Hitachi’s Path to Oracle Diamond Partnership: Diamonds are forever

Congratulation to a Game Changer

,

Dears,

It’s indeed a great pleasure for me to write about Hitachi’s Path to Oracle Diamond Partnership. At the start of this year, we set out to Change the Game, elevating the Oracle practice to unprecedented heights by opening up new opportunities for growth.  We have now met a big piece of that goal in September 2012 & we were officially notified by Oracle that we have been recognized as the newest Oracle Diamond Partner, only the 11^th firm to achieve this elite status in the Oracle Partner Network (OPN).

This is a major milestone for our Oracle practice and indeed for the firm overall.  Together, we are successfully changing the game. I take the privilege to reproduce most of the content which was shared by our Hitachi Oracle Alliance leadership team on this accomplishment.To say this was a team effort would barely do justice to what was accomplished.  Because not only did literally hundreds of people make a difference to this effort, none of the people involved had “achieve Diamond status” in their standard daily job description.  Most of what we achieved came through collaboration and hard work performed above and beyond the normal expectations of everyone’s job. Thank you to all who helped Hitachi to change the game: Our Certified Consultants, Specialization sponsors, GTM Offering owners, marketers, communicators, sellers, consultants, Coordinators and so on.  

How we changed the Game & What did we do to achieve this status

Diamond is the highest level Oracle Partners can achieve in the Oracle Partner Network (OPN) and is available by invitation only.  Of the 20,000+ Oracle Partners, Hitachi is just the 11^th firm to reach this status.  Hitachi was previously a Platinum Partner, the second highest level, which includes more than 200 firms and therefore does not offer nearly the same level of differentiation.

·         Consolidated the Hitachi-Oracle Alliance globally, with unprecedented participation from all relevant Hitachi entities, including Hitachi Ltd. (now the formal owner of the Alliance), Hitachi Consulting, Hitachi Consulting Japan, Hitachi Solutions, Hitachi Data Systems, Hitachi Communication Technologies of America, and other subsidiaries.

·         Achieved the over and above the target in co-sell and resell Oracle license revenue during Oracle FY12 (v. target of $40M).

·         Reached Specialization goals, with 200+ consultants newly Certified on Oracle solutions:

o   Reached Specialization status in 29 different Oracle solutions (v. target of 20), including several in which Hitachi stands alone among Diamond Partners.

o   Reached Advanced Specialization status in 6 Oracle solution areas (v. target of 5): EBS Financials, EBS Supply Chain, Siebel, Java, Database, and RAC.

·         Launched 15 new Oracle-sanctioned GTM offerings with client-facing decks, marketing datasheets, executive sponsors, and business plans.

·         Published four new customer success stories (videos and articles).

·         Scored high on Oracle’s client satisfaction survey (v. target of 6.5).

·         Staffed a dedicated Alliance & Sales Team.

·         Sponsored Oracle Open World (OOW, Sep 30-Oct 4) at the Grande level

Who are the other 10 Diamond partners?

·         The Big Three: Accenture, Deloitte, IBM.

·         Major offshore firms: Infosys, Tata, Wipro.

·         Other Global SIs: Cap Gemini, CSC, Fujitsu, Price Waterhouse Coopers

You would be surprised to see even some big players in Oracle in India and abroad are not in this elite list to name a few HCL, Cognizant, Mahindra Satyam and Tech Mahindra etc.

What does this mean for our current and prospective clients?

·         Clients wanting to partner with a top-tier Oracle consultancy, now have Oracle’s official word that Hitachi belongs to that group.

·         The proven quality of Hitachi’s consulting services, as evidenced by Oracle’s client satisfaction survey results, Hitachi references, and the dramatically expanded pool of Certified Consultants at Hitachi means clients can confidently expect world-class implementations delivered by Hitachi.

·         Through Hitachi, clients will enjoy fast track access to broad and senior Oracle resources who may be helpful in their Oracle deployments.

·         Clients will benefit from enhanced intellectual property developed by Hitachi as part of the path to Diamond status.

·         Via this newly cast relationship, Hitachi will expand its already leading co-development role with Oracle, 

·         The Hitachi-Oracle Alliance now enjoys a dedicated team of GTM resources assigned on either side, further solidifying the current Alliance strength and ability to invest in new innovations that will address clients’ needs.

What does this mean to Oracle?

·         Oracle will enjoy expanded choice of top-tier partners as represented by the elite group of Diamond Partners (now 11).

·         The proven quality of Hitachi’s consulting services, as evidenced by Oracle’s client satisfaction survey results, Hitachi references, and the dramatically expanded pool of Certified Consultants at Hitachi means Oracle can safely recommend Hitachi to their customers and be confident in the expected implementation quality.

