Make vs Buy: 4 Reasons For Why You Shouldn't Build Your Own Software

Ever since I joined the wonderful world of industrial software, during the course of a sales pursuit, we come across the "make versus buy" argument for purchasing, versus having internal IT and engineering resources dedicated to building out a highly customized application.

Industry Week: US Manufacturing Expands for Third Straight Month

http://www.industryweek.com/global-economy/us-manufacturing-expands-third-straight-month?NL=IW-07&Issue=IW-07_20130904_IW-07_93&YM_RID=maryanne.steidinger@invensys.com&YM_MID=1420302&sfvc4enews=42

Good news on the economic front--manufacturing has expanded (gone beyond the magic 50) for the third month in a row.  Certainly, we in the industrial automation industry applaud this condition, for it means companies are building, processing and producing goods that consumers want...and it also foretells of expansions, improvements, and additional capacity and capabilities.

We've seen an uptick, globally, in manufacturers desiring standardization, production operations management improvements, and extensions to existing software functionality. And of course, the automation industry (especially Invensys) is there to support your efforts with products such as MES, Workflow, and EMI.

Improving Operational Performance in a Plant from a Software Perspective

I was recently interviewed by Dustin Mattison of The Future of Supply Chains.  He asked me to discuss how software can improve plant performance.  You can access the full interview here:

https://community.kinaxis.com/people/dustinmattison1974/blog/2013/07/14/improving-operational-performance-in-a-plant-from-a-software-perspective?goback=%2Egde_147721_member_258757900

Repost: Experience Creates More Loyalty Than Price

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/199609/experience-creates-more-loyalty-than-price.html#axzz2SX7uy9g0

A new study by Forrester shows that most shoppers (they used Trader Joe's, Amazon and Costco as proof points) value experience over price when selecting and showing loyalty to certain retail outlets.

We as B2B marketers can use this information--it certainly changes the game when you aren't competing solely on price, because that becomes a very one dimensional go to market proposition.  But for B2B, the "experience" does take on a different format.  Most of us do not have an online order entry system; we use a channel, whether it's a distributor, a manufacturer's representative, or a direct sales force.  So the ease of doing business has to come out of:

• richer website to show better, more focused information presented
• simpler way of using products--without onerous licensing issues, installs, and reams of documentation
• positioning of products: clean lines of differentiation, so multiple products do not have overlapping functionality

Certainly, we at Invensys are well aware of the impact the customer experience has on their loyalty, longevity (ie, how long does a customer want to do business with us?) and use of products (since you like InTouch, are you also using Intelligence or SmartGlance)?

So these studies, although not apparent, can help us in the B2B space by understanding customer behavior, and more importantly, help us to better server you as an end user!

What Keeps You Up At Night?

How many times have you asked this question--to your peers, to important customers, during strategy meetings.  It is an effective way of cutting through the noise to uncover the essence of key care-abouts. 

I've been thinking about that from an industrial automation perspective.  The industry itself is nearing 45+ years, beginning with the development of the PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) back in the 70's.  Their key care-abouts at the time were to replace unstable and single purpose relays with a device that could multi-task different plant control functions, that could be programmed in a language that the plant electrician could understand, and could more effectively manage multitudes of control sensors.

REPOST: Virtualization on the plant floor

http://www.controleng.com/home/single-article/virtualization-on-the-plant-floor/869fef6c277e028f6a94f3169e7a9766.html?tx_ttnews[sViewPointer]=3

by Joel Conover, Paul Hodge, Grant Le Sueur, Anthony Baker, Jim Tessler

Good read by Invensys' Grant Le Sueur and others on the proliferance of using virtualization technologies for project management, delivery, as well as high availability operations.

What does the Invensys acquisition mean for Spiral?

What does the Invensys acquisition mean for Spiral?