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ADVISOR VIEW
Make the Case for FileMaker Pro to Corporate IT Departments
FileMaker Pro solutions often spring up in departments to solve immediate problems for users. But what does a corporate IT department need to know about FileMaker Pro before adopting it as a standard?
If you develop FileMaker Pro solutions for an organization with an internal IT department, at some point IT will want answers to some legitimate questions. Understandably, applications that are new to the organization or have been used "under the radar" can cause concerns. To maintain your relationship with these organizations, it's important you understand the role of IT departments in specifying or guiding the use of workgroup applications throughout the enterprise, and you address their spoken or unspoken concerns -- sooner rather than later. The FileMaker field sales organization can help you make the case.
This article provides some guidelines for explaining the value of FileMaker Pro in an organization's IT strategy.
Acknowledge the IT group's role
It's effective to open a dialog with IT by asking for the IT group's questions about FileMaker Pro. It isn't necessary to answer the questions as they're asked; you simply want to let IT know you understand their concerns. Typical questions include:
- How can we integrate FileMaker Pro into the application development environment?
- Why haven't we heard of FileMaker Pro?
- How does FileMaker Pro scale to fit into the organization?
- What are the boundaries we should put around FileMaker Pro development and deployment?
- What kinds of projects provide the best return on investment (ROI)?
- Why should we add FileMaker Pro as a standard when we already have standards such as SQL Server, Oracle, Java, and Visual Basic?
- How can we avoid data silos when using FileMaker Pro?
- How can we control the proliferation of inappropriate application development with FileMaker Pro?
Introduce FileMaker Pro and its vision
FileMaker Pro is a toolkit designed to help people build solutions that make data more meaningful and rapidly provide a return on investment (ROI). FileMaker Pro solutions address tactical business challenges ranging from tracking scientific experiments to grant management to purchase-request tracking systems.
IT groups that use FileMaker Pro are in good company: FileMaker has sold more than 12 million copies globally, and 70 percent of unit sales in North America are licenses. Customers tend to be "thought leaders" who use FileMaker Pro to gain a competitive advantage and improve their knowledge workers' productivity.
Contrast FileMaker Pro with existing DBMS standards
Explain that FileMaker Pro solves a different type of business problem than other IT standards. DBMS standards such as Oracle and SQL Server are intended for strategic business problems involving largely static business processes, such as cash register systems, transactional systems, and financial systems. The development technique used with these standards is commonly referred to as the "waterfall" technique because a detailed specification is completed before development begins and development steps happen in sequence.
FileMaker Pro, in contrast, is designed to solve tactical rather than strategic business problems. Development can be based on a much looser specification, is iterative, and lets developers create a functional prototype in hours or days. The FileMaker Pro development technique is known as the "spiral" technique because development is iterative rather than sequential. The spiral technique produces excellent results for companies that have dynamic business processes. In a recent survey of FileMaker Pro users, 67 percent said they modified their solution at least weekly and 85 percent at least monthly. Such flexibility simply isn't possible with any other DBMS in the organization.
 Stephen Gallagher, senior director of systems engineering and field sales for FileMaker, Inc., leads a sales team that works daily with innovative Fortune 1,000 companies to improve the productivity of individuals and workgroups. A 10-plus year veteran of FileMaker, Gallagher visits more than 200 customers a year to help them use FileMaker Pro to improve productivity and gain a competitive advantage.
ARTICLE INFO
Web Edition: 2006 Week 44, Doc #18503
 FREE ACCESS
Keyword Tags: Application Development, Database Management, Development, FileMaker, FileMaker Development, FileMaker FileMaker Pro, Java, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Software Development, Training, XML
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