·         Among its Diamond Partners, Oracle now has in Hitachi the only firm officially Specialized in Value Chain Planning (Demantra) and Value Chain Execution (OTM), a 6th Advanced Specialized firm in each EBS SCM and Siebel (and just the 3rd to have both), and the 3rd firm Specialized in EBS HCM [note: “Specialized” means meeting minimum threshold on Certified Consultants, References, and Alliance Revenue; 

·     Oracle now has access to an expanded portfolio of robust GTM Offerings, via their “Oracle Initiative Management (OIM)” system: already, Our Offerings have been formally approved. These offerings are unique combinations of Oracle and Hitachi IP that differentiate each firm and provide clear value to our clients.

·         The improved integration between the various Hitachi operating companies participating in the Hitachi-Oracle Alliance will deliver more opportunities for unique and innovative solutions that leverage Hitachi IP (note: Hitachi is the 4th largest filer of new patents in the US every year).

·         The Oracle field can take advantage of incremental Market Development Funds being invested by Oracle corporate to support field-level GTM with Hitachi.

·         The allocation of a full-time Hitachi Alliance Team at Oracle delivers the resources needed to be responsive to Oracle field demand for more GTM programs with Hitachi.

I want to quote what Troy Lutes, our Global Oracle Practice leader said about this accomplishment  as an end note …“Think about this: there are 21,000 firms are registered with OPN…and only 11 have Diamond status. Each of you should walk a little taller around your clients today, and should be very proud of this monumental achievement.”

Thank you

DC*

Dinesh Chandrasekar 

Good to Great and then the End

Dears,

When I look around and see the once great companies sliding and they hardly have nothing to sustain, it shows how important is to keep up the Innovation quotient in an organization. The inspiration for this article has come from an interesting hypothesis by name Technology mudslide. What makes an individual or organization a great innovator? If you are at Harvard, it’s not a single person that makes you better, it’s the System.  The innovation is a function of a model which enables you to dream, imagine, feel excited and be passionate about your idea. The organization failed to innovate when the people in the top management distance themselves far away from Innovation (R&D). The top guns should have a direct link to the people behind new ideas and innovation. Any organization no matter how small or prosaic its business can make the grassroots transformation if it really wants to. The best creating thinking happens on a company’s front lines. The next level leaders are the Innovation catalysts and the sphere around them watching them grow and achieve are the Innovation Sponsors/Leaders.

There are 2 types of innovation paths Sustained and Disruptive innovations. The sustained innovations are the improvements to the current technology that continuous to improve the service/product performance. Disruptive innovation is challenging the current service /product performance and bound to create new uses, new markets and disrupts the current technology. Today every organization requires continuous innovation to survive.

Nokia has sold three million units of its Lumina phone since October 2011. That may sound quite good, but over the same period Apple sold over 72 million iPhones and Nokia is going through its 4.9 billion euros cash mountain at a pretty scary pace. It blew 2.1 billion euros over the last five quarters and few weeks back announced 10,000 job cuts, but that may well be insufficient.

All is not lost. There is talk of a new operating system called Tizen that involves Nokia technology that may rival Android. But the truth is that Nokia suffers from what’s called innovators’ dilemma. To put it in other terms, it is what Clayton M Christensen called the “technology mudslide hypothesis.” In his model, established companies in a position of market dominance reinforce their position of strength through their specialization, but when a new so-called disruptive technology emerges, they miss it. They get relegated to backwaters or go out of business.

Christensen himself took the disc drive industry as an example, and looked at every major change – for example from 14 inch disk drives used for mainframes to 8 inch   inches for mini computers, 5.25 inches with the emergence of  PCs and then 3.5 inch as laptops were developed. He showed that with the emergence of a new disc drive standard, there was a change in market leadership; previously dominant players started doing impersonations.

What is especially interesting about the Christensen study is that the companies themselves were often aware of the danger, researched the new burgeoning technology, but their existent client base showed no interest, urged them to stick to what they already knew.Nokia faces in its own innovators’ dilemma, but so too do the other Industry giants.

After all, they do say that “mud sticks” but for how long?

At its core of this hypothesis is about how successful, well-led companies carefully pay attention to what customers need. These same companies invest heavily in new technologies, delivering more performance to those clients but will still lose their market leadership suddenly.

This can happen when disruptive technologies enter the arena. Most technologies improve the performance of existing products in relation to the criteria which existing customers have always used. These technologies are called sustaining technologies. Whereas, disruptive technologies do something different. They create a completely new value proposition. This will often entail worse product performance per se, but improved product performance in relation to new criteria; for example:

• smaller ( handy )
• more user friendly (convergence of phones and video streaming cameras)
• Cheaper (storage devices).

