Every day thousands of companies are trying to maximize the functionality of their  legacy ERP systems on very  tight budgets because upgrading the system  may not be a particularly feasible option. One solution to this problem involves adding a top layer of functionality and utilizing its [valuable] underlying components.

The history of ERPs is an interesting one; their impact on enterprises is and has always been obvious. They’ve always been a revolutionary asset to the organizations who implemented them early on. Simply put, they open up communication between all functions of an organization, and facilitate and improve business processes by doing so. Unfortunately maintaining these systems can be difficult and extremely costly.

ERPs are hefty solutions and are characteristically applied under the ‘one solution fits all’ axiom. These systems are made for any industry vertical, even if they require customization. Since ERPs are built to fit into any business, by default, your company has to fit into the ERPs set of functionality. This can lead to some issues years after the initial implementation.

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Kairos Society’s Global Summit in New York City – a networking event for college entrepreneurs and current industry leaders. The event was held at the United Nations and the New York Stock Exchange – not typical networking venues, but conducive to the Society’s goal of “Uniting the Brightest Young Minds to Fuel Innovations for a Better Tomorrow.” Beyond the fervent entrepreneurial ambition exhibited by Kairos Fellows, we had the honor of listening to several impactful speakers, one of which was Thomas Goetz, Executive Editor at Wired Magazine.

His talk particularly struck my interest as it relates to the topics I often discuss on this blog; the interaction of end user and software developer, the behavioral change (both organizational and operational) that comes with adopting Agile development, and the cyclical feedback that imparts better aligned software to the enterprise …all wrapped into Goetz’s two words: feedback loops.

I believe that to truly understand the agile development process, one needs to see an agile team in action; and perhaps even attend a daily “stand up” meeting.

I believe that same level of understanding applies to any good agile development platform, and Mendix is no exception.  Gaining the best appreciation for the Mendix platform typically occurs once agile developers see it in action. I can say (or write) “one click deployment,” “visual modeling,” and “integrated AppStore” until I’m blue in the face (or red in the fingers) – however, it’s a developers  ability to create a CRM system with Google Maps integration in less than 10 minutes that really does the talking (or typing). Once developers actually touch the product and begin to create with it, it is then that they truly understand – much like attending that first daily “stand up”.

Building and managing applications on the Mendix platform is a very visual process, from the initial modeling of the application within their own domain model, to deploying it for immediate feedback… However, reading and hearing about it can only prove so valuable – it’s something you’ve really got to see.

The topic of consumerization of IT has been floating around the blogosphere for quite some time now, so I thought I’d write a post with my perspective on the matter.  From what I gather, consumerization of IT means that businesses, and users, are becoming more powerful with modern tools and plug-and-play apps – ones that are more consumer-driven by nature. This is good (more business agility) but can be a risk too, if not monitored/controlled by some higher vision/architecture.

Fast and Easy Adoption

The success of cloud applications for consumers often relates to the friction involved in adopting the technology. In other words, how easy is it to bring this new technology into my everyday life (and in this case, my professional life)? From the enterprise perspective, this adoption process is on a grand scale and requires a number of stakeholders to be involved – both from business and IT. Both business and IT people need to understand the added value of the application and how it will be adopted within the enterprise.

Several features of the Mendix platform allow enterprise IT to treat very complex mission critical applications as though they are consumer focused cloud apps. The influx of consumer applications in the workplace has given employees new expectations for the business applications they use on a daily basis. The reason I think Mendix applications fit into this category of ‘consumerized’ IT is that they are innately flexible enough to deal with these new expectations.

‘Tis the season to think about giving – why not give the gift of business agility? Here are three applications that have outstanding return-on-investments. Happy Holidays…

1. Single View of Customer

What if you could see all of the data about a specific customer in one convenient dashboard view? No more signing into multiple systems to gather the customer’s data manually. With a ‘Single View of Customer Portal’ you can organize data from source systems so that your systems work for the people in your organization – not the other way around.

Renew Value in Source Systems

Mendix was recently mentioned in a nice post on the GetApp blog about the top cloud stories in 2010. Always happy to hear from our friends at GetApp, we’re even more excited to start seeing Mendix apps populate the GetApp marketplace now that Mendix is listed as a platform. The enterprise world has gone app crazy this year, and I’m proud to hear that Mendix apps are regarded as true game-changers by their users.

If you’re not familiar with GetApp, it’s an enormous marketplace for business applications of all kinds. Talk about options – there are thousands of apps for every purpose, ranging in every possible characteristic you can imagine. The sheer number of choices here reminds me of the philosophy of the Long Tail. You think there will be a long tail of apps?

The Long Tail

In his book, The Long Tail, Chris Anderson explains the value in harnessing the web for free distribution of content. The long tail philosophy refers to a normal distribution of goods, where most merchants are selling those that are in highest demand; the aggregate value of goods not being sold is actually larger than that of the limited number of high-demand goods.

A post by Marc Lehane, Business Engineer at Mendix Americas.