Cloud Computing – Revolutionizing the Way we Work (and Play)

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cloud_buildingWe are all familiar with the many ways cloud computing has revolutionized our use of technology in the office, at home, and on the go.  Whether it’s using Trident’s Poseidon portal (built on the Salesforce.com platform), streaming movies and television shows at home via Netflix, or Apple’s iCloud services on your iPhone or iPad, cloud computing has infused itself into nearly every aspect of our day-to-day lives.  The underlying concept has existed for decades, but it came to prominence with the widespread expansion of high-speed internet in the early  2000s.  However, the most fascinating aspects of cloud computing do not lie in its history, but rather in what lies on the horizon.

This summer, North Bridge Venture Partners released its annual survey on the future of cloud computing.  North Bridge surveyed nearly 800 people at 39 well-known information technology companies (including Amazon, SAP, VMware, and Citrix, along others) to gather their insights and opinions on what’s to come in the realm of cloud computing. The full results of the survey can be viewed here.

The overarching conclusion was straightforward: the cloud is changing software.  While that may seem obvious to most of us, the devil is most certainly in the details.  More than 50% of the respondents believe that most categories of today’s software will be disrupted by the cloud, with “big data”, CRM, and e-commerce at the top of the list.  At Trident, we have already witnessed sizeable cloud-driven initiatives at many of our customers (one of which is their use of our online Poseidon portal) and we expect this trend to accelerate as the cloud continues to mature.

As evidence of this, spending on Software as a Service (“SaaS”), perhaps the most well-known cloud computing service model, is expected to grow at six times the rate of all other types of software, with 55% CIOs planning to increase spending on SaaS in the next twelve months.  According to the respondents, the main driver of this growth is surprisingly not cost; rather, scalability is the top reason for switching to the cloud (with business agility as a close second).

Even if you haven’t yet made the decision to employ cloud-based applications in your environment, it is very likely that you will in the near future.  According to research by Goldman Sachs, 84% of new software will be SaaS.  This shouldn’t be surprising, as cloud computing has provided:

  • scalability,
  • ease of maintenance,
  • lower maintenance costs,
  • reduced capital expenditures,
  • straight-forward subscription pricing models,
  • resiliency and redundancy,
  • and faster deployment.

The survey also details a rapidly declining trend in the cloud’s perceived concerns.  Only 12% of respondents believe the cloud still needs to mature, down from 26% in 2011, and a scant 3% consider it too risky, down from 10% in 2011.  Perhaps most surprising is that 50% have complete confidence in the technology, up from only 13% one year ago.  It will be interesting to see how these numbers change as more and more of us take the step to leverage the amazing advances in cloud computing in the months and years to come.

To learn more about how Trident can help simplify the management of your software, hardware, and data, please contact Todd Steiner at tsteiner@www.trident-it.com or (608) 276-1909.

Does work keep getting in the way of getting your work done?

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stopsignTemple’s Trivia:  It’s Friday afternoon, and Boss #12 comes to your office wanting to know the status of that report…  And did you take care of this contract with the customer from that company?  Do you:

  1. Explain that you sent that information out last week and you’re still waiting for responses from several key respondents.
  2. Say, “I was just finishing an email to you about that,” then feign leprosy or Ebola exposure so you can be excused for the afternoon to catch a baseball game, hoping Boss #12 forgets the question.
  3. Start calling coworkers, vendors, contractors, or more and ask the exact same question in hopes that someone, somewhere has a copy of an email on something.
  4. The question is not asked at all since Boss #12 logged into Trident’s Poseidon portal and had the answer 10 minutes ago.

It’s a tricky call.  On the one hand, option B could allow you to have an incredible day off (think Ferris Bueller).   On the other hand, trying to get a day’s work done can be difficult if work keeps getting in the way!

Who has the time to spend hours or even days tracking down assets, contracts, vendors or related information?  Ideally, option D would be the answer every time.  In fact, I find that a successful employee is able to retire before anyone learns their name.  Why?  Because they are so efficient, no one needs to track them down and ask them questions.  Alright, so that isn’t really true, but if you have access to the information at your fingertips, why contact that employee?

