Ever thought about running an entire business on Open Source? Or even a huge enterprise that has the size of Microsoft, Sun, IBM, Ericsson or Steria? It might sound impossible or even insane, but I’m about to show that’s it not. Far from it even.

A business is always far more complex that it appears to it’s customers, there are internal processes, divisions, decision organs, infrastructure and much more. Can all that be supported by Open Source Software? Of course!

Although some of the products I will be mentioning in this article, I do not normally use them. The reason for choosing them here is because they can be easily integrated, which is the reasoning behind this article. I discovered a net of OSS products that might seem unrelated but together might be quite exciting.

The foundation

Software needs hardware, quite fundamentally. Software also requires an operating system. Most software these days are multiplatform and since this article is about Open Source, using an commercial OS is out of the question. More and more companies and governments are moving away from Windows to Linux, not just for servers, but even for workstations. Out of the box or even customised Ubuntu distributions on desktop PCs is a huge cost saver. Maintenance of Linux based workstations is as easy as Windows, but if needed there are also distributions with commercial support that offer the same functionality as the Windows centralised management suites. (Open Source can still be commercial, take Sun’s OpenSolaris and RedHat’s Fedora for example, where their Open Source versions are  test environments for their commercial products.)

Communication

The most basic need for IT infrastructure in and business is communication, or simpler put, e-mail.

Office

Zimbra is an Open Source product that provides e-mail, address book, calendar, document management and instant messaging.

Home: http://www.zimbra.com

I’m currently running this system on my own server after having had problems with VirtualMin. It’s stable and completely functional out-of-the-box. It can be integrated into the other products: Funambol and ProcessMaker.

Zimbra inbox

Zimbra Address Book

Zimbra Calendar

Mobility

Although Zimbra provides a client for mobile phones and smart phones people that are on the move might need more flexibility and features.

Funambol is a mobile Open Source platform that can be used for many types of mobile applications, including push email, PIM data synchronization and device management.

Home: http://funambol.com

Synchronising a mobile device with office information like e-mail, contacts and calendar is one of the key features of Outlook. Outlook is most often integrated into the corporate Directory linking users and data automatically. With Funambol this can be achieved with too, by using the community projects Funambol can be integrated with Zimbra and OpenBravo. (An independant project also exists on SourceForge: Finambol Zimbra Connector.)

Organisation

Every company needs orginisation, processes that define who does what and when. These organisation processes are most often not supported by the IT infrastructure but executed manually by every individual. (People know how to do things and send the right e-mails to the right people at the right time, hopefully.)

ProcessMaker is an Open Source Business Process Management (BPM) product that allows to map processes visually, create forms and integrate into other DMS, ERP, CRM and BI systems. In this case Zimbra, KnowledgeTree and OpenBravo.

Home: http://www.processmaker.com

ProcessMaker

Collaboration

Collaboration is a key requirement to make any business successful, especially in IT. Providing a platform where people can work together, share ideas and easily document and exchange information is crucial.

KnowledgeTree is the Open Source equivalent of Microsoft Sharepoint (They don’t dare say it, so I will)

It’s a true collborative DMS that has all the features you could ever need, even integration into the other products. ProcessMaker can hook into KnowledgeTree.

Home: http://www.knowledgetree.com

Browse documents

Create workflow

Resource Management

OpenBravo is an Open Source ERP with a lot of features. Master Data Management, Procurement Management, Warehouse Management, Project and Service Management, Production Management, Sales Management and Customer Relationship Management, Financial Management and Accounting and Business Intelligence. But that’s not all. ProcessMaker and OpenBravo can be integrated.

Home: http://www.openbravo.com

Architecture

Overview

Procurement Management

Sales

Conclusion

An Enterprise can definately have an IT infrastructure based on Open Source Software. Zimbra, Funambol, ProcessMaker, KnowledgeTree and OpenBravo are just a few products (with commercial support) that can be used to reduce costs and create an integrated working environment.

Disclaimer

I am in no way associated or affiliated to any of the products and companies mentioned in this article.

Most companies, especially larger ones, tend to see cutting down the number of employees as the first solution, or so it often seems. Luckily more and more companies are really investigating all the possibilites to their disposal to decrease internal loss and increase revenue. The question is, are they really doing everything they can? I’m convinced that this is not the case, often far from it.

