Learning Simulations: Harvard Business Publishing Sets The Stage For Exploring Real Business Situations

By Claire Schooley

In the beginning of the year, Harvard Business Publishing launched a collection of online simulations as part of its curriculum that expose learners to real business situations and enforce essential corporate skills. Learning simulations are interactive models of real-life processes, events, or interactions that have distinctive learning outcomes. Users can manipulate variables that change the state of the model — they can make mistakes, learn from them, and try again — emulating a real "learning by doing" approach. With these online simulations, learners can engage in common business situations within realistic scenarios, and learn how to fine-tune their communication, analytical, and decision-making skills.

The first simulation, Universal Rental Car is a pricing simulation focused on teaching employees pricing skills in a managerial environment, as learners take on the role of regional marketing manager at a rental car agency, and are tasked with pricing rental cars in cities across Florida. Sample the Universal Rental Car simulation (login = user, password = user) for three rounds, and explore the Prepare, Analyze, and Decide tabs.

Another popular simulation, Everest, uses Mount Everest as a backdrop for teaching core leadership and team skills, as a group of five team members must work together to achieve their goal of reaching the summit. Harvard Business Publishing plans to add more simulations throughout this year, resulting in a strong group of online simulations. The upcoming summer releases include: Benihana (an operations management simulation focused on the service and operations of the Benihana restaurant chain), and Back Bay Battery (a strategic innovation simulation focused on the innovation and risk involved in product development).

Simulations are quickly becoming a valued learning approach. Look for more off-the-shelf vendors like Harvard Business Publishing that will present learning scenarios, especially in the area of management and leadership development through simulations.

Pitney Bowes Picks The Right Path By Reaffirming Its Managed Services Business

By Craig Le Clair and Sheri McLeish

Pitney Bowes’ affirmation today of its US Managed Services (PBMS) will be a relief for its many customers that have been in a holding pattern since it was revealed they were reviewing (read: shopping) the unit last November. Assessing its portfolio of software, hardware, and services made sense with relatively new CEO Murray Martin on board, but doing so publicly was detrimental in the short run as it created a huge FUD factor around a relatively sound component of its mail stream solutions business. So it’s with relief that at the conclusion of its review of strategic options for the PBMS business that Pitney Bowes will look to cultivate this services arm. In fact, if it hadn’t we would have been really surprised, considering the document processing services (DPS) business is growing, and with a $1B operation Pitney Bowes already has a strong foothold in it.

During the past year, DPS offerings have separated into three distinct segments: hosted repository services, document output services, and distributed output services. The segments are now linking in ways that promise to show real value. Pitney Bowes has a leg in each of these segments, and only a few others like Xerox can make that claim. Giving up PBMS is akin to giving away the crops while keeping the land and farm equipment. Valuable, yes, but not nearly as enriching as leveraging the investment for further growth.

There’s definitely room for a hardware-independent approach to providing managed services. PBMS supplies hardware for its managed services through strategic partnerships with providers such as Sharp, Konica Minolta, and Canon, and it has acquired a supplies company, Print, that provides print supplies.

Yet the real potential is coupling Pitney’s growing software business that focuses on marketing services and location-based intelligence with document process services. The software assets better support the real goals of communication such as outbound campaign services. Pitney Bowes’ hosted repository services offerings, which include data transformation, repository services, workflow, and records management, will grow as well. And with the development of its eDiscovery outsourced services, these can all be bolstered by their software assets.

If you look at the successful transitions that hardware providers such as IBM, Unisys, and others have made, it was to services first. That’s because services are the easier transition and a nice link between the software and hardware. Why Pitney Bowes even considered jettisoning the managed services division is open to question, but at least now we know the answer, and so everybody can breath a sigh of relief and move on.

Oracle To Purchase Skywire Software – DOM And ECM Continue Pattern Of Convergence

By Craig LeClair

On June 24, 2008, Oracle announced its intent to purchase Skywire Software. This potential acquisition has three very strong positives:

Skywire enhances Oracle's ECM offering. Skywire Software has a document output management arsenal that includes Whitehill Technologies (InSystems) and Docucorp International, both of which the company acquired in 2007. Skywire's customer communication solution fills gaps and creates opportunities in Oracle's overall ECM suite. Universal Content Manager and Imaging and Process Manager can now provide complete structured solutions -- built for statements and bills for the print channel, and interactive output management -- creating direct marketing material, or collaboration and workflow for creating enrollment kits. In addition, pain points in customer communication can be addressed more broadly when Skywire's DOM solution is combined with Oracle's web content management products to provide a more complete multi-channel solution.

