Archive for the 'IT' Category

Time for a the BNZ Rant, They Don’t Get It….

Published by Ben Kepes on September 7, 2009 in Business, IT, My businesses and New Zealand. 3 Comments

My fellow blogger Lance Wiggs tends to be a bit of a curmudgeon when it comes to banks in new Zealand, in light of the fact that he’s sitting somewhere in the middle of Africa, I figured I’d take up the baton.

I’ve banked with the Bank of New Zealand for over 25 years now. Between myself, my own business and my related entities (see here and here) , I’m part of a dozen or so business accounts with them – most of which include business lending. Over the 25 years I’d hate to think how much I’ve spent on mortgage interest and bank and transaction fees – I’ve always been happy to do so however, receiving as we do the services of a business manager who (sometimes) tries to understand our business and be proactive around that.

A couple of years however the BNZ changed its systems and we were moved from our business manager onto a business partner. While this may same purely a semantic change, it would seem that this tier of bankers are little more than retail staffers on their way up, unaccustomed to what is important to business. I even proactively offered to invite my banker into my businesses Xero accounts to give them some visibility over how the businesses are doing – that suggestion was several hundred meters over the heads of these staffers (which is ironic given the BNZ’s shareholding in Xero).

A couple of weeks ago our business partner went on leave and was replaced. Around the same time one of our mortgages ended its fixed period and I decided I wanted to alter the facility somewhat. Despite promises that the documents would be ready in a week – it is now three weeks later and the documents just showed up, and they are incorrect.

Add to this the fact that the business partner rang me the other day to ask for a debtors list of an associated, but separate business, and the fact that we’ve been charged an errant search fee and despite requests haven’t had the charge replaced, and one can see that the BNZ is rapidly losing it’s appeal.

I may be wrong but I would have thought that the combined accounts of businesses with several million in turnover, combined debt of well over seven figures and an annual banking spend of many thousands of dollars, would have warranted a bit of service. Maybe I was wrong.

I’m not quite ready to move to another business bank, but suffice it to say that if someone was willing to take the time to understand my businesses, was prepared to offer a reasonable level of service, and could get the basics right… I’d consider it.

Dell Adamo – Slim and Svelte

Published by Ben Kepes on August 26, 2009 in IT. 9 Comments

A few weeks ago my friends at Dell graciously agreed to send me an Adamo to test for a couple of weeks – to be honest I’d have rather they just made it an open ended deal but ah well, you can’t have everything…

Dell_Adamo_Pearl_Product2_610x569For those of you who haven’t come across the Adamo before – it’s Dell’s hit at the top end of town, an answer to the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air – while falling neatly, in my opinion, between the two.

I have to admit that I’m a materials guy, happier with leather and steel than plastic  – the Adamo certainly meets my preferences – it’s resplendent in some beautiful work – the rear panel has some CNCd ventilation holes, the bottom is exquisitely etched while the frame to frame glass is something to behold – the Adamo truly is a beautiful piece of kit.thumb_dell_adamo_hands-on_5-480x320

The Adamo comes in at a miserly 19mm deep – and while this necessitated a little bit of customisation of my laptop bag to ensure the machine was nicely padded, it was a modification I was more than happy to make. The Adamo is thin– while at the same time being rock solid – much more so than the MacBook Air – perhaps because of it’s squarer, more solid construction.

The build quality extends past the body however, the keys are beautifully scalloped and nicely backlit, the trackpad is resplendent in aluminium and there’s not an exposed screw to be seen. I’d have to say that the trackpad button click is way too heavy for my tastes, I ended up using the Adamo with an external mouse most of the time.

The unit weighs in at 1.8kg (for comparison, the MacBook Air is 1.36kgs while the 13 inch MacBook pro comes in at 2.04kg). Personally I was happy to gain a few hundred grams of weight when compared to the MacBook Air as the extra weight makes a big difference when it comes to rigidity and solidity.

