Monday, January 4, 2010

Pushbutton Views

Hello!

This is perhaps that the nth time that I begin my journey with blogging. All earlier attempts - in forms on monologues/collablogging have been guided by interests other than professional. This time around, I intend to keep the theme of this blog distinctly around my work and the industry I live day in and out. In this introduction, I outline some of the areas which readers can expect to be covered on this journey!

My tryst with Enterprise Integration is now five years old - from summer internship at a big4 Consulting firm to Application consulting, Project Management, Pre-Sales and Business Development role at a premier supply chain consulting services firm! - It has been truly exciting and I look forward to make it even more! In this blog, I try to share my views as a insider/bystander/someone who goes out and hears customer needs and wants. My blog is going to carry certain imprints which I outline below.

Supply Chain process perspectives across Manufacturing Industries ranging from Dairy, Paints, Pharmaceuticals, CPG, Tyres, Industrial Machinery & Components, Auto and Auto Components, Textiles, Fertilizers - is what I have gathered over these years and this blog is certainly going to share the perspective from these industries!

I take the opportunity in blog to focus on the business processes(The so much used and abused word!!) - esp. supply chain process - Sales, Distribution, Production, Storage, Procurement - their Planning, Execution and Monitoring. This is 90% of what I hear, share, read and write at my work!

Coming to the Business Applications, My tryst with Application software has been 100% SAP - and the readers can certainly make out a strong imprint of the SAP thought in this blog. While Organizations get silo-ed with departments/functions, the business application consulting has had its own share of siloes where Planning and Execution Consultants are Silo-ed. These Silos are tall enough - so much so that it may be difficult to find a single materials consultant who could provide expertise on materials Planning, sourcing and logistics. Instead, what we would find in a SAP world, would be a SAP MM, SRM and APO consultant for each of the areas. While this trend has more been shaped & sharpened by SAP's product strategy, nevertheless, the bridge is wide enough to be bridged in the near future. What I try in this blog is to take a sincere effort to share and gather perspective which are enterprise wide and not sil-oed.

Finally, the strongest thought that has driven me to writing is the search for the Next Wave. In the enterprise application consulting, we have been witness to some great trends - From vanilla SAP Execution processes to more tactical, strategic processes being covered under the product - Planning, Budgeting. From a organization-centric view(APS), we have moved to the extended enterprise view with PLM, CRM and SRM! ~Are we running out of lasting waves? Or are there more Waves to come? - Service Oriented Architecture(SoA), Real-Time Collaboration, Business Process Management(BPM), Software as a Service(SaaS),Google Wave(Is that an idea of integrating Text, Email, Business Applications, Chat, Webmeetings in one go!!!)

Ride on with me as we discover all this and MORE!!!!