SPEED TO MARKET Finding the right early adoption solution takes luck. Sitting in a class on venture capitalism at Notre Dame, Doug Wait wasn't exactly expecting to find the answer to his company's sudden supply chain management challenge. Wait, a plant manager for glass manufacturer Pilkington North America, suddenly faced a wave of new orders that would radically increase the volume and number of products produced at his operation within weeks. Spreadsheets - his then-current means of keeping track of everything - weren't going to do the job, and other solutions seemed to be biting off more than Pilkington was willing to chew. "I wasn't looking for the holistic solution to solve scheduling and world hunger," Wait says.
But when one of the venture capitalists teaching the class found out that Wait might have a need for some advanced scheduling software, he pointed Wait to a company he'd invested in, JRG, which offers a hosted supply chain management service that looked like it would fill Pilkington's needs - and do it quickly. "We started talking to them in October 2003, declared our intention to do business with them in November, and implemented between December and February," Wait says. It took a fraction of the time and cost that other products, such as those from i2, would have taken, he adds. Better yet, JRG was eager for the work.
"They're hungry. They're aggressive. They need to make sure the perception that they leave you with is good," he says. When Wait needed something, JRG was quick to deliver.
Keep an Eye on Risk
"The number you have dialled has been disconnected or is no longer in service."
The ultimate nightmare scenario for any early adopter is a vendor that goes belly-up. And given that most start-up businesses fail, it is a real risk. But properly prepared mitigation efforts can help companies avoid or recover from a bevy of unfortunate incidents, even the complete collapse of the vendor.
TECH EVALUATION The first step toward mitigating the potentially debilitating effects of early adoption is to establish a sound process for identifying new technologies worth using. In some cases, that involves a full-blown advanced-tech unit charged with testing new technologies in an R&D setting. But such setups can cost big bucks - and thus few companies even want to consider the option.
But there are ways to keep track of technological advancements without adding a new wing to your IT department. Bill McCreary, vice president, CIO and operating excellence for Pilkington North America, says the company uses a three-stage process to monitor technologies it may one day adopt. All IT employees are encouraged to keep an eye out for new technology opportunities as part of their jobs.
Once a new technology matures a bit (meaning it hasn't "just shown up in the newspapers", says McCreary), it can go on the radar screen, which is stage one. Then someone will be charged with tracking its progress and developing a working understanding. Technology can stay in this stage indefinitely if Pilkington's technology evaluation committee feels it is still interesting but not ready for prime time. (RFID fits squarely in this category right now, McCreary says.)
If the technology continues to look promising and has matured sufficiently, it will move to stage two, the on-deck circle, where a business case can be built and possible alternatives identified. If it survives that process, Pilkington is ready to begin the third stage, some form of implementation.
Cox's Cotner has an even simpler process - test, test and test again. And he notes that success with one version of your early adopted technology shouldn't necessarily mean jumping enthusiastically to the next iteration. "We made that mistake with mySQL 4.0 when we tried it right away," Cotner says. "We had some issues as a result" (including a small table-corruption problem that was later resolved in a minor version upgrade). That experience has made him much more cautious about subsequent upgrades.
VET THE VENDOR The drive to keep up with the Joneses - and then pass them in a blur on the right - has led more than one early adopter to a crash. But many such problems can be avoided with proper vetting of your new vendor.
Epsilon's Coakley may have the most nightmare-inducing story. Almost 15 years ago, the company decided to build a large part of its marketing program's management platform on the then-new Thinking Machines massively parallel processing platform, making Epsilon (at the time owned by American Express) the first company to put commercial applications on cooler-than-thou Thinking Machines hardware. It looked like the perfect mating of Epsilon's software needs with hardware horsepower, until Thinking Machines went up in a flaming ball of mismanagement in 1995.
"We had to replatform [the entire application]," Coakley recalls. "Thinking Machines was so new, we had to write everything for that damn machine." It took months for Epsilon to make the switch. But the experience taught Coakley to be very careful when working with new vendors. When Epsilon decided to investigate Netezza, for instance, Coakley brought in people from groups outside IT - including the CFO's office - to cast a cautious eye on the deal. "Folks like me, as much as we're supposed to be sceptical, we get excited about this stuff," Coakley says. "Sometimes you need somebody else to ask the tough questions." Epsilon's financial people delved into Netezza's fiscal footing, while the sales team made sure the company had a solid idea of how to turn Netezza's technology into a saleable product.
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