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Alok MisraPresident at Navatar Group |
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| Is Force.com Your Key to the Cloud Kingdom? |
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| The reality of salesforce.com as seen through the eyes of a partner | |
| by Alok Misra & Ian Gotts | |
| In this article, we provide a high-level introduction to the reality and misconceptions around salesforce.com and its work culture, as seen through the eyes of a partner. The article is extracted from our recent book, “Thinking of … Force.com as your key to the Cloud Kingdom? Ask the Smart Questions,” which also features a Foreword from Parker Harris, co-founder of salesforce.com. | |
| read the full story >> | |
| Contributions |
| Article: How To Reduce IT Service Costs In The Cloud |
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February 17 2011
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Businesses seem to have accepted that cloud computing leads to lower IT costs, and it’s true that many companies experience some savings in switching to the cloud. Yet, the total cost of ownership for most is still up to 50% more than it should be.
Here’s why. Companies still assume that the software buying and deployment process is the same for cloud and on-premises products. They persist with the old model and end up paying for consulting and support services that are redundant or available for free. |
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| Article: O Multitenancy, Will Thy Survive Oracle |
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October 04 2010
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Multitenancy has no shortage of enemies. Most legacy software vendors are beginning to lose money to smaller multitenant competitors. To protect their turf, these vendors jump into the cloud themselves but discover they don’t like the financial model. Their answer, then, is to have a cloud play without multitenancy by redefining what the cloud really stands for. |
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| Article: Product Cloud Or Service Cloud? Know the Difference |
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April 29 2010
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In the world of on-premise computing, product companies are distinct from services companies. Yet cloud companies are generally grouped together as if they all do the same thing. They don't, and not recognizing the difference can be an expensive mistake for customers, investors, and even the cloud companies themselves. |
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| Article: Why Multitenancy Matters In The Cloud |
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February 18 2010
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There's a debate in the software industry over whether multitenancy is a prerequisite for cloud computing. Those considering using cloud apps might question if they should care about the debate. But they should care, and here's why: multitenancy is the most direct path to spending less and getting more from a cloud application. |
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| Article: When to Use Force - Five Critical Questions to Ask Before Building a Product on Salesforce.com's Platform |
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November 19 2009 - CRM Magazine
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There is no doubt that Force.com, Salesforce.com’s platform-as-a-service (PaaS), is the leading cloud computing platform today. If you are an independent software vendor (ISV) or an entrepreneur looking to build commercial products in a public cloud, it’s probably on your radar already. Force.com gives you the potential to save on development time and get a product to market faster--even more important, the potential to build a business with fewer resources.
Does that mean you can create a profitable cloud business by building your product on Force.com? The answer is--not necessarily
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| Podcast: Alok Misra, Principal, Navatar Group, interviewed By Zagada NearshoreJournal.com Hi-Level Executive Interview Series |
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September 04 2009 - Zagada Nearshore Journal
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Alok Misra is a top expert in SaaS business transformation and a thought leader in the Cloud Computing world. He has been the driving force behind some of the most complex Independent Service Vendor – ISV applications built on Force.com. His stewardship has, over the last four years, turned Navatar Group into one of the top Salesforce.com consulting partners.
In addition to discussing the implementation successes his company has achieved with the Cloud and Force.com deployment, Alok shares with Philip, his insights about the necessary shift in strategy and operation that software companies need to take to successfully adapt to the expanding US$ 8 billion Cloud computing outsourcing opportunity.
