The World "On-Demand"

On-Demand Enterprise Solutions: The Evolution
These days a consumer can get anything made to his/her exact specifications. From license plates to cars, and from handbags to accessories. The days of standard offering from manufacturers are passe. Everyone wants their belongings to reflect their personal style. This fad has increasingly trickled in to the corporate world. It's the dawn of the On-Demand solution providers. Companies like Datamonitor, InsideView, Gallup, and many more are quickly emerging as the leaders of the on-demand world, providing their customers with customized data solutions, and smartly aggregated content. The concept of on-demand sprung from a need to have a ready solution without investing time, resources, and money in to building it on your own. Companies needed answers Just In Time (JIT) to be able to make decisions on the fly. The idea was to let those who specialize in a certain area do YOUR work, so YOU could focus on your core expertise. Companies didn't see the financial viability of investing in an infrastructure that may or may not be useful for them in the future. This need propelled the on-demand service providers in to the limelight.

The Pros
The on-demand model works perfectly for companies looking for a quick answer to their questions, without having to invest in an extensive infrastructure. In today's global economy, everyone is trying to reduce their operational costs so they can maintain their bottomlines. This is where companies like InsideView, Accenture, and Deloitte come in to the picture. While InsideView's SalesView application is one of the best sales automation solutions in the market, Accenture lauds itself in being the pioneer of what experts are calling the "Infrastructure Oursourcing". While SalesView helps customers prospect better and increase their ROI, Accenture helps CTO's around the globe leverage Accenture's latest technology infrastructure without having to spend all their time and money worrying about hardware and software upgrades, and meeting increasing storage requirements. Even individual customers today are looking for on-demand solutions to their daily needs. On-demand video, music, services, etc. The list can go on-and-on. The advent of the mobile revolution has made the consumer all the more demanding, which in turn is fuelling a new era of enterpreneurs working in the on-demand media and entertainment space. Companies like JibJab, Thumbplay, HuLu, etc are coming up with cutting edge solutions to meet the demands of their new age consumers. These consumers want to be able to stream live video, listen to latest soundtracks, and be able to reach out to their near and dear one's on any special occasion, immediately. A large number of start-ups are catering to todays extremely demanding corporates, and individual consumers while being innovative: Facebook, LinkedIn, and SlideShare being just a few. These companies and their technologies would provide the fuel to boost the on-demand space even further in the times to come.

The Cons
All due credit given to the on-demand model, there are a lot of times when this strategy fails to allow creativity or innovation on the part of the service provider. This is particularly true for companies operating in an offshoring or outsourcing space. Let me start by an example here: I heard a small story about one of the largest software development companies in India, Wipro. One of their biggest clients withdrew their long standing business with the company saying "you guys do a great job, no problem there. But the concern is, if we give you the specification to make a table, you'll go ahead and make it exactly as we specify, without bothering to tell us that we missed telling you about the fourth leg". This is a perfect example to show how companies are forced to adhering to every word of the client and missing out the obvious in the whole process.

Companies at times may not be sure of what they want, and in their attempt to get the right information, they may get something that may not be of any use at all. This is particularly true in the on-demand research space. Companies are often overwhelmed with the amount of information that they get, and again need a service provider to sort it to get to the right information. It's not just enough to ask a service provider to give a market viability a particular product, what they also need to know is the overall market trend, the historical performance of similar products, the political scenario of the region, etc. Service providers may provide everything that the client asks, but still not be able to deliver the "immediately actionable item".

There could be many other cons that I'm not aware of, but I hope I make the distinction clear. All said, On-Demand solutions are here to stay, and they're redefinig the way businesses operate. Your thoughts and ideas would be greatly appreciated. So, chip in.

Related links: www.globalservicesmedia.com

Refer to the article "The Innovation Imperative" (http://www.globalservicesmedia.com/Content/general200810225299.asp) for an in-depth understanding of the changing scenario of innovation in service delivery companies.