Business Making Progress

The “New” Disaster Recovery Model

In my last blog post, I pointed out the threats hackers pose to small businesses from a security standpoint.

This week has been a wild ride in terms of security breaches. First, I read an article on CSO Online that cited a report that found that a “typical Web application gets attacked 137 times in 59 separate days during a six-month period”, or more simply put: web applications are attacked about every three days. Scary stuff. 

Next, a recent cyber attack on Mat Honan, senior writer for Gadget Lab from Wired, drove him to write, “In
the space of one hour, my entire digital life was destroyed.” He goes on to explain how our increasingly interconnected digital world makes it easy to gain access to lots of information - many times including sensitive information – very quickly.

Part of this problem was attributed to faulty security procedures at Amazon and Apple. They were quickly rectified, but not until after the damage was done.

From a security point of view, he recognized that access to his account information was simplified. “My accounts were daisy-chained together. Those security lapses are my fault, and I deeply, deeply regret them.” Unfortunately, it was after the fact.

Then he realized that he did not take steps to provide reliable backups. “Had I been regularly backing up the data…I wouldn’t have had to worry about losing more than a year’s worth of photos, covering the entire lifespan of my daughter, or documents  and e-mails that I had stored in no other location.” Again, too late.

Mr. Honan’s horrific experience, explained in a 16 min video interview (well worth watching in its entirety, I might add), lets the viewer experience the shock, fear, frustration, paranoia, and helplessness that has plagued him since the event unfolded. After watching the video, one can’t help but feel, “Wow! I better do more to protect MY important stuff - right now!”

I encourage you to read the articles and watch the video to see how devastating this type of event can be on a personal level. Then, think about these two questions:

1. What would this type of event mean to your business?
2. Shouldn’t every business owner be implementing “disaster recovery” plans in terms of reliability combined with security?

Make sure you have in place security solutions to physically separate and encrypt your data to protect it from hackers combined with reliability solutions that keep your business applications up and running with easy access to backups, regardless of the type of disaster. This model makes for a rock-solid “Disaster Recovery” plan.

Thanks and as always, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Urban Science Calls on Corticon to Cut Through Big Data

If you’ve ever researched buying a car online (and nearly 80% of new car buyers do, according to J.D. Power and Associates) you can probably imagine the amount of data generated by the process. Nearly everything is captured - from basic demographic information, like your name and address, to the price range, vehicle type and options packages you’re looking for. And with more than 3.8 million new cars sold already this year, the data really adds up!

As a global automotive retail consulting firm, Urban Science wades through this data every day to help automotive retailers allocate resources, grow market share and improve profitability. Earlier this year, Urban Science began a trial of Corticon business rules management system (BRMS) to see how Corticon could help capture and route leads from more than 30 online sources. Today, we’re happy to announce that Urban Science has decided to implement Corticon permanently.

This was an exciting win for Progress and the Corticon team. As I mentioned in the release, companies historically have not tackled Big Data problems with business rules solutions because most rules engines do not scale well with data-intensive processing. Our work with Urban Science is a testament to the scalability of our solution and proof positive that Corticon is more than equipped to tackle Big Data challenges.

Curious what Corticon can do for your business? Check out the product page here: http://www.progress.com/corticon/index.html

Hackers vs. Small Business

Recently, I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal about hackers stealing money and other information from small businesses and the lawsuits that typically follow from such an ordeal. I am not sure which is worse: the theft of “stuff” (i.e. money, data, information, etc.) or the expense of litigation. Either way, these are costs that can be avoided with a little bit of preventative effort.

I have heard small business owners say, “we don’t have the time to keep up” or “we don’t have the dedicated IT resources” or my new personal favorite, “we are a small business – we are too small to be targeted by hackers.”

Think again - here are some “not-so-small” statistics:

• The average U.S. data breach cost companies $194 per compromised record
• In 2011, there were 855 data breaches worldwide, with 72% of them affecting companies with less than 100 employees
• In 2011, a survey of executives at 500 US companies indicated they experienced a “cybersecurity incident” within 12 months that resulted in the loss of money, data, intellectual property (IP), which impacted their ability to conduct regular business activities

Here’s a key point to remember: most hackers want to get the biggest bang for their buck in the shortest amount of time. They want to steal the most data with the least effort so they can reduce the risk of getting caught. Therefore, they will target the database, so you better make sure it is protected. Physical security (e.g. card access to the building), firewalls, and secure communications are the front-line defenses, but don’t forget to protect the database itself.

