Interview of Bernard Fisher, President of Casewise:
“You only know that the fruit taste good, when you eat it.”
In June Mr. Bernard Fisher, President of Casewise, world-wide recognized market leader in the provision of software and consultancy services to over 3,000 major global organizations for Business Process Analysis, Business Process Management, Enterprise Architecture and Governance, Risk & Compliance solutions, has visited Moscow. Though it was not his first time here, his last time had happened 10 years ago. We met and asked our guest about his impression of Russia, Casewise business here, plans and ideas for the future.
— You’ve said that you used to come a lot when it was the USSR. What was the main driver for your current visit to Moscow?
To meet FORS people and to see what Moscow looks like after not having visited for 10 years, to see what Russian customers are looking for. Besides, the important part of my schedule is meeting with MTS — the biggest FORS and Casewise customer in Russia.
— Project in MTS is the largest for FORS so far. Could it be compared from the technological point of view with what has been done for your foreign customers?
It is difficult for me to comment specifically, because we are very strong in the telco area, having such customers as Alcatel, Verizon, Telcom Italia, Telstra, T-Mobile, AT&T and others. We just signed an Agreement with the world’s largest mobile company in India. But even though we are so experienced in that field and successfully accomplished a number of projects, the one in MTS is far more technically advanced than many others. I’m sure the others will catch up too.
I came to MTS to see what they are using the Corporate Modeler for, and now I know that their approach is the classic way to work. What I hope now is that we together can blow up the synergy. They made a model of the existing business processes of the company, and then they made the model of the processes they require, after they compared these 2 models and saw, where the laps are, and how to improve their business to make it more efficient.
Apart from its main purpose — to improve the architecture and to optimize the structure of the organization, our Corporate Modeler is used by some telecommunication companies for the government purposes, because now the regulatory requirements at some countries for the mobile operators are becoming very strict. For example, network planning has to be done in a more advanced way.
Sometimes it happens so that the most difficult part of the business is not working. Let’s make an example. In Europe the recruitment is one of the most critical fields in business. If you recruit somebody, lets’ say in France or the UK, and the recruitment process had not been done correctly, you could face lots of problems. It could be expensive, yes, but much less than you would have to pay in case you want to eliminate a person, who worked longer than a year. In total, 2 000-3 000— pounds could be lost, if the processes in the organization are not integrated with the workflow. Besides, it may sound like a missionary approach, but it’s important for the person as well to be treated as it ought to be.
That’s why we see such a good perspectives for the Corporate Modeler. It enables to make a model, which could ensure that all the procedures in the company are processed correctly. Having a complete model of the architecture of organization you can eliminate those processes, which are duplicated, to clear off the overlaps and to make the activities more efficient.
— Casewise positions as a supplier of the advanced business process modeling tools are strong in Great Britain and the States. How could you estimate the total market share?
Market share world wide is about 3, 4 — 3, 5 %, it seems very small, but this is in terms of the license. The revenues of our main competitors are probably 40 times more, but actually it is so because 90 % of them are consulting services. I believe that in the reality the figures are different, and we have a bigger market share. Though we are a very small company, the results we get are proving our strong position among BPA/BPM products. By the way, this is an artificial classification, I think. Those 2 groups of solutions are very similar.
Interesting that you mentioned the UK and the US. But our biggest BPA market share is in France, which runs into 60 %. What is also specific about our marketing in France is that 80 % of the public sector there belongs to Casewise. French government, ministries use our products. Even though we have a very big local competitor, we are winning market share all the time. In high demand is another our model — framework we are famous for, which is made specifically for the government. The same thing is in the States — the federal market is opening up more and more to us. We have also some very good partners there.
— At which verticals Casewise positions are the strongest?
There are three main verticals for us — energy area, federal government and banking. They are all upcoming verticals. You see, because of the economic situation, everybody is trying to be more efficient.
