Implementation: How Keane Uses Enlighta

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By Dian Schaffhauser

Danny Suppin, program manager for Keane, has overseen the deployment of Enlighta into 15 of the service provider's client sites with the goal of deploying it in 25 or 35 additional engagements by the end of 2006. Although Enlighta currently delivers the software as a stand-alone application (since customers tend to integrate it with existing applications), Keane delivers it as a Web-based service to its clients. A team of five or six technical people manages the program from a Keane office in Gurgaon, a satellite town of Delhi.

The software is part of the service provider's outsourcing governance and performance management platform, called Productivity Insight. This platform combines the vendor's best practices and methodologies with Enlighta's workflow automation, real-time metrics capture and reporting capabilities to give clients visibility into the application outsourcing work being performed by Keane. The program is delivered as a Web-based application, so there's no footprint on the desktop.

Suppin said his company went through a rigorous evaluation of solutions specifically for workflow management and dashboard performance measurement, though he declined to name the products. It chose Enlighta for several reasons. "They have powerful workflow technology," said Suppin. "The application is flexible and scalable. It can grow with the volume of deployments we want to make. It's Web based. The technology is really the right technology. It's flexible and extensible... You can see the potential for applying it to other domains and other vertical applications."

But he said the "thing that really pushed it over the edge -- at least in my mind -- was that they were the only vendor with deep experience in application outsourcing. The information model -- the way the thing is designed -- really maps almost identically to the approach that we follow. They bring that expertise in. It's reflected in their tool."

The process Keane follows for deployment involves an initial meeting with project stakeholders (executives, project managers and end users) to introduce the application. Next, the Enlighta support team works with the Keane process experts for that client site to tailor the application to the specific engagement. That includes entering various thresholds into the Enlighta system. Then the program gets installed at the hosting center in India and the support team does testing. That's followed by user training -- for both clients and the Keane engagement team. The training takes place over the network and lasts about an hour. That's followed by a pilot project shakedown, then the cutover to production. The amount of time from start to finish: 10 to 20 days.

Configuration of the program actually caused Keane early in its use to switch plans. The initial approach called for each engagement team to do the tailoring and deployment of the application for the client. Keane moved away from that "quickly," Suppin said, because it found it would be supporting multiple releases of the program and would "start to lose control." Now, because a central team hosts it, it also controls it -- and that guarantees "a high level of service."

During deployment, he said, it's normal to run into a number of applications that require integration with Enlighta -- typically, a ticket-tracking system. Also, usage requires network access, which brings up security issues, but Suppin called those, "pretty technical -- they're pretty well understood."

Also, he's found deployment slightly more complex in existing, mature environments vs. those that are "starting fresh." The advantage in the latter, he said, is that "you're going in new. It's easier -- in some respects -- to change behavior." The settled environments require a "bit more tailoring and customization."

Then the benefits kick in. Suppin explained, "Oftentimes, when these arrangements are implemented, a client says, ‘Well, we have this workload.' You say, ‘What evidence do you have of that?' ‘Well, we're not sure, but we think it's this.' When you implement this kind of process, you get a baseline very quickly. You understand what the work is, what the mix of work is... When you have an application that captures this kind of information, it can be transformative in that you can't really deny the information. It helps with eliminating finger-pointing."

Based on that, he said, "you can establish a much more effective relationship" between the client and the vendor.

Plus, it drives better decisions about the IT being delivered. "If you want to make strategic decisions about your application portfolio, getting a handle on costs is really key."

Ultimately, said Suppin, the tool becomes a kind of "holy grail." "I've demonstrated this capability to a number of senior executives and CIOs and they look at it and say, ‘This is the kind of vehicle I need to get my arms around my organization, to implement consistent processes and to be able to align myself more closely with the business units... My belief is, there isn't any other tool that's comparable to Enlighta."

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