IssueAlert Emerging Technologies ~
May, 2004
A Coming Technology Shift?
Customer Care Service Vendors Speak
By Christopher Perdue, Director, Market Research,
UtiliPoint
The 28th Annual CIS Conference continued in Miami on Wednesday
with a full day of vendor and utility sessions on customer care
in the utility industry. The conference has afforded an opportunity
to speak to a number of vendors, and to get their view of customer
care technology, and its usage in the utility industry.
In addition to these conversations, UtiliPoint recently interviewed
over two dozen customer care executives for the CIS Conference
on several factors, ranging from what utilities are requesting
most to what the future holds for customer care technology vendors.
To obtain a complimentary copy of UtiliPoint's Customer Care
interviews in their entirety, visit: www.utilipoint.com/rci/specialreports.asp.
Customer Care Services Speak
One of the more interesting items covered by UtiliPoint's
interviews and conversations has been on the subject of technology.
When asked, "Is there a technology shift coming in the
CIS market?" providers of customer care solutions responded
in a variety of ways. Darren Stoddard, vice president of Strategic
Alliances & Marketing at AMX International replied, “CIS
vendors are going to have to provide customers with a more flexible
architecture that allows them to adopt modules or components
as needed. Prospects today aren't buying complete replacement
systems. They want to maximize on their current information
technology investments, and buy in bits and pieces that will
bring in an immediate return on investment. Many of the current
CIS vendors' architectures are not capable of adapting to a
modular or component-driven model without a huge investment
and time to market. The days of huge 'all or nothing' CIS replacements
are over. Additionally, Web-based applications will continue
to make great strides in the market place as the standard platform
of the future.”
“Systems integration remains a great challenge for utilities,
and this is where I see the greatest technology shift occurring,”
said Michael Gardner, president of Cayenta, Inc. “The
continuing trend towards application programming interfaces
(APIs) and Web services is one of the most critical in our industry.
The recognition that systems must be open to easy integration
with other systems to have any sustainable value is a reality
that is going to set in on a few organizations more quickly,
and more catastrophically, than others. With the fierce battle
still in full force between the Microsoft and Java technology
sets, APIs and Web services permit these to coexist without
having to wait until a victor has been declared. It is the adoption
of these technologies that allows the integration of other systems
and components that ultimately extend the value of CIS systems
within an organization. No system can afford to be an island
unto itself, and no organization can truly afford the long-term
cost of investment into isolated environments.”
“There definitely is a shift occurring,” said Stan
Royal, chief executive officer at Conversant. “Historically,
advances in software technology come in waves that crest every
five to 10 years. The frequency of new waves is rapidly increasing
and shortening the duration of older technologies. This means
that unless a vendor has a flexible architecture, their solutions
are quickly outdated. For example, client technology has evolved
from green screens, to fat clients, to browser clients and now
to rich or smart clients. The thin browser clients were in a
way an aberration of the dot-com era where content-oriented
delivery was emphasized over user interactivity. Only recently
have developers realized that richer user interfaces are needed
to provide maximum user productivity. Smart clients are evolving
past the thin client paradigm to achieve new levels of usability.
Open source software is also a completely radical shift in how
software is developed and used. Vendors can capitalize on this
phenomenon by incorporating open source components in their
systems thereby increasing quality, interoperability and reducing
development costs. Java applications are leading the open source
movement. If you look at public sources like www.apache.org
or www.sourceforge.net, you quickly realize that Java-based
open source systems are here to stay and are revolutionizing
the industry.”
“Yes, we believe that there is a major technology shift
coming to the CIS market,” said Jeff Bender, president
of Harris Computer Systems. “Customers are demanding more
and more flexibility and interoperability between and amongst
their mission critical and adjunct systems. This will require
that CIS vendors revisit their proprietary technologies and
create interfaces and connectivity to allow data to transfer
both into and out of the CIS seamlessly. Customers are no longer
willing to pay for high priced interfaces to systems that are
expensive and difficult to maintain. They are requiring CIS
vendors to create APIs and Web services that provide the information
links required for systems to co-exist and maximize efficiencies
as a whole. We believe that from a development perspective there
are only two viable development platforms—Java and .Net.
