Decision Analytics > LawsonGuru > LawsonGuru Letter > 2002

December 2002

The LawsonGuru Letter is a free periodic newsletter containing provocative commentary about issues important to the Lawson Software community.
The LawsonGuru Letter is published by-and is solely the opinion of-John Henley of Decision Analytics. Visit Decision Analytics at http://www.danalytics.com. For subscription information, see the bottom of this message.
The LawsonGuru Letter is not affiliated with Lawson Software.

In this issue:
1. Where Integrity Shops
2. Focus: A Quick Primer on EAI
3. Meeting Your Needs
4. Reader feedback
5. Survey: What's your wish?
6. Lawson tips & tricks

1. Where Integrity Shops In the DC area, there used to be a department store whose slogan was "Where Integrity Shops". (Who will be the first person to tell me the name of the store, and what live animals they had display?) As a kid, I never really understood what that slogan meant. I now realize, of course, that it's all about taking care of the customer. What got me thinking about this was a recent letter to the editor in CIO Magazine (http://www.cio.com/archive/110102/feedback.html. It referenced a previous article (http://www.cio.com/archive/080102/truth.html) which dismissed the value of software vendors' customer references, arguing that customers receive freebies in return for giving glowing references. What got my attention was that letter to the editor was from Bob Dutkowsky, Chairman, President and CEO of J.D.Edwards--part of which I quote:

"At J.D. Edwards, we expect software buyers to ask reference customers the tough questions. We encourage our reference customers to speak with total candor about our failures and successes-our prospects should know how we deal with problems when they inevitably arise. The J.D. Edwards sales process emphasizes how our company does business-because in the end, it takes both our software and our partnership with customers to make their business stronger."

Now, I haven't worked with J.D. Edwards software in a few years, but that message speaks volumes. I sure hope it's true, and if it is, it's certainly laudable. Doing "whatever it takes" to make the customer happy--within reason, of course--is what it's all about--for any business. A customer who is easy to work with, pays their bills on time, etc. is a customer that should NEVER be lost. (There are some "toxic" customers that are worth losing, but that's a story for another day.). Some of my personal customer experiences, on both sides of the counter, have been particularly memorable. Here's a couple of stories I love to share:

- One time, late to the airport, I ran up to the gate where the door was already closed and the plane was pushing back. Maybe it was my lucky day, but they BROUGHT BACK the plane to get me on board. A customer for life? You bet. Unfortunately, this particular airline later fell victim to bankruptcy during the airline deregulation era. - A client was trying to close the books for the month, and desperately needed to resolve some errors. They called me on my cell phone as I was boarding a plane, and I had to cut them off, but promised that I'd address their problems as soon as I landed. Which I did--in person--straight from the airport. They talked about it for months-"Boy, John flew straight here to help us!".

You get the idea. It's all about taking care of the customer, and all things being equal, the one who does it the best, is likely to keep the customer-hopefully forever. Before I was an independent consultant, I worked for one of the largest software
companies in the world. My favorite position was what I affectionately call "the fixer". I would fly around the country (sometimes 6 or 7 cities a week) and just fix problems for clients. No problem was too large or too small, and all in the name of customer satisfaction. You probably know where I'm going with this. I think Lawson needs to re-gain its old 'Get a Customer-Keep them for life'. Sure, the biggest customers have the loudest voice. But, what about the smaller ones-who pay the same percentage for support as the big guys? If you're a new client, running all of the latest versions, and you're not a beta site or a "lead adopter", you still should get help without having to scream. If you have support cases that are open for months for the same issues related to Portal 3.0, maybe there really is something wrong. The "it works in our labs" answer just doesn't cut it-get out of the labs and into the real world. If you're going to support the Environment on AIX 5L, you better have more than one darn test server running it. I realize that some support issues are self-inflicted, but Lawson needs to do a better job of resolving ones that are "Lawson-inflicted". I don't know if you noticed Lawson trumpeting this past month about their 5th annual certification for "effective customer support". I want to know where they get their support numbers. How many times have I been surveyed? Zero. How many calls have gone unanswered or simply unaddressed for months? Don't ask. Don't get me wrong, Lawson does have good support. I just think they could do a whole lot better, particularly when an issue straddles development and support, when an "issue" really is a "bug". So, my challenge to Lawson is this: Read the J.D. Edwards letter, and adopt that type of a commitment to your customers. It HAS to come from the top, and it HAS to be fully supported throughout the ranks. Put together a SWAT team of top-notch support people and developers (and supplement them with some partners and independents). Make a commitment to have the "top brass" visit every client at least once a year to assess support issues, and make sure that every high-priority issue that goes unresolved for more than a week is addressed and resolved.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
- QUOTE OF THE ISSUE - "The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer." - Peter F. Drucker
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

