“Social, mobile, and cloud are table stakes now,” Nelson said. “If you have just one of them, you’re not going to be very successful.”

He was referring to how all of these areas are starting to blend together into one system for different vendors, and that any vendor who didn’t do this was setting themselves up for disappointment as they began to lose traction to those who were.

As stated above, this is true! Trigger has seen more and more of this happening both inside and outside of NetSuite for some time now, and some partners who even center their core offering around this.

However, for the China market, it’s a non-issue at best, and a dangerous development at the least.

One of the issues with SquareSpace in China, and its frequent blockages or slow traffic issues relates to how easy it is to integrate social media into the site.

NetSuite has never done this, and while they have allowed partners to do it, one has to be concerned if they begin to change some of their core offering to include this.

One should hope the international edition will not, unless instead of Twitter, it has Weibo, and instead of Facebook it has Kai Xin Wang, or Ren Ren Wang.

NetSuite was born on the cloud but has been adding mobile and social features around what happens when someone places an order, because their core product is the order and order management in the business. Other vendors are doing the same for their core transaction in the business:

• NetSuite (ERP/CRM): Order management
• Box (File Server): Documents
• Workday (HR System): Employee record

Nelson believes the phone will continue to be a primary element in handling transactions – Trigger agrees. However, if they only have American/Western-based social media platforms, it will be ineffective in China at the very least, and could be dangerous to their profits.

NetSuite, with Cloud Computing in General, is sweeping the world with its promise of dynamically updated, easily maintained data that is easy to slice, dice and graph.

Mix with this the fact that the price is much lower than traditional ERP/CRM systems and that you can access it from anywhere you have an internet connection, and you see the attraction that organizations have to the system, irrespective of their region, industry or culture.

As Trigger prepares to travel once again from Beijing, China to San Francisco, California for a good week of workshops, war stories and new relationships, we look forward to meeting some of the partners and users of NetSuite from around the globe.

The AMAZING way that they have bent, flipped, molded and built-on top of the standard NetSuite platform to reach new levels of competitive advantage in their industry is nothing short of inspiring.

HERE’S TO SUITEWORLD!

NOT planning for the costs and scheduling involved with shipping can be disastrous to your bottom line anywhere.

This is true in China as well, especially with the recent report indicating that the cost of shipping in China is on the increase year after year.

China's logistics costs increased 18.5 percent year-on-year to reach 8.4 trillion yuan ($1.33 trillion) in 2011, said a report issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

Since last October, the State Council, or China's cabinet, has campaigned to boost the country's logistics capabilities and better link producers and consumers to cut intermediary costs.

Enter NetSuite, the Logistics Cost-Cutter

Automated Order Processing is one way NetSuite quickly realizes the China State Council’s above objective, as it links customer orders from call centers or websites all the way to the customer's doorstep, in some cases even providing real-time order status and full-process visibility and tracking to boost operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Tightly connected to this Automation is the need for strong, up to date Inventory Management tools that give its users real-time control over key supply chain processes. This allows for demand-based stock replenishment, advanced bin and lot management and real-time inventory tracking.

The Point: NetSuite delivers with its integrated shipping and order fulfillment. They help you tackle the challenges of multiple channels, partial ship and drop-shipping requirements, and dynamic order volumes.  

While there are some smart features or advanced functions that are not yet available in China, NetSuite by far outpaces the competition in terms of dynamically provided inventory updates and shipping requirements that CUT COST and provide a closer link between you  and your supply chain.

Everywhere you go, managers, HR Staff and mentors tell you to look for "balance" between work and family.

The reality is that there is no balance between work and home, but there IS a way to be at peace about the work and family struggle.

Family and work are two different things, like fruit and air… stop trying to make two things balance that are totally different in nature and therefore should NOT to be in "balance."  These aren't two equals.... FAMILY IS MORE IMPORTANT.

So go home.

Start planning your work calendar so that you leave at 6:30pm for example. Just go home and be with your family, without any computers or smart phones.

So what if 6:30pm comes at the office and you have some work that still needs to be done?

With NetSuite, you can still go home at 6:30 and spend time with your family. Later on, when the time is right, start up your computer, smart phone, or iPad and log into NetSuite.

The beauty of NetSuite is that as long as you have an internet connection, you can do whatever you need to do from wherever you are.