The Adamo screen delivers a beautiful 1366 * 768 resolution and is a joy to watch – crisp and with beautiful contrast – Dell has spent extra on this screen for sure. – It also comes with a lovely ambient light sensor to ensure screen brightness is always right for the particular lighting situation.

For those who like technical details, the Adamo uses a 1.2GHz ultra-low voltage Intel Core 2 Duo processor. Mine came with the standard 4Gb of RAM, a 64 bit operating system and a luscious 128Gb solid state drive.

In terms of connecting to the outside world, the Adamo has three USB ports, an ethernet post and an external monitor port. There is unfortunately no memory card read and, in keeping with the Air theme, no optical drive. Regular readers of this blog however will know that I believe all software should be on the web and hence the need for an optical drive is greatly reduced.

This is no budget machine – the unit I tested has a price tag of just shy of $4500 – that’s roughly three times the price of other dell units – but if you’re a fan of engineering, are on the road frequently, don’t need a built in optical drive, and want to be able to annoy your Apple fanboy friends – the Adamo might just be for you. Now I just need to convince Dell to send me one for longer next time…..

BNZ, Outsourcing Design to Xero

Published by Ben Kepes on August 24, 2009 in Business, Design, IT, New Zealand, SaaS and Strategy. 18 Comments

The Bank of New Zealand is a reasonably significant shareholder in Xero and so many of us expected that they’d be working together on the odd project.

What we didn’t expect was that the bank would seemingly outsource their web design to Xero but it looks very much like they have.

This is their current personal login page;

olds

Nothing too outstanding there, pretty standard for a banking site. But just look at what they have coming up in the next little while;

bnzlogin

And compare that to Xero’s own login page;

xero

The BNZ is still only showing teasers of their detail screens (see below), but the fact that they’re both breaking out of the banking status quo, and taking some obvious leads from Xero, makes me wonder just what they have brewing down in the lab.

deets

Watch this space!

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Trineo – Heading for the Big Time

Published by Ben Kepes on August 6, 2009 in Business, IT, New Zealand, New business, PaaS, SaaS and Web x.0. 2 Comments

A few months ago I wrote a post discussing some interesting vertical offerings that I’d seen built on top of the salesforce.com platform. I alluded to a new offering that was, at that time in stealth mode – the company behind that offering, Trineo has been invited to San Francisco next week to pitch to a panel of investment and IT gurus, including Sequoia Capital, as part of the final selection process for the Force 40 Innovation Showcase competition, run by Salesforce.com as part of their Dreamforce conference in November.

Trineo is a development and consultancy service focusing on both salesforce.com implementation and custom force.com development out of the Canterbury Innovation Incubator in Christchurch. Managing director of Trineo, Daniel Fowlie, is going to spend around 26 hours in a plane in order to make a seven minute presentation of his LegalSoftOnline product. LegalSoftOnline is still in stealth mode but I’ve seen both early versions, and the current iteration. In talking about his product, Fowlie said that;

A typical server-based legal practice management system can cost tens of thousands of dollars, with additional IT, deployment and upgrade costs. An online system such as Trineo’s, however, does everything a server-based system does, but is far more flexible, equally secure, and has no large upfront cost.

I’m stoked to see Daniel doing well – both becuase he’s a really nice guy, and more generally becuase he’s building a product from here in EnZed! See more here.

Good luck Daniel!

Our Health System Can be Fixed Through Technology, Process and Governance

Published by Guest on July 28, 2009 in Efficiency, Governance, IT, New Zealand, Society and Strategy. 4 Comments

A little while ago I posted, venting my frustration at the New Zealand health system. One of my friends at IBM New Zealand saw my post and wondered firstly whether my criticisms were justified and secondly what solutions there are that could solve some of the health system woes. She invited a healthcare specialist from IBM to respond to my post.

Murray Price is healthcare and life sciences business manager at IBM in New Zealand. The following is his own opinion and should not be taken as IBM company policy.

As much as the New Zealand health system appears to be broken, it is, in fact, still one of the most advanced health systems in the world. Obviously our health system is not perfect, but there aren’t many systems that are any better. There is a general misinformation and lack of understanding in the general public about our health system, including our current international standing and the measures being taken to improve health care.

