The Open Source Pragmatist

Recently I’ve been fielding a number of questions about why the company I work for, Levementum, decided to open an office in Australia (see press release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/20100814/levementum_sydney_au/prweb4386444.htm.)

The first thing I tell them to do, is look at the following Global Open Source Adoption webpage sponsored by RedHat: http://www.redhat.com/about/where-is-open-source/activity/.  Australian adoption and environmental acceptance is widespread and growing.  Few countries in the world have seen the kind of growth that we’re seeing down under. Why?

Australia leads the way in OSS adoption

1. They see it as a national imperative to help reverse the tide of excess IT imports: Consider this: from the charter of the FOSS/Australia organization:

“According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) represents 13.8 per cent of total investment in Australia. According to a 2006 study, ICT comprises 8.4 per cent of all imports, but only 2.8 per cent of all exports. Australia loses more from importing ICT than we gain from exporting wheat and coal combined.  Through leveraging FOSS, local companies are able to create and offer world-class products and services….When you support FOSS, you are supporting Australian innovation and employment.”

2. Growth in the open source services sector:  While we aren’t late to the party down under, we’re certainly not the first OSS service players down there.  See an excerpt from the “Open Source Industry Australia” group:

“With at least sixteen independent South Australian organisations reportedly offering support services for open source software this demonstrates that there is real choice available to South Australian organisations seeking to obtain support for open source software on a commercial basis.”

3. Government backing.   Australians are looking for new and innovative ways of leveraging open source in the government sector.

4. Technology leadership in Australia.  Australia continues to lead the way terms of education and investment in technology.

5. Raw data.  Our biggest partner,SugarCRM has been growing in leaps and bounds in Australia and Asia, and in general, Open source solutions like Sugar have tremendous rates of adoption in Australia. 

It’s only natural that Levementum, as a global leader in SugarCRM and other open source solutions, expands its presence there.

Insight & Thoughts, Software & Technology asean, asia, asia pacific, australia, compiere, crm, FLOSS, government, guilbeau, levementum, magento, mindtouch, mobisson, open source software, open-source, oss, pentaho, sugarcrm

As we trudge through the weak economy looking for ways to attract new clients and grow our business, the old Marketing 101 adage comes to mind:

“Your best new customers are the customers you already have”

At Levementum, we’re finding that this rings true in an amazing way.

With our SugarCRM, Compiere, and Magento Open Source service offerings, we’re finding that the hit rate (on new Open Source apps) for customers that previously have implemented one of these outstanding products, is well over 50%…an amazing rate of Opportunity conversion.

Why is that?  I think its a reflection of how these clients have crossed their own chasms relative to the key “Objections” raised in the course of a Commercial Open Source sale.

When we talk to a new customer – one that has never implemented an Open Source product at an enterprise level, the four concerns we tend to see are:

1. Concerns about the Project/Company viability.

2. Concerns about support and SLA.

3. Concerns about Intellectual Property rights of derivative works.

4. Concerns about quality and features.

Clearly these objections are colored in the spirit of Open Source as a “new” and “disruptive” force, and customers have to be carefully navigated through these discussions.

The key  is, once the bridge has been crossed with one application project, the propensity to steamroll through these objections on the following application project is very high.

We’re finding that SugarCRM customers love Compiere…Compiere customers love what SugarCRM has to offer, and we’re also seeing an interest in Magento from customers of both SugarCRM and Compiere.  Again I propose its because they’ve already taken the Open Source plunge – and already subscribe to the unparallelled value proposition that they can take advantage of:

1. Control of Your Own Destiny.

2. Cost Benefit and TCO.

3. The Quality factor (as a strength)

We’re hoping to continue to see more and more progress – its a bet Levementum has made in spades – and why we continue on our path to being at the forefront of service firms that help Enterprises make sense of how to deploy broad Open Source solutions as an enabler for their own value propositions.

We’re in exciting times in the world of Open Source…The strength of the community has been, well, the community!  I see the opportunity for the SugarCRMs, Compieres and Magentos of the world to cross pollinate – share customers – share ideas – define boundaries – maximize opportunity value.  Its a win win for everybody, mostly for our customers .

Insight & Thoughts, Software & Technology compiere, crm, ecommerce, erp, levementum, magento, open-source, pentaho, sugarcrm, talend, varien

Consider the scenario. You’re the CIO of a regional distribution company, supporting a “knowledge worker” environment of 200 users spread though 18 warehouses in 7 states. Your accounting team is demanding a flexible and scalable solution that lets them adapt in the face of changing economics and measures. Your warehouse teams are demanding more feature rich Order Management solutions that provide better information at the Point of Sale. Your Sales team is screaming for wireless access to orders and inventory, so they can respond to customer needs in real time…and of course your boss, the CEO, is demanding that you deliver all of the above, on a shoestring budget, and wants a working proof of concept that covers all these solutions – Accounting, Sales and Inventory/Order Management with Wireless…in 3 weeks…for less than 10k.

So you’re the CIO. What do you do? Laugh? Polish off the resume?

Well, if you’re Russell Smith, the CIO of Estes Industries, you take a deep breath – and look to Open Source. Estes Industries, based in Wichita Falls, TX, is a distributor of crop protection chemicals, specialty chemicals, seed and fertilizer. Smith turned to Levementum LLC, an open source consulting firm, to help complete this “Mission Impossible”.

