Advanced Services: Part II

DLT has recognized this trend and the growing demand for these types of services in our earlier report on Top Trends in ERP for 2010. In that report we suggested that new license growth would slow in 2010 to single digits and that IT Services would outpace new ERP Sales by almost 50% and register double digit growth in 2010 and beyond.  To take advantage of this trend, and to better meet the needs of our customers, DLT has evolved beyond the traditional VAR model to provide our customers with the necessary services to meet this growing market. This is a business model which we feel will shortly begin to replace the traditional VAD and VAR models as license and service businesses begin to merge in order to replace the decrease in new license growth and the subsequent drop in revenue. To stay ahead of this trend DLT has partnered with SmartDog Services to deliver complementary services, fixed-priced limited engagements, and enhanced software support, to all of our existing and new customers who choose to take advantage of these services. This isn’t unprecedented and we believe that it will become more pronounced and commonplace in 2011. SmartDog Services is an Oracle Platinum Partner, a 2007 Oracle Excellence Award winner, a multi-year back-to-back (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) TOLA SMB partner of the year winner, and a 2008 PartnerNetwork Titan award winner. They provide on demand managed care and project-based services, supplemented with support and consulting, and focused exclusively on Oracle Tech Stack and eBusiness Suite Applications functional and technical users. SmartDog earned success by focusing 100% on Oracle’s  core-technology/middleware and EBS Applications users for EBS 11i, R12, 8i, 9i, 10g, 11g; OBIEE, FMW, etc. SmartDog and DLT have collaborated to provide a portfolio of services which give customers access to new license and SmartDog’s traditional service offerings such as assessments/audits and installations/accelerators. These services, such as DBA on Demand, will include functions like the following:
  • DBA Administration
  • Proactive and reactive monitoring
  • Monitoring for EBS, RMAN, Discoverer and iAS
  • Performance Tuning to business need
  • Backup and Recovery
This model allows customers to utilize the software a lot quicker by making sure that it is implemented correctly and in a more rapid fashion than traditional methods. In addition, this approach is similar to a “Cloud” approach in that a customer can then consume specific services in an “ala carte” fashion and in easily digested portions. That is, you only consume the services when needed and they are delivered in small easily defined increments whenever you procure software or any other service from the Cloud. Coincidentally, as the cloud computing architecture becomes prominent, this approach will only become more recognized as organizations look to take advantage of the cloud computing architecture and look for more value-added services to consume. To assist public sector customers in taking advantage of this new computing paradigm, SmartDog in conjunction with DLT Solutions, has developed a series of bundled offerings which are focused on the public sector. The bundled offerings created specifically for public sector organizations include the following:
  • Grid Installation and Support
  • Oracle Database Assessment
  • Oracle Database Installation
  • High Availability Assessment
  • Database Security Audit
  • Critical Care Monitoring
  • Reporting Strategy Review
  • OBIEE Quick Start
  • SmartSupport Gold
  • SmartSupport Platinum
DLT recognized the trends in ERP in 2010 and we see this new services model supplanting traditional delivery methods in the IT Industry. The demand for these types of fixed-price, limited scope, services will only increase as the delivery method for them becomes more renowned and readily accessible. We consider this new business model to be the first new trend of 2011. Please stay tuned as we continually explore new and developing trends in IT. Next month we will explore the new features and increased functionality of Oracle’s JDE line of products.