New Zealand GP’s are some of the most computer literate in the world; over 99% use computers in their practice both to manage patients and to manage their business. The figure in the US is around 30%. This means we can send patient information between clinicians to help improve the treatment process. Our system isn’t perfect, but we are more advanced than most. We deliver better health outcomes for the dollar spent than most countries. We are behind Denmark and literally a handful of others, but ahead of Australia, the UK, and most of Asia, and way ahead of the US. In fact everyone is way ahead of the US despite their leadership in health research.

Our District Health Boards are provided a pool of money to deliver healthcare to their geography within broad guidelines provided by the Ministry. The current bulk funding situation needs to be refined if we are to make improvements to the system, and the health sector needs to make significant changes to reduce costs across the public sector. The initiatives that are underway will make a difference, but they appear to be disjointed.

Our health system can be fixed through a combination of technology, process and governance.

Technology
Technology is easy, it exists today, and it is proven. In fact, advanced technology is being used to improve health systems all over the world, in places like Canada, Denmark, Scotland, Sweden and the US. In Canada, a research hospital is automating the gathering, managing and updating of critical research data and applying analytics to speed childhood cancer research and improve patient care. In Denmark, healthcare providers are using predictive health systems with advanced telemetry to monitor elderly patients in their homes, sharing data instantly. And in the US, a new initiative is enabling individuals and families to store and track their health information and stream data from medical devices.

Technology alone will not solve the problems in our health system; however, one of the essential elements for delivering effective care is developing a fully functioning ‘digital backbone’ to interconnect doctors, hospitals and
patients. A digital backbone will give primary care doctors an essential tool to function in their vital role as the first line of defense against major illness. The ability to exchange information quickly can help reduce medical errors and administrative costs, and improve patient-doctor communication.

The irony today is that we use more advanced technology to listen to music on MP3 players than to keep track of the medical records that save lives. When we need to withdraw cash from our bank accounts, we can use an ATM card anywhere in the world, but when a specialist needs our medical histories, those records are usually tucked away in a paper file in our primary care doctor?s office. Applying technology to our health system provides a clear ROI in lowering costs, and more importantly improving patient safety. And this is achieved when information is unified across a ’system’ thus allowing the right information, to get to the right person, at the right place, at the right time.

Process
The more difficult question in fixing our health system is process. Do we fit the technology to the process of providing care, or the process to the technology, or redesign the process and the technology together? Delivery of healthcare globally is fundamentally the same with local variations based on population types, density, maturity, and funding. Our processes work for New Zealand and a potential danger is we implement technology that doesn’t fit our process.

There is no ‘one size’ fits all and there is no way we should put up with a ‘one size fits most’ option. But our processes can be improved and we might find technology plays a part in that. We need to keep an open mind and have informed debate to plan the way forward.

Governance
However, the most difficult question facing our health system right now is governance. Who owns the patient record? Who has access to it and for what reason? How do the rights of the individual vs. the clinician vs. the funder vs. the planners inform the overall policy? Again, there is no ?one size? fits all and what is ‘right’ overseas may not be right for New Zealand. There is a real danger that the rights of the individual will be decided by others and we need to be very careful this does not happen. It will be almost impossible to get the lid back on Pandora’s Box if we get the governance aspect wrong.

It?s time for healthcare organizations, business and academic institutions to take action toward creating an overall smarter ecosystem for health care delivery. We need a vastly smarter health care system to see improvements in costs, patient outcomes and overall quality of life in New Zealand.

Government 2.0 – A Way to Go

Published by Ben Kepes on June 15, 2009 in Economic Development, Efficiency, Governance, IT, My businesses, New Zealand, Society and Strategy. 2 Comments

Jim posted the incredible story of the New Zealand Immigration Service (NZIS) proposing a $117 million upgrade of IT infrastructure, a sum that equates, from Jim’s reckoning, to $234k per NZIS process worker.

It’s a sorry tale and one that, as Jim points out, smacks of desperation, silo building and vested interests. Given the somewhat depressing post I thought I’d revisit a success story for Government 2.0.