You might be saying to yourself, “we don’t store sensitive data like credit cards, social security numbers, or medical records in our database so we are all set.” That may be true, but what would be the impact to your business if “non-sensitive” information were stolen and put in the hands of your competitors, such as the names of your exclusive vendors/suppliers and your negotiated prices, rates, and terms?

Hackers can bring down even the smallest business that is not properly protected – and that’s an expense no small business should ever have to pay.

Thanks and as always, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Banking on a Future in Big Data - How DBS Bank is Driving Customer Engagements with Decision Analytics

Earlier this week, I participated in a webinar with FierceFinance on Big Data and next-era business intelligence. In preparation for the event, I took a look at the nature of banking and Big Data which blends the virtual world with the real world. I was struck by just how much opportunity there is for retail banks to use big data and decision analytics to create more valuable customer engagement. 

To understand how big data affects banking, we must first understand how the banking customer behavior is evolving: 

1. Increasingly mobile customer with shorter attention spans are resulting in demand for instant gratification through a new level of customer experience, targeted at in the location and context the customer is in right now
2. Increasing use of social media “in the moment” means that good or bad experience are rewarded or punished instantly

How do changing consumer preferences impact big data?

Banks are unique in their ability to access customer income and spending behavior (all part of big data!). This comes from such diverse sources as call center transactions, online banking, credit cards, ATM transactions, social media and even the changing locations of mobile users. With so much structured and unstructured data available, banks need real-time business intelligence in the form of decision analytics that span these multiple information channels to make big data work for them.

For example, DBS Bank in Singapore, one of the largest banks in Asia, wants customers to use their cards, as do most banks.  Part of their strategy to achieve this is to offer a “right place, right time” and highly relevant promotion. The concept is one of having a “personal concierge” who knows where you are, what you’re doing and what you’re interested in – and can highlight interesting offers that can enrich your life. 

Say a customer buys a flat screen TV at a retailer that is a partner of the bank. The customer uses their DBS credit card but has low current account balance. The bank knows the customer is an impulse purchaser and has a propensity to take up compelling credit offers so they might push a payment plan offer straight to the customer’s mobile device. In another scenario, a customer that the bank knows is interested in designer shoes could be pushed an offer when walking past a retail partner’s store: come in for 10% off for the next 20 minutes if you use your DBS credit card.

This is real-time one-to-one promotion. You are relating big data histories and propensity models to big data in motion to discover opportunities to post offers. Only relevant and qualified customers get offers. Irrelevant customers may see it as spam. Relevant customers become stickier as they feel the bank is providing a useful service. And the bank makes more money per customers.

For more on this topic, you can also listen to the webinar in full here.

 

7 Keys to Success for Application Development

Over the past 30 years of supporting our large, loyal customer and partner ecosystem, we have learned few things about building a modern, future-proof application development and deployment platform. We condensed what we learned into seven critical topic areas:

 

1. Multi-tenancy
2. Security & Compliance
3. User Interface Flexibility
4. Personalization
5. Integration & Workflow
6. Operational Excellence
7. Productivity

These topics areas help organize requirements and drive the development of the platform. We have been talking about these “7 Keys” for a number of years now to help our customers and partners know what to expect from Progress. These topics also fit nicely with supporting current trends and market needs: Cloud, mobile devices, and SaaS (software as a service).

But, talk is cheap – you want action!

That is why I am happy to report that we continue to deliver on our promise of providing you with the tools you need in the timeframe that you need them by delivering a brand new release of our OpenEdge application development platform only 6 months after the previous release that is focused on:

• Multi-tenancy -  Enhanced governing and management controls for SaaS applications
• Productivity -  Updated developer tools to increase your productivity and reduce time-to-market, including access to external data sources (such as Big Data, the Cloud, or on-premises)
• Operational Excellence (aka Performance) - Improved performance and scalability of the world’s first multi-tenant database
• Security & Compliance - Simplified and centralized user authentication to ensure single identity management/security controls for protecting Cloud-based business applications

Over the coming weeks, our Progress technical experts will be diving in to various aspects of our new release, particularly those focused multi-tenancy, productivity, operational performance and security. In the meantime, you can read all about the new release in the Feature Highlights.

