Extreme Customer Service and Data Virtualization

Last night I had drinks with Marc Hebert, my favorite boss of all time.  Marc hired me to help start Oracle Manufacturing in 1989 and later chose me to run Oracle Applications software partnerships in 1995.

Marc, along with two other former Oracle colleagues now runs a fast growing IT services firm by the name of Estuate.  Estuate is a premier implementer of IBM Optim, Oracle Applications and Oracle Technology solutions.  They also do a lot of subcontract product development work for Silicon Valley software companies.

Extreme Customer Service

But what Marc, Prakash, Kini and the rest of the Estuate team really do is provide “extreme service” to their customers.  This ethic is captured on their website:

“We bring high integrity into all client interactions, and we are very proud that ALL of our clients are willing to speak on our behalf.  Our clients tell us they keep buying our services because we combine a strong service culture with specialized, unmatched applications technical experts.  We carefully select people with these qualities.  We listen carefully to what our clients want, and we exceed expectations.  As a result, we build lasting, trust relationships that yield tangible benefits in every project.”

It’s All about the Customer

Estuate’s customer-centric ethos is a great reminder to all of us.  Take care of your customers and your customers will take care of you.

Simple to say, but based on my experiences on the customer side of commerce, this appears difficult for many businesses to accomplish. So kudos to Estuate!

Taking Care of Customers in Data Virtualization

My talk with Marc reminded me of recent conversations with Rick van der Lans about his discussions with current and soon-to-be data virtualization customers.

Because Rick wrote a book on data virtualization, Data Virtualization for Business Intelligence Systems, and frequently speaks about it at conferences, he fields a lot of questions on a range of data virtualization topics from strategy and architecture to optimization and operation.

Rick demonstrates his extreme customer service by communicating these questions, as well as his detailed answers, in his BeyeNetwork blog.

Nine Questions Down, More to Come

Below are links to Rick’s data virtualization questions and answers. I hope you find them of extreme service.

• Customer Question 1 on Data Virtualization – Centralizing Integration Specifications
• Customer Question 2 on Data Virtualization – What Is The Best Product?
• Customer Question 3 on Data Virtualization – Do Reporting Tools Also Support Data Virtualization?
• Customer Question 4 on Data Virtualization – What is the Preferred Development Approach?
• Customer Question 5 on Data Virtualization – Why Not Use Simple SQL Views?
• Customer Question 6 on Data Virtualization – Do We Still Need A Data Warehouse?
• Customer Question 7 on Data Virtualization – What About Performance?
• Customer Question 8 on Data Virtualization – Is It Immature Technology?
• Customer Question 9 on Data Virtualization – Have We Developed Rube Goldberg Machines?