Embracing a ‘Best-for-Me’ Strategy, Moving Past the Enterprise Software Decathlete

As the Summer Olympic Games approach, we look forward to many stories about the athletes and the struggles they encountered on their journey to the pinnacle of their sport. We often see the cinematic hero’s journey unfold live as a part of sporting events, with sport used as a metaphor for life. There is another metaphor between sport and life that deserves exploration: that of enterprise software and Track and Field.

Enterprise software users and vendors continue to debate the value of integrated software solutions against “best-of-breed” alternatives. Should you use a single provider or many? Should you buy it or assemble it? Should you embrace open or proprietary architectures? This debate has been waged from the dawn of enterprise software, and it is time to shift the discussion.

Decathletes v. Specialists
Ashton Eaton won gold in the men’s decathlon for team USA in the 2012 London Summer Games, and he is the reigning world record holder. Interestingly he won gold without being the best in the world at any one event. When comparing his results with the individual events from the same games, Eaton would have finished 7th in the long jump, 20th in the 110m hurdles, 24th in pole vault, 37th in the 100m, and 39th in the 400m. He would not have qualified for the other events. In the decathlon itself, Eaton only won 3 of 10 events: the 100m, the 400m, and the long jump.

He trains diligently for all of the events, but he is only one man with 24 hours in a day and finite resources to distribute across 10 events. You win the decathlon by accumulating the most points, and you can win the gold without winning any events. You can have weaknesses, relative to the competition, and still win.

This represents the integrated argument in enterprise software. You can buy it all in one place. The breadth of functions are covered, with some areas being more robust than others. Variability in capabilities across an integrated suite can go unnoticed, or be deprioritized, during the evaluation and sales process, as conventional wisdom expects solutions from a single provider to be easier to manage, to be better integrated, and to be appropriate across the whole organization. Conventional wisdom calls for the enterprise software decathlete.

Unfortunately, like the decathlete, you get mixed performance across all of the disciplines when you only focus on finding an integrated suite. Even though he is a decathlete, Ashton’s strengths are based in events that rely on speed over strength, otherwise he performs less effectively. He leverages his world class speed to win decathlon gold, yet he can’t keep up with Usain Bolt.

If you were only setting out to win a decathlon, pick Eaton. If you want to win the whole track meet, you want a team that performs better, in aggregate, than the decathlete. Focus brings expertise, and a collection of experts is more capable than a generalist. Usain Bolt won gold in the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m by focusing on speed. So why do we settle for less in the choices we make to provide technology to our enterprise?

The most common answer and conventional wisdom is that integrating all of the pieces is extremely complex, and an organization does not want that burden.

Sometimes complexity is hidden in the integrated scenario where acquired products are put forth as part of the whole. The impression of a one-stop-shop leads to a conclusion of deep integration, which may or may not prove out, as the details are in the execution of the integration, not the marketing of it.

Whether you own both sides of the integration or you develop cooperatively with a partner, it all comes back to focus and execution.

It is time to think differently.

MRI Software is focusing and executing on a vision that takes the burden of integration off of you, the client, so you can have the best functionality without having to worry about integration. We have crafted a robust set of functionality for Commercial Real Estate that is built on an open platform, AND we have recruited over 50 partners who are willing to help us achieve our vision.

Enabling Best-for-Me with the Single Experience
MRI is enabling the ‘Best-for-Me’ approach with our Single Experience vision, proving that if you can experience capabilities provided by MRI and our partners in a seamless manner, then you should, and will, want the best. You will choose the team of experts over the decathlete.

We have struck the balance between software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service. As a software provider, we will develop and grow a robust set of capabilities that many clients would be happy to use as delivered. We will continue to leverage our strength and heritage in accounting, property and investment management and expand appropriately. In some regards, we will be an enterprise software decathlete to many clients because we fit their needs with our product suite.

However, our vision goes beyond the integrated approach to include the specialists. We choose an “and” in place of an “or”: integrated AND best-of-breed, creating “Best-for-Me.” We will deliver the best of both with a novel approach that is inclusive of third party products and shifts responsibility for integrations away from our clients.

To make this happen, as part of our offerings, we are providing a platform for integration with other providers that goes well beyond publishing a few APIs. We are taking on the responsibility for building and supporting integrations between our products and our partners’ products. MRI will be responsible for integration, not you, the customer. This is core to our go-forward strategy, and it is the first building block in providing a Single Experience.

Our vision at MRI Software is predicated on flexibility and choice for our clients. We have the tools, capabilities, and strategies to empower choice. We have the products and the partners to provide robust functionality and choice. Collectively, we are creating a Single Experience for our clients, and we would love to tell you more about our vision, our offerings, and ourselves. Visit us online at www.mrisoftware.com.