One of the great things about Trident’s Poseidon system is its ability to be something helpful/useful/valuable to everyone as a central repository to hold all the data.  Thanks to an overwhelming need for option D, we have an end to end solution for administration, document and workflow management.  It’s an exciting time at Trident.

The expansion of Trident’s development team has allowed for enhanced catering to individual client’s needs.  In fact, recently we launched a new landing page for several of our clients in Poseidon.  Now, when logging in, they can see a dashboard of their most pressing Maintenance or Contract Renewals.  We call this the “stoplight page” because it breaks down renewals coming due into red, yellow, and green categories based on their renewal date.  Every day we strive to add cost effective elements for our clients that takes the work out of their workday.  This particular innovative view increases the speed in which a question can be answered.  It also allows other users to log in and view the same information, so they too have a real time view of what is happening.

Ingenious!  Now you can answer questions before they get asked.  With all that work getting done, you will have a lot more free time at work to … uhhhm …  work.

Complex Tax Issues in IT Don’t Always Require Complex Solutions

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taxPerhaps the only consistency regarding sales tax is its inconsistency. Each and every state has nuanced rules when it comes to what sales are taxable and at what rate. Some municipalities add another layer on top of what the state already levies. In today’s economic climate, the state and local tax men are leaving no stone unturned in their attempt to balance their budgets and fund programs while taxpayers are reviewing expenses to find ways to save.

In its most basic form, sales tax is an amount levied by state and local governments on the sale of goods and services to individuals or businesses located within their jurisdiction, usually calculated by applying a percentage rate to the gross sale amount. Sales tax is collected by the seller at the point of sale, whereas use tax is self-assessed by the buyer when no sales tax was collected by the seller on a taxable purchase. State laws vary wildly in terms of what goods and services are taxable.

In the IT realm, especially with respect to software licenses and maintenance contracts, things can get pretty complicated. In the state of Illinois, for example, there are many rules and tests that may apply to determine whether software and any related maintenance contracts are considered taxable. Below is a basic framework for determining the taxability of software purchases in Illinois.

(1) Types of Software:

  • Canned (“off the shelf”) is prewritten or substantially prewritten and is considered taxable
  • Canned computer software is considered taxable tangible personal property regardless of the form in which it is transferred or transmitted
  • Customized software is not taxable, but the definition of customized software is murky at best

(2) Ownership (a five-part test exists to determine the following):

  • Ownership of or title to software is transferred to buyer – taxable
  • Ownership of or title to software is not transferred to buyer (i.e., software is licensed or leased for a predetermined time period) – non-taxable

The taxability of software maintenance, however, follows a somewhat different set of rules:

(1) Underlying software is non-taxable – related maintenance is most likely also non-taxable

(2) Underlying software is taxable (based on the framework above):

  • If maintenance is mandatory component of the software usage or if maintenance includes patches and updates for the software – taxable
  • If maintenance is optional and does not include patches and updates for the software – non-taxable

While it is likely your tax department’s responsibility to complete the analysis and make the determinations regarding the taxability of any purchase, they are certainly not the only players in the game. For example, your IT folks typically decide what is needed and your procurement team may handle how everything is ordered. Working independently in an attempt to address their responsibilities in the transaction can have unintended consequences. Without a well-mapped procedure in place, these responsibilities can overlap or countermand each other and create delays, increase the risk of penalties, denied service, noncompliance, and denial of access to the software itself.

At Trident, these are issues we address on a daily basis. These issues require careful coordination between your requestors (i.e., the IT staff), purchasing department, and your tax team. Who is authorized to make the determination with regards to the taxability of any particular purchase? Is this decided before a purchase order is issued or is it challenged after an invoice is received? If you wait until an invoice is received to dispute any sales tax charged, how many times does each party in this transaction have to get involved before payment can finally be authorized?

