CITE World
The role of the Chief Information Officer is changing as fast as the IT landscape. Between BYOD, the tidal wave of big data metrics, the shift to the cloud, cost pressures, and any of the other thousand dozens of things that have shifted in IT over the last decade, the CIO's job is no longer so cut-and-dried.
Last night, I sat in on a debate between Narinder Singh, Chief Strategy Officer of cloud service provider Appirio (and Jay-Z enthusiast - he quoted the rapper several times during the evening), and R. Ray Wang, Principal Analyst and CEO of Constellation Research, as they discussed the changing nature of the C-Suite in general and the CIO in particular with moderator Chris Preimesberger, editor of eWeek...
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Appirio in the News
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
What Your Business Center Can Learn From One Corporate Remodel
Officing Today
There’s a lot of industry buzz about alternative workplace strategies. But what does it look like when companies decide to take the plunge on their own? And what can your business center glean from corporate remodels that tap into the alternative workplace strategy trend?
Appirio, a Bay Area-based startup technology firm that recently relocated its headquarters to downtown San Francisco, is sharing its story. When the firm relocated, it also set up a new officing paradigm designed for the future of work.
Appirio is using a hoteling model of desk space and utilizing large open spaces for group collaboration. Appirio also encourages virtual work. The office allows for about 60 employees at a time, just 10 percent of its 600 global employees. All four of its co-founders work outside the Bay Area.
OfficingToday caught up with Jennifer Taylor, Appirio’s senior vice president of HR, to discuss the company’s alternative workplace strategy, how they executed it, how it has benefited the firm, and more...
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There’s a lot of industry buzz about alternative workplace strategies. But what does it look like when companies decide to take the plunge on their own? And what can your business center glean from corporate remodels that tap into the alternative workplace strategy trend?
Appirio, a Bay Area-based startup technology firm that recently relocated its headquarters to downtown San Francisco, is sharing its story. When the firm relocated, it also set up a new officing paradigm designed for the future of work.
Appirio is using a hoteling model of desk space and utilizing large open spaces for group collaboration. Appirio also encourages virtual work. The office allows for about 60 employees at a time, just 10 percent of its 600 global employees. All four of its co-founders work outside the Bay Area.
OfficingToday caught up with Jennifer Taylor, Appirio’s senior vice president of HR, to discuss the company’s alternative workplace strategy, how they executed it, how it has benefited the firm, and more...
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Friday, April 19, 2013
Interview: Appirio eyes Europe for future growth
Enterprise Apps Expo
Appirio is a company attracting quite a buzz on its US homeground. To date, the seven-year-old San Francisco-based cloud integrator has helped over 500 companies implement high-profile software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications – from providers including Salesforce.com, Workday, Google Apps and Cornerstone – and attracted close on $77 million in venture capital funding along the way. Its customers include well-known brands such as coffee chain Starbucks, beauty firm L’Oreal and automotive company Toyota.
In Europe, it is less well-known right now, but general manager of European operations, Lori Williams, is determined to get the Appirio name out there. Much of its most recent tranche of venture capital funding – $60 million in total, awarded in March 2012 – was earmarked for international expansion. That work is well underway, Williams says.
Enterprise Apps Expo recently spoke to Williams about the company’s strategy for Europe and its progress in the region to date. The company’s overriding goal, she told us, “is to free people and the companies they work for from the bondage of on-premise technologies.” And at the same time, the company urges prospective customers to think in terms of ‘Your Business, Reimagined’.
“That may sound a little gimmicky,” Williams acknowledges, “but the way that you approach working with things like Salesforce, Workday, Google and Cornerstone – our four primary partners – is really different. The old days of an IT project, where the first third of a project was working out how much hardware infrastructure to buy are over. Now [with SaaS], you hit the ground running on day one, working through business processes and moving things forward.”
That’s a rule that Appirio lives by itself, she adds: despite having 600 staff, spread across the US, Japan, India, UK and Ireland, “we own no servers as a company – we practice what we preach.”...
