Head in the clouds
Two years ago I wrote my first editorial on the topic of cloud computing “Mastering the cloud somersault“, marking the start of a great adventure for Siveco China (an adventure we had in fact less-publicly launched around 2008 when we set up our Shanghai R&D unit). I quoted from Journey to the West: “That night Sun Wukong moved his spirit, practiced the technique, and mastered the cloud somersault. From then on he was free from all restraint and he enjoyed the delights of immortality, drifting around as he pleased.”
Two years later, that is four years after the launch of our R&D initiative, we are not yet enjoying the delights of immortality… Yet we have gone very far indeed! Our bluebee® solution, comprising the back-office bluebee® cloud and the mobile suite bluebee®, has been implemented on a large scale to hundreds of sites (we hope to reach 1,000 sites this year), supporting mission-critical facilities all over China. More and more, we are getting enquiries from abroad and our first export deal will probably be signed in 2013 as well.
As I claimed many times in these columns and again recently in media interviews, we in China are able to invent new things, taking the best of western experience (in our case, 25+ years in mature maintenance markets) and the best of China (accelerated development, large-scale greenfield projects, innovative ideas). In the field of IT support for maintenance, the market is scattered with failed projects, from expensive western software ignoring “Chinese characteristics” to local custom-development that simply misses the point due to lack of maturity.
The property market, where we have been very active, is a perfect example. Countless local suppliers all claim they can develop any software you want, in practice delivering nothing: some of China’s largest property developers have spent years getting just that… In retail, where we work with several large international brands, most of the western software implemented have simply abandoned by their users: in one case we audited, a multi-million maintenance system was used as a “fax machine” to transfer scanned work orders for approval (this waste of everyone’s time and money, except the IT supplier perhaps, was shut down after our audit). In government infrastructure projects, where many clients have come to accept that failure is inevitable, “we are not mature enough” is the lesson they have learnt from the Big Four consultants advising them: one harbor we visited recently could not even get work orders out of its maintenance system, in spite of spending half a million RMB a year in support fees only.
Disaster and desperation? No! Huge opportunities for those companies and for us!
Among such opportunities was Nanjing Greenland Center, also known as Zifeng Tower, the 7th highest building in the world, the 2nd highest in mainland China. This symbol of China’s successful development (when I first visited Nanjing in 1996, there is no way I could have imagined what this city has become) is one of the many prestigious buildings managed by our customer Green Property Management, a subsidiary of Fortune 500 developer Greenland Holdings. All 100+ sites under Green Property’s care are deploying our bluebee® cloud and bluebee® solutions, for an estimated 2,000 mobile users (not only technicians but also cleaning, security and gardening shift leaders). While Greenland benefits from our cloud technologies and our modest (ah!) expertise, we greatly benefit from their experience, their scale, their visibility in the market. News of this project even found its way in the US media.
Another example of Chinese opportunity is Carrefour China, which implemented our bluebee® solution to manage risks in its 220 hypermarkets all over the country. While most international retailers (all facing a very tough business environment here) have experience dramatic failures in their IT projects (SCADA, energy management, maintenance management), in spite of long multi-year efforts involving foreign experts, Carrefour China has become a showcase of best practices. The system they call “RPMS” for Risk Prevention Management System features a giant touch-screen at the national control center, web access in every store and a growing number of mobile users (tablet and PDAs). The high-visible RPMS has come to symbolize Carrefour China’s constant focus on safety first, a great asset for successful retailing in the Chinese market.
In this month’s newsletter, a reprint of my Shanghai Business Review article on risk prevention “Tech Savvy and Safe“, a Customer Story on Carrefour China’s RPMS, a partner article on cloud hosting, Tips & Tricks on integrating FM systems and BIM, plus our latest news.
We hope to see you at the upcoming 6th Annual Ultra High-rise Building Summit (Shanghai, March 27-28) and the 11th Loss Prevention and Asset Protection Summit (Wuhan, April 16-17).
As Sun Wukong must have said many times, atop his somersault cloud: “full speed ahead”!