The acquisition enhances Oracle's reach into the insurance vertical. Oracle continues to expand its insurance industry assets. Insurance has always been a bit IBM-heavy on the software side -- perhaps reflecting thier conservative disposition -- so Oracle's collection of insurance assets makes perfect sense. Most of Skywire Software's DOM customers (1,400 of 2,000) are in insurance, and most others are in financial services. So even before any synergy with Oracle's Global Insurance business unit, Skywire provides document automation for more than 60 policy and administrative systems. The Whitehill product provides strength in Group Health and Life insurance, while the products acquired from Docucorp offer strong Property and Casualty solutions.

When Skywire is viewed in the context of Oracle's Global Insurance assets -- incuding AdminServer, a licensed software suite for policy and administration -- the combination will be a formidable competitor to other DOM solutions in one of the strongest verticals. Over time, we expect Oracle to provide process integration packs within their Application Integration Architecture, leveraging Fusion Middleware and BPEL Process Manager -- a compelling solution for the insurance industry.

This makes sense for Oracle as a good defensive move. We have seen HP purchase Exstream Software and EMC purchase Document Sciences, so I will go out on the analyst limb and declare the ECM/DOM consolidation trend valid. Oracle picked up the strongest remaining DOM provider. Good move.

Other nice things include Skywire's Tracker insurance-compliance product that merges rating data with underwriting document production. The DOM products provide good coverage in insurance.

The acquisition is a real boost to Skywire as well. Oracle's R&D budget and experience in unifying software application will be a plus, as their diverse platforms will create road map and unification challenges. And any worries of having needed ECM support are now gone, as the suite can leverage UCM. This acquisition is all good news for Oracle and Skywire.

What Happened To The Airline Industry's Business Intelligence?

By Boris Evelson

Remember my blog dated January 16, 2008 where I said that everything that happens in the software market is somehow related to Business Intelligence? I am now expanding that conjecture to include all other market segments. Specifically, the airline industry.  And not just Business Intelligence. Just plain old intelligence.

As many of my readers know, I've been an IT practitioner, manager, executive, and management consultant for over 25 years, and have done my share of domestic and international travel. I've taken daily shuttle flights from Boston to NYC as if they were taxi rides to a destination across town, and I flew as far as the southern tip of South America once on an Uruguayan airline, with a live chicken staring at me, trying to poke at me with its beak the whole trip from inside the backpack of the passenger in front of me. I think the owner even mistook my outstretched arms (I was trying to protect myself) for genuine interest in the chicken, and even offered to sell it to me. I pretended I did not understand him. Anyone who can remember the last painless, relaxed, and stress-free air travel experience, drop me a note, and I'll buy the two of us a lottery ticket – as you must be the luckiest person on Earth.

All my long history of air travel delays, cancellations, lost luggage, and other airline mistreatments - which most of us now take for granted, and patiently accept as helpless followers of the Airline Big Brother - pale in comparison to what happened to me and my wife on our recent trip to Portugal. I will gladly repeat another colonoscopy and root canal procedures simultaneously, while writing a $50,000 check to the IRS, and negotiating with a new kitchen contractor at the same time, than go through another similarly blissful experience on Continental. (I single out Continental because that was the airline we flew on, but they all have their share of major problems.)

Out of the 7-day trip, which was supposed to be half business conference half vacation, we spent over 3 days (around 70 hours) in airport waiting areas, airplanes, hotels, and rental cars. We should've spent those 3 days in Lisbon, but who wants to climb up and down all of those medieval cobblestone streets, and visit those boring castles and museums? I say, you've seen one museum, you've seen them all! Thanks to Continental, we were spared the monotony of walking around an old European city (who cares about its 800 year history anyway, it's all in the past, right?), and instead spent that time relaxing in the soothing atmosphere of international and domestic air terminals, comfortably and cozily dozing off in wide, plushy and cushy airline seats with lots of leg and elbow room.

It was supposed to be a very simple trip. I did not use my preferred airline, United, where I have a 1K status, since United or its partners did not have a convenient connection to Lisbon from Boston, and instead made a decision (very brave one, in retrospect) to go with Continental, hoping for a quick hop from Boston to Newark, and then a relatively painless direct flight from Newark to Lisbon.

My travel agent, bless her heart, asked me whether I preferred a 1.5 or a 3 hour layover in Newark. I smiled at her a bit condescendingly – she must be so naive – and chose the safe and sure option: 3 hours.  I was punished for my snobbishness soon enough – as the ground delay in Boston grew closer and closer to 4 hours, that 3 hour layover looked less and less promising. Well, beggars mustn't be choosy; after all, we did get up in the air. I was a bit surprised, though, that air travel from Boston to Newark was taking almost 3 hours (we usually make it there by car in 4), but landing back in Hartford, CT, explained it. After all, Hartford is extremely far from Boston, I heard from several experienced travelers that it is located as far away as 70 miles, so I felt, unlike my wife, that a 3 hour flight from Boston to Hartford was completely justified.