No special tokens, password devices, or corporate firewalls and intranet hassles. One website login, that’s it for access to your entire business CRM/ERP/E-Commerce system.

Trigger can take you there~

Management tips and references from Manager Tools (manager-tools.com/)

1. China’s Network Infrastructure and Speed
2. The Great Firewall, and when it might strike (See earlier Post on Firewall)
3. Foreigners controlling data that are difficult to communicate with via language and culture

China’s Network Infrastructure and Speed

It is certainly true that the network infrastructure of China is improving, but less reliable and quick that in other countries. Especially when traffic leaves the country and goes west, you can see packet drop/loss by tracing the hops. Match this truth with the truth that ERP/CRM systems are critical for daily business operations, and you have a valid point from your team that you need to address.

• Solution: Smart Cloud Computing systems do not involve a large amount of data traffic for a single transaction, and certainly nothing that is time-critical (like a VOIP conversation) and will cause whole transactions to fail. These systems are built with small businesses in mind, no matter where they are in the world, and that means bandwidth concerns are addressed for tight budgets. Therefore, this issue is not a concern for users in China, and we’ve seen large and small companies successfully utilize NetSuite, from Beijing to Shen Zhen. Test and demo a system with a good connection, and you’ll know all you need to know. Requesting vendor help here is acceptable!

The Great Firewall, and when it might strike

The consistent boogie-man in all talks cloud, the Great Firewall is always a concern.

• Solution: I wrote about this is a previous post in this series, and other repeating that post, I will simply build on it by saying that the Government has never blocked cloud systems we’ve seen in use here in China yet, and we’ve been doing this since 2006. Why? It’s in their BEST INTEREST to let you make money. They block sites that are anti-government, but they are not anti-business or anti-money making.

Foreigners controlling data that are difficult to communicate with via language and culture

It may be tempting to label this fear something or another, but it is a valid piece of FUD because this issue DOES come up with traditional IT systems. What happens if there is a problem? What if they want to make a change? What if they need their data back quickly?

• Solution: Fortunately, the solution is the same as with any other system (traditional or cloud). Get a good local China vendor who knows their cloud systems and how they work and can provide assurances in this area. They should also know YOUR systems. They take time to learn your needs, your future plans, and your pain points/concerns. They know your staff as well!

There is a consistent theme amongst all this FUD – education, smart partnerships, and communication, communication, communication.

The Issue:

Key Point: This is a common problem and an EASY one for the executive to beat. But unless it’s done with focus and consistently, Fear alone can defeat all of your plans for a successful, cost-saving deployment. You need to communicate the mission to go cloud, and not to give up or go back!

How do You Know FUD? : FUD usually comes up through you organization in 3 big statements.

1. (Security FUD): What if they lose our data? Or what if there is a big fire or someone steals our data from the data center? If someone steals your password, they can access our whole system from anywhere.”
2. (Ownership & Control FUD): “Right now I can control, access and touch the servers and hardware. If you move our servers to the cloud, they’ll be somewhere in the US or UK – we can never see them.”
3. (Resistance to Change FUD): “What we have now is working fine – why do we need to change? I’m too busy to work on a new system that will just slow me down.”

FUD is not always bad, but in this case, the three above make little business sense and if you let them beat you, your staff and your company will pay the price in resources lost.

SO, let’s look at what the business reasons are for answering the above challenges. Today, we will address issue number 1 – Security FUD! :

1. Security FUD
   1. First lets address the idea of the vendor losing your data, by data theft or natural disaster.
      1. In most cases, the data is much more secure in the type of data center used by good cloud vendors such as box.net or NetSuite than any sort of server farm in the local company. They feature armed guards, cameras, strong firewalls, antivirus and intrusion protection software packages, and that’s just the beginning. If a company wanted to match these data centers, they would need to be massive global corporations.
      2. In addition, these robust data centers are built to withstand massive fires, earthquakes and flooding. They are backed up in other states and countries and the technology used for restoring data is top of the line.
      3. Often times when we hear a business owner say this to us, I find that their server is in a room next door in a poorly secured area, backed up only rarely, and (in several cases) even not working because of issues with hardware and software. Make no mistake about it, when a system isn’t working, it’s costing you money!
      4. The truth is that for you to have the same level of service and security