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Appirio is a company attracting quite a buzz on its US homeground. To date, the seven-year-old San Francisco-based cloud integrator has helped over 500 companies implement high-profile software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications – from providers including Salesforce.com, Workday, Google Apps and Cornerstone – and attracted close on $77 million in venture capital funding along the way. Its customers include well-known brands such as coffee chain Starbucks, beauty firm L’Oreal and automotive company Toyota.
In Europe, it is less well-known right now, but general manager of European operations, Lori Williams, is determined to get the Appirio name out there. Much of its most recent tranche of venture capital funding – $60 million in total, awarded in March 2012 – was earmarked for international expansion. That work is well underway, Williams says.
Enterprise Apps Expo recently spoke to Williams about the company’s strategy for Europe and its progress in the region to date. The company’s overriding goal, she told us, “is to free people and the companies they work for from the bondage of on-premise technologies.” And at the same time, the company urges prospective customers to think in terms of ‘Your Business, Reimagined’.
“That may sound a little gimmicky,” Williams acknowledges, “but the way that you approach working with things like Salesforce, Workday, Google and Cornerstone – our four primary partners – is really different. The old days of an IT project, where the first third of a project was working out how much hardware infrastructure to buy are over. Now [with SaaS], you hit the ground running on day one, working through business processes and moving things forward.”
That’s a rule that Appirio lives by itself, she adds: despite having 600 staff, spread across the US, Japan, India, UK and Ireland, “we own no servers as a company – we practice what we preach.”...
Read more
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Immigration and America’s high-tech industry: The jobs machine
The Economist
... Other companies in tech hubs have opened faraway offices to tap new pools of skilled labour. Appirio, which advises companies on cloud-computing strategies, has opened an office in Indianapolis. “Lots of talented students are hungry for tech jobs, which are rare there,” says Narinder Singh, one of the company’s co-founders, whose parents came to America from India. RingCentral, a Silicon Valley firm that supplies cloud-based phone systems to businesses, has hired 74 staff in an office in Denver that opened in 2011. Vlad Shmunis, the firm’s Ukraine-born founder, says it wanted to be near another big university that could be a source of smart employees...
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... Other companies in tech hubs have opened faraway offices to tap new pools of skilled labour. Appirio, which advises companies on cloud-computing strategies, has opened an office in Indianapolis. “Lots of talented students are hungry for tech jobs, which are rare there,” says Narinder Singh, one of the company’s co-founders, whose parents came to America from India. RingCentral, a Silicon Valley firm that supplies cloud-based phone systems to businesses, has hired 74 staff in an office in Denver that opened in 2011. Vlad Shmunis, the firm’s Ukraine-born founder, says it wanted to be near another big university that could be a source of smart employees...
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Employers: Benefits of a job go beyond pay packets
Financial Times
...Virgin America, an airline serving destinations throughout North America, reconfigured its method of communicating with its 2,700 staff at more than 20 locations.
“We had had an intranet platform for several years but we knew we had to revamp the way we communicated,” says Ben Eye, manager of teammate engagement and communication. “We had to deal with the 90 per cent of teammates [staff] who are remote, so we designed it to foster a sense of involvement.”
The company’s previous platform contained a lot of information but lacked two-way communications so did not make it easy to obtain feedback. It was not mobile-friendly and was proving difficult to maintain.
Working with Appirio, an IT services provider, Virgin America customised the Salesforce “Chatter” platform to allow a merging of social media with business processes. Part of what Virgin America calls its VX Connect platform is devoted to HR topics, including an explanation of the company’s benefits package. It also includes customised forms that allow staff to enrol in a pension plan and apply for medical leave.
Queries can be submitted to members of the benefits team online. “Because the entire department is monitoring what comes in they get an answer more quickly,” explains Mr Eye. “But this is broader than just benefits: it stimulates the level of engagement. We have a very open environment and we see that as our differentiator in the airline industry.”
Ms Wishart says: “Technology allows you to be more effective and targeted in your approach. Communication can be effective without having to go too far in terms of cost.”
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...Virgin America, an airline serving destinations throughout North America, reconfigured its method of communicating with its 2,700 staff at more than 20 locations.
“We had had an intranet platform for several years but we knew we had to revamp the way we communicated,” says Ben Eye, manager of teammate engagement and communication. “We had to deal with the 90 per cent of teammates [staff] who are remote, so we designed it to foster a sense of involvement.”
