ChefConf 2019, taking place in Seattle on May 20-23, is less than a month away! Perficient is proud to be exhibiting at ChefConf as a Silver sponsor. ChefConf offers a week full of workshops, deep sessions, and premier key speakers. It is one of the best opportunities for the DevOps community to come together to learn and share insights around the latest strategies and tactics for transformational application delivery.

Connect with us at ChefConf

Have questions about starting your DevOps journey? Looking to accelerate your application modernization strategy by leveraging Chef Habitat? We can help.

Our Chef experts will be at booth #100 in the Expo Hall. They will be available to answer all of your questions around your DevOps transformation, whether it be implementing your Chef architecture and tooling or full-scale agile delivery program implementation.

Our team of expert DevOps consultants will share with you how we can partner with your organization to provide services across our DevOps Jump Start, agile DevOps transformation, and modern application factory.

Upgrade Your Keyboard

In addition to hearing from our experts as they share their thought leadership and discuss recent customer stories in our booth, also stop by for a chance to win a Das Keyboard 4Q!

We look forward to seeing you soon at ChefConf 2019!

Are you attending ChefConf this year? Reach out to connect with our team.

Taking place in San Diego from May 13-15^th, Appian World is just a couple weeks away! Perficient is excited to be exhibiting at the conference as a Gold sponsor. Appian World brings industry experts together while giving attendees the opportunity to learn everything they need to know to succeed in achieving high-value business transformation – from insights into the future of AI, RPA, and BPM to live demos – Appian World helps attendees innovate rapid, high-value change in their organizations.

Connect with us at Appian World

Do you have specific challenges that need to be solved?  Looking to better understand the differences between BPM and RPA and how to integrate them together?

Stop by and see us in the sponsor hall at booth #600. Our team of Appian experts will be onsite to answer your questions! We will also be showcasing our latest demos featuring our services across the Appian platform that we’ve used to help solve industry experts’ most difficult digital transformation obstacles.

We want to learn about the business challenges you are trying to address with the Appian platform and your specific goals for Appian World. We can help you implement and integrate to expand your Appian footprint. As one of only five Appian Strategic Partners, we help clients maximize the value of their Appian investment by enhancing integrations.

We look forward to seeing you soon at Appian World 2019!

Are you attending Appian World this year? Reach out to connect with our team.

Perficient is excited to be a Bronze sponsor at this year’s Red Hat Summit 2019! Taking place in less than a week in Boston from May 7-9^th, Summit brings together all kinds of professionals – from career IT pros to open source contributors – who represent nearly every industry. It is the premier open source technology event featuring the latest and greatest in cloud computing, platform virtualization, middleware, storage, and systems management technologies.

Hear From Our Experts

We will be exhibiting at Booth #215 in the Expo Hall. Our team of Red Hat experts will be available onsite to discuss how we can help you innovate your organization. Stop by to learn more about our unique solutions and services offerings.

Learn In Our Session

We will also be featuring our thought leadership in our breakout session, Florida Blue: Digital Transformation to Deliver at the Speed of Healthcare, taking place on Wednesday, May 8, from 10:30 a.m.-11:15 a.m. Join this session to hear how we assisted Florida Blue, a major healthcare provider, in using an elastic environment to meet the fluctuating demands of the evolving healthcare market across multiple domains and tenants.

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Connect With Us At Our Reception

Even more questions around the healthcare industry? Join us for a Healthcare Networking Reception. We will be co-sponsoring this reception with Red Hat on Thursday, May 9, from 4:30-6:30 PM at Harpoon Brewery. Stop by to speak with other industry leaders before heading over to the closing party.

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We look forward to seeing you in just a few short days at Red Hat Summit 2019!

Are you attending Red Hat Summit this year? Reach out to connect with our team.

The boundaries of traditional enterprises are blurring. In this digital evolution, APIs form the foundation of the new open enterprise, allowing businesses to reuse their existing information assets across organizational boundaries. APIs and API business strategy are essential as digital conduits to products, data, collaborative business processes, and service offerings.  