I’ve long been a fan of New Zealand’s Ministry of Economic Development – long before co-founding a community site for New Zealand small businesses, I was involved (and continue to be so) with economic development and advisory work for SMEs as well as running my own small businesses – in my dealings with the various branches of the Ministry of Economic Development (MED), I found them to be effective and efficient. This impression was strengthened with their wholesale adoption of modern communication channels in order to engage with their “clients”. it doesn’t matter which channel you look at – if their constituents embrace it, it’s a sure bet that the various MED departments will soon be there.

Recently I met with another Government department that I’ll leave anonymous. They’re also striving to engage with their constituents. The people I talked to were invariably passionate advocates for the enabling force that engaging with their client base can be – unfortunately their department has some silos within it, people who for whatever reason attempt to block the sort of initiatives their colleagues over at the MED embrace. The result? Frustrated staff, programmes that lack the reach they could otherwise attain and, most importantly for those who evangelise the democratizing power of Government 2.0, inefficiencies that affect the very SMEs these departments are set up to help.

So circling back to the genesis of this post – the NZIS plan for IT upgrading, I’m sure there’s some people within the service who have been flying the flag for quick and relatively economic solutions to the inefficiencies apparent in the system – and you can bet they’re blocked at every turn by anti-progressive and institutionalised individuals who can’t see past the status quo.

Shame…

SmartPayroll Gets on the Service Theme

Published by Ben Kepes on May 12, 2009 in Business, IT and SaaS. 0 Comments

I don’t blog often over here on Diversity any more – CloudAve takes much of my attention these days. Diversity is more about an opportunity for me to be opinionated or to tell stories of Kiwi success stories – I try and do that over on CloudAve too but for some reason some US readers get sick of my parochialism ;-) .

A few weeks ago at the Web09 conference in Auckland I finally had a chance to meet CEO of SmartPayroll, Asantha Wijeyeratne – we immediately found much in common, especially regarding our views of what the real barriers to growth are for small businesses and the potential of connected applications to drive efficiency and productivity gains for SMEs (excuse the volley of buzzwords there).

Anyway, Wijeyeratne just pinged me to tell me that SmartPayroll has just completed it’s integration with Xero. SmartPayroll is the largest of the IRD registered payroll intermediaries through their relationship with Datacom and they’re obviously looking to augment this offering with the addition of a software plus services offering. As part of this integration, Xero have nominated SmartPayroll as their Premium Payroll Partner in NZ.

With another twist in this story, for $83 per month customers can get SmartXero – so what is SmartXero? It is Xero bundled with a high level service and integration offering. Despite all the Web 2.0 tools in the world, as a SaaS vendor grows to scale it simply cannot continue to offer high levels of individual service – as an example Xero provides email support, but no phone support – that’s fine for those of us prepared to either wait or to tinker, but arguably doesn’t address the needs of those who want help from a real person – and now.

So that’s where SmartXero jumps in. I questioned Wijeyeratne about the difference between the monthly subscription to Xero and the offering they are providing – his response? “We will set up the chart of accounts, set up the Bank feeds etc and the general set up. We will then send a trainer to sit with the customer while they do the first month. So all that eliminates the fear of the changeover. Then we back that up with 0800 24×7 telephone support backed up with on-site support if required.”

Of course the biggest gain to be made is by users who use both SmartXero and SmartPayroll – they’re then leveraging both a technology integration and a high level services offering. Asantha indicated the potential to provide a reduced bundle price for those using both products.

While it’d be nice to think that SaaS requires no third party help – the reality is that SMEs need handholding – SmartXero is providing a valuable service for those businesses.

Update – SmartXero has had a name change! It’s now known as SmartBooks Plus

Conferences – Not a Zero Sum Game

Published by Ben Kepes on April 20, 2009 in Business, IT and New Zealand. 2 Comments

It’s been a big year of conferences for me so far – both domestic and international. It’s been great fun – busy but fun.

