EXTRANET NEWS * Week of 16 December 2002
Editors: Joel Orr and N'omi Orr
http://www.extranetnews.com
1. iMANAGE WORKSITE: DM, PORTAL, CRM, AND MORE
2. REPORT FROM EXTRANETS III
3. LETTERS
4. THE LIST
5. TIDBITS
6. QUOTE OF THE WEEK
HTML vs. text: Thanks to all who wrote! This issue goes
out in dual form; let me know how it works for you.
1. iMANAGE
WORKSITE: DM, PORTAL, CRM, AND MORE
EXTRANET NEWS spoke with Steve Pattison, iManage's VP of business development.
"As VP of technology alliances for Documentum, I always wondered: What is beyond integration? Documentum supplies outstanding document-management software, and makes sure it integrates with leading ERP, content-management, CRM, and other enterprise applications. But is that enough?"
"I kept seeing the need for more—for content-rich integration with enterprise applications, and with portals. And that is exactly what iManage WorkSite has," said Pattison.
Public since the end of 1999 (IMAN; NASDAQ) iManage has quietly built itself into one of "the largest software companies nobody has heard of," joked Pattison. With 220 employees, over 1200 customers, a presence in the US, the UK, France, and Germany, and growing while few other companies are, iManage is clearly in touch with its market.
Its initial extranet product established itself in the legal market. "That's a natural vertical for us," said Pattison. "The work product of an attorney is a document; we know how to manage documents. But attorneys also need fast and secure collaboration, and portal-style sharing—as well as the ability to set up for a new case on a moment's notice. We do that."
From the legal industry, the firm expanded into financial services, insurance, manufacturing, and government. I didn't see any construction companies on the list of clients, but I suspect there will be some in the near future.
Pricing for this 100%-Java product is lower than for many of the single-function products with which it competes—an average of $375/seat, for secure, scalable, document management, content management, and portal management. "Total cost of ownership is one of our big advantages," said Pattison.
There are more than 40 add-on applications available for WorkSite from iManage's many partners. See http://www.imanage.com for the full list, as well as for several user case studies and a flood of testimonials.
Our take: iManage WorkSite hits a market "sweet spot" in its
combination of functions. With powerful features, low cost, and coming from a
financially stable vendor, this product has quite a bit going for it.
2.
REPORT ON PROJECT EXTRANETS III
My friend Ross Sturley, chairman of Project Extranets
III, held December 10, 2002, in London, graciously sent us his conference
summary notes. Here they are—complete with "trans-Pond" spelling and
punctuation…
We started our day aiming to 'drive cultural change and make the most of extranets', and began in the obvious place, talking about Project Extranets. Tim Broyd of CIRIA made an interesting point that most of the dotcoms who set themselves up to change the face of construction in early 2000 tried to do so at the point money changes hands - materials procurement. Those that are still in business are clearly focussing on the communications interface between companies - project collaboration tools.
Here in UK Construction, Extranets are now in wide use. Savings of print, paper and despatch are well documented and understood, and process efficiencies are now beginning to be realised. Companies are now focussing on how to get the most from their extranet deployments, and much was said about the importance of training, learning from experience, active communication of the benefits of collaborative working, and of implementing the extranet early in the project.
There are spin-off benefits too - Steve Smith of Sainsbury's showed the Health and Safety benefits accruing from being able to deliver a complete H&S manual on completion day, and Stuart Cowperthwaite of Arup described how extranets were helping 'take the pain out of QA'.
There was much discussion of standards - interoperability between systems. Delegates welcomed enthusiastically the news that a number of UK extranet providers are in the process of setting some standards to help move data between their systems.
Collaboration tools provide marketing capital too - according to several speakers. We were warned though not to 'throw it in as a free gift'. Marketing 101 says that to show something is valuable, you should attach a price to it. Making our use of extranets a competitive differentiator will also help engage both clients and supply chains - which will make it easier to extract maximum value from collaboration tools.
The frontiers of extranet application seemed to be at the interfaces with other systems - finance, contracts, HR - all were discussed. For one set of systems, integration is further advanced - information and knowledge management systems. Many are now building corporate desktops including access to knowledge and project management tools which interface through common databases and search tools - and a powerful demonstration was given by Tony Blanch of Costain.
However, the area where we have most ground to make is not technological, but cultural. Collaboration tools are most effective where companies collaborate. 'Working with the enemy' is the dictionary definition of collaboration - and while that still represents most companies feeling about partnering or collaborative working, it will be difficult to realise the transparency, integrated working and process quality that extranet enabled communications can bring. Only then can the supply chain benefits begin to produce the radically better buildings we all aspire to.
Contact Ross Sturley at Ross.Sturley@construct.emap.com
3. LETTERS
Dear Joel
We have read your white paper on the CTA experience (available here: http://www.kfa-inc.com/articles/Articles.htm#cyon) with great interest. We would like to suggest that there is at least one other example of extensive use by a client of web-based project management software: UK retailer Sainsbury's.
As you know, Sainsbury's has standardised on using BIW Information Channel on all its construction projects. To date this has involved BIW in managing some 590 projects (its overall property portfolio is worth over £5 billion - around $7.5 billion), with over 2000 users drawn from around 500 companies. In excess of 100,000 drawings and 24,000 documents have been published to the system, and there have been over 1.1 million system accesses since 1999. Usage continues to climb: in 2000 the average number of system accesses was about 18,000/month; so far in 2002, this average is now over 43,000/month - the latest peak was 49,000 user sessions in October.
We were also interested in the letter from Kathleen Miles and your response to it. Much of her letter reflects a licensing structure where the users pay on a per-seat basis. A factor in the widespread take-up of the technology within the Sainsbury's supply chain has been that the client has recognised the value of the technology and has paid for a system that imposes no limit on the number of users - thus encouraging take-up right down the supply chain.
Regards.
Paul
Paul Wilkinson
Head of corporate communications
BIW Technologies Ltd
4. THE LIST
Total companies: 254 (see who's on The List at http://www.extranetnews.com/)
5. TIDBITS
· Sneak a peek at the new Delphi Group research on portals: http://www.delphigroup.com/a=1/b=1046/c=8jqk74605wvpc
·
· International Air-Conditioning Heating Refrigerating Exposition; January 27-29, 2003; Chicago, Illinois
· COFES2003,
6. QUOTE OF THE
WEEK
"It is appallingly obvious that our technology
exceeds our humanity."
—Albert Einstein
Entire newsletter copyright © Cyon
Research Corporation 2002