That is to say…

1. Customers and investors will dictate their resource allocation; i.e. middle managers will tend not to invest in technologies that are not directly appreciated by significant clients because they will not be able to get the quick ROI that investors require.

2. Small markets cannot fulfill the growth need of large companies. Bigger, more successful companies will look at smaller niche and emerging markets (full of those early adopters and pragmatists) as simply not large enough to fulfill growth requirements.

3. Markets that do not exist cannot be analyzed. Well-governed businesses will discount such opportunities for the risk of likely failure.

4. Technology supply does not always equal the market demand. Due to its speed, technological progress often overshoots customer demand. This opens the door to products today that underperform the market, but which might meet customer demand tomorrow, particularly when delivered as a new value proposition.

Success breeds failure &   Innovation is the oxygen that keeps the Organization growing.

Your P&C

DC*

Mid-Career Crisis Musings

Dears,

Life is good but I find it harder, if this the thought that comes to you often and you are for sure going through the Mid-career crisis. You suddenly feel professionally and emotionally stagnant. There's no challenge left for you at work. If you are one of those people who are struggling to make mid-career transition, take a deep breath and look around. After a certain point in your career, you need to do some amount of introspection to find out your deeper aspirations. 

Try and figure out where are you headed, do you know yourself well enough. I find mid-carrier crisis to be a very common problem in companies today.  The super ambitious few who want to go all the way to the top will usually get the attention they need and get what they want.  Then you have ambitious employees that not always are aiming for top-management positions, but want to work in a demanding and meaningful job applicable to their education and experience. But too often, those persons don´t get the attention of management and leaders, and they tend to find them self in a stagnant job and not getting any attention or getting involved in exciting projects in the company. Then looking at new employees arriving, and making progress in the company adds to the frustration.  It becomes a catch 22, where the employee becomes more and more de-motivated, and thus receiving less attention from managers.  .  The leaders sometimes focus only on the super ambitious and those who are climbing the ladder, while not paying attention to skilled employees in the level below.  By doing so, they can usually find invaluable knowledge and experience for the good of their corporation.

 Ask yourself a series of questions like, what are my unique gifts? What is my 'calling? ‘What can I do to make my present work and life more aligned with my calling? What are the competencies I would like to develop in myself? "Asking questions will help you to get a clarity on where do you stand and where are you headed.

 Many a time’s people don't understand that not leveraging their talent to the best level may lead to frustration. They may think they are capable of a bigger role and responsibility, but don't take measures to communicate this to the top management or to the next level. Communicating to large extent means taking initiatives and showing results. Unless that happens, you stare from a distance and think you are being deprived of a bigger role. Think hard: How can I leverage my talent to develop these competencies?

What specific steps would I like to take? How will I know that I am making progress? What could go wrong and how do I take responsibility for what could go wrong? Think what options lie outside the present environment that can offer you those challenges you are looking for. Should such a crisis arise, intensify your networking efforts. Talk to people even if they are outside your social circle. Strangers can often guide you better with their dispassionate opinion. And help you understand where you're headed better providing fresh ideas uncolored by your previous self. Build new connections by associating with people you've long admired and can learn from. Use alumni and company networks that can help you grow into your possible new selves.

Any good leader knows to surround themselves with talented people, but recognizing the future leaders who will generate change and innovation is a task rarely considered. It is from mid-career employees that the next generation of leaders will emerge. Forming relationships with these employees will allow a leader to acknowledge and reward talent, as well as identify, train, and develop talent for the future of the organization. To enhance the value and commitment of mid-career talent, leaders need to work at building their relationships and commitments to these employees, which means more frequent and visible interactions that affirm the interdependency of organizational goals and individual career aspirations.

If there is a lack of a competitive environment, and your peer group is not strong enough to challenge your competencies, you may lose interest and may feel like living the organization. Challenges and competition and the hunger to learn is what keep people going, if you are deprived of that, it’s time to get serious about it. Go ahead with whatever you feel is right after giving it a careful thought, avoid desperation. If you've lived with this so far, a few months more won't do any further damage.

 Even if you fail you'll have the satisfaction of having tried what you felt. If things go right, you are one of the fortunate ones who transitioned to the right path.