2. Focus: A Quick Primer on EAI
Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) can mean many things.
Integrating various applications can be as simple--and "low-tech"--as direct
interfaces between systems in your organization. For example, you may create
an interface feed between your Lawson payroll system and an external tax preparation service, or your "home-grown" billing system and the Lawson Accounts Receivable system.
Interfaces can be accomplished in a variety of ways, including database-to-database triggers, COBOL extracts, etc. Direct interfaces are typically characterized by two primary attributes: 1) direction (inbound or outbound, or two-way), and 2) their timeliness, i.e. batch (hourly, daily, monthly, etc.) or real-time (directly integrated).
Moving to the other end of the integration spectrum are "integration hubs", which
truly "integrate" your organization's systems and operations, and present a unified
view of them.
For example, a company may have any number of customer-related systems (e.g., customer relationship management (CRM), call center, accounts receivable, billing, etc.) An Account Executive or a Billing Analyst should see these disparate customer systems as one--via one user interface--which sits atop an integration hub that synchronizes and "orchestrates" the flow of information between the systems.
EAI hubs are comprised of four key components:

- Orchestration: The engine that is responsible for making it all work; akin
to the "routers" in a network, the "orchestration" engine is the heart of the hub, and knows which transformations and adapters are required for each and every transaction or request performed in the hub, and knowing which is the appropriate transport to use to handle the request.
- Transformation: Responsible for translation of the system-specific data into a common format. In other words, the call center application and the A/R system have specific formats for the customer data. The "Transformation" engine is responsible for "Transforming" this data from the various adapters into a usable and common format.
- Adapters: Components that pass data between the Transformation engine and the various disparate systems for updating and retrieval.
- Transport: Think of this as the "email" of EAI. The transport engine is
responsible for the guaranteed delivery of data to/from the hub to/from the various adapters.
As you probably know, there is no "out-of-the-box" EAI implementation (you may have enjoyed the current IBM commercials, touting the fictitious "Universal Business Adapter"!)

And, there is no one integration hub that can be used with Lawson.
The Lawson Business Component Integrater (BCI) goes a long way to fulfilling the
requirements of an EAI hub, but lacks both a reliable transport engine (typically,
clients use either FTP, or IBM MQSeries messaging) and a true orchestrator. It does come bundled with the appropriate Lawson adapters, and Mercator for the transformation engine.
Another popular solution is Microsoft's BizTalk Server, which meets most of the EAI
requirements. However, BizTalk lacks knowledge of Lawson, and therefore requires
custom-developed COM components to "talk" to the various Lawson systems, and fulfill the adapter and transformation requirements.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Truly interesting diversion: Take an on-line IQ test,
as well as other cool and useful personality and career
tests and self-improvement tools:
http://www.emode.com/tests/uiq/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

3. Meeting Your Needs This is the fourth issue of the LawsonGuru Letter, and I want to ensure it's meeting your needs. So, I'm asking you to reply back to this issue with answers to these questions: - Is it too technical, or not technical enough? Would you rather see more technical issues covered? More functional ones? Or, is the balance just right? - Are there too many topics, and not enough detail? Would you rather have more in-depth focus on just one topic? - Do you read the whole issue? Are there parts you skip? If so, why? - Would you receive it in HTML (Web) format with pretty pictures and fonts? - Are the tips & tricks useful? Have you put any of them to use? Do you have some to share? - Do you enjoy the "between-article" blips, like the quotes and survey results? - Is the "Worthwhile Reading" section useful? Do you check out these other articles, or do you just think it's a waste of space? - Is monthly too frequent? Lots of questions, but I really want some answers. I write this newsletter and send it to you every month-for free-and I want it to be something you look forward to reading, in its entirety. If there are pieces that don't interest you, tell me. Perhaps it sounds corny, but I want the LawsonGuru Letter to be an integral part of your Lawson life! Send me your thoughts to . I'll keep them confidential, and really, really, REALLY want to hear from each and every one of you!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Worthwhile Reading:
Can American Keep Flying? How American Airlines
is using IT to respond to tough times.
CIO, November 1, 2002
http://www.cio.com/archive/110102/flying.html
I.T. Architecture: Heart Of The Matter
InformationWeek, November 8, 2002
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20021108S0004
Enterprise Software Upgrades: Less Pain, More Gain
CIO, November 15, 2002
http://www.cio.com/archive/111502/gain.html
What Works: Building a Strong Finance Team
CFO, November 2002
http://www.cfo.com/article/1,5309,8021||M|426,00.html
To Bill or Not to Bill? Ways to integrate e-billing
software with other financial and procurement systems.
CIO, November 1, 2002
http://www.cio.com/archive/110102/bill.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