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| Article: Think Equity Interview with Alok Misra |
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March 01 2009
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According to Mr. Misra, Cloud Computing is picking up steam and Force.com could be the obvious beneficiary. |
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| Paper: On-Premise to On-Demand: The Dos and Don'ts of the Transition to Cloud Computing |
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November 01 2008
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This whitepaper provides, for the first time, the Dos and Don'ts of making the transition to cloud computing using salesforce.com's Force.com Platform-as-a-Service. It establishes why traditional ISVs with On-Premise software products need to approach their move to the Cloud model as a transformation of their business, as opposed to a technical product migration exercise. It highlights the challenges ISVs face, and examines the most common missteps during various stages and areas of this transformation. The whitepaper also provides strategies for success, including advice from companies such as Thomson-Reuters, CODA and Intralinks that have already been down that road as well as top Cloud experts from Navatar Group and Deloitte Consulting. |
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| Navatar Private Equity CRM Salesforce Cloud Podcasts Navatar Blog |
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| December 18 2011 |
| Do not miss this recently recorded and well attended webinar, “The New Rules for Private Equity Firms,” with Martin Stein, one of my favorite speakers.
With a more competitive private equity environment, it’s often challenging for smaller firms to match the resources and reach of larger firms. Whether it’s getting the right deal flow, building better [...] ... read more >> |
| August 19 2011 |
| The interest level around cloud computing is already on the rise in India. Several global and local software players have been going all out to get attention, by making the one pitch that everyone wants to hear – lower TCO. However, it still hasn’t resulted in very high sales numbers for these providers.
There may be [...] ... read more >> |
| July 15 2011 |
| Nicholas Donato explores how technology and social networking are influencing the way private equity funds operate, in his well-written article for the PEI Fund Administration & Technology Compendium, titled:
The fund of tomorrow … today
One of the questions that the article raises is whether social networking can change the way deals are sourced, in a people business [...] ... read more >> |
| July 05 2011 |
| If you haven’t noticed middle market private equity dealmakers trolling for deal flow these days, just join the cocktail hour of an industry networking event. Buyers, sellers, intermediaries (and others) frantically seek each other at these events, exchanging business cards and pieces of paper, as M&A activity heats up.
I’m sure that searching for deals was a similar exercise 20 [...] ... read more >> |
| June 15 2011 |
| We’re pleased to bring you this podcast with Sunny Vanderbeck , Managing Partner of middle market private equity firm Satori Capital, a customer of Navatar Private Equity. Sunny talks with us about how cloud computing has helped his firm manage the complexities of private equity fund raising as well as a pipeline with more than [...] ... read more >> |
| May 16 2011 |
| Cloud computing is the white-hot topic in information technology and salesforce.com is the leader in enterprise cloud computing. It’s incredible to consider, especially since when we started in 1999, the term cloud computing wasn’t even used. We didn’t have much in those early days: just a rented apartment as an office, a server stored in [...] ... read more >> |
| May 06 2011 |
| Customers never pay for upgrades
The startup had done really well in their first year. They started with $500k of seed money, and the talented technical team launched the first version of the workflow management cloud product, built on Force.com, in 8 months. Their CEO, well connected in the technology world, brought in the first sales. They had [...] ... read more >> |
| March 25 2011 |
| Here’s another case study of a start-up that wanted to build a commercial cloud product. They haven’t been able to launch their product.
Unrealistic ROI expectation
“We’ve estimated that we should be able to sell 50,000 to 70,000 subscribers in 3 years,” asserted the CEO of a start-up that wanted to build a Force.com app for a [...] ... read more >> |
| March 17 2011 |
| The following is a real case study of how an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) failed in their attempt to launch a cloud product.
Building a consulting practice instead of a cloud product
“I hold you responsible for not telling me earlier that this would cost so much,” yelled the EVP of Product Development at the consultants that [...] ... read more >> |
| February 22 2011 |
| The premise for my latest InformationWeek article, How To Reduce IT Service Costs In The Cloud, is that companies are paying unnecessary consulting and support fees for cloud apps, increasing their total cost of ownership by upto 50%. Several commentators disagree – their main contention is that services will always be required in order to provide a better [...] ... read more >> |
| December 27 2010 |
| I was reading this story in a newspaper today: Indian firms go missing on the big cloud stage-show . According to the article, all top Indian IT firms have had teams of engineers working on ‘cloud offerings’ for two or more years, but are yet to achieve global recognition for their products.
