Supermarket sweep

While green metrics might currently be a problem, they can also be a future solution. In a climate of backlash and doubt, what better defence than solid, tangible evidence? Not only to prove that you are doing what you said you’d do, but also to measure the financial and non-financial impact of those policies and practices.

The naysayers argue that until there are common metrics that hold all organisations to the same standards, there will always be doubts about what a company’s claims really mean in practice. The good news here is that the International Sustainability Standards Board has made great progress in setting such standards, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission is also due to bring in new climate change-related disclosures. For those who prefer the stick to the carrot, these new standards will be accompanied by tighter regulations.

Why spend money on sustainability and tie yourself to onerous non- nancial targets when your very survival is at stake?

2Do build a business case. Putting together a thorough business case which clearly demonstrates all the benefits - including reducing risk, improving operational efficiency and boosting reputation - can be tricky, especially when it extends to taking non-financial factors into account. But don’t think you have to reinvent the wheel: there are plenty of good examples out there.

3Don’t get distracted by shiny things. Don’t be dazzled by the latest tech capabilities on offer in the market, no matter how great they look. These can quickly lose momentum unless they are tailored for your specific challenges and directly address your real business needs. And before you buy in, consider what systems the organisation already has in place - can they be extended, upgraded, improved, or added to, rather than replaced?

4Do start at the very beginning. If you don’t start with correct, clearly defined targets, you’re unlikely to end up hitting them. And start thinking about data right from the beginning. Which data objects are the most important and relevant to the business? Are they available and in the same form right across your organisation - or will you be in danger of comparing apples with pears?

5Don’t forget it’s a marathon, as well as a sprint. In today’s dynamic business environment, technology that is merely maintained will soon diverge from business needs and begin to lose its value. Instead, it needs to be considered as a long-term journey with a focus on continuous improvement and investment so that it remains relevant. And the key to that is governance, particularly around data.

6Do choose wisely – and try before you buy. If you are searching for new capabilities, test the robustness of any tool before you buy. While some players are simply rebadging existing systems to tap into the ESG boom, rising demand in the market has brought others to the forefront with great experience and insight.

ERP to the rescue

I’m conscious that readers of ERP Today may be thinking that, even by my own standards as a regular contributor, this is a very long way to go without mentioning ERP. But hopefully it’s already clear that such systems have an important role to play. Put simply, if you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it, let alone assure or benchmark it. So not only do ERP systems hold the key to collecting and analysing vital sustainability data, but they also add a layer of transparency and accountability that is vital in a world where everyone - from consumer to investor - is tired of being sold stories and wants firm facts.

So, how do you go about all that? While it’s the ‘tall poppies’ that have felt the backlash simply because they are the most visible, it’s perhaps those still on the journey who most need support, especially given the economic pressures they are facing. So, here are six tips for those looking to ramp up their sustainability capabilities:

1Don’t go it alone. Sustainability is likely to reach into and impact every facet of your organisation so you should involve and gain support from multiple business functions, from operations to IT. Also, remember that even after implementation, your new system will be ineffective unless stakeholders have bought into, and actually use, it. Matt Bell, EY global climate change and sustainability services leader

THE ENTERPRISE APP STORE IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS BY ADRIAN BRIDGWATER

s enterprise technology vendors now seek to make the software procurement process simpler, safer and altogether more straightforward, the use of enterprise app stores to present a ‘curated showcase of solutions’ is an appealing customer proposition for many. Combined with the development of what we now call micro-vertical services, there is a concerted and growing effort to ease the headaches (and in some cases heartaches) traditionally felt by the software buying team.

Enterprise software procurement should be a precise science. By its very nature as a digital entity, selecting and purchasing software should be as simple as auditing user and system requirements, provisioning for scale and connecting to a vendor’s product and services menu to complete a transaction.

Except it’s not. Software vendors, especially those in the ERP space, are often criticised for their bloated product catalogues and difficultto-navigate buying systems. With many products and sub-products further confused by bundling, buying a chunk of software is not as simple as it sounds.

ENTERPRISE APPS

What is an enterprise app store?

An enterprise app store is an opportunity for software vendors to package and simplify their product sets. Think of this concept like going into a hardware store and buying a new electrical housing of some kind and being offered a specialised socket wrench along with it to make the fitting process easier. You might also be offered special protective gloves or some kind of sealant i.e. all the elements you need to make the job safe and long lasting.

Software vendors know that their portfolios can appear cumbersome or unwieldy, this is a way for them to group together a set of best practice tools in one place and in some cases offer them as tailored ‘productised solutions’ for specific different industry needs.

Sometimes stores will offer combined tools and processes that have been coalesced through internal product roadmap development. Other times, the application and services fusion is drawn from a process of carefully observing where other customers have had success. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the best enterprise app store offerings are usually a result of both.

Navigating the software universe

“The rise of enterprise application stores is a logical enough progression in a world - no, let’s say universe - of software platforms, tools and services that appear to be booming on an everexpanding trajectory of growth,” says Prakash Vyas, global head of portfolio marketing at software app platform company OutSystems. “Given the additional fact that multi-national organisations often work with disparate teams across multiple locations, there are (in some cases, perhaps not all) too many avenues and opportunities for one team in one place to adopt one application, while another embraces a different tool altogether. The end result is poor integration, flaky interoperability and the creation of potential security fissures.”

Vyas likens the rise of the enterprise app store to planned community housing schemes. From the outside, all the buildings look mostly the same, there’s a perfect fit between streets and sidewalks, all the roof tiles are the same colour and there are community social gatherings to address local concerns and discuss development.

Inside these homes and offices, people are obviously free to furnish their dwellings to their own custom specifications and taste, but they can do so in the knowledge that their water supply and other utilities have been engineered to the same (hopefully high) standard as their neighbour.

“We’re not advocating some draconian vision of homogeneity in software or social housing - and this should not necessarily be a carte blanche approach to the way all technology is purchased in the future. But what this market construct does offer is a way of channelling procurement and deployment into more defined streams.

“This is a process that can lead to not only sharper and more accurate application usage - it can also help to cut down instances of shadow IT where teams have adopted (sometimes quite random) software tools that fail to align perfectly with the central IT stack,” adds Vyas.

Searchable self-service

When an enterprise app store is working well, customers get what they need at the right time and at the right price point. Much like today’s supermarket checkouts and self-scan grocery systems where the retailer barely needs to be present, the software vendor can often take a back seat here too.

By offering a searchable index of software solutions that includes and incorporates a catalogue of partner products, the enterprise app store is able to automate and streamline the whole procurement process. Customers can buy with full knowledge of product functionality and scope. Much like the way we select hotels or other products and services online today, where customers want more information they can read about other user experiences with the tools they seek to purchase.

Sales consultants and product specialists don’t need to panic just yet. As is the case with most AI and automation, this process largely allows product salespeople to focus on more complex customer requirements, which will typically be higher value and higher revenue.

All of this leads us to the subject of so-called micro-verticals and the specialisation of software to serve this notion of industry sub-sectors.

What is a micro-vertical?

As it sounds, a micro-vertical is a smaller subset of a vertical industry. If petrochemicals or aviation are verticals, then petrochemicals or aviation services for farming and agriculture

WE’RE NOT ADVOCATING SOME DRACONIAN VISION OF HOMOGENEITY IN SOFTWARE

OR SOCIAL HOUSING PRAKASH VYAS / OUTSYSTEMS