Recently, one of Trident’s Illinois customers came to us with this very issue. Our team at Trident immediately saw this as an opportunity to do what we do best: proactively manage our clients’ information flow to help save them time, money, and resources. Our client asserted that their software maintenance purchases were exempt from sales tax, but this claim was made well after the invoices for these purchases were received. The internal process lacked a standardized method for proactively communicating their exemption claim to vendors. Further, claiming this exemption after the orders were issued resulted in payment delays, exposure to late fees and denied support or entitlements, to say nothing of the tension created in what were otherwise extremely positive vendor relationships. At the same time, the vendors were indifferent as to the claim (other than collecting proper documentation) but concerned with the delays and confusion that ensued.

To streamline the process of claiming this exemption, Trident’s development team worked with our customer’s purchasing department to integrate verbiage into all of their purchase orders to claim a specific Illinois exemption for all software and software maintenance purchases. The result is all valid software and software maintenance invoices will be received without sales tax and can, in turn, be paid within terms. The tax department can review whether or not the transaction properly meets the exemption standard and remit use tax if appropriate. Every role can now complete their function without disrupting the defined desired outcome. By doing so, we drove operational process efficiencies while acknowledging the nuances of the underlying tax matters. At Trident, we believe that optimal solutions are rarely as complicated as the issues themselves. Developing straightforward and repeatable procedures are at the heart of reducing complexity and risk within any organization.

We are always looking into innovative ways of assisting your teams with all sorts of challenges. Feel free to connect with Trident (barmstrong@www.trident-it.com or 608-276-1901) if you have questions about how we can help with the intricacies of your IT procurement processes.

Contract Management – How to Handle an Acquisition

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mp9102209161-150x150There are a number of reasons why a company acquires another business (market growth, intellectual property, vertical integration, etc.). Whatever that reason, the difference between a successful acquisition and a costly mistake is in the execution. Management has told you what needs to be done, so all you have to do is get it done.  What could possibly go wrong?!

Successful integration is a time sensitive matter and there is often an awkward handoff between the M&A team and the operations team. The deal is done and the champagne has been corked but the work is not over. How does the operational  team successfully integrate the newly acquired business? A good place to start is to get an understanding of what vendor/supplier/manufacturer contracts the newly acquired company has in place. After all, if this is an equity deal then most likely their payment obligations are now your payment obligations! Start with the due diligence documents collected (to determine a price at a point in time), if you have access, as due diligence attempts to determine the benefits, risks, rights and obligations that might be acquired along with the company. However, your team will also need to gather additional details regarding your new assets, obligations, and vendors. This will require compiling data from each department. The best sources of data are usually the following:

  • Current and previous year’s financial/budget reports: This should give you an idea what dollars have been spent and with whom.
  • Spreadsheets: This will give you a glimpse into when contracts may be coming due.
  • File Cabinets/Desk Drawers: This should help you understand what you own and your obligations.

Once you start gathering this information you are going to need a common repository for all the details and supporting documentation you find. A common spreadsheet may get the job done, but it is certainly not the most effective means of managing this information long-term. I would recommend an online contract management portal. You can customize the fields you want to track/manage, attach all supporting documentation, build automated reporting, build notification reminders for when action is required, and much more. If you do not adopt a contract management system you may end up recreating  your work each time someone asks a question rather than augmenting the data captured from the last request.

It is important to note that your initial goal is not to start making decisions about contracts you would like to transfer, renew, or cancel. It is to get everything into one spot so you can tackle each decision when the time is appropriate. Some contracts you unearth may be coming due within 30 days and require immediate attention. Others may be active for another year or two and can be addressed down the road. Integrating your people and processes will be a challenge in and of itself; don’t let your contractual information go back into the file cabinets.

Feel free to connect with Trident (tsteiner@www.trident-it.com or 608-276-1909) if you have questions or need help making sure your next acquisition goes smoothly from a contract management perspective.