Loving P&C

DC*

Our Oracle Collaborate 2012 experience

Dears,

It gives me immense pleasure to share our experience during Oracle Collaborate 2012.  So what is this event all about?  Collaborate is ONE event that delivers the full spectrum of Oracle Technology and Applications education that you need to boost results and drive efficiency all year long . What collaborate offer is the Technology and Applications Forum for the Oracle Community that is  brought to you by three leading users groups– the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) and Quest International Users Group (Quest).You also get an opportunity to connect  with a global network of more than 3,000 business applications and database software users, solutions providers, consultants, developers and representatives from Oracle Corporation to share real-world experiences, participate in top-quality training and gain insights to obtain greater value from your technology investments .The COLLABORATE 12 — OAUG Forum is designed for and by users to deliver dynamic sessions featuring tips, techniques and best practices for:

•Oracle Fusion: Implementations, case studies, navigating the differences between Fusion and your current environment
•E-Business Suite (R12): Application roadmaps, upgrade tips, case studies and useful methodology; information to help with reimplementation vs. upgrade decisions; 11i to R12 decision-making
•EPM, OBIEE and Hyperion: Introduction to Oracle financials; how to use HCA; taking EPM to new levels with Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship
•The latest insights on the Siebel and PeopleSoft product families.

We are fortunate to have 4 papers from Hitachi Consulting GDC were chosen by Oracle product experts to present in the collaborate forum.

Session Details	Speakers
Is Cross-Docking A Viable Option In Distribution Requirement Planning (DRP) Setup?	Phani Tamarapalli
Oracle Process Manufacturing(OPM) 12 Upgrade in a Complex Global Environment	Rajender Yaski
Oracle Customer Hub Data Stewardship; Data Governance Best Practices	Dinesh Chandrasekar
Oracle R12 Upgrade –Executive Session	Samir Rathore

These sessions were well received and we could get a very positive response from the attendees and aroused healthy discussion on the topics during the session. The collaborate is not just about presentations and demos, It’s also about networking, picking some cool stuffs from exhibitor and cooling your heals in casinos and responsible drinking bars. The more important aspect is you will get to know how the likeminded individual and corporate planning their year ahead, what are their priorities, focus area, marketing wiz plan. There are also good number fun events in some exhibitor’s booth. We also had the privilege of our customers accompanying us for the dinner and got to meet some IT Stalwarts from our HCC US office.

Overall COLLABORATE 2012 was AMAZING! All in all, a wonderful learning opportunity and a chance to get some new perspectives on how to handle/accomplish our objectives. Well done! This was my second COLLABORATE experience. I felt my time was well spent and that I derived much of value from the experience

DC*

TechGiG Webinar : Master Data Management Data Governance Leadership and Best Practices

MDM Data Governance  Best Practices

Dears,


This is an  invitation and also reference site for of my webinar with TechGiG ,  Times of India IT initiative


http://www.techgig.com/webinars/Master-Data-Management-Data-Governance-Leadership-and-Best-Practices-143

The maturity of seeing MDM as a strategic project and not as IT Project is one of the lessons learned by big enterprises after they suffered heavy losses due to poor data quality and data governance initiatives but still today there is a huge debate about what they want to achieve with data governance program.

Data governance suffers a bit from the "chicken or the egg “syndrome. People at your company aren't going to understand what data governance is and what it can do for them until they actually see the results. However, getting the initiative funded and launched will only happen if you can convince your company of the tangible benefits of data governance. This webinar will provide the right insight for you to understand the significance of Data Governance and there is huge potential opportunity for the DG Specialist.
 
In this webinar, you will understand:

•     Defining Data Governance & Data Stewardship
•     Challenges in justifying the Data Governance initiative
•     Top Drivers for Data Governance Initiative
•     Data governance framework & Best practice
•     Big Data and Data Governance Leadership
•     Live Examples
•     Live Q&A with the Speaker

Loving P&C

DC*

Practice Leadership

Practice Leadership

“You’re the best!”  The two of our colleagues cried to their practice lead after narrowly winning the deal over the competition. “We couldn’t have done it without you! “ As they celebrated, I couldn’t help but notice that their coach was the same person who was pushing them to do their best in the pursuit and demanding to bring the best out of the information they have to showcase and delight the client with our extraordinary capabilities to deliver that project. The practice leader is the one who is extremely focused in achieving excellence and tries to bring the best out of all the odds. .  If you're young and ambitious and driven, don't run from the challenge, run towards it. If you're terrified of a star manager in your organization, go find a project to do with him or her. Cram as much learning as you can into the front end of your career. You may not love it while you're going through it, but you'll carry that learning and success with you as you move up the ladder. Today ,when we embark on the CoP (Communities of Practice) initiative I would like to roll the crystal ball and see what we would benefit if we do this right.

