This Week in IDEA | November 01, 2006

November IDW2 Training Calendar

In addition to the ongoing distributor trainings and all-users’ Q&A sessions, IDEA also offers manufacturer trainings.

The November 2006 IDW2 Training Schedule is:

IDW2 Distributor Training sessions:

Wednesday, November 1 – 1:30–3:00PM EST
Wednesday, November 15 – 1:30-3:00PM EST
Wednesday, November 29 – 1:30-3:00PM EST

General Net-Pricing Sessions (open to all):

Thursday, November 2 – 1:30–2:00PM EST
Thursday, November 30 – 1:30-2:00PM EST

All-user Ask the IDW2 Experts Q&A sessions:

Wednesday, November 8 - 1:30–3:30PM EST

IDW2 Manufacturer Training sessions:

Thursday, November 9 – 1:30–3:30PM EST

If you plan on attending an Ask the IDW2 experts session, it is recommended, but not mandatory, to e-mail questions in advance, as those questions will be addressed first. These sessions will aim to help you:

o Resolve your IDW2 issues
o Learn from those in your industry
o Find out how your supplier or distributor is using the IDW2

Additional training sessions are announced each month in This Week in IDEA.

To sign up for a training session, please contact Silvio Rodriguez, Customer Service Manager, at 703-562-4620.

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IDX2 Web Forms: Utilize Their Full Potential

For many IDX2 users, the Web Form serves one purpose: as an augmentation to the electronic data interchange (EDI) process, but its potential is much more extensive.

IDEA’s Web Forms allow virtually any IDEA customer to send and receive purchase orders, purchase order changes and invoices electronically via the Internet with minimal investment. Web forms can also help companies avoid potential fees from trading partners regarding non-compliance fees.

“The purchase order web form function specifically has allowed Siemens Energy & Automation to receive EDI orders on configured products, tie them to a specification and process them successfully,” said Liz Norman, EDI Business Systems Manager, Siemens Energy & Automation.

“The invoice web form allows for individual customers who are not EDI capable to receive invoices daily through IDX2. They are proactively notified via email that invoices have been delivered and can immediately take the necessary action. This is particularly helpful on direct ship orders and results in a reduced order to cash cycle,” said Norman.

Web Forms and in-network translation services help broaden the scope of businesses that are able to take advantage of interacting with the IDX2. The primary purpose of the Web Form is to reach smaller businesses that have not used eCommerce tools: these businesses do not use electronic data exchange (EDI) and typically rely on faxes to conduct business.

“These additional services have given SEA the flexibility to adapt to unique customer requirements as well as the opportunity to delay EDI development without missing a beat as far as our customers are concerned,” said Norman.

The Web Form is a browser-based application; this is the key behind the success – it can be accessed via the Internet using a standard web browser. Users can open, modify, print, archive and submit forms.

Manual input is held to a minimum since data is automatically transferred from the incoming form to the response forms. All that is required is Internet access and a web browser such as Windows Explorer or Netscape.

“Siemens Energy & Automation uses IDEA's IDX2 network exclusively. Siemens not only makes use of IDX2's value added network data services, but also of services including; file translation from EDI to flat file, web forms, and flat files,” said Norman.

To learn more about IDX2’s Web Form solution, please contact Tom Guzik, IDX2 Product Manager, at (703) 562-4626.

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Lessons Learned: From a recent CIO conference

• Being mobile is not widely implemented – Only one in 10 enterprise workers has access to email on a Blackberry or Palm Treo, and even fewer can access business applications on those devices.

• Communication, communication and more communication, among all levels of your IT staff, is critical to delivering innovative solutions. Regulatory and legal issues are the biggest external roadblocks to innovation, while unsupportive corporate cultures and inadequate funding constitute the main internal speed bumps.

• Training end users – initially and continually is the most important thing that can be done when rolling out a new application or program

• If you want to be innovative you have to embrace your failures and miscues

• Don’t even try to stop the flood of consumer devices entering your infrastructure. It’s a losing battle but put Skype at the top of the list.