I’ve been fortunate to have covered two New Zealand events for Idealog magazine. Webstock in Wellington and Web09 in Auckland. Webstock is a seasoned event, polished over the years and with significant momentum and credibility. Web09 is a new event and shows real bravery on the part of its organiser and sponsors to embark on a new event in the current climate.

A comment by the usually thoughtful Chris Keall of the NBR wound me up the other day. In a post reviewing the keynote given by Xero CEO Rod Drury, Keall decided to judge the entire event based on half an hour’s attendance on the first day of two. Keall wrote;

Incidentally there was a fantastic buzz at Web09 when I swung by this morning. The organisation is slightly rag-tag, with no audience mics or PowerPoint (yay!) but in a way that only adds to the feeling that its an event born out of the web community itself, rather than conceived by a professional organiser. (Though with 200 delegates paying up to $745 a head, it could also teach the pros a couple of commercial lessons.) If there was ever any doubt that Auckland could run an event to match Wellington’s webstock, it’s gone.

Chris, sorry but this is just poor. For a start there were PowerPoint presentations (Drury’s presentation being the sole one without) but more importantly the off-the-cuff remark comparing Web09 to Webstock is unhelpful.

From my perspective having attended both events this year I can say that Webstock was a far more polished event – this isn’t a criticism of Web09 per se – its a first year event and it would have been a miracle if it was up to Webstock levels. But beyond this it needs to be remembered, as Webstock organiser Mike Brown (who attended Web09) put it in a seemingly exasperated public tweet;

it’s not a freaking competition! Wish NBR would get over that. Seriously.

I’m with Brown on this one – New Zealand is a big enough place for both a Wellington and an Auckland based event. Web09 succeeding is a good thing for Webstock and vice versa.

 

A New Learning Resource from LearningSource

Published by Ben Kepes on March 4, 2009 in IT, New Zealand, New business, SaaS and Strategy. 0 Comments

After many months spent in super stealth mode, Another local SaaS product is coming out from under the covers.

Training management system vendor LearningSource has gone public with their offering. Learning Source is a fully featured, end-to-end training management system that LearningSource believe will;

  • streamline business processes
  • help manage business relationships
  • enhance the learning experience in, and beyond, the classroom

LearningSource has a number of benefits including;

The reduction of administration cost through the automation of communications, built in CRM functionality, centralisation of course creation and automatic dynamic updating of a companies website connected to LearningSource

The strengthening of customer relationships through tracking key contacts, recording all information and managing communications centrally as well as targeted marketing of courses to specific clients based on customer information

Enhancing the value of existing courses by providing a centralised repository of course resources with the ability for attendees to submit content as well as enabling the integrated use of wikis, discussions and blogs.

Improving customer experience through the integration of SMS reminders, mapping information and calendaring.

Enabling continuous improvement via the built in customer feedback system.

The ability to move business information online including storing and managing documents, communicating company new and announcements, coordinating events and activities and the aforementioned facilitation of online collaboration.

LearningSource is designed to either be used as a standalone product, or to be seamlessly integrated into a customers own branded website. The solution has been designed to be easily and rapidly skinned to suit a customers individual requirements. Below is an example of this integration this one for a government funded business growth agency.

What I find really refreshing about the LearningSource offering is that they realise the real value they can add to training providers by giving them an end-to-end management solution – that takes all course and student information and wraps it up in an integrated LMS, CRM and back office management tools. I’m excited to see where LearningSource, another local SaaS startup, takes their offering.

Win Free Software!

Published by Ben Kepes on February 13, 2009 in Business, IT and New Zealand. 2 Comments

bizchat_logo Just a reminder that over on bizchat there is a cool competition for kiwi businesses. Every month for the next twelve months one community member will win a;

  • 12 month subscription to Xero
  • 12 month subscription to iPayroll
  • 12 month subscription to WorkflowMax
  • 12 month subscription to the Zoho suite

There’s very little fine print – it’s open to any New Zealand based bizchat member. The competition is drawn around the 20th of each month for the rest of the year so head on over there, register as a member and join in the community!