Quadrobay origins

Social 

I had been skeptical of social entrepreneurism. A typical business tries to maximize return on the capital invested. Isn’t this the premises of capitalism? Where does greater good for the society come into picture? That was then, now I am in middle of the startup saga of Quadrobay and my perspective has changed.

It was another hot summer day in Chennai. I was sitting in the shades of the mango tree at my home and was reading a magazine when I saw a man in his mid to late 50s walking towards my home. He looked lean and tired. There were gray facial hair reminding us of very many battles he has seen his life. I was relieved to see him wearing sandals and my immediate concern about Chennai’s heat subsidized considerably. He came to our home and asked my mom for some work in our garden. My mom sent him away saying that there was no work.

I thought that we should give him some work, just because he took the effort to walk in the scorching sun to get some work. My mom brushed me off and we argued about this for 30 minutes or so. Few days passed by and I could hear my mom complaining about how old she was and she needs help to clean the home and nobody was available to give her a helping hand. I thought of the man from other day who was much younger and fitter than my mom and could have done this easy. I was ready to employ him for a day or so but we had no clue where to find him. My mom was still arguing that she can’t let stranger inside the house. They might kill her and rob the house.

What bothered me was that
• Why should a person walk in the scorching sun looking for some work
• Why should a lady staying alone be so fearful of getting help even though the fear is very much valid
• What is the point in being the leaders in technology and billions and billions of $$ in foreign reserve when we can’t make a fast substantive positive difference in the lives of masses.

I looked at the whole situation as an in efficiency in supply meeting the demand or inefficiency in the supply chain. I soon realized from discussions with my friends that mine was not an outlier and many of them had experienced/observed variations of similar story. There is definitely an opportunity to make a difference without becoming parasite kind of an agent.

When we discussed the idea of helping the situation with technology, the biggest question asked was where would profits come from? These are $10- $30 txn, why would they come to us or use technology. Even if they come where are the margins? It was really frustrating for me.

I really do not care. There is an urge within me to help and I feel a social responsibility for the same. Me along with couple of my friends discussed this and agreed that, “ It does not matter if we do not make money as long as we can cover our costs or in the worst case these loses are bearable for us.” We make enough money between us that we can afford to try and help. The satisfaction of trying to make a difference in the lives of many people is worth the risk we are taking.

Today Quadrobay is attempting to help and make a difference. It is a saga, it a venture. Wait a minute, am I saying that, I am part of a start up that does not really care about maximizing profit but is driven by a higher goal. Yes, I am and you are reading it correctly. If this is not social entrepreneurism then what else is? Please help me to understand

Time for ERP market place

It is time for a market place 

 
Organizations waste their capital and precious resources in reinventing the wheel again & again. In the last 17 + years as a professional I have seen this first hand in very many places. The stories from market support this. Many of these organizations that run ERP applications like Oracle & SAP engage in very similar application extension/customization activities to solve business problems. There might be some variations in the processes but the crux of the problems solved is very similar. If these solutions are exchanged it would enable faster resolutions and cost saving. Even process variations will be adjusted to save cost. 
Global IT outsourcing organizations have been making good use of this concept. They are in a unique situation to take advantage of this due to their exposure and access to legacy and newly created IP. Most of these companies offer some sort of solution portfolios that are a makeover of a knock off of projects they have done for their customers. There are some smaller boutique companies with solutions too, but they face a stiff resistance to sell into corporate world 
It is high time for a vendor market place. These big ERP vendors should encourage organizations and individuals to develop solutions/applications on their platform that would seamlessly integrate with their products. These big ERP vendors can certify and approve these products for a fee. They can take a cut on the transaction if customers download and deploy these applications. This enable small player to get access to a big ERP market and open up sleuth of opportunities for innovation. It will accelerate the rate of innovation. (We may even end up getting a loveable UI for Oracle Tele service screens). This action will also give confidence to customers while deploying solutions from small organizations. 
SFDC is innovating faster than many vendors with a similar approach. Organizations not adopting this strategy are leaving lots of money on the table to the secondary market. The community will innovate faster any corporate entity. The acceptance of applications in the cloud and loose coupling of applications using Service Oriented Architecture ( SOA) has considerably reduced the risk of experimenting with community innovation. 
By not establishing a market place Oracle & SAP are not only doing a disservice to their customers but also undermining their own future dominance in the enterprise applications market. 
--- SM Sridharam … Solution Architects @ Quadrobay

 

Doing more with less

Doing more with less

Doing more with less is one of the most abused phrase in the IT-Business world in the last 5-7 years. Yes IT budgets are not increasing? Technology has become a key enabler of competitive advantages. Business wants more capabilities fast and furious. IT staff are over stretched and challenged to keep up with ever changing technology.

While all challenges mentioned above are a reality, many IT leaders often ignore the inefficiency of their org setup as a contributing factor to these issues. The discipline of capability management is not effectively utilized in IT. Specialization of capabilities is very important to succeed. Organizations should become ruthless in outsourcing functions like development, support and focus on critical strategic functions. IT service providers have reached a level of maturity these days and can execute these functions well.

In a typical 3 layer organization with BSA-Development-Support teams, making development and support as managed services will almost double the number of connection points with the business. The net effect will be an organizations that executes efficiently it's focus area. This will be very critical for business enablement and working in alignment with business. This strategy will reap big dividends with ever increasing apetite for cloud applications with the business users.

It is very critical to review whether precious human resources are deployed in roles to maximize the value for the organization. Re allocation of resources can increase the value add for business significantly without adding additional cost for the organization.