• Saving money (the whole mess foe less) is the worst reason to outsource. You outsource to grow your business right away.

• Vendors do not sell service oriented architecture applications. CIO’s must purchase them.

• The CIO’s future role will morph into the CEO’s present job.

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How IT Can Drive Business Process Reorganization

Volkswagen chief information officer, Klaus Hardy Mühleck, has championed the CIO's role as the arbiter of business process and enablement.

Authors: Detlev Hoch and Jürgen Laartz, The Quarterly

At a time when many CIOs find themselves increasingly distanced from the executive suite, Volkswagen's CIO Klaus-Hardy Mühleck sits on the executive board and has responsibility for defining business processes throughout the company. In that capacity he has championed a new organizational IT structure to use resources more efficiently and effectively. Process integration officers work across business units to simplify the capabilities of entire business domains—for example, a PIO in the order-to-delivery unit evaluates processes from the customer order back through sales, manufacturing, and design. Throughout Mühleck's career, he has promoted the use of IT to simplify processes, gain a competitive advantage, and create value. Detlev Hoch and Jürgen Laartz, directors in McKinsey's Düsseldorf and Berlin offices, respectively, recently spoke with him about how and why he has reorganized the IT function and the results that Volkswagen expects from the effort.

The Quarterly: You've helped lead Volkswagen through a transformation over the past few years—from a company whose IT function just supported the business to one where IT leads change and works hand in hand with the other functional leaders to innovate. Can you tell us about that transformation?
Klaus-Hardy Mühleck: In many companies and in a lot of industries, you will find that IT isn't a core competency. It's more or less a historical discipline—running data centers, preparing and servicing different clients. And management views it as a cost center.
But over the past ten years at Volkswagen, we've begun to talk about the role of the CIOs and how to focus their skills on business enablement. This is not a hard leap to make for executives in some younger industries, like mobile communications. But in more established industries, like automotive or energy, it takes a little more work, since explaining to senior managers in other functions how IT can help play this leading role is a real paradigm shift. So if we discuss finance and control with finance leaders, we tell them how we work with SAP to prepare standard processes for accounting and controlling work. From there, we have to agree that to map out new processes, we must work collaboratively, bringing together the IT and business knowledge to design what's possible. We call this "concurrent engineering."

And of course the same is true in automotive design. It's no longer possible to talk about designing automobiles or manufacturing facilities without IT's input, because the vehicles and the factories are all digital—all based on digital models. In fact the biggest challenge in the product part of our business is to accelerate product development and manage the complexity of different products and versions. In a company like ours, this complexity is intensified by the high degree of interaction we need between the R&D departments of our various brands and of our external engineering partners. It's no longer enough just to involve IT; innovation must be driven by IT.

The Quarterly: So you reorganized the IT function to align it with the business domains?
Klaus-Hardy Mühleck: Yes, we designed the organization to better suit this evolving vision of IT. First, we created a new role, that of the PIO, to lead the strategic redesign in several areas of the business. We have four of these positions so far. One PIO works in the product creation process, including design, engineering, prototyping, production planning, and tooling—the total process of creating a new automobile. A second works in order to delivery and helps to rethink processes from the first customer order back to the factories, supply chain management, shop floor processes, and then back to the customer. The third is in sales, marketing, and after-sales support, coordinating these activities between Volkswagen, the wholesalers, and the retailers. This responsibility includes auto sales through all distribution channels, as well as after-sales service, warranties, and spare parts. And the fourth manages strategic and supporting processes, which include human resources, finance and control, and treasury. All of these officers work closely with their counterparts in the business departments, whether in accounting, engineering, production, or logistics, to design new architectures and processes to enable innovation. And they've also had to develop new skills within their own organizations, to bring those IT people up to speed on the businesses they're working with.

We also defined a new organization of IT architects under the chief technology officer. We carved this group out of the old IT organization and staffed it with developers and application-management folks with strong architectural skills. This group is responsible for all the technology definitions and platform standards and also for managing delivery. And we grouped our application-management activities—separate from development—into one organization, to provide higher-quality services at lower cost.

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