How Compuware Helps UNIFACE Clients with Strategic Projects

Compuware Vice President Alan Cantrell has directed the company’s client/server consulting services in North America over the last year and a half. Since last spring, Vice President Edward Hughes has been responsible for professional services in Europe. In an interview with UNIFACE Magazine, they discussed how the company is assisting UNIFACE customers with strategic client/server initiatives around the world.

Q: What is Compuware’s commitment to UNIFACE professional services worldwide?

Alan: Customers should feel confident that they are acquiring a comprehensive client/server solution, not just software. Compuware provides everything from training and implementation through major project assistance to help clients effectively institutionalize UNIFACE. Many times organizations focus only on the technical features of a development tool, rather than explore how the tool can help them succeed in achieving their business objectives. We help them realize both.

Edward: I’d add that Compuware and its professional services organization have always responded to real-world client requirements. The fact is that today many of our clients are expanding globally and calling upon us to provide services on a global basis; therefore, we’re responding to those requirements.

Q: What range of UNIFACE-related services should clients expect from Compuware?

Edward: Compuware offers full systems life cycle assistance. Our capabilities range from strategy and planning, training and mentoring to full responsibility for application development. We help clients translate their core business requirements into technology initiatives, analyze and redesign their business processes, and find the most efficient, flexible way to develop and deploy systems. All of the activities are led and managed by project managers who have an average of more than 15 years of experience in building and deploying complex software solutions.

Alan: We approach all of these efforts with a perspective that integrates the many elements - hardware, software, applications, networks and, most importantly, people. Our service delivery philosophy is to be very flexible because organizations are starting from different points but are looking to institutionalize client/server technology. Some may have had experience with large-scale client/server development. Some may have developed client/server applications at the departmental level but haven’t tackled an enterprise-wide project. Others might be just beginning to transition from mainframe to client/server and are facing the issues of mainframe connectivity, data access, systems migration and the like.

Edward: UNIFACE is an extraordinarily versatile product. A CEO who is interested in building mission-critical systems for key processes across heterogeneous platforms will look to UNIFACE and the UNIFACE services provided by Compuware to carry those systems forward for the next 10 or 15 years and beyond. This is especially important in the rapidly changing technology environments of today’s business world. The fact is that to stay competitive, CEOs will build systems that can function in the new environments and on the different platforms the future will offer. Compuware’s UNIFACE services provide the sure long-term partnership CEOs need to make that kind of commitment, and it’s what differentiates us from our competition.

Q: Can you explain the company’s strategy for delivering UNIFACE services around the world?

Edward: First, we’ll leverage the global organization we’ve established over the last 23 years. Compuware has offices throughout the world. They provide a strong infrastructure from which we can continue to recruit, hire, retain and manage large and small projects worldwide. Today, more than 1,000 Compuware consultants are working on client/server projects. We have strong growth targets to introduce services to countries where we haven’t had consultants and to expand UNIFACE-specific services within other countries. Our service delivery will be based on client request. Compuware’s professional services organization has a history of sharing resources between regions and establishing local offices to support clients. The company’s commitment in terms of resources and financing is well established. For instance, earlier this year we acquired Icons in Germany in order to support the increasing UNIFACE implementation requirements of our clients in that country.

Alan: I’d add that in North America, we have 17 professional services branches. We also are deploying product-related services in 20 product offices around North America.

Q: How will Compuware put teams together to support UNIFACE implementations?

Edward: Our first job is to understand our client’s objectives, their timeframes, and the skill levels of their staff. We want to be sure that developers working on UNIFACE projects have a superior knowledge of the product, so we take training and education very seriously. We have rigorous academies for training not only our consultants, but also clients’ staffs and the staff of UNIFACE partners so that they use the product in a consistent, best-of-practice manner.

Q: What is the relationship between the services organization and the UNIFACE development lab?

Alan: We’re working more closely together than ever before, and appropriately appear to our clients as one organization. We provide the UNIFACE development lab with a user’s perspective, based on the experience of our own consultants and the clients with whom we collaborate on projects. We provide feedback on what works well, what is really valuable, what we could potentially do to make things better and easier. Similarly, the lab helps ensure that our services stay in step with the product so that, for instance, we can offer services timed for the version Six to Seven migration.

Q: Compuware focuses on the entire application life cycle. Can you describe the professional services that Compuware offers beyond application development?

Alan: We have training and consulting services for Compuware’s automated testing products to ensure new applications meet users’ expectations, and for Compuware’s EcoTOOLS and EcoNET application management products once applications are in production. We couple that education and training with upfront consulting to help clients understand how to realize the optimal benefit from our products. Again, our focus is to provide clients with comprehensive client/server solutions.