a linking of data, but also takes along the applications and enables a new ‘orchestration’ of processes. This Cordys solution to optimize business processes supports not only data integration and applications but supports also the human steps (such as agreeing and other complex workflows). Well ‘coordinated’ business processes across departments, people and systems are often a long cherished wish of large and medium-sized businesses. Another difference, as Baan states, is that SOA works in particular well at point-to-point situations and linking of a couple of systems: SOA is a concept but you have to make it work on a platform such as ours, in such a way that it is enterprise class, scaleable and seamlessly to be fit into an existing environment.

The business process within Cordys is so to speak the point of departure. “We are talking about BPM 2.0: a new generation business process management suite that returns everything on the basis of the SOA-grid via a web-based interface again to the business user, fully decoupled from the underlying technology.” In addition, as an expansion of the integrated older ERP approach, new end-user functionalities can be added, though in such a way that we are not producing again legacy customization. Online aids for collaboration and other 2.0 applications for instance. “With this the whole business process is picked up as a service”, says Baan.

		Profile Jan Baan
		born 1946  education Mulo, Evening Trade School, Bookkeeping Courses  company Cordys  career Controller, Consultant, 1978 Founder Baan Company, 1998 Vanenburg Group and in 2001 Founder of Cordys  employees 600  turnover No publication  civil status 40 years married  children seven, AGES: 39, 38, 35, 32, 29, 24, 19

‘DRP’
When you’re talking with a grand old man from the industry like Jan Baan there is no evading looking back to the segment in which he became a great man. “We called the enterprise resource planning, but the ‘e’ in ERP was really nonsense. Basically it was all about DRP: departmental resource planning. One never succeeded in effecting a real business-wide consolidation, except within financial administration. With hindsight we got stuck at a division level.” There was neither hardly any real planning. My dream ten years ago was ‘beyond-ERP’. Now we are seeing that Business Operations Planning (BOP) makes possible what in those days was tried in vain. BPM is now becoming the substitute of ERP.

The Cordys CEO then makes a comparison with computer hardware: “Instead of soldering everything on the motherboard, cards entered the scene at a certain moment. That was actually the level at which we operated with Baan. But things really went fast after the bus had been developed. Thanks to the enterprise bus (ESB) we were no longer stuck to one central data model in the software industry, but various models could exist side by side.” The restriction that applied thereby according to Baan was an inflexible integration of systems. The processes were moreover still secondary to the data.

The further advance of the Internet opened Baan’s eyes really as the year 2000 was approaching. The browser as a user’s interface, XML and SaaS set in. Collaboration possibilities followed. “PC and network were no longer the computer, the Internet became the computer. Thanks to XML a browser is sufficient as a communication vehicle. This could mean a breakthrough at the strive for ‘green IT’. This could make the business process for the user via the browser a composed process.” What is happening under the hood is no longer an impediment. The user finally sits himself at the controls. The business operations platform aimed by Baan is meanwhile a fact with Cordys.

“All this was possible despite keeping up the legacy”, the entrepreneur explains. “Only the customization is now in the composition and no longer in the applications. That applies to both the old systems and the new SaaS elements such as Salesforce.com or Google Apps. Within the Cordys browser it seems in this way that you are directly working with a Google spreadsheet, but in the layer between the unstructured application and the structured representation thereof at the user all kinds of things can be adjusted. The business user is able to adjust things as he sees fit, but stays within the limits of governance imposed from the top, for instance in the scope of compliance.” Also Cordys is entirely based on the SaaS principle. 

Hood
The comparison with the car serves here again. Jan Baan mentions TomTom as a metaphor for a web service. “Contrary to an integrated system, this is about an adjustment on the dashboard. Nothing is happening under the hood, where there could be parts designed perhaps 30 years ago. You want to keep on using them? Fine, as long as they suffice. Other parts are perhaps only 3 months old. The thing is to have all these components work as a whole, where possible in the basic version. The advantage within Cordys is that you can adjust the processes and for instance examine which web service comes closest to what you want. If services disappear or no longer satisfy, you just take another one.”

Like the driver of a car the business user occupies center stage in the process-directed approach of Jan Baan. However, the CIO will still be indispensable on account of his IT knowledge when it comes to implementing technology. In addition, he is one of the few people in the organization who disposes of sufficient overview and knowledge in the rather strong interlacing of business with IT. After decoupling he can detach them from the underlying systems and help shape the processes anew like a ‘composer’. “He is the best equipped man to initiate this transformation.” Much to his regret Baan establishes that a lot of CIO’s are still afraid to embark on the adventure called BPM 2.0. “No one wants to be responsible when change routes go wrong.”

Although Baan is looking more and more often for an entrance at the business, he rather not passes over the CIO. “I rather see a CIO shifting his way of thinking a bit towards the business, than a business shifting towards IT. Because he understands the architecture, the CIO should be a very good booster of a possible turn. Where the spreadsheet was a revolution for the CFO, we can be a revolution for the business.” Besides (re)modeling business processes, the CIO should focus thereby on formulating the necessary governance rules. That could be made in the Cordys layer between application and representation on the screen of the end-user.

According to the CEO, implementation shouldn’t take long, depending on the complexity even within a couple of weeks. The advantage of the Cordys technology is thereby that one can start on a small scale.  Certainly in case of smaller projects the costs will be low, which will achieve a quick ROI. “A CIO or other IT responsible person who ignores this, leaves enormous changes unused. He runs moreover the risk that competition will do it. I have my hopes on the new generation of CIO’s who link up directly with the process owners who want to get grip on their business process and/or operational KPIs.”

Consolidation
One of the factors why CIO’s are still waiting for the developments is that the big suppliers such as SAP and Oracle, but also Microsoft, say they will be offering comparable tools. Baan: “People are waiting for consolidation. But that is the same as waiting for buying a TomTom because Toyota may deliver such an aid integrated in their cars in three years. What a waste of time.”

Jan Baan thinks chances small for Cordys to be swallowed up by a larger party. “If that was likely, it would probably have happened by now. Of course I never say ‘never’, but it is my ideal to roll out myself. And even if we would be taken over in the long term, that would mean nothing bad. A lot of players such as BEA and Business Objects are neither independent any longer. In the case of Cordys the user isn’t moreover stuck to anything, everything is based on non-proprietary standards such as web services. The customer is moreover free to use what he wants. IDS Scheer, one of our partners, is used a lot by our customers when it comes to business process modeling. You want to use ARIS from IDS Scheer? Go ahead. Have you unlocked your applications already partly through a Tibco-bus? Feel free to use it. Wit Cordys we have a short-cycle implementation methodology and a proof of concept program; we are able to show that it works. Which CIO has the guts to go along?”