Levementum brought three enterprise class solutions to bear, SugarCRM, Compiere ERP and Talend Data Integration to implement a complete ERP, CRM and Data Integration solution, in less than 3 weeks, and at an astoundingly low cost.

Levementum selected all three of these solutions, recognizing them as best of breed Open Source Software solutions. All three software packages have come of age relative to the tried and true(…but expensive) commercial closed source solutions in the marketplace.
Compiere, a robust Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution was deployed to support accounting and operational needs. SugarCRM, the leading open source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution, was deployed to support the myriad of Sales Force Automation needs, as well to satisfy the need for Wireless access to Customers, Contacts, Orders and Inventory (using SugarWireless). Talend, a software product touted as the first provider of open source data integration software, was used to tie the systems together in a clean manner. Using add-ins and prebuilt adapters available in the Open Source community, Levementum was able to assemble, connect and deploy the solution quickly and cleanly.

The integrated pilot solution was built by Levementum using free “community editions” of all 3 software packages, but Estes intends to upgrade these to the Professional or Enterprise versions of the software packages, to take advantage of software support for these mission critical systems as they begin to roll the solution out in production.

Certainly there was a lot of excitement among Estes’ users – certainly a highlight of the project was demonstrating Order Tracking and Inventory management on an iPhone…but beneath the fun and excitement of accomplishing the critical functional goals of the program, there were a couple key takeaways, that are lessons for any CIO:

1. The Breadth of Open Source Solution offerings that are available to the public, are empowering companies to cover almost any information challenge they have. Whereas in the past all you had was Linux, today you have SugarCRM, Compiere, Talend and a host of other robust software packages that you have to choose from.
2. Open Source Solutions have “Come of Age” (like Compiere, SugarCRM and Talend). From a feature and architecture perspective, these applications have “grown up” and provide the depth of functionality, and the scalability that Medium and Large companies require.

The fact is, what cost hundreds of thousands or millions in the past, can now, with Open Source, be accomplished at a fraction of the cost. Open source solutions are the “great technology/value equalizer”. Luckily, over the past decade, these solutions have come of age – and as CIOs tackle their most challenging problems, Open Source tools are steadily proving to be far and away the most valuable tools in the arsenal.

Uncategorized compiere, crm, levementum, sugarcrm, talend, wireless

A recent article on TheStreet.com, “Salesforce Has Something to Be Thankful For” by Ivy Lessner highlights the risks and rewards available to the traditional CRM vendors given current economic conditions. While I agree with much of what the author points out, I did notice a glaring omission in her analysis. There was no mention of open source CRM, namely SugarCRM – an award-winning open source software platform.

Open source software and especially SugarCRM has the potential to come out of the current economic downturn as big winners. Currently, SugarCRM is the leading commercial open source vendor and in a down economy is in a great position to grow at rates even greater than those predicted by Lessner for salesforce.com. Like salesforce.com’s greatest strengths, SugarCRM is subscription-based and can be hosted, however it provides far greater flexibility and lower implementation costs than salesforce.com. In addition, it has more flexibility in its deployment options than salesforce.com which many medium to large-sized companies value for reasons of security, control and integration.

The down-side dynamics in today’s economic climate drive many companies to figure out how to grow sales, increase demand, and sell more effectively and most sales management teams know that CRM can be a tool to help a sales force to break out as the economy improves. This fact coupled with the cost-effectiveness of SugarCRM subscriptions and implementations make it a a very low risk approach to CRM. We will see many companies that have not previously considered open source in the past, inclined to consider it now. Commercial open source CRM software has evolved over the last several years and is now ready for the enterprise. This coupled with the current economic conditions can be the impetus that propels open source CRM into the forefront. Like Linux before it, commercial open source CRM, namely SugarCRM, is primed for the enterprise and explosive growth. Already, over 3,500 commercial customers use SugarCRM to grow their business.

At the end of this current economic downturn, we may look back and say this was a defining event for open source.

Uncategorized crm, open-source, sugarcrm

Leads Management is a part of every good CRM package and we are implementers of two such packages – Model N for the Semiconductor Industry and SugarCRM for everyone else. Over the course of implementing leads management for a few dozen companies I have had the opportunity to go back and talk to the occasional sales manager, marketing manager, or IT person responsible for implementing leads. There is a common theme amongst those who feel their implementation of leads management was successful – they don’t rely on the software. Leads management is not all about the software or the tool, like building a house is not all about a hammer. An effective and successful leads management program requires planning, execution, and evaluation. The software tools may assist in all three of these key areas, however all three also involve active and focused attention by committed individuals to be successful.

1. Lead Planning and Generation – this stage consists of planning the entire campaign, determining lists, developing messaging, selecting the medium, setting the timing, planning the marketing project. The tools help, but can’t do it all – plan and organize.

2. Execution – this stage consists of sales/marketing management and staff capturing, distributing, qualifying and nurturing leads. If this is not an actively managed function, you get marginal benefits.

3. Evaluation – this stage may be the most important. Only through active analysis and evaluation of past successes and failures can your lead management solution become increasingly successful. A business intelligence solution that drives continuous improvement in the planning and execution stages results in greater leads efficiency, improved scoring of leads and ultimately more leads converted to customers.

Levementum is a system integrator of CRM software for the enterprise and has successfully implemented leads management in many industries and companies of all sizes.

Uncategorized crm, demand-management