Vital Analysis

This fall, Vital Analysis is producing a number of new reports as well as materially update a number of prior reports. Here is a partial list of upcoming reports:

- Cornerstone

- Cytiva

- HRMC Acclaim

- Jobs2Web

- SHL

- SilkRoad

- Sonar6

- WinShuttle

- Workscape

We are also preparing a number of blog posts on the Software & Services Safari blog. More details later this week.

Avilar: Will New Leadership Translate Into Market Leadership?

We recently spoke with the leadership of Avilar, a learning and talent management solutions firm. That briefing resulted in this 6 page research note.  Here is an excerpt from the Overview section of the report:

“We recently received a short briefing from Avilar’s new CEO, Tom Grobicki. Tom is not new to Avilar (he was one of the founders) but we wanted to hear his take on the company, its product line and its prospects.  

Avilar is a competency management and LMS (learning management system) provider.

 

The company believes that the continuing ‘graying’ or outright retirement of many talented workers will make talent management a critical business competency that many mid-large firms have not adequately addressed.”

 

This report is available for download for $395/single use copy. Reports can be ordered via our online request form or via email at contact@vitalanalysis.com .

 

CA Clarity PPM: Insight into Services Initiatives

For our second report in the PSA (Professional Services Automation) and PPM (Project Portfolio Management) space, we examined CA Clarity PPM. This product has its roots in the Niku solution that CA bought several years ago. Our assessment of the product line remains bullish as the product possesses considerable functional depth and is well-suited to internal service organizations. The software also integrates well with a number of other CA products and is, therefore, a core product for the company. 

The report has the following sections:

• Overview
• Who is CA Clarity PPM?
• Solution Functionality
• CA Clarity PPM in the Federal Government
• The CA Clarity PPM Difference
• The CA Clarity Customer
• Prognosis

The report is available for purchase for $395. Orders can be placed via our site’s request page or via email at: contact@vitalanalysis.com.  

New OpenAir Report

We recently completed the first in a number of PSA (Professional Services Automation) and PPM (Project Portfolio Management) reports that will be produced this summer and fall. We have started with OpenAir, a firm we have watched for some time. OpenAir has consistently received good word-of-mouth recommendations from users and was recently acquired by NetSuite (NYSE symbol: N).  

Here is an excerpt from the Summary section of the report:

On balance, we like OpenAir’s broad functionality and integration to numerous front and back office solutions.  We are generally optimistic about the acquisition by NetSuite but will watch this over time to ensure that OpenAir’s market reputation does not slip post-acquisition.

 

We believe that for OpenAir to move further up-market, it will need to develop additional internal capabilities or relationships with third-party integrators to serve the very largest service organizations in the world.  The scale of some of these significant “whale sales” could swamp either OpenAir or NetSuite.  We also believe that firms such as Primavera or CA will present a formidable competition in the highest levels of the marketplace with their Evolve and Clarity products, respectively.

This report is available for download immediately. It is priced at $395 and can be ordered via our online request form or by email: contact@vitalanalysis.com .  

New Workscape Report

We recently caught up with senior Workscape executives at the recent HR Week event in New York City. We created a short update note on the firm and are making it available to interested persons. Simply complete our online request form or email us at contact@vitalanalysis.com .

New Research Report - Coda’s New Force.com Based Product Line

We recently prepared a research report on the Coda 2go product line. Coda 2go is an all-new product line built off the software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, Force.com. Force.com is the salesforce.com development platform being featured to much fanfare by salesforce.com in events worldwide.

We liked the speed with which Coda developed this offering and this speaks well of the Force.com platform. Both salesforce.com and Coda will benefit from this effort. We particularly like the combination of Coda’s strong financial functionality and saleforce.com’s SFA, CRM and platform.

The report can be ordered from Vital Analysis for $395. Please complete an online request form or email us at contact@vitalanalysis.com .

Big, Report,

Big Investment,

Big Product Suite

Enterprise Irregular Dennis Howlett  and Vital Analysis founder Brian Sommer have teamed up to write a single, definitive report on SAP’s Business ByDesign product suite.  While both of them have blogged and/or developed short research reports on this product suite, both parties believed that something this big and expansive deserved a more nuanced, deliberate review.

The report has been written and is awaiting a final fact-check from SAP. We are also awaiting a couple of graphic files to insert into the document.