Perficient Ranks as a Strong Performer for API Capabilities

In Forrester’s recent report, “The Forrester Wave: Specialist API Strategy and Delivery Service Providers, Q2 2019,” the research firm cited Perficient as a Strong Performer and one of “the seven providers that matter most.” This report takes an in-depth look at each service provider and details their strengths across three key areas: current offering, strategy, and market presence. Capabilities examined covered end-to-end API strategy and delivery including API business strategy, program setup, program setup, build and implementation, managed operations, related capabilities, and more. This evaluation of skills helps clients begin to assess which vendor can best serve their needs.

We are honored to receive this recognition for our API strategy and delivery skills. The report specifically notes our well-rounded services with API program and integration strengths. Our strong focus and specialization across many industry verticals, including healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, retail, consumer products, energy, and utilities, differentiated us from others evaluated. Forrester identified API program strategy, our design-build accelerators, and API managed operations as our key strengths and awarded us the highest scores possible for market presence which considered number of API clients and mindshare.

Through our long-term relationships, we build in-depth solutions that elevate APIM as a component of larger integration and digital transformation initiatives. Forrester stated, “Perficient is a good shortlist vendor for buyers that need both integration and API capabilities from a partner with well-rounded API strategy and delivery capabilities.”

Benefits of partnering with a provider

When selecting a service provider that specializes in API strategy and delivery rather than just API implementation, Forrester recommends looking for the following aspects in a partner:

1. Ability to develop captivating API business strategies in alignment with CxOs. API business strategy is a critical component within business strategy that requires understanding of how digital channels between enterprises can not only improve existing business avenues, but also create new channels. A partner’s expertise helps explore the possibilities and identify the right ones to align with your business needs.
2. Deep expertise in building complex, governed API programs. Enterprises need to look for a partner with expertise in developing true end-to-end API programs tailored to the specific needs of the enterprise along with the needed governance mechanisms to ensure long-term, sustainable success.
3. Established best practices for API design, technologies, and platforms. Successful API programs need a foundation to meet a range of API design and platform needs. A partner needs to understand a strong API taxonomy, API types beyond REST APIs, API design and documentation tools, automated testing, and a range of ways to create APIs.

Learn More

Our API experts help you foster innovation and collaboration through better access to data and services. A robust, end-to-end API program can help you enhance digital user experience, generate new revenue streams, and establish a digital ecosystem to deliver customer business value. We leverage our proprietary Quick Start Methodology to quickly get API programs off the ground across strategy, architecture, platform selection, organizational structure, and governance. If you’re ready to get started, reach out  to one of our specialists.

Or check out our guide that discusses the how to start developing strategies to monetize data and business assets through APIs.

Perficient is excited to be a Gold sponsor at this year’s IBM Think 2019! Taking place in just a few short weeks in San Francisco from February 12 – 15th, Think brings over 40,000 attendees together to learn, strategize, and engage in all things digital transformation.

We will be exhibiting at Booth #320 in the Data & AI Campus. Experts from across our IBM solution areas – AI, automation, cloud, commerce, data & analytics, DX, DevOps, and more – will be showcasing demos and their thought leadership in a range of sessions.

OUR SESSIONS

Digitally Enhancing Physical Stores: Watson Commerce Order Management Innovation for BOPIS and SFS

Wednesday, 3:30 PM – 4:10 PM
Westin St. Francis, Level 2 | Olympic

Our industry’s pace of change challenges digital leaders to stay abreast of today’s latest, innovative deployments. Come hear how the nation’s leading fabric and craft retailer is using IBM Watson Commerce to elevate the customer experience. With IBM Order Management as a foundational element underpinning this client’s solution, this session will focus on how the initial deployment has migrated to the cloud and provides a single view of supply and demand. Additionally, how it orchestrates order fulfillment processes across Buy Online Pickup In Store (BOPIS) and Ship-from-Store (SFS). Lastly, this session will focus on how it empowers company representatives to better serve clients both in call centers and in-store engagements.

Speakers:

• Steve Gatto, Director of Perficient Digital Commerce Solutions
• Michael Radcliff, JOANN
• Pawan Kumar Gupta, Director OMS, CPQ, B2B and Commerce, Perficient Digital 

Innovating with IBM Order Management in Manufacturing and Distribution at Leggett & Platt

Wednesday, 4:30 PM – 5:10 PM | Session ID: 5787A
Westin St. Francis, Level 1 | Tower Salon A

At Leggett & Platt, a global, diversified manufacturer, the topic of supply chain and order management technology has transitioned from the dark corners of the warehouse to the executive table. While supply chain optimization is fairly well-established among retailers, branded manufacturers and distributors are being pressured to augment or even break from their traditional models. Join L&P and IBM Business Partner Perficient Digital as they discuss the challenge of blending physical with digital across customer acquisition, engagement and retention initiatives. Learn how L&P is optimizing inventory and order orchestration with IBM Order Management to grow revenue, gain market share and disrupt the industry.