It would be naïve [...] ... read more >> |
| December 14 2010 |
| Techno-Pulse started this debate, since a provider named Virtual Ark thinks otherwise. Here’s an excerpt from their CEO’s interview at Cloud Computing Journal:
Marty Gauvin: No, not at all. Virtual Ark can manage dedicated instances of the application for specific customer needs as if they were “one” application instance. In our view, the security, integration and performance requirements [...] ... read more >> |
| December 02 2010 |
| If you’re part of a Government agency that engages volunteers, you may be interested in this recorded webinar from HandsOn Connect and salesforce.com:
Transforming Government Volunteer Management in the Cloud
In this webinar, you will learn how HandsOn Connect, the volunteer management solution that runs in salesforce.com’s cloud, helps agencies:
Manage volunteers and volunteer opportunities
Track projects, events, sponsors, and [.. ... read more >> |
| December 01 2010 |
| We couldn’t be more excited about having Alps Fund Services join Navatar’s Mutual Fund Cloud. It is a major milestone in our mission to bring Cloud Computing to Wall Street.
ALPS Fund Services is a big name in the Mutual Fund industry. It distributes Select Sector SPDRs and provides a full services suite for open-end, closed-end, [...] ... read more >> |
| November 22 2010 |
| In Indian high-tech companies, employee relationships often tend to be transactional and attrition numbers are typically very high especially during good times. When I joined Navatar a couple of months ago, to lead engineering for the Cloud Computing Excellence Center in NOIDA (India), I didn’t expect anything different. What surprised me, though, was the list [...] ... read more >> |
| November 08 2010 |
| Money Management Executive magazine highlights Navatar Mutual Fund Cloud in its latest Operations & Technology Special Edition. Navatar Mutual Fund Cloud now makes it possible for a wholesaler to get CRM, Sales Reporting, Transfer Agent Data and much more for a low monthly fee –through salesforce.com’s cloud. A great example of multitenancy at its best.
Editorial [...] ... read more >> |
| October 01 2010 |
| It surely takes someone as influential (and smart) as Larry Ellison, to be able to dismiss multitenancy as a “horrible idea” (See article, Oracle’s CEO Holds Court on Salesforce, Fusion and More). Every customer being in the same database is a “horrible security model,” Mr. Ellison says. With the likes of Oracle strongly attacking it, will multitenancy die [...] ... read more >> |
| July 20 2010 |
| We forgot to mention our article about attacking the vestiges of the on-premises model with our free services. ... read more >> |
| May 26 2010 |
| Is there such a thing as a free lunch?
After Navatar made the announcement for free services for Salesforce, here are a just a few of several questions I received:
“How will you make money?”
“Free – Ha Ha...”
“Very interesting … still digesting what it means..”
The questions were genuine and their underlying theme was clear – everyone seemed very surprised since they [...] ... read more >> |
| May 12 2010 |
| You asked – we delivered. You don’t have to work long hours to manually calculate, create, print and deliver capital call notices any more. Navatar Private Equity now also automates capital call and distribution processes, eliminating all the time consuming manual work on your part.
Your Investor Relations team will not have to spend time preparing [...] ... read more >> |
| April 25 2010 |
| Everyone knows how salesforce.com crushed Siebel a few years ago, to become the de facto standard in CRM. What started with a win in the On Demand CRM battlefield, has now revolutionized the delivery of software through cloud computing. Legacy software vendors under attack from newer cloud providers, are scrambling to protect their turf, like [...] ... read more >> |
| March 25 2010 |
| I recently wrote a post for the InformationWeek Cloud Computing blog, titled Why Multitenancy Matters in the Cloud. I described in my post why multitenancy is the most direct path to spending less and getting more from a cloud application. The blog post was actively discussed on various forums, including LinkedIn and Google groups and [...] ... read more >> |
| December 15 2009 |
| There is no doubt that Force.com, Salesforce.com’s platform-as-a-service (PaaS), is the leading cloud computing platform today. If you are an independent software vendor (ISV) or an entrepreneur looking to build commercial products in a public cloud, it’s probably on your radar already. Force.com gives you the potential to save on development time and get a [...] ... read more >> |
| December 02 2009 |
| Ketan Khandkar, Principal, Navatar Group, will be demonstrating a very exciting and important application, built on Force.com, at the next meeting of the Salesforce.com NJ User Group on Wednesday, December 2nd. The application was built using Force.com Sites and Customer Portal for the Department of Defense and Council On Accreditation Child Care Initiative.
