21st Century IT Applications

This article will examine several emerging software applications that will have a larger role in information technology (IT)/business applications for the twenty-first century. The areas of discussion in this article include software applications that are being developed to serve niche or vertical markets and applications that address the issues of disaster recovery/data backup and content security. IT applications that are currently under development exhibit a specificity that has not previously been seen in the business software marketplace. Generic applications that can be used interchangeably by a variety of industries will become more the exception than the rule as new IT applications target the needs of specific vertical markets. As new applications evolve to meet changing industry needs, partnerships, and opportunities that help connect and enhance these markets are evolving as well. Vertical markets are often subject to government regulation, compliance initiatives, and stringent data security requirements. The applications that are being developed to serve these markets must be flexible and scalable to allow for future customization. Protection of company data is a critical issue for organizations today. Business applications are being developed that provide enhanced data backup and content security and are also addressing the need for qualified users to have access to critical business information when it is needed.

Keywords: Compliance Applications; Concept Filters; Continuity Plans; Data Encryption; Disaster Recovery Plan; Emerging It Applications; Governance for Risk; Identity Management; Independent Software Vendor; Niche Applications; Partnership Relationship Management (PRM); Premium Content; Relationship Intelligence; Relationship Management; Risk Management; Supplier Connectivity; Tacit Knowledge; Value-Added Reseller (VAR); Vertical Market Application; Channel Partners

Overview

Generic Information Technology applications for business have become standard tools for today's knowledge workers. Almost without exception, today's employees have access to email, spreadsheets, and contact management databases that were not as widely available in previous years. The last quarter of the twentieth century heralded not only the era of the desktop computer, but also the standard software that allowed for the creation and distribution of digital content. Generic software solutions enabled major corporations and small businesses alike to deploy standard solutions that allowed for interoperability and collaboration.

The first decade of the twenty-first century revealed major shifts in the ways that companies were seeking to use software applications. Most companies still have a need for generic and widely used applications for document creation and financial analysis. Companies are increasingly demanding specialized applications that allow for optimized business operations. Too many organizations defaulted to using spreadsheets for tracking projects and critical information when a database is really a more appropriate tool. Interoperability now requires that businesses interact with customers and suppliers through supply chain integration, which requires more sophisticated custom applications for data sharing.

Industries such as healthcare, financial services, and government agencies now require custom applications that speak to the kind of business they are in. Additionally, each interface between a company's internal and external applications and supply chain links may require the implementation of custom applications or solutions. The developing symbiosis within organizations (application to application) or outside of organizations (supply chain sourcing to customer) is currently determining the trends in the development of highly customizable and specialized software applications that are already emerging in today's market.

Closely related to the software applications that serve today's organizations are the issues that surround the protection of the data that is necessary to run an organization's business applications. Two areas of data security are often closely scrutinized from the applications standpoint: data protection and data security. Data protection has to do with ensuring that company data and information is replicated (backed up) in the event of a natural or man-made disaster. Data security applications involves protecting internal intellectual property and premium content. Defense in depth is an information protection strategy that utilizes the capabilities of current technology and follows approved procedures to guard against and monitor intrusions on an IT system. Security measures that are incorporated into a defense-in-depth plan are multi-layered in design and are intended to thwart an attack and to simultaneously slow down its force and speed to allow for the detection of and response to it.

Applications

The Emergence of Vertical Markets  

Industry consolidation and aggressive market competition are driving the emergence of software applications to support vertical markets. Vertical markets focus on serving clients in very specific industries such as pharmaceuticals, healthcare, banking, and retail. Vertical industries are finding that managing relationships with customers is often as important as the service that is provided to the customer.

Examples of relationship mapping are:

• A vendor relationship with a company's product development department
• A service (online banking) and a customer's access to information
• Employees (sales associate) and shared clients (overall customer database rather than one specific client).

Data sharing between employees, customers, and partners is critical to agile response in the marketplace where "customer management is a strategic initiative" (Gold, 2007). The capture of internal knowledge (tacit knowledge) ensures that information about a specific customer or client is not lost even if client turnover happens. Financial services organizations have been early adopters of technology that caters to their specific customer base. A generic CRM (customer relationship management) database may not allow for the capture of information that the industry requires. A rapidly shifting customer base doesn't eliminate the need to capture specific information that will help to enhance the customer experience. Shared connections and relationship mapping between clients and service providers have now become as important as the service provided to the customer.

