Payoff-Driven Notes

Payoff-Driven Lotus Notes/Domino^tm

Safely Maximizing Your ROI From Lotus Notes/Domino

Carol Anne Ogdin
Founder, Deep Woods Technology, Inc.

Abstract: Here's a compelling, proven program that leads organizations through the process of defining and deploying their unique "killer apps" for Lotus Notes. There are no generic killer applications; they have to be tailored to your unique organization. And, the best examples cross organizational boundaries and bridge the "silos." This program, the centerpiece of which is a one-day executive meeting where the highest ROI applications are identified, is customized to your company.

Return-on-Investment (ROI)

You've selected Lotus Notes and Domino as the backbone of your messaging, workgroup and knowledge management strategy. Just to get it on desktops, you've deployed e-mail, perhaps calendering and scheduling. So, where're the compelling payoffs that make top management stand up and cheer your efforts? They're held, right now, in the minds of middle managers throughout the organization. Let's unleash them and transform those ideas into corporate payoff!

The average Lotus Notes ROI is 179%, with an average payback period of 2.4 years¹. You can dramatically improve even those favorable odds by implementing the most significant applications first. By identifying the opportunities closest to the core of your business, the one's that make a significant different to the bottom line, you will outperform organizations who rest on the generic apps that anyone can deploy.

ROI is how you make
your boss' boss' boss
happy.
Ask, "What would
make the CEO
excited?"

Finding Compelling Needs

The highest-payoff applications emerge from the minds of people who understand major line-of-business processes...those that contribute to the bottom line. Those skills always reside in the minds of competent business unit executives and middle managers. Tapping those ideas is a challenging job: Very often, those line managers don't speak the language of technology, and it seems like an interpreter is needed.

To meet this need with one of our most respected clients, a F500 industry leader, we developed and launched a strategy to identify those experts and get them to identify the Payoff-driven, Business-motivated applications. The key to our method is to talk to them in their language, and to show them stimulating examples of what their competitors are doing. That excites them, and stirs them to imagine what's possible in their organizations. Then, we help the other managers in the room see how that application,. suitably extended across the "silo" boundaries, can solve even larger, systemic problems.

Those mid-level
managers (especially
the VPs of the future)
already know where
the killer apps are.
Get them talking;
they're already eager.

An Example

A small group of executives in a $10 Billion firm were invited by the COO to participate in a one-day meeting. They surprised themselves by identifying more than 20 crucial opportunities with compelling results for the company.

One opportunity, identified by them as the most significant of all, had been swept under the rug for years as "impractical." In fact, we demonstrated conclusively, during the meeting, the off-the-shelf technology (based on Lotus Notes, naturally) deployed in another industry. They subsequently committed $500,000 and four months to implement the system.

A 20-to-1 ROI, that broke-even a mere three months after deployment! Clearly, this method works!

This was one of the first "extra-net" applications, bridging virtual teams of professionals across the company and one of it's prime vendors. Since then, the application has been virtually redesigned, and a full-time team of developers works on expanding it to new capabilities. In 1997, the CEO announced new initiatives doubling the company's capacity for profit production; it wouldn't have been possible without the breakthrough in the Payoff-Driven Lotus Notes program we developed.

Incidentally, nearly one-third of the total initial development cost went directly to the company's IS/IT team for Notes/Domino build-out to accommodate the additional traffic.

20-to-1 ROI is
typical for this
"Payoff-Driven"
approach.

Testimonial

Here's what another customer of the Payoff-Driven Lotus Notes program said:

	"Deep Woods Technology, and Carol Anne Ogdin in particular, have a deep appreciation of the profound nature of IT and its potential to positively affect the ability of an organization to meet its goals. "Her 'Payoff Driven Notes' approach will accelerate the organization in understanding the true value of Lotus Notes and in identifying the directions in which to head so as to identify high payback utilization of the technology."
		Dr. Douglas Ritchie, Vice President Information Integration and Access Advanced Micro Devices

At AMD, we identified compelling applications that eventually touched 3,500 employees during the one-day executive meeting. And, those managers were so excited that by the time we came back to start work on the top two opportunities...they'd already started without us!

Here's a company
that's already seen
the benefits.
How soon will you
start?

For More Information

Notes/Domino Now in Place

Call us, or send an e-mail, and we'll show you how you, too, can find one of those "$10 Million/year" opportunities.

Notes/Domino Being Deployed

Call us quick, before you go much further! We'll show you why it's in your best interests to get those compelling applications into pilot before you're done deploying.

How We Do It

Here's an outline of the technique we use, that we'll customize for you.

Can you really
afford to wait?

Footnotes

McReady, Scott C., & Palermo, Ann M.: Lotus Notes: Agent of Change; The Financial Impact of Lotus Notes on Business, International Data Corp., 1994 (Summaries available from Lotus Development Corp.)