Please join us [...] ... read more >> |
| October 15 2009 |
| In the wake of news reports that Venture Capital fund raising was the
lowest last quarter since '03, you might be surprised that very
sophisticated buy-side firms such as Hedge Funds, Venture Capital firms and Private Equity firms often rely on the must rudimentary, home made fund
raising methods. ... read more >> |
| October 04 2009 |
| At least 5 people asked me that question in the last 2 weeks. These people are customers, competitors as well as our partners. Everyone has been surprised at our success in the Financial market with our Force.com based services (or products, as some would call them) to manage operations for Capital Markets and Asset Management firms. But then, [...] ... read more >> |
| September 26 2009 |
| Mary Hayes Weier of InformationWeek poses some great questions about Oracle’s desired switch (according to a recent announcement) to subscription-based pricing, in her article Oracle Mulls Shift To Subscription-Based Pricing. “How is Oracle going to do subscription-based pricing, and is that going to require Oracle to invest heavily in a multi-tenant architecture,” Mary asks.
Let’s tackle [...] ... read more >> |
| September 12 2009 |
| Jim Sinur from Gartner poses some very good questions about IT’s role in the Cloud world, in his blog entry The Secret is Out: The Business is Building Processes and Applications. The question is: Will IT continue to play an important role within their organization, when the business now has the option of getting their apps [...] ... read more >> |
| September 02 2009 |
| I just read the announcement from Wipro and Oracle about their Cloud platform for software companies in this article, Wipro Offers Cloud Computing Service, from Mary Hayes Weier of InformationWeek. According to the announcement, Wipro and Oracle are providing a service which will let software companies offer their existing applications as SaaS in a multitenant model. They [...] ... read more >> |
| August 19 2009 |
| A couple of weeks ago we launched the first Online Event Registration product on Force.com Sites (view demo). After launching some pioneering Financial Service products for Private Equity, Hedge Funds, Mutual Funds, M&A and Capital Markets on the Force.com platform, this is yet another “first” from Navatar Group on Force.com sites. We were flooded with [...] ... read more >> |
| August 16 2009 |
| I recently reviewed a book titled “Thinking of …. offering a Cloud Solution? Ask the Smart Questions.” Great book, if you are looking to build a Cloud product on one of the platforms such as Force.com or Azure.
We find that an ISV usually realizes that moving to the Cloud isn’t optional, before they come to Navatar [...] ... read more >> |
| July 27 2009 |
| Join salesforce.com and Navatar Group for the Force.com Tech Talk webinar, Architecting Commercial Applications on August 4th at 10AM PDT. This webinar will help you answer several critical questions, such as:
Benefits of a native app
Pure platform or extending SFDC
salesforce editions that your product will support
Force.com features that you will be using
How to create a rapid [...] ... read more >> |
| July 06 2009 |
| Who is Rexlo Joe? He is one of the top Cloud architects today, with some of the most complex salesforce Financial Services products under his belt. (Read the Success story of Rexlo Joe). He directs the Navatar Force.com team in New Delhi, India on all architecture issues.