I also felt fully confident that our airplane pilot and the Hartford airport ground crew knew exactly what they were doing. They must've been a real battle-hardened bunch, since not only did they not let anyone off the plane (remaining oblivious to the pleas from elderly couples, pregnant women, and generally famished passengers), they also didn't let anyone get near the airplane and refuel it, until a local fire truck came over to supervise the operation. Very smart, you don't take flammable liquids in close proximity very lightly and always want to err on the side of caution. Even though it took 2 hours for us to refuel, and we were now into a 9 hour trip and a whopping 70 miles from Boston. We were getting real hungry. Had I been given another chance then, I would've definitely bought that Uruguayan chicken.

Finally arriving in Newark 11 hours later, my confidence in the level of service grew even higher. Years of experience has taught airline management that when a lot of flights get delayed and hundreds of people need to be rebooked, they need to assign as many as 1.5 agents at a gate several miles away from the one where we exited (with no signs or directions), with passengers forming lines a few miles long, waiting for hours for the news of rebooking. My wife did not share my admiration and enthusiasm about the high quality of service, and we spent the night at one of NYC Marriotts. Perhaps her lack of enthusiasm could somewhat be justified, since all of her toiletries and other typical women's trinkets were safely on the way to Lisbon. She needs to be more confident, I say, she’s a natural beauty and does not need all that makeup anyway.

We got up bright and early the next morning, shared the luxurious toiletries that we managed to scarf from under the nose of a Continental lost luggage agent, who innocently looked away for a second, assuming that he was dealing with amateurs, aired our somewhat smelly clothes in the fresh and clean air of NYC, and headed back to Newark International Airport, full of optimism and hope. The sun was shining, and big fat clouds were having a happy pillow fight in the big blue sky (did they know something we didn't?). By the time we were told that the next direct flight to Lisbon was oversold, and our rebooked flight through London Heathrow was 2 hours late, our morning (well, evening by now) enthusiasm started to dwindle just a bit.

Our spirits took another blow, as an airline representative on the flight temporarily lifted our trust in humanity when he said that he was there to address any of the passengers' concerns, only to let us down with the brute force of Niagara Falls when he refused to let us out of the airplane with the business class passengers so that we could have a glimpse of a hope to make our connection (or handle any other request made by us, for that matter). The enthusiasm was all but gone in Heathrow when we missed the connection to Lisbon, boarded the next one in 4 hours, and then found out that our luggage was not on that flight. Nor was it in or headed for Lisbon for now. It was somewhere in the dungeons of Heathrow, waiting for the determination of our fate. Smart, I told myself, why would they send our luggage to Lisbon if they weren't 100% sure that we'd get there in this lifetime? After we pass on and move to greener pastures, it'd be easier for our heirs to retrieve it from UK (our children and most of British citizens speak English), than from Portugal. Better keep it in London for now.

Listen, I do not complain. I am thankful that the luggage did arrive at our final destination only 18 hours after us, and attendees at our EMEA IT Leadership Forum could finally enjoy my presentations, without being distracted by visual and olfactory peculiarities of a person who traveled over 3,000 miles in two days on three airlines without a change of clothes. I didn't even question the probability that our return flight a few days later was also late, and we had no hope of making the Newark connection to Boston the same day (my Guardian Angel must've told me to book a rental car in Newark). The probability of such a coincidence on both outbound and inbound legs of the trip must be infinitesimally small – I am so lucky, indeed, I think I will buy that lottery ticket after all.

Unfortunately, I am not alone. Another Forrester analyst recently flying on US Airways had a mechanical failure in route from Philadelphia to Las Vegas, made an emergency landing and had to spend the night in a hotel.  The next day when another plane she was on experienced an aborted takeoff, she demanded to be let off the plane. In fact, she never made it to our conference because she was so shaken by the events, and took a train back to her home in New England instead.

I believe in karma and divine providence. I know there's a reason for this.  Here's my advice to airlines struggling with the basics of moving passengers and baggage from place to place (hopefully, the destination they intended):

• Perhaps after building a comprehensive Business Intelligence environment, the airlines would realize that customers must be very profitable. A few hundred of us travel at least several times a month, sometimes on a moment's notice, and often paying full fare for our tickets. A single 360 degree view of such customers, with detailed purchase history collected from our credit card and other POS and ATM transactions, could be very useful in understanding our travel profiles.
• Then maybe, just maybe (gosh, I am such an optimist) the airlines would put two and two together, and its predictive modeling algorithm displaying the results on an intuitive visual dashboard would foretell that perhaps passengers would be turned off from any future travel on that airline. And perhaps some wise sales and marketing executive would think of a brilliant scheme of how to turn the lose-lose situation into a win-win. A free upgrade to business class for the next 12 months, perhaps?
• The airlines could also put such a full-loop marketing and sales customer analytics program in place. Whether it's finding and sourcing the right transactional data, or cleansing it, or putting rigorous data governance and MDM processes around it, or modeling the data correctly so that the right business questions can be answered at the right time by the right people, the visual dashboard can be answered, or architecting the end to end solution to be scalable, robust, agile and high performing.

