Innovation

Technology is continually changing, so the business value of innovation is determined both by effectiveness and by timing. In a competitive marketplace, the relative benefit of innovation is determined not only by the advantages it provides versus existing competitors, but also by how it positions an organization to respond to new competitors.

For instance, the disruptive innovations of web-based classifieds and auctions introduced new competitors to local newspapers. Google, eBay and Craigslist are more of a threat to local newspapers than their traditional competitors. New Demand is focused on understanding new technology trends that are gaining traction, and applying them in specific solutions that meet business demands.

Sustainable Solutions

Innovative solutions need to be built on sustainable foundations, not only in terms of their technical architecture, but also in terms of an organization's ability to maintain and enhance them. The tradeoff between custom solutions and packaged systems is often analyzed solely in terms of the cost benefit of the initial implementation - not with regard to the lifecycle costs of the complete system. The keys to a sustainable solution are:

• Standards based architectures to avoid technical obsolescence.
• Flexible configuration tools that allow customers to keep their solutions synchronized with changing business needs without requiring extensive redevelopment.
• Shared services that leverage the experience of many participants to provide a common base level of functionality that continuously improves.
• Closed loop processes that include the targeted reporting needed to provide ongoing feedback regarding the status of an organization's key business processes as well as measurements of employee and system performance.
• The suppliers commitment to ensure the customer takes control of the completed solution.

On Demand Services

The development of distributed computing services has been revolutionized by the commercial use of the internet. Whether one looks at Google's Web Search capabilities, or Salesforce.com's Customer Relationship Management system, the scale, capacity, reliability, and functionality of these systems far surpasses anything previously available over the Internet. The roots of On Demand services are in the earliest days of commercial computing, when IBM mainframes were operated as time sharing service bureaus. With the advent of PCs and desktop Email, Application Service Providers (ASP) introduced shared web hosting and email services paid for on a rental basis. Now the development of more sophisticated web browsers, and improvements in Internet performance and security, allow customers of any size to buy services as scalable and functional as any mainframe, with interfaces as easy to use as any PC, priced on a usage basis. New Demand specializes in implementing the right balance of distributed On Demand services and local processing to meet customers' needs.