A Journey Into the Emotions of Software Developers
Midsize webinar
1. How Midsize Companies Use Rapid Integration
to Thrive in Today’s Economy
Sean O’Connell
Product Marketing
Cast Iron Systems
Chris Holbert
Senior Director of Global Applications
OSI Systems
2. Agenda
Q&A All
OSI Systems Customer Case Study
Chris Holbert
Senior Director of Global Applications
OSI Systems
How it Works — 10-minute Demo
Sean O’Connell
Product Marketing
Cast Iron Systems
The Business Value of Integration for
Midsize Companies
Sean O’Connell
Product Marketing
Cast Iron Systems
18. 18
OSI Systems - Integration Case Study
Chris Holbert
Senior Director of Global Applications
19. 19
Agenda
Company overview
Business challenges & alternatives considered
Solution chosen & results
Lessons learned & next steps
20. 20
OSI Systems Company Overview
Leading provider of advanced electronic technologies for critical applications
Customers: homeland security, healthcare, defense and aerospace
People Screening
Baggage/Parcel Inspection
Hold Baggage Screening
Cargo & Vehicle Inspection
Homeland security
technologies and
inspection systems
Advanced optoelectronic
components and
subsystems
CT/X-ray Components
Optical Sensors - PC Boards
Military & Defense Sensors
Contract Manufacturing
Revenue
FY 09
$214M
Medical monitoring
solutions, information
systems and devices
Critical Applications & Technology
Revenue
FY 09
$241M
Revenue
FY 09
$135M
Patient Monitoring
Anesthesia Delivery
Diagnostic Cardiology
21. 21
Application Landscape
Microsoft Navision
ERP (NAV)
Maintain over 10 NAV
instances in production
Run application on
MSSQL 2000
Manage all financial,
distribution and
manufacturing
transactions in NAV
Concur Expense
Management
Control all expense
reporting and
reimbursements through
Concur
Maintain workflow
review and approvals
Route all US and
European employees
through Concur
22. 22
Business Challenges
Goods-in-Transit Operations
(GIT)
Ship machines from Malaysia
to sales regions
Took 15 or more days to
record shipments
Delayed financial close, inter-
company reconciliation and
production planning
Concur to NAV
Extracted multiple files a day
from Concur
Reviewed files for
completeness and accuracy
manually
Loaded files into NAV
manually and ensure
completion
Microsoft Dynamics NAV – Concur
23. 23
Integration Challenges
Create single, global
view of multiple,
disparate instances of
Microsoft Dynamics NAV
Eliminate double-entry
of information in
Microsoft Dynamics NAV
and Concur
Increase the velocity of
the business and good
decision making
Microsoft Dynamics NAV – Concur
24. 24
Alternatives Considered
Cast Iron
Custom code
(current state)
IBM Websphere
Oracle BEA Weblogic
Tibco BusinessWorks
Microsoft Dynamics NAV – Concur
25. 25
Solution Chosen
Cast Iron
Easy-to-learn
Quick-to-market
High-performing
Appliance-based
Flexible
High ROI
Microsoft Dynamics NAV – Concur
28. 28
Results
Goods-in-Transit Operations
(GIT)
Reduced time to record transactions
to minutes
Instant update of inter-company
ledgers and accounts
Eliminated 90% of errors and
enabled quick resolution of others
with easy-to-use list view with
exception details
Concur to NAV
Automated process pulls information
from Concur
Cast Iron moves information into
NAV using NAV API
Future Process - Use web services
from Concur to NAV (requires
upgrade)
Microsoft Dynamics NAV – Concur
29. 29
Results
Proof of concept
integration in 1 day
Completed production
integration in 15 days
including training
Saved $88K year 1 in
business staff time
Increased accuracy,
consistency and speed
of operations and
financial information
Re-allocated $96K in
year 1 in IT engineer
costs Microsoft Dynamics NAV – Concur
30. 30
Lessons Learned
Spend time to perform needs analysis
Determine where your team can excel
Evaluate how to drive value
Select a partner and technology that fits
Train the team early and continuously
Tackle small, winnable projects first
Plan a homerun within 6 months
31. 31
Next Steps
Build workflows that improve effectiveness &
efficiency
Integrate applications that benefit from data
consistency & sharing
ERP Instances
Key HR, Travel & Financial Applications
CRM
Product Configurator
Document Management
Work towards building a web services
framework iteratively
38. Contact
Sean O’Connell
Product Marketing
Cast Iron Systems
(650) 230-8424
soconnell@castiron.com
Twitter: @CastIronSystems
Chris Holbert
Senior Director of Global Applications
OSI Systems
(310) 349-2268
CHolbert@osi-systems.com
Editor's Notes
Welcome to the cast iron presentation, my name is sean o’connell and I’m with the product marketing team here at cast iron and on behalf of cast iron I’d like to welcome you and thank you for your time. The title of today’s presentation is ‘integrate in days’ using the cast iron integration appliance
Key Message and Speaking points: Introduce our value statement: Delivering integration projects in just days, for 20% of the cost of software-based alternatives. For world-class companies in a variety of industries ranging from Manufacturing and Automotive to Energy and Telecommunications. Optional (if you are presenting to a prospect who already is using an EAI solution): Almost all our customers, like Motorola, Toyota, BAT, etc. – already have EAI solutions in place, and using Cast Iron to augment their existing integration solutions. We augment EAI, not replace them. Transition: “ So, what is the Cast Iron Integration Appliance What does it do” (topics answered in the next slide)
