Lately I’ve been really focused on process automation -- specifically, how software can help but also potentially cripple cycle times. When it comes to enterprise applications, my strong view is that event and alert management solutions are two of the most critical components to achieving success.

Services Procurement (aka Vendor Management Systems) are no exception to this rule and since we are currently in the process of writing a Forrester Wave™ evaluation on this topic, I thought I’d share a few thoughts on what companies should look for in the context of these tools. Let’s start with a snapshot of a recent interview I conducted with a VMS end-user . . .

This company’s main goal was to free up key staff by automating services procurement processes and managing by exception only. The company viewed the software’s event management and associated alerting capabilities as core to achieving this. So when they found a vendor reporting over 200 alerts “out of the box,” that was a big factor in why they chose the solution.

The implementation team diligently gathered the requirements and presented the wide range of alerts to the end-user community. Business line managers were initially very excited at the prospect of being alerted via email when key events took place. The implementation team ended up enabling nearly all of the 200+ alerts.

The result? On Day 1 of acceptance testing, each primary stakeholder on the project who had signed up to do quality assurance received over 100 alerts from the application -- some in their email inboxes, others only in the dashboard. Now, this was clearly a setback but not necessarily a shop stopper. The team regrouped and decided to change the alerting philosophy to really only highlight exceptions in the process. Unfortunately, this is where the project started to come off the rails . . .

I had an interesting briefing Monday with Ashif Mawji, the CEO of Upside Software, and Dan Townsend, VP of Sales and Marketing. Upside is primarily known as a Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) software vendor but also offers RFx capabilities and some elements of Supplier Performance Management. Upside is built on .NET and is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner who also boasts Microsoft as a customer.

I rarely blog about vendor briefings, but this one stood out for a couple of reasons. First, it was the kind of briefing that as an IT industry analyst I’ve really grown to appreciate -- no slides, good two-way dialogue and a concise but impactful product demo. And, it was that product demo that really got my attention.

Organizations of all sizes have a growing number of traveling employees, some or many of whom travel overseas. IT should learn from the recent Icelandic volcanic eruption which resulted in many airport shutdowns across northern and central Europe for several days. Hundreds of thousands of traveling iWorkers were stranded, unable to reach their travel destination or even return home. The fortunate ones were those who’d been

I haven’t been blogging or tweeting recently because I’ve been on an unprecedented two-week vacation, but didn’t want any potential burglars to know that. Now, thanks to Eykanmuckyourlifeup or whatever its called, that vacation has turned into an extended business trip states-side (see #ashtag). So I’m taking the opportunity to meet more clients on the smoke-free side of the pond, to help them with their software negotiations.

This is a busy time of year, particularly for Oracle and Microsoft deals in front of their financial year-ends of May 31^st and June 30^th respectively. One of software buyers’ frequently asked questions is, “what extra leverage does a vendor’s year-end really give us?”

The answer is in the title above. On the one hand, if your deal would give your sales rep a Spiff, an extra bonus for selling specific products, then he’ll be very keen to prevent your order slipping into next quarter, when the spiff may not be available. Even better, he’ll be desperate to close your transaction now if he needs it to make his annual target, to avoid becoming part of next quarter’s reduction in force (RIF) program.