The customization of software applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) applications gives a company an advantage in managing customer information in ways that were never possible before. According to Gold (2007), a "recent study by Forrester Research Inc., a Cambridge, Mass.-based think tank, 60 percent of senior executives at 176 companies surveyed felt that improving the customer experience was 'critical.' Relationship intelligence, and all of the contacts and relationships that company professionals have in the marketplace, gives you the ability to really leverage that information to put together much more focused and targeted business development and marketing initiatives" (p. 5). The current company professionals want to know more about their customer and want to have a record of sales and relationships so that if a salesperson leaves, the knowledge doesn't leave with them (Gold, 2007).

Software applications under development to serve vertical markets and market segments will have robust capability to manage data about customers, services, and vendors. In increasingly competitive markets, the management of key relationships and enhanced customer service are seen as strategic differentiators for business.

Data Recovery Applications  

Another emerging trend for twenty-first century software applications deals with the issue of how companies will protect their critical data and processes in the face of natural and man-made disasters. The interruption of business is of critical concern to many organizations today. Power outages, severe weather, earthquakes, or terrorist attacks are all viable threats that could interrupt business operations. Lack of preparedness and the poor responses that were so well documented following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina have left many companies wondering how before a disaster (large or small) may strike. The loss of key data and business interruption are only part of the concern; documented cases show that many companies were not able to continue operations after a disaster struck. Many companies have some type of disaster preparedness plan in place though it is often only specific to a company's IT assets. Loss of access to data now poses a serious risk not only to a company but also to every facet of a business that is linked to that business. Twenty years ago, loss of data would have impacted the internal processes of an organization almost exclusively; today data loss and business disruption has the potential to interrupt an entire supply chain.

Continuous data protection (CDP), also called continuous backup, illustrates how companies are seeking to protect internal data in the event of disaster. Remote datacenters house back-up data for many companies and ensure the risk is distributed geographically (decentralized). Companies are aware of the need to store data at widely dispersed locations in the event of a wide-impact disaster; backups stored on site can be lost during disasters. Previously, most organizations did their own manual backup of critical business data to tape. Tape backup generally happened once every twenty-four hours, which left companies at risk of losing data that had not been captured since the last backup.

Companies often outsource the continuous backup of the most critical data, ensuring that little or no information is lost. Today, instant or real time access to back-up data is a necessity. Users cannot afford to wait hours or days to access data backups. The National Weather Service has been able to shorten its data restoration process from hours to minutes by implementing a web-based portable backup system. The system allows any user with an Internet connection to access backed up data almost instantaneously (Valverde, 2006).

Data backup and recovery was once the sole responsibility of the IT department. Business Continuity Plans (BCPs) have evolved as a collaboration between IT, HR (human resources), and facilities. BCPs outline not only the policies and procedures for disaster recovery, but they also ensure that business issues and IT issues are aligned. In the era of corporate mergers, many companies are upgrading infrastructure and are taking the opportunity to look at crisis management planning at the same time. Continuity planning and the applications and processes associated with the plans are emerging as pivotal IT/business issues for this century.

Content Security  

The value of an organization's internal knowledge and data cannot be underestimated in today's information economy. The backup and protection of a company's knowledge assets has been discussed in terms of a business continuity plan in the face of a potential disaster. Companies also face internal and external threats that pose risks to the security of intellectual property and proprietary data. The rapid digitization of corporate knowledge (including email) has put companies at great risk for data loss. Digital data's high portability and the ease at which it can be copied and shared have now made the loss of critical data a real concern for many organizations. Most organizations have instituted sophisticated security software and restricted access to prevent unauthorized access to internal data. Ponemon Institute reports that in 2012, 94 percent of the healthcare organizations that were surveyed experienced at least one data breach in the previous two years, and over five data breaches were experienced by 45 percent of the organizations surveyed. It was estimated that data breaches in the healthcare industry could be costing an average of $7 billion annually, with an average cost of $1.2 million per organization.

Data risks among the healthcare industry have been estimated by the following percentages (ID Experts, 2012):

• 46 percent equipment failure
• 42 percent employee error
• 33 percent malicious
• t technology failure

Additionally, Ponemon’s 2014 Cost of Data Breach: Global Analysis revealed that the average cost of a data breach to a given company, regardless of industry, was $3.5 million—a 15 percent jump from the previous year’s report, showing that data breaches are becoming more expensive for organizations. Outbound content security applications are being rapidly explored by companies to address the data that is lost through employee error. Pattern matching in contextual searching is commonly used to identify sensitive data such as social security and credit card numbers in outgoing data; the application is similar to spam blockers that block incoming junk mail. Organizations typically restrict sensitive internal data to certain employees; often this still means that thousands of employees and partners have access to sensitive data. Gruman (2007) writes that, "at BCD Travel, a corporate travel service, nearly 80 percent of its 10,000 employees work in call centers and thus have legitimate access to sensitive customer information" (Gruman, 2007).