    

   2. Now let’s consider the other FUD factor for security – stealing passwords for total access
      1. Impossible unless your configuration is completely incorrect (something Trigger has never seen). This is one we often hear, but the truth is that vendors like NetSuite and Box.net are very secure systems
      2. They use industry-strength encryption for transmissions, and allow for tight restrictions on access to resources based on roles. Certainly not a green light to access all data.
      3. Also, because of the nature of a cloud system, as soon as an issue is detected, it’s quick and easy for administrators to log into the system and take away the account in question.
      4. Finally, the rules for protecting passwords are the same for every system. If they steal a password for a client-server system, they’ll have the same access, but you may not have the same backups in place!

The Point: If the smart executive plans for interconnectivity issues in the beginning, they can still realize the benefits that “out of the box” interconnectivity would have provided.

Some systems that don’t play well with Cloud Computing systems in China:

• Banking/Payment Systems
  • Credit Cards
    • Other than Visa and MasterCard, most western/international credit cards will have a hard time integrating by default.
    • Chinese credit cards rarely integrate with western cloud computing systems, due to their banking system limitations and different banking regulations.
  • Online Payment Systems
    • Alibaba.com
      • This is the Chinese "Paypal" and very popular in China. Most websites offering E-Commerce in China consider it a necessity to offer payment through Alibaba.com. Most western cloud systems are unfamiliar with it.
• Shipping & Logistics
  • National Post, Shipping & Freight Companies
    • Important for calculating shipping and tracking the location of your package
      • The Chinese postal system is not integrated or planning to integrate with any cloud computing systems that I know of, as of the time of writing this article.
      • In addition, western companies like DHL, FedEx and UPS operate in China but do not offer the same interconnection services that they offer in the west.

The Solution: Consider the following 2 steps:

1. Examine all business aspects of the interconnections you want, and be sure your staff understand how this would need to work with your cloud system.
2. Weight the costs vs. benefits of either:
   1. Making a work-around: Often you can get “almost the same” function as if it was totally integrated with a bit of extra thought and tweaking.
   2. Customizing an integration through programming: True to its nature, cloud computing offers a lot of flexibility in what can be integrated with a bit of extra coding or creative system configurations.
   3. Simply not offering this integration service: Because many of these services and systems are not offered in China now, they are sometimes not expected to be provided. This is something you’ll need to consider very carefully, but at times you may find that after careful observation of the market, these integrations are “bells and whistles” that can be provided later.

Any discussion of cloud computing obsticles in China would be incomplete without talk of firewalls and censorship – an almost cliché topic in the IT community here; but only a small concern to the executive who prepares in advance.

KEY POINT

The executive who prepares in advance for internet blocking will consistenly enjoy all of the benefits of cloud computing, worldwide.

NOT JUST CHINA

Although a primary concern for cloud users in China, I urge the CIO/CEO considering cloud computing to understand that their concerns go beyond the Chinese “Great Firewall” and include the organizational, state and national firewalls of other entities as well. Large corporations for example sometimes limit file sharing and web 2.0 sites within their corporate networks.

PREPARE

Resolving this is simple enough, and takes little time/budget

1. Equip your staff with 3G devices, and VPN software tools
2. TRAIN YOUR STAFF
   1. How to use the tools you’re giving them
   2. Which tools are best to use, and where
   3. How to configure and troubleshoot these tools for the best results

Trigger sells a VPN of our own that is also “in the cloud” and works very well for this sort of case for about $60/user/year.

In the past 3 years, two of our partners have been temporarily blocked, but with a clear contingency plan in place clients were able to continue with business as usual.

YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN OR WHERE

Never assume that users will be immune to this issue because the location they are travelling in has historically been open.

India for example has traditionally been very open to corporate IT and cloud computing but that could change.

They currently have censorship measures in place at multiple levels and the government plans to set up a centralized mechanism for the country to block websites as it pleases, and when.

THE 12 MOST RESTICTIVE

The list below are some of the most stringent censor nations of the internet, and if your business is operating in any way within these countries, you’ll need to be prepared.

1. Burma
2. China
3. Cuba
4. Egypt
5. Iran
6. North Korea
7. Saudi Arabia
8. Syria
9. Tunisia
10. Turkmenistan
11. Uzbekistan
12. Vietnam