My fellow analysts covering the airline industry tell me that Continental actually has built a database that they use for operations, customer service, and marketing purposes. Apperently, they even do use predictive modeling to manage the operations, though they clearly did not use it effectively in our case.

Or, alternatively, passengers can just stop flying so much.  Who needs it when you can do Web conferencing and high resolution video conferencing?  Maybe Cisco and HP are really onto something with their Telepresence and Halo products that give video conference participants a highly realistic sense of being there in person. If I were the airlines, I would watch out. It's easy to foresee the mass exodus of former air passengers heading into the telepresence room instead (see blog posts by Connie Moore and Claire Schooley for more on this subject).

Google Reaches For The Long Tail Of Corporate Site Search

By Matthew Brown and Leslie Owens

Today, we heard about several enhancements to a SaaS-based corporate site search offering from the folks over at Google Enterprise. This relatively unknown offering started as "Google Custom Search," was renamed "Custom Search Business Edition" in July of 2007, now sports the name "Google Site Search," and claims to have thousands of paying customers. Fully hosted at Google, the service lets Web site managers sign up, configure a crawl, customize the interface, bias how results are returned, and start searching at the low, low entry price of $100/year. Clearly, this service is a mere infant, relative to its mature enterprise search platform cousins, but this announcement is unsurprisingly consistent with Google's efforts to tap demand within the long tail of enterprise search buyers. Below are some questions we’ve received since this announcement:

Question: How much of an improvement are the new features - enhanced indexing and the ability to date bias searchable content - represent for business Web sites that are seeking search?

Forrester's take: Enhanced indexing, synonyms, date biasing, and top results biasing are necessary, but incremental, improvements to Google Site Search. Features like date biasing are very helpful when you want to prioritize time-sensitive content, like press releases or news content, over general "brochure-ware" pages on a corporate Web site. The Google Site Search product still lacks other features corporate site owners want, like the ability to push new content into the index as it is published and/or modify content crawling schedules so that new content can quickly be made available through the search function. But this release is definitely a step in the right direction.

We're also encouraged by the addition of "refinement categories" that let search-administrators specify URL patterns that can be presented as categories above the results to help searchers find their way to important content. And the online reporting capabilities for analyzing frequently searched terms are a real plus. Most significant is the zero-footprint implementation they get by being SaaS-based, which results in a $100/year price point for up to 5000 pages. This offering will be highly valuable to corporate Web site owners who don’t have boat-loads of cash or IT skills to buy and implement on-premise search solutions. Currently, many of these folks rely on the lousy search that comes embedded on their Web server. Just try the search function on the majority of corporate Web sites out there today and you'll quickly realize there is a massive opportunity to improve the quality of search.

Question: Do you think there will be wariness out there about the cloud-computing aspects of site search?

Forrester's take: Yes, of course there will continue to be wariness about the cloud-computing aspects of site search - especially among companies that like to make money online. Google has a lot of work to do to build awareness around what it is offering and to dispel people’s concerns that it is solely in the business of monetizing other people’s content through search advertising. Google is walking a very fine line in this regard.

For example, Google released a feature earlier this year on Google.com called “search-within-search” that lets users search the contents of a specific corporate Web site without ever leaving Google.com (this still works if you enter "Microsoft," "Cisco," "New York Times," or many other company names, into the Google.com search bar and then look at the search bar in the first result). If I’m a corporate Web site owner, I don’t like this one bit because I invest a lot of time (and money) in attracting people to my Web site, making my Web site easier to use, and hopefully, making it more profitable for my company. Essentially, search-within-search lets users dig deep into your Web site without ever visiting your site. This can be especially problematic for companies running advertisements on their corporate sites, but it also impacts any company investing in an overall brand experience via its Web site. If Google adds advertisements next to "search-within-search" results (to our knowledge it hasn't yet done so), corporate Web site owners will have to choose between letting Google monetize, monetizing the content themselves, or sharing the take with Google.

Long term, without broader awareness and better transparency into exactly what Google does with the corporate site information it indexes, Google will continue to face a real identity crisis between whether it's advocating for the corporate site search buyer, or it's just trying to print more money from other people's content. Near term, information and knowledge management pros looking at basic site search would be remiss not to at least try this offering. After all, a single cab ride to the airport can cost more than using Google Site Search for a year.