Speakers:

• Pawan Kumar Gupta, Director OMS, CPQ, B2B and Commerce, Perficient Digital
• Tyler Burgess, Leggett and Platt Inc.
• Michael Blinzler, Leggett & Platt

Mastering the Demands of Dealer and Customer Websites Using IBM Digital Experience Manager

Friday, 11:30 AM – 11:50 AM | Session ID: 7372A
Moscone South, Exhibit Level, Hall D | Data & AI Think Tank F

Business customers of large enterprises desire the same quality in their digital interactions as consumers do. Real-time data, product information, service notices, tools, service scheduling, maintenance, parts, data and more must be readily available—as well as current, accurate and easy to consume. Attend this session to learn the best practices, tips and tricks on how to elevate the combined dealer and customer website experiences using IBM Digital Experience Manager. Topics covered will include: accelerating speed to market, delivering targeted and secured content and data, producing highly polished user interfaces, mobility support, scaling for performance and content integration.

Speakers:

• Glenn Kline, Principal and Technical Director, Perficient Digital

There has been a lot of change in the IBM portfolio with the acquisition of Red Hat and the sale of some IBM software to HCL. The news of both of these changes marks an exciting time for customers, but has also led to some upheaval as everyone tries to learn what exactly this will mean for them. We will be onsite to talk about what these changes mean and how we can help you achieve your goals within this new IBM portfolio.

Are you attending IBM Think this year? Reach out to connect with our team.

Perficient is excited to announce that Chef is moving to a Strategic Partnership.

They will join other distinguished partners on this list, including Google and AWS. These companies represent continually high levels of success and achievement at Perficient.

Chef is a leader in secure, continuous automation open source and commercial software. Their elevation to Strategic Partner results from their increasing momentum and innovation in the market. We recognize Chef as a company that has the potential for significant growth opportunities. In addition, we recognize them for maintaining technology capabilities that can help us better serve our clients’ unique needs.

Jason Krech, Director of DevOps Consulting at Perficient, expressed his excitement around the expanding partnership. “Our work with Chef has continued to accelerate over the course of our two year partnership – we are excited to partner with Chef as a key services partner, as well as take Chef embedded solutions to clients as part of our DevOps solutions.”

As a services partner to Chef, we are also continuing to invest in on-going training and certification of our existing team of Chef-certified practitioners, as well as investing in hiring in this space.

This elevated partnership better positions us to continue achieving our goal of providing more clients with end-to-end solutions to automate their entire software delivery cycles. We are able to better leverage our core competencies, enhance and extend our service offerings, and strengthen our deep cross-platform experience and expertise.

Learn more about our Chef expertise and how we can help you begin your DevOps journey with Chef here.

The healthcare industry has undergone a series of recent changes driven by healthcare reform and evolving consumer expectations. In response to these changes, a leading health insurance organization needed to find ways to continue growing within the industry. Specifically, it sought a modern application platform to help drive innovation and improve the velocity of application delivery.

Perficient partnered with this organization to guide leveraging Red Hat OpenShift capabilities. We helped the organization deploy a PaaS solution supported by an end-to-end continuous delivery pipeline.

In addition to standing up the OpenShift platform, we also assisted in re-architecting several core sales and membership applications to demonstrate how to leverage the cloud based architecture components. This allowed elastic scale within these applications and supported multi-tenant deployments for several of the applications.

Since implementing these capabilities and improving processes, the organization has succeeded in decreasing developer onboarding time and increasing speed to market. We also successfully guided teams through fundamental paradigm shifts to deliver cloud and DevOps organization wide.

Learn More

We understand the value and innovation that OpenShift can provide to organizations. If you’re ready to begin your journey to the cloud, reach out to one of our specialists.

On Sunday, IBM announced its acquisition of Red Hat. Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of open source cloud software. The $34 billion deal is one of the largest acquisitions in the history of the U.S. tech industry. With this price tag comes a clear indication of the importance cloud services play in digital transformation.