Let’s take a step back and ask why is integration so painful? Why so expensive? We see that traditionally companies have had two choices to do application integration: 1. a few large companies purchased complex integration tools – called EAI – and they programmed integration using these tools – for example, ERP to CRM application Key Message to Customer: Explain that the reason why integration is expensive and painful is because existing integration tools are too ‘complex’ Speaking Points/Tips: (continue from transition on previous slide)… Mid-market companies have two choices for integration: Choice A) A few companies purchase complex integration tools and program APIs using these tools, or Choice B) A majority of mid-market companies build integrations using in-house development tools (custom code). Examples are Java scripts, C scripts, SQL scripts, VB scripts, etc. Transition: {go to the next slide}
These are really good tools, but they’ve been built to solve the most complex problems in large enterprises – here is an example of one of those EAI tools from their website in terms of the architecture point is not to give the details but to show you that there is a lot of sophistication but what comes with that is a lot of complexity and it’s very time consuming as well as cost – so if you’re Exxon Mobile and you want to manage your business processes across all your 80 different oil plants, or if you’re Motorola and you want to manage your order-to-cash and credit processes across your 18 different subsidiaries these are great products to do that but if you’re just trying to take data from an erp application and put it into a crm application which is what 90% of the needs of companies are connect 3-4 apps together for the purposes of app integration – tools are overkill; like using a chainsaw to open a letter – can you do it? Yes, but not the most optimal way to solve the problem
Given this cost and complexity what a lot of smart companies in the mid-market did was choose option B: program using in-house development tools aka custom code: like writing java scripting, vb scripting, c scripts, sql scripting, perl scripts, web services scripts; whatever those point-to-point scripts that you create are What’s common across both options is the complexity is being passed along to you the customer – like you have a set of tools but you have to go build your car before you can drive it Why is this the case? EAI: multiple components to install and manage: HW, OS, DB for persistence, broker SW, connectors to all these different applications, HA SW that sits on top of it – one set tools for business users to track what’s going on and a completely different set of tools for IT to make sure that the systems infrastructure is up and running – so pretty soon you have about 7-8 moving parts that you have to install and maintain over time. For custom code, it is custom code: end up writing code for connecting, data mappings, business process rules. Just when you think you’re done, our business comes back and says oops requirements have changed. I’ve added custom fields to my erp or crm application, business rules have changed, data mapping rules have changed, so we end up re-writing code which is the hidden cost of integration in custom code. From a QoS perspective there’s multiple tools needed to track what’s going on: one set of tools for business users to see did the purchase order that they put in system A did it actually make it into system B or did it fail in-between? And another set of tools for IT to make sure things are up and running. And all this is what makes integration complex from your perspective – the customer. So to eliminate this complexity one needs to take an approach to build something from the ground up – it’s not just assembling a few parts together and then throwing the parts to you and say here it is you own the complexity – take an approach of not boil the ocean – example of MS Office: 90% of the world only use 30-40% of the features – we don’t use all those functions in Excel or speech recognition in Word or we don’t try to use scripting language in PowerPoint or whatever the common MSFT Office tools we use. The point being if you don’t try to boil the ocean then what people try to do is that they try to use 30%-40% of the features in any tool, rather than trying to use all of the features that are unnecessary. If you look at software-as-a-service that’s kind of the same approach companies like salesforce.com have adopted instead of trying to boil the ocean like siebel did, they said we’re going to give you what you need and only what you need to simplify your crm experience and make life easier for you. And that’s kind of the same approach we’ve taken in building an integration appliance…. THE NEXT TWO SLIDES ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT SLIDES IN THE DECK: Key Message to Customer: Explain that the reason why integration is expensive and painful is that existing integration tools ‘pass on the complexity to the customer’ Speaking Points/Tips: (continue from transition on previous slide)… Regardless of either choice, what’s common is that the complexity is being passed to you and thus involve a lot of manual effort. In this case, you have to build your car before you can drive it. Using one of these tools for integration, you’d have to: Install multiple components like h/w, operating system, integration software, connector software, a database, monitoring s/w, etc. And worse, maintain them over time as versions change. Write code to develop the integration using your experts (the guys with the ‘thick glasses’) We all know when as soon as we think we’re done, our boss walks in and says ‘the customer has changed the requirement.’ So, re-write code again. Use multiple tools to track the status of transactions and errors. All this is ‘complexity’ being passed on to you. Transition: In order to eliminate complexity, any solution must be built from the ground-up to be ‘simple.’ For example, if we take an example in the consumer world and look at Apple, they created the iPOD from the ground-up with one objective: deliver a simple and elegant product with a simple and elegant user-experience.