The company’s previous platform contained a lot of information but lacked two-way communications so did not make it easy to obtain feedback. It was not mobile-friendly and was proving difficult to maintain.
Working with Appirio, an IT services provider, Virgin America customised the Salesforce “Chatter” platform to allow a merging of social media with business processes. Part of what Virgin America calls its VX Connect platform is devoted to HR topics, including an explanation of the company’s benefits package. It also includes customised forms that allow staff to enrol in a pension plan and apply for medical leave.
Queries can be submitted to members of the benefits team online. “Because the entire department is monitoring what comes in they get an answer more quickly,” explains Mr Eye. “But this is broader than just benefits: it stimulates the level of engagement. We have a very open environment and we see that as our differentiator in the airline industry.”
Ms Wishart says: “Technology allows you to be more effective and targeted in your approach. Communication can be effective without having to go too far in terms of cost.”
Read more
Monday, April 8, 2013
Job applicants and social media: Employers take 'eyes wide shut' approach
MPR News
...Some hire an outside company, such as Social Intelligence or Sterling, to conduct the social media research for them. Others delegate the research to an employee who is not part of the hiring process.
Third parties would then delete from their reports on job candidates any legally sensitive information, like race or age.
That kind of approach may help avoid lawsuits, but it could harm the recruiting process, said Jason Averbook, chief business innovation officer at Appirio, a company that counsels businesses on talent management.
Recruiters and hiring managers need to worry about finding the talent and not obsess over the problems that could come up during the search, Averbook said.
"Do I focus on those 'coulds' and not do it?" he asked. "Or do I focus on the things that are truly going to get me the best people, and deal with the 'coulds' as an exception?"
Averbook said employers in sectors like information technology cannot wall themselves off from social media. They need those avenues to identify talented workers they can poach from other companies. That's because the workers they need aren't seeking new jobs...
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...Some hire an outside company, such as Social Intelligence or Sterling, to conduct the social media research for them. Others delegate the research to an employee who is not part of the hiring process.
Third parties would then delete from their reports on job candidates any legally sensitive information, like race or age.
That kind of approach may help avoid lawsuits, but it could harm the recruiting process, said Jason Averbook, chief business innovation officer at Appirio, a company that counsels businesses on talent management.
Recruiters and hiring managers need to worry about finding the talent and not obsess over the problems that could come up during the search, Averbook said.
"Do I focus on those 'coulds' and not do it?" he asked. "Or do I focus on the things that are truly going to get me the best people, and deal with the 'coulds' as an exception?"
Averbook said employers in sectors like information technology cannot wall themselves off from social media. They need those avenues to identify talented workers they can poach from other companies. That's because the workers they need aren't seeking new jobs...
Read more
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Committing to your developers will help you keep them
VentureBeat
Developers have a reputation.
The word “developer” evokes an image that has become synonymous with someone that writes code. As someone who codes, I am well aware of the most common images and words that people think of when they learn that, yes, I am a developer.
However evolving, these reputations have followed many developers into their day job, and employers end up benefiting solely from the skills that their coders brought to new hire orientation.
In Silicon Valley and elsewhere, developer talent is scarce, particularly for companies that are not “the” social network or named after a fruit. But when companies do find, recruit, and hire the talent, most aren’t taking the right steps to empower their developer talent to learn, grow and thrive.
Few companies truly harness and empower developer talent, but there are a few ways that any company can start...
Read more
Developers have a reputation.
The word “developer” evokes an image that has become synonymous with someone that writes code. As someone who codes, I am well aware of the most common images and words that people think of when they learn that, yes, I am a developer.
However evolving, these reputations have followed many developers into their day job, and employers end up benefiting solely from the skills that their coders brought to new hire orientation.
In Silicon Valley and elsewhere, developer talent is scarce, particularly for companies that are not “the” social network or named after a fruit. But when companies do find, recruit, and hire the talent, most aren’t taking the right steps to empower their developer talent to learn, grow and thrive.
Few companies truly harness and empower developer talent, but there are a few ways that any company can start...