In general our customers apply one from 2 possible approaches. The first one is an instant approach of using synergy to fix the particular problem. The second one is classic approach of modeling of the whole enterprise or some of the processes with the further converting them into electronic way. Both of them are really valuable.
What is interesting at banking and government that they spend so much, millions of dollars, for the regulations. They need to make their processes automated, and it’s the area for modeling tools. They can’t miss out any steps following the regulations requirements. When it comes to approval, it can’t be any accident. If you don’t do these things automatically, you will have big problems. Banks would be shut down, because they do not regulate themselves in an automatic way.
The other area, where I think we grow significantly, is an SAP area — 80 % of SAP customers do not have any modeling regime. In the past our competitor has a monopoly in this area, now we are introducing Casewise to SAP, which I am convinced, is a much better product. I will prove it to you in the next 3 months. We are launching in September, in a moment I am working with a number of companies, which are the largest SAP customers — German, Dutch and American.
— What are the main Casewise advantages?
In this case we really have a modeling tool. In Casewise framework everything is an object, even the relationships. We apply a complete different concept based on the object approach. Most of our competitives use a completely different approach, which is hieratical or flow type or more classic. There are many check boxes like simulation, but anybody use it.
On the other hand, if you use Corporate Modeler, it gives your the opportunity to be totally flexible and free with the configuration of the model and the operating data. The customer may select, which Repository he prefers — we work both with Oracle, Miscrosot PL/SQL and now it would be SAP Repository. Casewise diagrams are featured by the flexibility other tools can not provide. As far as those tools are very narrowly restricted, they can hardly compete with us. To tell you the truth, they do not even understand how modeling works.
— Why in 2004 FORS was chosen as a sole distributor and developer of the Casewise products at the local market?
Interestingly, we have 20 European partner companies now. But in the past we had made many mistakes by pointing the companies, which were small and who did not have the particular focus. FORS is much larger than any other of our partners, with much more deep expertise in development and consulting. Being an Oracle Certified Partner in 2004 was a real mark of quality, and today it is still so. Other important thing is that Oracle products could be converged in Casewise.
— What is your challenge in Russia?
Challenge in Russia is basically making Casewise visible to the Russian market, to the large industrial companies like Gasprom. Because we are very small, without a partner like FORS we could hardly make it. What is done already is the recognizable identity of the brand and the clear presence on the Russian market.
— Have you reached those purposes and goals you’ve pointed out in 2004?
It’s seems to me that a very significant and solid base has been made for the implementations for such a prestigious customers like MTS. From that point of view, FORS and Casewise could do much more playing together as a one team at one gate. I am convinced that our relationships would be even more successful.
— How do you see the trends of the mutual companies’ cooperation in the future? What are the main aims and what results are you hoping to get?
My hope is that we will be a local presence in Russia on the base of FORS. And that is the result we are waiting for, which at the same time is quite predictable. In France, where we have a subsidiary, everybody think that we are a French company. In the US they think we are an American company. In Russia we should be Russian. Much more companies will have confidence to make business with us because we are local.
I respect very much Larry Ellison from Oracle, and I completely agree with what he uses to say: “Think global, act local”. That is true.
— What is hold on stock brand new for the Russian customers — products, releases, services, etc.?
The main thing I should talk about is a new platform Casewise — SAP, for which we would set up another division in our company. The whole product line would be remastered and developed to meet in full the needs and requirements of the SAP customers.
— What do you think about the professional level and competences of the Russian developers?
I may say that the quality of the product V-Modeler, developed by FORS on the Casewise base, which we finally have produced together, is significantly higher. This product is more reliable and more efficient for sure. Our customers are happy with that. For example, in the last 2 weeks in the States one company have purchased 500 licences, that is fantastic, we have never done anything like that. They really love the product, it works perfectly. In Ireland it is the same — no bugs, nothing is wrong.
I would like to finish with my favorite English saying: “You only know that the fruit taste good, when you eat it.”
— Thank you very much for that talk, Mr. Fisher.
Interview was taken by Alice Akulova,
FORS PR-manager