A ‘Big Bet’ for IBM

IBM has struggled over the last five years to see consistent revenue growth. Cloud infrastructure is an area where it has fallen further behind competitors like Amazon and Microsoft. With Red Hat, IBM makes a major move to not only become equal to its competition, but to elevate itself above others in the field.

Ginni Rometty, IBM Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, said, “The acquisition of Red Hat is a game-changer. It changes everything about the cloud market. IBM will become the world’s #1 hybrid cloud provider, offering companies the only open cloud solution that will unlock the full value of the cloud for their businesses.”

Rometty also noted that only 20% of enterprise workloads have been moved to the cloud. The remaining 80% signifies the potential for new business value and growth. Many in the industry see this as an opportunity to take cloud services to the next level. IBM has now made a distinct move to be in the forefront of that future growth.

(Photo: techcrunch.com)

The two companies won’t fully merge until at least the second half of 2019, but when they finally do come together Red Hat will become a unit of IBM’s Hybrid Cloud division. IBM and Red Hat will enable businesses to do more work in the cloud while keeping their data secure and mobile, regardless of which cloud technologies they adopt.

Jim Whitehurst, President and CEO of Red Hat, explained the value he sees in aligning with IBM. “Joining forces with IBM will provide us with a greater level of scale, resources and capabilities to accelerate the impact of open source as the basis for digital transformation and bring Red Hat to an even wider audience – all while preserving our unique culture and unwavering commitment to open source innovation.”

The Future of IBM

There is still a lot of time until this merger comes to full fruition. However, many commentators are already guessing at what this will mean for IBM. As this acquisition is a decidedly ‘big bet,’ it feels to many as if IBM is making a major push back towards its basis in the enterprise software and services business. This could mean that its Watson practice, focused on artificial intelligence, may move to the backdrop in place of a rejuvenated push in cloud computing.

From a greater market perspective, this acquisition will likely stir up some new competition in the cloud services space, especially given the $1 trillion growth market potential for hybrid cloud services.

What do you think the future of IBM will be with the Red Hat acquisition? Let us know in the comments below.

We are proud to announce that Red Hat has chosen Perficient, a Red Hat Premier Partner, as the winner of its Rising Star Partner of the Year Award. The announcement was made yesterday at the Red Hat North America Partner Conference, taking place October 9-11 in National Harbor, Maryland.

Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of open-source software solutions, helping organizations to easily and quickly build, develop, and deploy their next big ideas. The Rising Star Partner of the Year Award recognizes Perficient for our demonstrated collaboration and investment within our Red Hat partnership to achieve success in bringing Red Had technologies and services to customers.

Among Perficient’s successful initiatives across Red Hat services, we were honored for our partnership with a healthcare industry leader to leverage Red Hat’s OpenShift capabilities and deploy a PaaS solution that supported an end-to-end continuous delivery pipeline, effectively driving innovation and improving velocity of application delivery. In addition to standing up the OpenShift platform, Perficient also assisted in re-architecting several core sales and membership applications to demonstrate how to leverage the cloud-based architecture components. This allowed elastic scale within these applications and supported multi-tenant deployments.

“Red Hat solutions are a secret weapon to our clients’ digital transformation strategies,” said Annel Adzem, director, IoT and Connectivity, Perficient. “The market needs a trusted partner who can help navigate emerging technologies and application platforms. Combining Perficient’s strategic consulting capabilities with the technical expertise around the innovative OpenShift platform from Red Hat, allows us to bring valuable guidance to our customers as they modernize their businesses.”

Annel Adzem (bottom right), director of IoT and Connectivity solutions at Perficient, accepted the award Wednesday during Red Hat’s North America Partner Conference.

Through our partnership with Red Hat, Perficient helps organizations drive strategic initiatives around cloud computing, DevOps, and enterprise integration solutions to ensure successful cloud implementation and migration projects. We provide solution expertise across a range of Red Hat products including its cloud computing, cloud management and automation, middleware integration, and process automation solutions.

You can read the full press release here.

In the last couple of years, the focus of process initiatives has shifted from cost-reducing implementation projects to strategic enablement plans that reflect the growing importance of digital transformation to organizations’ success.