Read more
Thursday, April 4, 2013
When Standard Is Not Enough
Talent Management Magazine
Technology, which is often seen as this century’s golden child, can also kill competitive advantage. We all tout the benefits that can come from technology — from efficiency to effectiveness in analyzing our data to the “nth” degree, which ensures we measure every nut and bolt that our technology spits out. But while this technology era is truly the golden era for HR — and more importantly for workforce technology — and we can truly measure and monitor the workforce to drive new business results like never before, the same tools that promise all of this value can also make us incredibly lazy.
As the evolution of cloud-based computing has become the norm when selecting talent management technology, so has the practice of implementing the vendors’ built-in best practices. The theory that the software can’t be customized continues to be touted as the biggest advantage since the birth of the computer. For those who have boxed themselves into a corner writing custom code and spending millions of dollars modifying vendor software, the thought of no customization is a sigh of relief. But maybe we as an industry need to land somewhere in the middle...
Read more
Technology, which is often seen as this century’s golden child, can also kill competitive advantage. We all tout the benefits that can come from technology — from efficiency to effectiveness in analyzing our data to the “nth” degree, which ensures we measure every nut and bolt that our technology spits out. But while this technology era is truly the golden era for HR — and more importantly for workforce technology — and we can truly measure and monitor the workforce to drive new business results like never before, the same tools that promise all of this value can also make us incredibly lazy.
As the evolution of cloud-based computing has become the norm when selecting talent management technology, so has the practice of implementing the vendors’ built-in best practices. The theory that the software can’t be customized continues to be touted as the biggest advantage since the birth of the computer. For those who have boxed themselves into a corner writing custom code and spending millions of dollars modifying vendor software, the thought of no customization is a sigh of relief. But maybe we as an industry need to land somewhere in the middle...
Read more
Monday, April 1, 2013
PSA software market: Key capabilities, vendor differentiation
SearchITChannel (TechTarget)
...Appirio Inc., a San Francisco-based cloud services provider, has managed its business using PSA since its 2006 launch. The company, which helps clients navigate Salesforce.com andGoogle Apps implementations, built its own PSA system using Salesforce.com's Force.com platform, noted Glenn Weinstein, Appirio's chief information officer.
Weinstein said Appirio decided to create a home-grown system to track its Salesforce and Google consulting activities. Eventually, Appirio commercialized its PSA, listing it on theSalesforce AppExchange. The company then migrated from the home-built PSA to the commercial version.
Appirio sold its PSA offering to FinancialForce.com in 2011. Weinstein said the product business, which grew beyond the company's expectations, proved too much of a diversion from Appirio's cloud services core. The company continues to use the PSA software, which is now called FinancialForce PSA.
"Other than email, it is our most mission-critical system," Weinstein said.
...Appirio's Weinstein said PSA solutions, over time, have pushed forward into sales and marketing while becoming more tightly integrated into back-end financial systems. At Appirio, FinancialForce PSA ties into not only Salesforce.com, but also Workday Inc.'s financial management application...
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...Appirio Inc., a San Francisco-based cloud services provider, has managed its business using PSA since its 2006 launch. The company, which helps clients navigate Salesforce.com andGoogle Apps implementations, built its own PSA system using Salesforce.com's Force.com platform, noted Glenn Weinstein, Appirio's chief information officer.
Weinstein said Appirio decided to create a home-grown system to track its Salesforce and Google consulting activities. Eventually, Appirio commercialized its PSA, listing it on theSalesforce AppExchange. The company then migrated from the home-built PSA to the commercial version.
Appirio sold its PSA offering to FinancialForce.com in 2011. Weinstein said the product business, which grew beyond the company's expectations, proved too much of a diversion from Appirio's cloud services core. The company continues to use the PSA software, which is now called FinancialForce PSA.
"Other than email, it is our most mission-critical system," Weinstein said.
...Appirio's Weinstein said PSA solutions, over time, have pushed forward into sales and marketing while becoming more tightly integrated into back-end financial systems. At Appirio, FinancialForce PSA ties into not only Salesforce.com, but also Workday Inc.'s financial management application...
Read more
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Appirio at a glance
Introduction to Appirio
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