According to Miller (2007), corporate data is typically found in three states all of which pose risks to data loss.

• Data in motion (heading out by email)
• Data in rest (resides on internal drives or at the printer)
• Data in use (employees moving data via USB on laptop)

Companies are actively seeking ways to block confidential company information such as product specifications, payroll, or salary information. Organizations also face litigation risks for the inappropriate use of company resources if sensitive data is leaked; a business reputation can be damaged severely by data security losses, thefts, or breaches. Companies are aware of the risk of restricting the transfer of information inside and outside of an organization. Restricting outgoing information could potentially hurt customer service and inter business collaboration. Content blocking that is too restrictive can result in a great number of false positives, situations where information that is to be legitimately passed out is not allowed to do so. One alternative is to quarantine at-risk content for review. However, given the potential volume of content that is transferred digitally on a daily basis, the volume of quarantined content could be huge and quickly overwhelm the quarantine system.

At this point, it is obvious that content security applications are only part of the solution to protecting a company's internal data from loss or inappropriate use. Employee education and the implementation of a comprehensive security policy will go a long way in protecting internal data. Content security is like many other strategic business issues facing organizations today. Sophisticated rules need to be written into software applications to make them "smarter," but the applications are only part of the answer. A collaborative undertaking by IT, HR, and corporate legal teams is essential for the design and communication related to both automated (application) solutions and the documented policies that are put in place to address content security issues.

Issues

Vertical Markets  

Software applications that serve specific vertical markets offer tremendous opportunity to customize tools to meet specific industry needs. Many companies are no longer interested in fitting their business needs into a generic set of tools. Within a given industry or segment, there's simply too much opportunity to create a superior customized solution that exceeds rather than meets business needs.

One of the greatest opportunities for fast growing verticals such as healthcare and financial services is the implementation of wireless technology. These markets are so competitive, that having access to the right application that provides the right data is essential for success in the marketplace. As one marketing executive stated, "Those markets (healthcare and financial services) are highly competitive, often dealing with commoditized products and constantly changing rates and programs. They employ sales reps with six-figure salaries, who are constantly in front of customers and need information at their fingertips" (Alleven, 2006, p. 34).

Other issues that need to be addressed in the development of vertical software applications are:

• GRC (governance, risk, and compliance)
• Compliance with security for HIPAA privacy rules (ensuring that sensitive medical information is protected)
• Identity management (allowing only authorized users access to data)
• Risk management
• Data encryption
• Security of data in motion (mobile data transfer).

Still another area of customization and support that will be required for successful deployment of application for vertical markets is in the area of middleware interpretation (DeFelice, 2007). Middleware, or bridge, applications will be built in vertical markets to help connect integral parts of these systems.

Brenda Brinkley’s company Epiphany, which "developed vertical products on top of NetSuite's applications," concentrated on a few core areas to serve, such as "electronic systems contractors, audiovisual companies, and the commercial flooring industry." Epiphany designs products and services that help other companies manage business processes such as invoicing, accounting, and project management. Epiphany's middleware applications and services are an example of the opportunity that is available for business applications in serving the exploding area of vertical market applications. The concept of "channel partners" for vertical industries is a popular one today where specificity and segmentation of markets has created opportunities for applications developers to create applications that interface with larger business applications (DeFelice, 2007, p. 4).

Data Recovery Applications  

Storage requirements will be one of the issues related to the support of future applications associated with data and disaster recovery applications. Storage of data will need to be designed in a scalable manner to ensure that future growth can be accommodated. More and more companies will outsource data backup as a way to free-up internal resources, disperse risk of data loss, and ensure that data is secure at its remote location and while it is en-route to or from the users/organizations.

The service that the National Weather Service selected,

Other issues that organizations will deal with have to do with allowing employees access to data through VPNs in case of emergency. In many cases, IT infrastructure is largely untested and the capability of networks to handle large numbers of remote workers (home to office data and voice transmission) is in question. Many organizations are likely to find out the hard way that their organizations are ill prepared to deal with potential disasters. Many companies have put plans in place to deal with possible flu pandemics and other scenarios that may keep employees from going to work.

Content Security Applications  

There are numerous issues that will confront the IT industry as it seeks to build future applications to protect data content. The protection of a company's intellectual property is invaluable in many industries today. Patents, trademarks, and trade secrets represent some of an organization's most valuable assets. The innovative output of an organization's workforce needs to be accessible to the right audience, while carefully guarded against others.

