Who should own the device.  If the employee does, can the company dictate the security policies on a device it does not own.  At Salentica we have decided to provide all staff with iPads that the company owns and we determine the security policies for the devices.  iPads are designed as single user devices.  Whoever has access to the device has access to everything on it.  As such, we have reminded staff that the Salentica iPad have to remain under the control of the user, similar to their laptop, where as an employee owned device may be shared within a family.

Tablets create a tremendous new opportunity for business users to engage with others during interactions.  They also create new challenges that wealth management firms have to be especially sensitive to given the highly confidential information they deal with.  As the software available on tablets matures and businesses generate demand for security options, we will see more available on the market.

Changing client requirements create opportunities in the market for those wealth firms that meet the new investor requirements.

A lot of CRM projects fail or have trouble because they are implemented into sales organizations where there is a fairly unstructured sales process that the sales people are happy with and is possibly even getting results.  Management may select a CRM solution that is designed to drive a structured sales process and requires active use by the sales people.  This would be a big change into an environment where the users are not feeling much pain with the current process.  In this case, its not the software, but the changes being introduced into an environment that is comfortable with the existing processes.  The change can be done, but it must be managed.  Helping the users understand the reasons for doing (possibly to drive more sales and higher commisssions) and then minimizing he change.  One way to do the latter is to introduce a project in Phases.   More to come on Phases in a future blog.

Not to oversimplify, but there are two ways software companies earn their money. The first is from software products the firm develops and sells to specific markets. These firms earn their revenues from license and support revenues and enhance their software to meet the needs of the markets they target. Salentica is a software product for wealth management firms (a vertical market) as are Microsoft and Oracle that serve horizontal markets.

Some companies make their revenue building custom software. For these companies even if they have some limited software offerings or frameworks, the bulk of their revenue is from consulting services. For these companies, every client has unique requirements that drive more services.
So does it matter which type of firm you engage? Yes! If your firm has unique requirements or you need software developed that you want to own and control, a custom solution is a good path, provided you have the contracts in place to ensure you protect the intellectual property you paid for. A company web site could be an example of a unique software solution where a custom build provides the specific look and feel that is required.

In other cases, you want to purchase a solution that is proven for your industry and where your vendor will continue to invest in the solution to support best practices in the industry. The firm is buying a tool like a hammer and has no desire to re-invent the tool. How you use the tool may be unique and your software product should accommodate your unique business practices that provide your competitive edge.

I hope this helps. Picking the right type of software company for your needs significantly increase the probability of success.

1.  Do you know what you want? We see companies implementing  a software solution, without a clear understanding of what they need to meet the business needs.   In many cases, these firms are looking for the technology to fix their business processes, rather than the technology supporting their business process.  If a business process is flawed before a technology solution is introduced, the technology will just enable the firm to do it more consistently

2. What do you expect from your provider and can they deliver? We see companies so focused on features they forget that it is only one piece. Just like a wealth management firm does more than pick stocks, a software supplier should be able to provide advice on best practices based on domain knowledge and a set of support services, unless of course the company has decided they want to self support.

A good indicator of the skills a software vendor will bring to a solution is to look at the focus, or lack of focus on their web site. If the site promotes expertise in many different areas, they are probably “jack of all trades and masters of none”, but happy to learn your business at your cost!

We’ll add more ideas on best practices and I hope they can help firms get better value from their software solutions.

I’ve experienced how reporting affects my decisions.  The firm I was using produced voluminous paper reports for my discretionary accounts that included all the transactions for the period.  I asked for a slimmed down version with just the holdings and performance in an electronic format to make it easier to store.  I was tired of having to shred the big paper books sent each quarter.  The firm told me they could only deliver one format , with no performance and it had to be in paper.  I now have a new provider that can provide the reporting in the format I need.

To keep mobile devices small, there are limits on memory on the device. The Blackberry Storm has 125MB, while most laptops today have 2-4 GB. The device memory will need to store contacts and emails. Different users will have different storeage requirements so the available memory may be vastly different by user. Some users may want to keep all their emails on their Blackberry. Also, as the devices become more capable, there are more applications to store as well as muli media like pictures taken on devices with cameras. The result is that what may work on one device within an organize may not work on another based on the users habits. This is a challenge that doesn’t generally exist on today’s laptops.

Network speed is another challenge. Mobile networks are getting faster, but still slow relative to WAN or wired connections. The data also has to go from the users servers through a mobile server, then through the network provider to the device.

Finally, the mobile world is not as homogeneous as the Windows laptop world. Different devices, even by the same manufacturer may have different versions of operating systems. Mobile carriers may also add difference to the devices operating system.

Mobile apps are a great way to get access to informaton when out of the office, but they do present challenges that are not always obvious to users or IT people starting out on their first mobile deployment.