This SLIDE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT SLIDES IN THE DECK: Key Message to Customer: Introduce the Cast Iron solution and illustrate how it delivers simplicity to the customer. Speaking Points/Tips: (continue from transition on previous slide)… That’s exactly what we’ve done by creating a simple integration solution from the ground-up. It delivers simplicity to you in the following four ways: The Cast Iron solution is self-contained, no components to install and maintain No coding, just configuration for completing your integrations (as SE will demonstrate today) No re-coding, just re-configuration as your business needs change (as SE will also show you today) One console to track everything about the integration –from the system health to the health of all the transactions. Optional Story: Creating simplicity is very difficult. For example, the iPOD took 3-4 years of development and needed hundreds of programmers before it came to market. Over the past five years, we’ve invested millions of dollars in R&D to create the simplest integration experience in the market today. Transition: What does this simplicity mean to you?
Remove all watermarks Key Message to Customer: Connectivity is simple and comprehensive Speaking Points/Tips: Comprehensive end-point connectivity: [explain each connectivity option on the graphic] No installation at the end-points: [unlike software-based integration tools, there is no connectivity software to install at the endpoints] All connectivity included in-the-appliance: [unlike software-based integration tools, there is no need to purchase any adapters/connectors] Configuration, not coding: [all this connectivity is accomplished without writing any code] Examples of applications that our customers have connected to (using the Integration Appliance) include SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, JDE, Siebel, SFDC, QAD, Lawson, Niku, RightNow; and many more legacy and custom applications. Transition: Now, let’s move to the second of 4 things the appliance does -- Orchestration
Key Message: Highlight the time and cost savings for customers Highlight the fact that all projects have been completed – from configuration to testing to deployment – within 15 days Optional: Highlight the fact that many mid-market companies have replaced custom code with Cast Iron due to time and cost savings Speaking Points/Tips: As you can see below, our value is that customers have been able to consistently complete integration projects in just days, for a fraction of the cost of software-based tools. Also, as illustrated here, we have many mid-market companies who have replaced custom code with Cast Iron for integration. Transition: Since you’re exploring a solution for salesforce.com integration, I’d like to highlight a particular customer example in more detail. Lets look at how Lawson used Cast Iron to deliver salesforce.com integration in days Note: The above transition is an example. Contextualize your transition as needed based on the case study that you’re planning to show.
To be updated: Deal Size and Sources and Uses; Consider consolidating slides 7 & 8
add logos
Key Message to the customer: Emphasize the simplicity of the Cast Iron Integration Appliance because it does only 4 things, and does them well. Speaking Points/Tips: We designed the Cast Iron Integration Appliance to be simple to use and have everything you need in one place. The Integration Appliance achieves this simplicity thru 4 basic steps: Connectivity : The Integration Appliance connects to a variety of enterprise applications, On-demand applications, databases, flat-files, etc. (we’ll look at this in more detail in the next slide). Transformation : The Integration Appliance enables you to graphically map data between source and target applications. For example, if PO Number (in your application) is alphanumeric and is numeric in your vendor’s application, you can graphically transform these so both applications interpret this as the same information. Business Logic: The Integration Appliance enables you to graphically define the flow of data between source and target applications. For example, you can graphically define all the steps needed to extract purchase order data from your ERP system and send it to different vendors. Management: The Integration Appliance provides you with one console to manage your integration, and have complete visibility to data flowing thru the appliance. This is similar to what you do to track a package through Fedex or DHL. Since it is a self-contained appliance, you have visibility into everything from the hardware components like CPU, storage, etc. all the way up to the business transactions processed by the appliance. Transition: Lets look at each of these 4 activities in more detail….
Simon makes change in one app and shows that it’s reflected in the other app. KEY MESSAGE: Sales reps can push business critical info to back end systems (indicating the fact that Cast Iron is not a mashup tool that just provides visibility) Simon shows LIVE screens of: CI (WF and transaformation map) Salesforce.com (closes the opty, turns into an order in SAP) SAP (closed order shows up in SAP) Click now to sign up for LIVE demo from scratch Option 1 – General webinar Option 2 – Custom 1-on-1 product demo