Outbound Content Management  

Outbound content management tools are becoming more specialized over time. Typical filtering applications come with a set of standard templates, but companies will increasingly put time and effort into customizing the filters. An analysis of the contents of servers and databases will reveal the type of at-risk data. Company-specific information analysis will allow for the development of sophisticated concept filters that can customize the filtering templates. The risk for data loss for companies is high. One estimate states that 21 percent of a company's IP (intellectual property) resides in email. With statistics like these and the associated risks, it is no wonder that some companies are hiring subject matter experts or linguists to help write the content filtering rules to protect their organization's internal content (Gruman, 2007).

Protecting Premium Content  

The development of digital television and alternative delivery platforms has led to a whole new business model, based on the premise of having superior content as the differentiating factor. The value and in some cases the cost of the content skyrocketed and for the first time there was a fundamental need for operators to protect their content in order to protect their revenue streams (Devreese, 2007). The delivery of unauthorized content via the web cuts into profits from DVD sales and other content delivery systems that were once more traditional. Defining a baseline level of security for content is important, as are the designs of flexible systems that will allow for changing requirements over time. The need to ensure that content is kept secure has a huge impact on the design of the video on demand systems as these applications are being designed and built.

Conclusion

This article has covered just a few of the IT applications that are being developed to meet the business needs of the twenty-first century organization. Software applications that serve niche markets will continue to be developed and deployed as more industries seek custom business solutions for their markets. Channel partners will help enhance niche markets with value added service and expertise in specific subject areas to aid in the deployment, support, and training associated with new business applications. Relationship management will continue to define business strategy in the coming decade as competition for and retention of customers becomes more of a focus for industry and, in turn, customers will come to expect superior service.

Part of the customer service experience will be the assurance of round-the-clock access to applications, accounts, and processes such as online banking with little tolerance for business interruption. In an effort to assure that business processes and supply chains are always accessible to customers, applications that ensure data backup and security of core systems will be given more focus by business. Likewise, companies are focusing on disaster preparedness planning as a way to ensure that critical company data is preserved, which will mitigate the risk of business interruption.

As companies seek out custom applications that enhance products and services to their customers, access to key business information and premium content will be closely monitored. Superior business applications need access to secure, timely, appropriate data and content to deliver on key business processes, products and initiatives.

Terms & Concepts

Channel Partners: In computer and Internet marketing, a channel is a middleman between a product creator and the marketplace - related to VAR.

Concept Filters: Refer to the business rules or terms that are built into data filters (keywords, terms-similar technology use for email spam filters).

Continuity Plans: Also business continuance or business continuity. The processes and procedures an organization utilizes for essential functions to continue during and after a disaster.

Data Encryption: A means of securing data by translation of data into a secret code. One must have access to a key or password to decrypt a protected file.

Identity Management: From an IT standpoint, this refers to the management of an individual user's credentials when accessing an online system. Identity management allows for control of user access to specific applications or resources.

Independent Software Vendor: Generally refers to a company that specializes in making or selling software for niche markets such as healthcare or financial services.

Partnership Relationship Management (PRM): A business strategy used to improve communication between companies and their channel partners.

Premium Content: Content that is paid for by a user.

Relationship Intelligence: The concept that there is strategic value in managing customer relationships to enhance business opportunities. Superior service is seen as a key differentiation in highly competitive markets.

Risk Management: The activity that identifies or recognizes risk, the assessment of the risk and strategies that will help to manage risk.

Supplier Connectivity: Maintains effective communications with a network of suppliers to maximize order fulfillment operations.

Tacit Knowledge: The knowledge that people carry in their heads. Increasingly, companies wish to capture this knowledge (often about customers/processes) and make it accessible through a customer relationship database or knowledge management system.

Value-Added Reseller (VAR): A company that adds features to an existing product. The product may then be sold to an end-user as an integrated product. The value may come from professional services that offer customization and training.

Vertical Market Application: Software with specific requirements used in a single, narrowly defined market, such as software that helps doctors manage patient records, insurance billing, etc.

Suggested Reading

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Ellis, L., Saret, J., & Weed, P. (2012). When company IT is 'consumerized'. Mckinsey Quarterly, , 29. Retrieved November 29, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=78031568

Lin, W. T., & Chuang, C. (2013). Investigating and comparing the dynamic patterns of the business value of information technology over time. European Journal of Operational Research, 228, 249–261. Retrieved November 29, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=86155599

McAdams, J. (2007). A sentry who is one step ahead. Computerworld, 41, 44–44. Retrieved July 26, 2007, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=25788798&site=ehost-live

Sun retools back-up and recovery process. (2007). Manufacturing Business Technology, 25, 54. Retrieved July 26, 2007, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=24120852&site=ehost-live

Winkler, T. J., & Brown, C. V. (2013). Horizontal allocation of decision rights for on-premise applications and software-as-a-service. Journal Of Management Information Systems, 30, 13–48. Retrieved November 11, 2014, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=94649919

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