Engage - March 2007 Edition
Introduction
Welcome to the March 2007 edition of Engage.
In this month’s lead article we share
the thoughts of Cordys Inc.’s new President, Dado Vrsalovic,
who explains why Cordys is in such a strong position in the emerging BPMS
space.
Cordys welcomes two key new team members to Cordys’ U.S. operation this month. Howard Green joins Cordys Inc. as Senior Vice President of Market Development and Mark Olsen joins as Vice President of Client Technology Services. Both will be playing a key role in the expansion of Cordys’ footprint in the U.S.
We share Sandy Kemlsey’s views on Cordys BPMS from her popular ‘Column 2’ blog on ebizQ. She highlights the fact that within the Cordys environment, the entire process life cycle of modeling, execution and monitoring is entirely browser-based.
Cordys was a key sponsor at the recent Gartner Business Process Management Summit in San Diego, and we reflect on some of the key learning from that event.
We hope you enjoy this edition – we look forward to receiving your feedback and content suggestions for future issues.
Best regards,
Loek van den Boog
CEO Cordys
New Opportunity
An interview with Dado Vrsalovic, President of Cordys, Inc. and SVP of North America Operations.
A highly respected IT industry veteran, with a wealth
of experience from senior management positions at AT&T, Intel and Sun
Microsystems, Dado shared his thoughts on what fascinates him about today’s
enterprise IT market, and why he thinks Cordys is poised for success in North
America.
1. What excites you about today’s Enterprise IT market?
The enterprise IT market is at a fascinating stage of development. Competitive pressures and business opportunity are forcing today’s global enterprise to completely reevaluate the way that IT supports the business.
As we all know, there has been much talk about SOA and the promise of fully integrated enterprise IT systems that can readily respond to the needs of the business. In reality, most of the SOA solutions on the market can effectively integrate existing systems through ESB technology and centralize data resources, but they are not able to deliver rapid composite application development that is truly reflective of the business need.
IT departments remain heavily involved in the process of creating business applications, such as code generation, testing and debugging, before an application is actually ready to be deployed. Aside from not being time or cost-effective, IT and business users are really drawn in different directions as a result of this process. Most applications therefore, only meet part of the real business need – there is always compromise on the behalf of the business.
With Business Process Management Suites (BPMS) like Cordys, this will completely change.
The key is providing business people with graphics-based tools that allow them to model, control and manage their operational processes in near real-time. It is after all, the domain experts, such as HR, CRM, Product Marketing, that really understand their jobs and requirements, and now they will be able to properly influence the creation and management of the applications they are using.
BPMS should really be viewed as a new breed of enterprise solution – one that pushes the boundaries of IT and targets a completely new user base, namely the business domain experts.
Just like the Excel spreadsheet in the 1980s that transformed the way technology could be used to analyze data, BPMS will force enterprises to rethink the way that they use IT to support the business. Like hybrid cars, they address a new market and deliver a different philosophy and approach.
2. Why do you believe Cordys is well placed to gain market share?
Cordys had the time and the financial backing to create a BPMS from the ground up, and so avoided the complications of having to glue together acquired applications that were really never designed to interoperate effectively. As a result, Cordys is very clean architecturally and very easy to work with.
It is this architectural design elegance that makes Cordys unique and equips it well to address this new Enterprise IT category.
Cordys combines SOA and BPM in a single unified platform – a very powerful approach to creating composite applications. It delivers speed, scalability, stability and single view, all in one integrated platform.
As noted by Forrester in the recently released BPMS vendor summary, Cordys ‘offers a less complex approach to implementing SOA’ compared to more established vendors, and ‘it requires less advanced IT skills than many of the solutions targeting larger enterprises.’
3. What do see as your main challenges in establishing Cordys in North America?
I think the main challenge we face, and it is one the entire industry faces, is the education of decision makers within the enterprise of the benefits of this fantastic new technology.
We need to educate the market about BPMS and ultimately demonstrate that Cordys, by combing SOA with BPM, can uniquely deliver on the promise of business-led IT.
During 2006, Cordys made significant investments in North America, developing a presence in Chicago and New York, and adding considerable talent to the U.S. management team.
We are now in the process of relocating the West Coast office to the heart of Silicon Valley and will shortly be making an announcement about more key hires that will further strengthen the sales, marketing and operational infrastructure.
2007 will prove an important year for Cordys and one that sees the company really making its mark in the Enterprise IT market.
Provide us with interesting links!
We are always looking for interesting articles or links
to useful content about Business Process Management, Service Oriented
Architecture and current issues in the Enterprise IT domain.
Please send any articles or links that you find of interest – in return, we will enter you into a monthly draw for a free copy of the book Top Technology Players 06/07, which looks at the personal stories behind rapidly-growing Deloitte Fast50 companies.
Cordys strengthens US Management and Operations
Former Apple, IBM, and Start Up Executive Howard Green has joined Cordys Inc. as Senior Vice President of Market Development. Howard is responsible for implementing go-to-market programs in the U.S that will be key to Cordys’ growth and expansion.
Howard is joined in Cordys’ new Silicon Valley office by Mark Olson, who joins Cordys Inc. as Vice President of Client Technology Services.
Mark is responsible for developing and training Cordys’ technical support teams as well as initiating university programs to provide technical training for business school and IT graduates.
A Quick Peek at Cordys BPMS
Sandy Kemsley writes the
‘Column 2’ blog on ebizQ
that covers business process management, enterprise architecture, business
intelligence and technology in business. This month she reviews Cordys BPMS,
and highlights the strengths of a browser-based approach to business process
modeling and design.
Cordys comes to San Diego
Cordys was a key sponsor of the Gartner Business
Process Management Summit in late February which was held in San Diego, the West Coast base for Cordys’ new U.S. management team. The Summit examined how the challenges of aligning
cross-functional processes, improving organizational effectiveness, and,
ultimately, enhancing customer value are the reasons why business process
management is now a top priority for business and IT executives.
Cordys’ top U.S. team was in attendance, meeting with prospects and analysts, and exploring industry trends. “There were some very interesting predictions made at the event, all of which validate Cordys' strategic market approach and technology innovation,” said Howard Green, recently appointed Senior Vice President of Market Development for the U.S. “Gartner predict that by 2011, at least 40% of all new multi-enterprise integration projects will use BPMS – Cordys has adopted a unique approach to BPMS that positions the technology well in this market.
Further, Gartner predicted that 25% of all new business software will be delivered as SaaS – another key area of innovation for Cordys through the central role Cordys technology is playing in WebEx Connect.”
Cordys will also be present at the upcoming Gartner BPM event in London from March 26th to 28th.
This podcast, by Gartner analysts David McCoy, Michael Melenovsky and Jim Sinur, provides a sneak preview of some of the key trends and technologies that will be the focus of the London event.