Pharos Enterprise Intelligence

We recently came across a blog article in InformationWeek's CIO Weblog that pretty much shares our view of the future of IT. It is titled "8 Trends In IT CIOs Can't Ignore." (http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/05/8_trends_in_it...)

At Pharos, we view our asset management product satisfying the needs of two groups within an organization. The commercial group, who uses the product to run their business, and the IT group who has to support the business users. The phrase IT has become rather pejorative. It implies those who fix mice and not what it stands for: information technology. As a result IT usually takes a back seat in most organizations. They are usually considered support and are rarely considered the front lines. It can be a thankless job for the only times they are noticed is when there is a problem. As in-house business applications get more complex so do the support needs of the organization. IT has to manage security, content, and connectivity with little room for "inconveniences." As the complexity increases so does the need for adequate support. Many organizations do not see the true value of IT as a force multiplier, collaboration enhancer or cost minimizer--just a cost center.

We strongly believe IT should share a place right next to the business users. Our philosophy is such that developers need to be trained and have an intimate understanding of the business such that they are better able to contribute to the business needs of the organization. IT/developers should be in a constant interaction with their business customers. There is an argument they sit next to them. The better the IT organization understands the business the better they can provide value. Organizations that get IT right often have programmers who are more knowledgeable about the business than those actually performing the work for the business. They need to understand the mechanics, the rules, and the meaning of the organization's information.

Many organizations do not want to invest the time or the money into IT infrastructure (people and equipment)--even though it could lead to increased revenues and decreased costs. This is where we step in. Pharos provides both the business application and the support to manage the business applications. We can do this effectively since our product is a software as a service. Our clients do not have to worry about security, servers, and maintenance. We are able to provide that more cost effectively. It pushes the burden away from the company IT staff and on to us. In this day and age where power plants change ownership quite frequently, companies do not want to invest the time and energy to develop these applications nor have the employees on staff to manage the system if they are not going to be around in a year or two. Our solution is a turnkey product that can be switched on and off without the major investment of building an infrastructure.

Going back to the blog, though, the trends noted there are a good model, and are similar to how we are running our business. They are a good generic framework for how to solve the above problems for our clients.

The first trend is cloud computing. We operate in the cloud (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing) by outsourcing our servers to a trusted, reliable third party (Engine Yard, http://www.engineyard.com/) that allows us to quickly and easily add server space and telecommunications capacity. That translates to a cost savings to both us and our customers. There is no need for us to purchase and maintain the infrastructure needed to run our business. Technology is changing rapidly. Costs are coming down and functionality improves. We could purchase a server and hire someone to maintain it, thereby increasing our cost structure. Or we can buy a "slice" from Engine Yard and have all of our needs taken care of for a relatively small sum. Amazon has created their own cloud, EC2, and new businesses are being started all the time that use this virtual space. It's a win-win for everyone involved.

The second trend is light systems. We can create small mini-applications that integrate multiple sources of data and present that data in a unique way to provide valuable information. We can do this quickly and easily if only for one or two customers within the organization. Within a client we may have multiple clients such as the control room operators, asset managers and engineers. We can easily develop for each leveraging off of the infrastructure and technologies in place.

The third trend is business intelligence. This is our core business. Power companies have access to so much information that it becomes difficult to digest, integrate, understand and make decisions. Business intelligence is becoming a big buzzword as other companies and industries are finding they need to do a better job of managing their information.

The fourth trend is the always connected user. Many people do not like to be always connected -- when they go home they don't want to bring work with them. This is a luxury not found in the asset management business ,where keeping the lights on is a 24/7 job. Asset managers, engineers and executives need to be constantly informed of their business. Any delay in receiving information on an opportunity or problem can potentially translate into lost opportunities or monetary losses. Giving our users the ability to be "always connected" is a huge value-add.

The fifth trend is social networking. This is an interesting trend, and one that we are not embracing yet. However, we are thinking about ways of incorporating social networking into our product. Social networking is has a lot to do with collaboration. We are in a world where it's as much about "who you know" as it is "what you know". Going to the right person to answer a question or solve a problem can save time and money. How do you find that person? How do you know what your friends and colleagues are up to? In the beginning social networking sites appeared to be more for kids and nothing serious. Now I think it is imperative in this day and age to embrace them.

The sixth trend is dramatic growth in user-generated content. We are big believers in this, but can only currently apply it to a portion of our product: the knowledge-base. Companies are moving away from relying on IT to manage their content: if you need to update a webpage with information, why should the person who originates the content have to go to one or two people to roll out the change? Companies are granting ownership of information to information managers who have full authority to create and disseminate information. Technologies exist to make this process easy and secure, and archivable with change management tools (ability to see who makes what changes and roll back the change if necessary). Our corporate website is a key example: we are running Drupal, the free content management system. We had our corporate website up in, literally, hours. It has a look we like and allows anyone in our organization to publish content on our website. We could have hired a web designer, to whom we would then send content to upload. But at what cost in time and money? Knowledge-bases and knowledge management is a prime application for user-generated content. Let those with the knowledge maintain it.

The seventh trend is the "forever beta" approach to software. We take pride in our software being very dynamic. The software you license from us today will be different than that product you have a year later. We will constantly be rolling out new features and more often than not with the influence of our customers. We can very easily and agilely develop functionality. We don't require a full spec to test an idea. We are able to sit down with the business user with a rough idea and iteratively work together to get something into production. It works to everyone's advantage that we incorporate our users in the testing and validation process of each new function. Think about it: is anything ever the way you like it? As soon as you get something complete you find ways to improve upon it. "Forever beta" is that continual process of improvement. Business today is dynamic, and companies cannot afford to sink their heels into one idea, one technology or one way of doing things. Companies must adapt and innovate. Change happens -- deal with it. Don't be resistant to change and don't feel you have to stick with something because you invested so much time in it. If something does not work, then no harm no foul. We don't profess to have technology to solve every problem. We do profess to continually improve, adapt and innovate.

The eight trend is sustainability (a/k/a green computing). This is not on our radar, but we will make a stretch. We can claim to help foster the exchange of information and improve collaboration. Improved collaboration means people do not have to travel as much (greatly reducing their carbon footprint). An area of research for us is to advance the virtual office. At our previous employer we had several employees living outside of the New York City area that need to collaborate in the same room. We rolled out some simple and free technologies that allowed them to share a workspace as if they were looking over each other's shoulders. I use the same technology to troubleshoot work I am doing for a client in Houston. It saves time, money and fuel. Also, we are using a cloud as our hosted server environment (a cloud is pure water vapor--technically water vapor is thought to contribute to the greenhouse effect but that is neither her nor there). Using a shared resource lowers our carbon footprint by only utilizing the resources we need to run our business. We do not have a dedicated space with redundant servers that are underutilized to run our operations. We only use the minimum amount of energy we need.