Working with the Big O – Centralize Your Contracts and License Data

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mp900341902-jpegOracle is often portrayed as the big bully on the block. Difficult to work with, your contacts never remain the same, there are hidden layers of “approvers” for any deal negotiation with your sales representative, and their pricing model is complex and nontransparent. But, don’t forget that Oracle provides powerful tools in terms of database, ERP, and other applications and they are acquiring new companies with strong technology all the time (there is a reason why your company has invested significant resources into Oracle). Oracle is not going away so it is best to prepare to work with them for many years to come.

Here are the steps to begin managing your Oracle licensing compliance and managing your Oracle relationship:

1. Identify all the Oracle licenses your organization owns.  Gather all purchased license history. Specifically, collect all original order documents and signed agreements with Oracle. Go to your file cabinets, check your shared drives, and try to find someone at Oracle to help you get some of the documents you are missing. It has been our experience that Oracle will often find some (but rarely all) the pertinent documents.  (Remember it is your responsibility not Oracle’s to keep track of your order documents and agreements.)

Going forward, your organization should capture all the necessary the information at the time of purchase and make it readily available to your IT staff and the team you are putting together to work with Oracle.

2. Create a purchasing spreadsheet; or better yet, start populating this information into a central repository to enhance the active license management of your Oracle environment.

Centralizing this information provides several benefits, including:
a. A single source of license information, contracts, order documents, SLAs, and related purchase orders;
b. A reduction of lost licenses that are bought but not in production;
c. The ability to identify and deploy old licenses at locations or for functions that do not require the latest version;
d. Purchase updates for existing licenses rather than purchasing a new full license; and
e. Allow you to create a pool of licenses that are owned but not deployed.

3. Identify the entitlements associated with these licenses. What are your rights and restrictions for each license? Do not assume that an email or conversation with the sales representative is correct or enforceable. Stated another way – never assume a license usage right.

4. Identify your current license inventory, including where and how it is deployed. Collect data that includes license usage, underlying hardware architecture and supported application(s) usage. Identify the usage metrics from the purchasing data collected earlier to determine the specific usage data to collect. For example, with Oracle Database you will need to work with the DBA personnel to determine the optimal way to identify these details. Measurement must be taken during a period of maximum usage (“high water mark”). The high water mark is not an average of the count taken during the measurement period, but rather the highest number of concurrent devices measured during the period. Measurements should be taken at peak usage levels to account for seasonal, or cyclical fluctuations.

5. Match your owned licenses (with identified entitlements) to your deployed count or inventory to confirm that each license in use is purchased and that its entitlements match its current and expected use. Are you using the licenses you bought? Are you using the licenses in the correct manner based on the entitlements?

6. Determine whether you are essentially in compliance right now. In other words, determine the adequacy of your owned licenses in use. (This step should be completed more than once a year.)

7. Set your short and long term goals and vision for your Oracle environment.

8. Determine if your existing license mix meets your needs for the foreseeable future by comparing expected usage against the usage metrics or the usage rights/restrictions set by Oracle.

With your desired outcomes identified and proper information at hand, you are ready to map out a successful strategy for working with Oracle.  Feel free to connect with Trident (tsteiner@www.trident-it.com or 608-276-1909) if you need help figuring out where to start or help defining your options and achievable outcomes with Oracle.

Biting the Binary Tongue

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mp900262237-1-e1360282988795“Temple, why not write a blog for Trident?” They said.

“Anything in particular you would like me to write about?” I asked. “Whatever you would like.” They replied.

Where do I start? Naturally, when a solution eludes me, I turn to the foremost authority on the universe and its mysterious workings. Yep, I “Googled” it. It turns out that many seasoned authors like to tell aspiring authors to “write what you know!”

Awesome! Binary, bits, bytes, and nibbles (No … really … nibble: a collection of four bits). My inner geek squealed like a four year old girl on Christmas morning. I immediately sat down and wrote a very long-winded diatribe on the intricacies of recursive foreign keys and referential integrity constraints in a relational database. With a flourish of great pride and beaming accomplishment, I showed the work of art to my husband to proofread.