4. Reader feedback I truly want this newsletter to be an engaging dialogue, and want this section to become more of an "op-ed" section, with more reader commentary. In conjunction with that idea, I'm also debating setting up an interactive forum/message/collaboration site as an adjunct to this newsletter. Is that of interest to you? Would you support this idea if it had a nominal monthly fee? How much would you pay? In the meantime, please continue to send your comments to . Please let me know if you'd like your name withheld or not. Here's some recent comments I have received: Regarding the question: "Was Lawson better off as a private company?"

"From a customer standpoint, I've seen absolutely no difference between Lawson being public or private. Still the same old song and dance around poor customer service. Still constantly reorganizing. Still sloppy product development. Still mediocre bolt on products (like SEA). No really new ideas."

Regarding the "Go, No Go Decision": "This is closely related to what we refer to in the functional world as the "Pay Now or Pay Later" effect. This is the tenet of project management that says that if you have 4000 lines on the project plan and you only accomplish 3000 before your go-live event, the remaining 1000 do not go away. Instead, they mushroom in the post-live environment, always at a cost far greater than they would have if they were accomplished during the implementation."

"As consultants, we see this all the time. Personally, I would like to see a return to good old-fashioned methodology that insisted on parallel tests and pilot site testing before rolling out to the entire enterprise. These steps were deleted from most methodologies during the Y2K crunch when getting live and moving on was the mandate. However, do we still need to adhere to the Y2K methodology of the 1990's, or should we be looking to advance our approaches to meet the goals of today's clients' needs?"

5. Survey: What's your wish? Let's have a little fun this month and just dream about what we'd change in Lawson if we could change any ONE thing. I know Lawson has had their Enhancement Request System in place for a while now, but I have not seen any public statistics on its success. If you could have any ONE wish granted, what major functional change would you recommend? I'm not talking about minor changes, like changing a field size or screen layout--I want to know what MAJOR changes you'd make. Perhaps a new module? An interface that's missing? Some screens that should be combined? I'm particularly interested in functional--rather than environment-- enhancements, although everything's fair-game. Just ONE enhancement though--what would it be? Send me your vote and thoughts to , and I'll share them in future issues. I will keep them confidential, so please don't be bashful.

6. Lawson Tips & Tricks
If you have a tip you'd like to share, send it to
.
a. If you're using the Excel addins, your login info (server, username, and password) is automatically saved. It's not obvious how to change this if you want to login to a different server. Just click the ? Button on the toolbar, and you'll get a message "Click the OK button to clear the login information"...click OK. You'll then be prompted for a server/username/password the next time you invoke the wizard. b. Moving Lawson printer definitions between Environments on Unix/NT is easy, but not obvious. Here's how: 1. Dump the printer file in the source environment:

$ rngdbdump -c GEN printer > printer.csv

2. Switch to the target environment, and use importdb to import it:

$ importdb -f GEN printer printer.csv

Note: If you're using the Lawson Environment 7.3.3 or higher, you'll need to turn off Lawson security to use rngdbdump and importdb with GEN.

The LawsonGuru Letter is a free periodic newsletter containing provocative commentary about issues important to the Lawson Software community. The LawsonGuru Letter is published by--and is solely the opinion of--John Henley of Decision Analytics. Visit Decision Analytics at http://www.danalytics.com.To subscribe, send an email to: To be removed from the subscription list, send email to:

Decision Analytics is an independent consultancy, focusing on Lawson technical projects, and specializing in customization/modification, data conversion, and integration/interfaces (including BCI/Mercator). Please visit http://www.danalytics.com for more information.

Decision Analytics. Integrating Lawson with the Real World.