A well-coached, coordinated team would be able to achieve any (or all) of the following possible benefits:

1.       More effective practice development efforts through pooling and coordination of individual efforts

2.       Better utilization and development of professionals through collective decisions on staffing of client work, allocation of resources and mentoring

3.       Collective development of tools, templates, IPs and other practice aids to benefit everyone

4.       More rapid and effective dissemination of expertise and skills among the group

5.       Better client service through greater ability to put the right people on the right job

6.       Better market image through development of a collective reputation, not just the sum of individual reputations

7.       Comfort of “belonging” to a small group rather than being “lost” as one member of a very large group of professionals

8.       Informal coaching on a “one-on-one” basis acting as a source of help for personal growth rather than relying only on annual  performance appraisals

9.       Improved profitability from focusing as a group on ways to enhance billing rates and leverage

10.   Critical mass of time and resources created to develop innovative service offerings, which no individual could afford to do alone

The success of CoP depends how truly we are prepared to act as a team and not as a loosely affiliated group of independent practitioners. They must make an informed, conscious decision to give up a few degrees of autonomy in exchange for the benefits listed above. Naturally, the precise role of the practice lead will derive directly from the objectives chosen for the group. However, there are certain key choices that must be made in any circumstance. For example, is the practice lead expected to do any or all of the following?

1.       Spend time with individual professionals (senior or junior), serving as lead to help them develop themselves and their practice

2.       Be knowledgeable about the development of r professionals and intervene (delicately) to “suggest” reassignments between projects in order to build skills and advance their careers

3.       Be in touch with clients of other professionals in the group to help the professional to grow the relationship, to monitor client satisfaction and to act as a “conscience” so everyone can excel at client satisfaction

4.       Monitor the profitability of assignments conducted by members of the group and discuss the results with them

5.       Devise methodologies to capture and share knowledge acquired while serving clients both within the group and across the firm

6.       Spend time recruiting and interviewing potential new staff (junior and senior)

7.       Spend time following up and actively helping members of the group execute their planned activities

8.       Initiate and run regular meetings of practice group members to collectively plan the group’s activities and initiatives for the coming quarter

The next essential component of the practice leadership is that how credibly we convey to our professionals that activities conducted during nonbillable time are valued, monitored and considered as an essential part of their performance. Much of what practice groups do, and what practice leads try to get their team members to do, involves investment of nonbillable time in activities that build the future of the practice. Obvious examples include various kinds of innovation, development of tools, conducting training programs and so on

Communities of Practice are undeniably powerful, but it is equally a radical change of mindset for many of us. Done properly, it can bring not only greater success but also enhancing collegiality, mutual support and a winner in all of us.

 Loving P&C

DC*

Chicken Soup for the CRM Soul (Tech Gig Webinar)

Dears,


I welcome you to join this webinar @ Techgig portal , A Times Group Initiative to spread the awareness on variety of niche technology topics. Please click on this link to join this webinar.


http://www.techgig.com/webinar.php?webinar_id=121

The slide share link to access the webinar presentation

http://www.slideshare.net/dinwin/chicken-soup-for-the-crm-soul-dc


What you will learn in this webinar:

In this era of uncertainty, economic turbulence and battle for the customer wallet share, the only way to survive and excel is to gain the customer acceptance and enrich their experience. However, the fundamental business needs that drive the requirement for effective and efficient customer interaction management have not changed: acquiring new customers, building tighter bonds of loyalty, and reducing the costs of marketing, selling, and servicing. Although many CRM technology projects were deferred or cancelled in the last few years, as per Forrester wave 2010 organizations of all sizes are now investing again to improve the customer management capabilities they’ve neglected during the past 18 months. If you are a business process leader in a large organization, you’re challenged to pick the best CRM solutions to enable your company to capitalize on the upturn.

To give the much needed boost to the industries and IT professionals understanding the CRM strategies are vital. We will  explore some of the key drivers

·         CRM evolves into the extended CRM application ecosystem

·         Customer Experience Optimization (CEO)

·         SaaS CRM revolution

·         Integrated Enterprise Solution approach

·         Managing the Digital Consumer & Social Network impact

·         Customer Managed Relationship  & Loyalty 

The Questions you will find answers to.

·         How CRM is the game changer for the organizations in this decade of uncertainty?

·         How to leverage the Extended CRM solutions to energize the company and revamp the old CRM system to perform better?

·         What is the impact of Cloud CRM and how it is revolutionizing the CRM landscape?

·         How to avoid pitfalls in the CRM project execution?

·         How to keep pace with digital consumers and enable customer managed relationship with effective CRM Strategies?

·         Our Case studies & Best practices from Hitachi Consulting  CRM engagements 

Look forward to meet you in the webinar. 

Your P&C

DC*