He fell asleep. It was 8 in the morning and he’d had two cups of coffee. Could my literary debut really be so boring? Was there “an English translation to my ‘gobbledygook’” as he put it? And then it occurred to me that he was from the planet Neptune and that I was really just dreaming. It was just like my mama always said, “To iterate is human, to recurse divine.” Ok, so that was L. Peter Deutsch, but come on – when am I ever going to get to bring that one out in idle conversation?

Still, there is something to be said for bridging that communication gap between an unnecessary technical explanation and just using layman’s terms. Just because you can say it, doesn’t mean you should. Many times over I face this issue with life in general.

My husband: “Hand me that two-eighteenths dual posi-algowrench lockometer.” (Yes, that is what it sounds like inside my head!)

Me: “You mean this silver thing with the blue loopy doo-dad at the end?”

Needless to say, when I came to work here at Trident Contract Management, I was completely blown away by the communication style amongst the staff. It doesn’t matter if you are in sales, development, or accounting. You could be an analyst or a consultant. The natural flowing language style is not threatening, or overbearing. It’s all about efficiency levels and respect. There is no need to under-simplify or over-techni-cate (my new word for the week). They are all about getting it right.

But every now and then I find myself biting the binary tongue and rethinking a sentence, but it’s a learning process and it takes time. Or, failing that, I might just “reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.” I don’t know yet. It’s up in the air.

Contract Management – It’s Personal (and should be)

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mp9004385851-e1360190007344After 10+ years of helping our clients with their contract management efforts it still amazes me how personal contract management is to each organization and each stakeholder. Even the term “contract management” is personal. It can mean notification reminders and reports, document management, asset management, metadata management (all the details about the contract), process management, vendor management, a combination of these concepts, or something entirely different.The bottom line is that people want “contract management” to solve something that is personal to them (regardless of the initial need).

For most people “something” usually starts with a big picture organizational mandate (we need to reduce operational spend by 10%, comply with a new regulation, or report details to a new boss).The message and need can be clear but the breakdown occurs when those responsible for doing the work are already stretched thin, don’t have the tools/processes, or can’t get the people within the organization to consistently respond to their requests. So what do people do? They personalize the initial mandate to make it work for them.

The reason for this blog is not to state the obvious. It is intended to get people thinking about what an ideal solution for their environment would look like before they start the vendor vetting process.  If you have a foggy idea of what you want then vendors will be driving your needs to what they do best.  Put in the time to whiteboard the picture of what will solve the initial mandate and help those doing the work.

Here are some non-industry specific  examples of the types of review and desired functionality:

1.  Types of Contract Review (who are the stakeholders and what benefits do they want)

  • Legal Review
  • Financial Review
  • Risk/Compliance Review
  • Needs/Requirements Review (operationally does this contract solve our needs)

2.  Objectives/Functionality

  • Single shared repository with varied permissions
  • Document version control, review tools, indexing and search capabilities, audit trails, collaboration, and the ability to create new contracts
  • Document routing for approvals, review, comments, signature, and filing
  • Metadata about each contract (extracting useful information from the legalese)
  • Tracking and Email notifications
  • Dashboards and reporting

Feel free to connect with Trident (tsteiner@www.trident-it.com or 608-276-1909) if you need help figuring out where to start or defining what you want.  There are lots of options available to you. Making it personal will produce your best results!

On Your Terms: Sit Down With Vendors on Your Schedule!

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mp9003167731-e1360192388332How does someone begin to develop a vendor management program? If you ask Dell for their “Top Tips for Better IT Vendor Management” they say “Don’t grocery shop when you’re hungry.”  Essentially, their premise is the worst time to try and manage your vendor is when you need something from them.  I could not disagree more.  As in your business, your vendors drive to monthly, quarterly and annual goals.  The best time to discuss improving the relationship with a vendor or describing your requirements of them is when you are about to spend money with them.  You are about to help them reach their goals and I cannot think of a better time to ask your vendors to improve, explain, or fix the manner in which they are helping you achieve your goals.

