Microsoft Case Study: Corporate Modelling ISV Opts Against Open Source, Doubles Revenue with Office Business Application 13th July 2007 To improve ease of use for its business customers, Corporate Modelling decided to develop its business process management solutions using Microsoft® products. The company also joined the Microsoft Partner Program, which has not only provided guidance for long-term development but also strategic sales leads and connections with other vendors. Corporate Modelling expects to double its revenue every nine months. Business Needs Independent software vendor (ISV) Corporate Modelling was founded with the purpose of giving business people in the financial services industry a model-driven application that would facilitate financial, operational, and quality gains. Previous model-driven applications had focused on the technical side of business process management, which made them difficult for business analysts and others to use effectively. “We wanted business users to determine what process changes they wanted to model and then automatically generate the appropriate application to do so,” says Graham Twaddle, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Corporate Modelling. When Twaddle started the company in 2003, he assessed various elements that were required for his solutions to be successful. Among the highest priorities was to decide which would be the best, most familiar tools for business people and to use them in developing the new business modeling and business process management software. Although he had a background in UNIX and open-source development, he came to the conclusion that building on Microsoft® products, specifically the Microsoft Office programs, made the most sense. “Not only was the cost of UNIX and open-source development far higher, but there’s no equivalent to the Microsoft user interface—it’s second to none,” says Twaddle. “Plus, there was no point in creating our own spreadsheet application or way to build diagrams when Microsoft Office already includes that functionality.” The company’s solutions are considered Office Business Applications (OBA) because they are built on the 2007 Microsoft Office system. Additionally, they pull information from back-end and line-of-business (LOB) systems for easy use by information workers. Corporate Modelling also sought a way to build bridges among hardware vendors, other ISVs, and technology service providers to make it more straightforward and attractive for potential customers to replace their UNIX environments. “Business process management often requires significant analysis, which, in turn produces applications that demand a lot of processing power. Traditionally, those sorts of applications had been written for mainframe systems, but those systems can’t keep up with the rate of business change today because their applications are so time - consuming and expensive to modify,” notes Twaddle. “We wanted to work with an enterprise company that could help us develop a reasonable mainframe replacement and introduce us to customers who needed it.” Solution In 2005, as it completed its research and development stage and drew nearer to product production, Corporate Modelling decided to join the Microsoft Partner Program. Its objective was to make valuable technical connections within Microsoft and to get assistance with sales leads. Specifically, the company wanted to work in tandem with the High Performance Computing (HPC) and Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005 groups to ensure that its software offerings would complement, not repeat, those from Microsoft. “Although Microsoft products are used to solve business problems worldwide, they can’t possibly address every customer issue. We needed to know where the gaps were, how to fill them, and which company was most appropriate to address them,” says Twaddle. Partnership status also gave Corporate Modelling access to LOB market experts from Microsoft who could help the company identify customers in need of business modeling and business process management solutions. Since joining the Microsoft Partner Program, Corporate Modelling has worked with Microsoft to create the Financial Services Grid Initiative. The initiative brings together technology stakeholders—including software and hardware vendors—to develop a reference architecture that uses Windows® Compute Cluster Server 2003 to optimally run business process management applications. As of June 2007, two companies are piloting the architecture as an alternative to their existing UNIX and mainframe systems. Benefits Corporate Modelling is using its position as a Microsoft partner to gain credibility, market share, and a long-term technical road map. “By using Microsoft technologies as the foundation for our development, we’re producing an easy-to-use, understandable, low-cost offering that can be confidently adopted by financial services customers,” says Twaddle. Exponential increase in revenue. Corporate Modelling is currently bringing its products to market and, judging by customer response, anticipates strong growth opportunity. “We expect to double our revenue every nine months,” says Twaddle. “That sort of growth is a result of not just years of careful research, but also our partnership with Microsoft—a company customers trust.” Access to technical experts and business contacts. The Microsoft Partner Program has given Corporate Modelling access to the Microsoft employees who can help the most. “We now have an ongoing vision of the future, so we can keep in step with Microsoft and produce solutions that continue to offer real worth to customers,” says Twaddle. “Our relationship with Microsoft gives us access to deals that we wouldn’t otherwise be involved with, and we, in turn, can make the Microsoft offering more targeted to address industry gaps and solve specific customer needs.” Greater value for customers. Corporate Modelling was able to significantly decrease its development time for customer projects because its Business Modelling Environment is based on the Microsoft development and production environments, which enables the company to reduce the time it takes to get to the right business solution. Therefore, Corporate Modelling can offer lower-cost solutions to its customers. “We cut our development time by 50 percent — that’s three years — by building on Microsoft products,” says Twaddle. “And we can deliver business process management solutions to our customers for one-tenth what it costs to purchase and maintain mainframe solutions.” Case study on Microsoft.com