Thanks and as always, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think at mcicciari@progress.com

 

OpenEdge…Everywhere

As I continue to meet more and more of our customers and partners from all around the world (closing in on almost 1000 accounts now), I am amazed at the wide variety of business applications driving our world today. And it doesn’t matter what industry the business is in (e.g. food service, consumer packaged goods, retail, clothing, manufacturing, construction management, financial services, healthcare, non-profit sector, supply chain and logistics, wholesale, distribution, automotive, real estate, and countless more)— mission-critical business applications are at the center of those operations.

There is an alphabet soup of acronyms that describe those applications:

• POS (point of sale)
• ERP (enterprise resource planning)
• CRM (customer relationship management)
• EDI (electronic data interchange)
• SCM (supply chain management)
• DMS (document management system)
• CMS (claims management system)
• and so many more...

To add to this diversity, these applications can be deployed in many ways to meet market needs and demands: SaaS, Cloud, on-premises, and on mobile devices.

I am reminded that so much of what we need to get our jobs done on a daily basis is not always in plain sight, screaming out “hey, I’m working here” – sometimes the application is behind the scenes, quietly making businesses operations appear seamless. So, the next time you…

• …order a sandwich from a local sub shop
• …purchase a new household appliance or many other consumer products
• …drive by a commercial or residential construction jobsite and wonder how all that information is managed
• …make a charitable donation to your local faith-based organization
• …rent a car on your next vacation or business trip
• …buy a new set of tires from a local tire distributor
• …make a deposit into your investment account
• …buy most anything that is shipped from overseas
• …schedule a service call with your condo’s property management company
• …sign up for a new magazine subscription
• …visit a local lumber yard to purchase construction supplies
• …spend some time gambling at a casino
• …notice someone using a barcode/RFID scanner
• …buy life insurance through a local agent
• …buy food and spirits from a local store
• …review your child’s report cards online
• …work with your HR department to select your Benefits package
• …visit your doctor for a check-up and have your medical records updated electronically
• …wonder who keeps tabs on insurance fraud
• …have to deal with a collection agency
• …enjoy a nice bourbon and wonder how they run their business so well
• …order clothing and apparel online
• …think about building a new business application for your business

…realize that the OpenEdge application development platform powers much of the world around you!

Thanks and as always, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Got Brand Loyalty?

Brand loyalty is derived from winning the hearts and minds of your customers. It is won by invoking a sense of dedication, passion, and excitement that other products simply can’t provide. You have to turn your customers into brand advocates. When you’ve got brand advocates, they form communities, organize events, and ultimately promote your products and brand for you.

Sometimes, they even get a tattoo of your logo. Just ask any of nearly one million Harley-Davidson motorcycle owners around the world and he or she will tell you all about it. Now THAT is brand loyalty!

While we don’t have customers with our logo tattooed on their arms (that we know of… although that gives me an idea for a marketing campaign…), Progress Software is actually quite similar to H-D in one very important aspect: long-term customers who are loyal to the OpenEdge application development platform.

During recent customer road show events, we met with hundreds of customers all around the world. We’re honored by their loyalty and commitment, as demonstrated in the following recent quotes:

”Progress has served us well for the past 22 years and we don’t expect that to change.”

-Maria Z., VP of IT in Retail

“The performance is second to none. I’ve been using the platform and database for 19 years.”

-Andre W., DBA in Logistic Management

“We have had a relationship with Progress for almost 25 years, and Progress is always available to listen to our feedback and help us achieve our goals…we aren’t just a number. We recommend Progress because of a track record of innovation and product quality that is second to none.”

-Rob F., Operations Manager in Financial Services

How many application development platforms can claim an average of 20 years of developer loyalty? No other platform can make such a claim. If you are not sure, just ask any of our long-term, successful customers building and managing world-class, mission critical business applications - he or she can tell you all about it.

Thanks and as always, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think.