How did he begin? By simply jumping in. Register [...] ... read more >> |
| July 01 2009 |
| Most of us living in India weren’t surprised when our population crossed a billion. Most Indians also didn’t pay attention when salesforce.com became the first Cloud Computing company to cross the $1B mark. Now some analysts suggest that the Cloud Computing market in India is expected to cross $1B soon. This is noteworthy given that [...] ... read more >> |
| May 21 2009 |
| I recently came across a good posting from Daryl Plummer at Gartner titled Delivering Cloud Services: ISVs – Change or Die or both!. This article highlights the opportunity as well as issues related to an ISV (Independent Software Vendor) migrating to the cloud. It points out that “the vast majority of ISVs will have a very [...] ... read more >> |
| May 21 2009 |
| "No one's social (yet)," says CRM Magazine's Marshall Lager in the June edition. In other words, few B-to-B sales can be attributed to social media - at least for now. ... read more >> |
| May 20 2009 |
| Will Google’s cloud-based email platform eventually kill MS office? We don’t know, but companies have surely started looking at Google’s platform more closely. Leena Rao of Techcrunch points out in her article at http://tcrn.ch/1rg that Google struck a partnership with Valeo, an automotive components manufacturer, to deploy Google Apps on the company’s entire global workforce of about [...] ... read more >> |
| May 20 2009 |
| Placement Agents have been in the news a lot recently and some of the stories haven't been particularly friendly to the profession. Now there's some good news, a product that will make their jobs easier. ... read more >> |
| May 19 2009 |
| Tracking Private Equity deals is somewhat like following the plot of a complicated Russian novel but with emails and documents added. That's the problem we solve for less than the price of a daily cup of coffee. ... read more >> |
| May 09 2009 |
| Sometimes we get criticized in the salesforce.com world about not highlighting all the good things that Navatar does. Yes, we are shy at times. So this time, let us draw your attention to some good things being said about us – a recent one related to one of our most popular products, the Private Equity CRM [...] ... read more >> |
| May 03 2009 |
| We liked the way VentureWire said it - "noteworthy for who isn't included..." ... read more >> |
| April 30 2009 |
| We have always been cynical about mobile CRM. Now, we need a magnifying glass to see our accounts and tasks. ... read more >> |
| April 29 2009 |
| Here we are approaching end-of-month and sales reps are going to be instructed to do what it takes to close deals. This might help ... ... read more >> |
| April 29 2009 |
| It is very exciting to hear that salesforce.com has released Volunteerforce, for a company to manage their volunteering impact. Navatar’s association with nonprofits has been long and deep – complex salesforce implementations at nonprofits such as AARP, United Way, Girls Inc, Council On Accreditation, Points of Light Foundation, participation in the salesforce.com Foundation Power of [...] ... read more >> |
| April 29 2009 |
| The really nice thing about the new Cloud model is that you can build your new products and not have to worry about data center obstacles. ... read more >> |
| April 27 2009 |
| The phrase “outsourced solution” never really set hearts racing. But, the “Cloud” is different.
That’s why when a top thought leader started pushing the term and said that he is using it in a forthcoming book – the legacy, internal data center defenders knew they faced a real threat.
So, they (and the people who [...] ... read more >> |
| April 25 2009 |
| I recently read a few articles about what it takes to build your own Private Cloud. It sounds like a good challenge to undertake if you want to prove your credentials as an Enterprise Architect. However, if you are an ISV seriously considering a SaaS strategy to build a recurring revenue stream, lower costs, improve [...] ... read more >> |
| April 21 2009 |
| NEW YORK, April 21, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Navatar Group, a global salesforce.com partner in financial services, today announced several new customers, including KStone Partners, Kelvingrove Partners and Zebra Capital. The firms are using Navatar’s customized CRM for Hedge Funds, a cloud computing application to manage hedge fund and fund of funds operations. Navatar CRM [...] ... read more >> |
| April 10 2009 |
| Recovering from London Cloudforce which was an amazing, non-stop event. ... read more >> |
| Books |
November 15 2010 “It’s interesting that over the past 50 years, the software industry has not only gone through business cycles but also business model cycles. And even more interesting is that the critical issues in successful business models keep being forgotten, or assumed are being solved in the next newest iteration. What Misra and Gotts have done in their thinking here is to frame the problem well and clearly. Then by using the Q&A approach, they provide not only a great check list, but also a bite-sized chunks process to allow the reader to think about and understand the key issues at a engaged and detailed level. I’d recommend the book to any ISV or enterprise CIO thinking about what they might or could do in the Cloud space.” - Ken Horner, Principal, Deloitte |
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