When your team is about to spend money, you are already dedicating internal resources to the analysis of the transaction. At the same time, it is efficient to review your partnership with a vendor and determine the win – win scenario, not only with the transaction, but also moving forward as partners.  Identify what is working and what is not and use this time to make slight adjustments or course corrections to your relationship.

Manage all of your vendors when you have their attention.  You are about to spend money and your team is already engaged in some analysis.  It is efficient.

This overarching theme works for all vendors, not just your strategic vendors.

I think this sequence of developing a vendor management program is important to achieving the goals and honoring the effort of your staff.  Start with how you vet new vendors.

GATHER YOUR DATA: A new vendor is motivated to get past the gatekeepers. Use this motivation to gather the perfunctory documents and information you need to conduct business.  It should be a fairly rigorous process so that you do not require any additional security screenings or general documentation to do business with this vendor.  How they respond to your requests will start to provide insight on how they will value your partnership.

IDENTIFY STRATEGIC PARTNERS:  You know your business and your customers better than anyone else.  Before you create a complicated vendor scorecard, pick your obvious strategic partners and initially focus on managing them.  The initial value propositions of the vendor as defined by your team should be the outcomes your vendors are managed to.  The vendor is managed to these goals and outcomes until your team proves additional or replacement value propositions that merit tracking.

MANAGE THE SIZE OF YOUR STRATEGIC PARTNER POOL:  No other vendor should be accepted into this exclusive group without proving more strategic than a company already in the group (they can be a vendor but not a strategic vendor until they have a track record of providing value to your company).

With all other partners, you might want to start with managing the contractual entitlements and obligations on a transactional basis.  But remember to talk with them around the time you are about to pull out your wallet.

5 Simple Steps to Improve Your Contract Management Process

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mh900448357-e1361912724271There are three components to every effective contract management solution – People, Technology, and Process. People and Technology are as important to the overall success of your program as two legs of a stool but Process is the glue – and third leg of the stool – that pulls everything together. In other words, if you unable to consistently repeat the required steps within your contract management process, then the best People and Technology in the world are just Band-Aids that will eventually peel away.

Unfortunately, most organizations avoid contract management process planning because it is the “heavy-lifting” part of the project. It requires more time, more effort, and more self-examination then most organizations are willing to dedicate. The short cut is to buy the “silver-bullet” technology (contract management software, workflow applications, reporting tools…) and just expect their people to make it work. If this is your desired direction you may get lucky and everything will come together. However most will encounter elongated implementation cycles, rising costs (more time, more software, more development), and unreliable long term results.

Before you even review technology options and who are the people that will be involved, here are five simple Process development steps management should consider prior to getting started.

Step 1 – Why are you looking for change?

Something is happening in your environment that has moved effective contract management from the dredges of a perennial project 11 position to the top of your list. It may be a dire need to drive cost savings, a time-consuming audit that now has you refocused on asset/contract management, or a merger/acquisition/divestiture that hasn’t gone well due to lack of insight to what you actually own.  It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that you take the time define crystal clear and measurable goals – reasons why you are doing this – before you start.

Step 2 – What would happen if you were successful?

Defining the reasons why you are tackling an effective contract management solution is a great start! However in order to get approval, funding, and buy-in/commitment to this project, you will need to build a solid business case to compete for scarce resources. Your business case should include where dollars/time/resources saved by your new process will used, what specific projects could benefit, and how the company will benefit from the new allocations.

Step 3 – Review your current process

Start by reviewing your current process using the 80/20 rule. Every process has its set of exceptions but 80%+ of the time it works a certain way.  You will need to document every step in detail and determine what is working and what needs to be changed.

Step 4 – Make small changes

You are not going to eat an entire whale in one bite. The same can be said about making changes to your current contract management process. Focus on small incremental changes that provide quick wins – areas that have measurable value to the organization and can be used to build momentum.

Step 5 – Build a continuous review plan

Assign someone the responsibility for scheduling monthly, quarterly, or annual process review meetings – include management. Highlight the measurable success you have had, discuss the next series of small changes, and set goals for what the desired results should look like.