Here’s some the teaser copy relating to the report:

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                  Comprehensive SAP Business ByDesign Report

It takes a comprehensive report to cover a comprehensive product suite like SAP’s Business ByDesign. This is a product suite that involved the efforts of thousands of developers and took approximately five years to bring to market. While much has been written about Business ByDesign, this report succinctly summarizes it all in a compact 20-page analysis. We examine subjects such as:

· The Target Buyer for Business ByDesign – Do you have what it takes to be a Business ByDesign user?

· Process Design vs. Functional Silos – This may be the single most important choice you make in buying a SMB software solution

· Product Review – A walkthrough of the 8 major functional components of Business ByDesign along with our requests for needed improvements in each area

· Vertical Assessment – How well does Business ByDesign serve your industry?

· Product Enhancements – Where should/will SAP expend its future efforts? What role will channel partners play?

· Technical Enhancements – Is the software delivering the performance that both you and SAP demand now?

· Competitive Assessment – How does this solution stack up against Workday, NetSuite and other on-demand ERP offerings?

· Author Summaries – See what our two report authors think. These are two of the software industries most visible and long-lived pundits.

The report is out for fact checking and will come out under the Vital Analysis brand. We’re hoping it will be available for delivery by the end of next week. Yes, it is a paid for item because a combined 65+ years’ experience applied to this kind of thing doesn’t come free, especially when you’ve put in a lot of time into understanding the product, its position and value to the market.

For professionals looking to extend their consulting practices, we believe ByDesign is a superb opportunity to get deep into what your clients’ businesses really do, how they’re shaped and the problems they meet. I’m encouraging practitioners to consider this as a way of massively improving the value they offer. It requires the kind of mindset that professionals need to be both methodical and have that all important eye for detail. Learning the solution is not the issue for new people. Understanding process most certainly is.

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Ordering and other information will be out shortly. Stay tuned.

Data on Compensation Data

We are pleased to announce the availability of a new research report on Salary.com . Salary.com is a well-established provider of compensation data and consulting services.

The following is an excerpt from the Prognosis section of the report:

“Salary.com has been quietly but successfully building its business.  In nine years, the company has enjoyed 27 consecutive quarters of revenue growth and is close to becoming a profitable organization.  We applaud the company in its efforts to broaden itself beyond a simple provider of compensation data.  Through organic and inorganic growth it has rounded out its offerings to become a more full service talent management solution provider.  The company should be viewed as a full-service compensation management company today with aspirations of becoming a full talent management solution provider soon.  We would anticipate that the company will need to ally with or acquire a learning management system and develop more expertise in the incentive compensation area in the immediate future.”

For information about ordering this report, please email us at contact@vitalanalysis.com or complete the contact form on this website.

Point of View Selling in Professional Services

On June 11 (1 pm EST), Brian Sommer from Vital Analysis will be leading a discussion on Selling Professional Services via a Point of View style. The web-based seminar is being hosted by PSA (professional services automation) vendor OpenAir. Registration information and call-in details will be found soon at: http://www.openair.com/home/newsEvents.html .

Title: “Point of View & Other Selling Styles - Winning Sales Practices in Professional Services” If your services sales teams aren’t delivering the results you desire, maybe it’s the approach they use. Do they engage with the prospect or talk about your firm? Do they come back feeling they’ve validated critical client needs and can develop winning, relevant proposals? If not, attend this short but intense webinar by Brian Sommer. Brian was a long-time, successful Accenture partner who has trained thousands of sales professionals at leading software and consulting firms globally. He’ll discuss a selling style, Point of View selling, that’s far more deadly with CXOs than any other approach. In a tight economy, can you really afford to miss this? Briefly, Brian will use humor, facts, experience and more to discuss:    - the four common styles of selling services and where these are most appropriate    - how CXOs (not service professionals) define how a consultative sale should work    - the key elements of a point of sale approach    - what should/shouldn’t go into your sales decks

Acquiring Passive Talent? Read This Report

We recently spent time with the folks at Jobfox. This firm has a slick new product designed for persons already employed but possibly interested in a new career oppportunity. This approach makes the software quite different from traditional job boards. You can get a copy of this report from the Jobfox website. Follow this link to read more and to receive the report: http://www.jobfox.com/Site/press/Press052808.aspx