As digital process automation (DPA) techniques become more modernized, vendors must establish proficiencies in change management, strategy consulting, and customer experience.

Perficient Ranks as a Strong Performer for DPA Capabilities

In Forrester’s recent report, “The Forrester Wave: Digital Process Automation Service Providers, Q3 2018,” the research firm lists Perficient as a Strong Performer and one of “the 11 providers that matter most.” This report takes an in-depth look at each service provider and details their strengths across strategy, design, technology, and change management. This evaluation of skills helps clients begin to assess which vendor can best serve their needs.

We are honored to receive this recognition for our DPA technical skills. The report specifically notes our ability to develop long-term relationships with clients and our high client retention rate. Our strong focus across many service industries, including financial services, healthcare, and energy and utilities, also separates us from other service providers. Through our long-term relationships, we build in-depth solutions for partners that elevate process automation initiatives to a level critical to digital transformation strategy as a whole.

When selecting a service provider, Forrester recommends looking for the following strategic process initiatives:

• An established history of engagement at a strategic level. As the shift moves more and more from tactical projects to strategic initiatives, services firms that are able to engage at an executive level and implement change across an organization will best serve their clients long-term.
• A focus on customer journey. Services providers who can map journeys to their DPA implementation strategies best combine process automation to the overall goals and vision of an organization.
• Proficiency in handling wide process shifts that require significant change management. As modern DPA shifts take place, the scale of DPA development is significantly larger. Successful services firms must be able to define and develop both broad enablement and change management at scale.

Client Success Story

Our client, an American multinational financial services company, had all of its critical back office processes and operations on a legacy platform that was no longer going to be supported. We worked to document existing processes from the legacy workflow platform and to transform processes with DPA. Over the last seven years, we helped create the client’s CoE and continue to be a principal advisor on the CoE board. As a result, all back-office processes have been migrated to a new, streamlined platform serving 30,500 internal users. Our DPA implementation has also led to a forecasted growth from 10,000 instances to 900,000 instances per month on the new system.

Learn More

Our DPA experts help you foster communication and establish optimal processes. We execute on building strategies and roadmaps, and on helping to train your organizations in the use of DPA methodologies and tools so that you can continuously review and improve your automation processes. If you’re read to get started, reach out to one of our specialists.

Or, check out our guide that discusses the challenges vendors and customers face in perfecting their process implementations as DPA continues to evolve.

Digital process automation (DPA) continues to garner attention for its ability to support digital transformation. More than ever, leaders are looking to expand their DPA services from their pre-existing BPM practices in order to meet the growing demands of consumers.

As a result of these increased demands, the focus of digital process automation has moved from concern about cost reduction to an emphasis on digital transformation. Traditional methodologies are being redefined to focus on customer journeys and to ensure a seamless, end-to-end user experience.

Organization leaders looking to evolve their DPA services face challenges with the complexities of this process. They look to service providers to help them optimize processes to support customer experiences and to drive digital transformation at a strategic level that ensures overall change management.

Forrester’s recent report, “Now Tech: Digital Process Automation Service Providers, Q3 2018,” recommends Perficient among 18 top providers. The report advises application development and delivery professionals on choosing the right partner for DPA implementation.

Since the span of software reach for end-to-end automation is much greater than that of traditional BPM practices, organizations must move towards systems where business users are in charge of development processes. Organizations unsure of how to approach this necessary change management, seek out professional services firms to guide them through the process. In finding the right firm, Forrester suggests assessing your organization’s needs, which includes:

• Determining the scope of your DPA effort
• Identifying the role of process in your digital transformation strategy

From this assessment, the next step is to identify what focus(es) your service provider needs to have – business transformation, technology implementation, or customer experience.

Within the report, Perficient was identified for our technology implementation expertise, making us an ideal choice for those looking for help in implementation, design, integration, and development.  Additionally, Forrester highlighted our work across several key industries, including financial services, energy and utilities, and healthcare.

We are honored by this recognition because it speaks to the strength of our growing DPA practice. Our inclusion as one of these select service providers signifies the time and effort we put in to developing our own skillsets, certifications, and technical competencies to deliver change to organizations seeking to move beyond their existing BPM practices with new DPA services.

Learn More

We understand the value and innovative benefits that DPA provides to organizations. If you’re ready to grow your digital process automation practice, reach out to one of our specialists.