We believe that, over time, all CIS vendors will have to move
to one of these platforms or face an increasingly difficult
time in the new name sales market. Customers are extremely hesitant
to make significant investments in proprietary technologies
in the face of today's rapidly changing technology environment.”
“Yes, there is—today,” said Carl Kloecker,
executive vice president at NirvanaSoft. “Technical and
application architectures are quickly changing in the CIS market.
The current movement towards both .NET and J2EE based standards
is a strategic development. Customers are becoming sophisticated
after many expensive experiences and are dictating standards
to suppliers rather than the other way around which is today's
reality. There are new object centered and componentized application
structures coming on line. There are still software products
out there that have not undergone any radical changes in the
last two or three years—and in some cases, last 10 years.
The users of those systems are realizing very fast that those
systems can present significant barriers to market entry—in
being able to offer a wide portfolio of complex products to
customers, or the speed of market entry. We have seen recent
examples where we have been approached by several marketers
because the systems they are using cannot handle the complex
tariff-based discount products being offered in New York and
New Jersey.”
“Paul Grey, Peace's CTO, foresees a disruptive technology
shift emerging that will revolutionize the utility CIS world—composite
applications,” said Brian Peace, founder of Peace Software.
“Composite application architecture is an innovative new
way of developing and integrating enterprise application software
products. It is one where the user interface (UI) is de-coupled
from the business logic functionality and data, enabling the
UI to be dynamically assembled from functional elements in a
highly configurable and extensible manner using Web services
and associated technologies. Ultimately utilities might potentially
run their business processes with applications accessed through
a single configurable, extensible UI, promising previously unachievable
user productivity benefits and lower implementation costs through
fewer requirements for software modifications. It's what analysts
are already calling the Nirvana of CIS.”
“SAP believes the shift is already here,” said
James Menton, utilities principal of SAP. “Many of the
CIS applications that are still using older technology are losing
the ability to retain current customers and obtain new customers.
This is due to the fact that it is harder to maintain, interface
and build add-on applications with their 'inch wide—inch
deep' type solutions. Only vendors that realize how important
a scalable and integrated technology platform is to the customer
will be able to sustain viability in the marketplace. This capability
will truly differentiate the leaders from the rest of the players,
in that, technology will play an even more important role as
we look to mobile, portal, data warehouse tools and continually
evolving development standards to complete the business process
requirements of utilities in the future.”
“I would suggest that the shift is more one of architecture—application
structure—than it is about a new technology like thin
client,” said Harry Debes, president and CEO of SPL WorldGroup.
“Of course, we'll accommodate technology advances. But
what is more to the point is that CIS vendors will begin to
expand product footprints markedly. A vendor will offer a product
or products that encompass more of a utility's customer-related
needs. At the same time, I think you'll also see vendors offering
utilities very specific functionality exactly when they need
it, in exactly the configuration they need. Over time, CIS will
be seen more as a very large bundle of applications that may
be tightly integrated, loosely coupled, or sold separately,
according to individual utility needs.”
In conclusion, not only do more than 90 percent of the vendors
at the CIS Conference this year see a technology shift occurring
in the industry, many think that shift is already in process.
Themes regarding this shift mainly focused on two areas. First,
there is the issue of integration. Competitive pressures, reporting
requirements, and aggressive customer service goals are increasing
the degree of integration across the business systems used in
a utility. As a result the CIS must be more and more integrated.
This is forcing many CIS vendors to adopt newer technologies
to reduce integration costs and improve the integration process.
Secondly, utilities are increasingly seeking flexibility in
their products. The driver for this seems to be an acknowledgment
that there is a need to close the traditional separation between
business user and programmer, to make it possible for individuals
who understand the utility business to have direct influence
over the CIS.