The bigger the company, the more abstract the employees become. At my time at Ericsson it could really be felt that we’re all just small pieces of a very large puzzle. Like tiny cogwheels we turn and do our work, without anyone looking down and seeing the actual wheels turning. Employees are seen as assets, not as organs in a living body. Luckily some companies are not like that. Family and smaller companies are much closer and integrated into all employees and the hierarchy is naturally much flatter. But does that mean they can cope with and respond to economical crises better? True they’re more flexibel, but also more vulnerable. Small companies are not flexible in the right places. Most people have very specific roles and shrinking the number of employees has greater consequences that in larger companies. But what is it that small companies have that larger companies don’t and how can they get it?

The answer lies in the flatter hierarchy and feeling of familiarity. Like is said, small companies are tighter and employees work closer together, especially in a family business. This results in more communication. Everyone has ideas, opinions and questions and everyone communicates about this. Larger companies have separate departments and people tend to only communicate with their collegues. Having people communicate more externally, within the company, channels need to be available and open. Ericsson has been attempting this by creating communities with blogs, forums and a knowledge base. These communities seem to be succesful and people are communicating outside their department. There’s still a problem though… People stay within their area of expertice and interest. If a company really wants to innovate and start to produce a steady stream of ideas, commitment and a sense of belonging people need to interact with all disciplines. Like all organs in a body work together to keep it healthy, so should all employees work together to keep the company healthy. Organs produce or interact with hormones to send signals, employees should communicate and be motivated to interact with everyone and every department.

Source: www.utexas.edu

This is where I’d like to introduct the contept of Intracorporeal ThinkTank (or just Corporate ThinkTank). Larger companies, like Ericsson, have special units that come up with new ideas that are analysed, tested, produced and hopefully eventually published (made available to customers). But unfortunately these ThinkTanks are often filled with specialists in a specific field. Like software architects or business gurus.

When a decision is made “in the ivory tower” everyone always has an opinion, but nobody seems to listen. What I suggest is forming a corporate ThinkTank that’s cross discipline — Just as ideal Scrum teams should be — and dedicated to producing ideas and solutions usable by the company or it’s employees. I state “or it’s employees” since not all ideas have to be sellable, an idea that enhances internal processes or increases employee satisfaction would also result in a higher productivity. The ideal ThinkTank could comprise of people from all departments in the company, from administrative, production to support and from multiple levels in the hierarchy. From multiple levels in the hierarchy means having supervisors and their staff mixed in the same team. Each person in the ThinkTank should be considered equal, since they’re all part of the same team with a common goal. It’s important here to make sure the people chosen to be part of the ThinkTank understand that the success of the company has a higher priority than their own ambitions. One or two persons from each department that are commited to the ThinkTank would result in a mixture of dialogues and discussions that would inevatably lead to better processes, higher employee satisfaction, commitment, productivity and ultimately in higher customer satisfaction and Return on Investment. The ThinkTank would ideally work in an Agile way, quickly adapting to needs and changes, with short iteration cycles and quick delivery of ideas and solutions. Every person in the ThinkTank from each department would be a representative of his/her department, thus requiring communication within the department. The communication with the ThinkTank representative, providing quick feedback, would cause all employees to feel more involved and become more enganged in the welfare of the company. (Knowing that the “idea box” is a group of people you know and not a letterbox covering a black hole enables all employees to feel more engaged.) Inviting people with ideas into the ThinkTank for an iteration or rotating people on a regular basis will also increase the overall engagement. This means that people with ideas don’t just send a e-mail to their respective ThinkTank representative, but that they can be a part of the ThinkTank for an iteration and be actively involved in working through his own idea.

I’m lucky to be working at Steria (Sweden) at the moment. This company works hard in making all it’s employees feel engaged in the entire company, yet some parts still seem blurred. I’m hoping into motivating people into forming a ThinkTank — even just thinking about the possibility is a step forward — and getting the departments intraconnected. Since Steria is getting more and more enganged into Scrum and improving internal processes, a corporate ThinkTank would be ideal, especially since the coprorate atmosphere already allows for a lot of feedback from all employees.