Non-profits, charities and social services…cont2…
In 2000, I commissioned a market study[1] for case management applications for social services agencies and was not surprised to find that there were very few systems available.
“Given the overall size of the potential market, there are surprisingly few comparable products available. Of more than 600 products identified and marketed as being designed for use in the non-profit and human service sector, more than 90 percent were membership-tracking, accounting or fundraising products. Of the remaining 10 percent, only seven could be considered as being comparable to SocialNet.”
(SocialNet was the case management application we had developed at that point). It seems that technology developers thought the most important software for social services agencies would be donation tracking and reporting. There was also software for volunteer management and some diagnostic systems and assessment systems; but there was virtually nothing for helping social workers deal with recording the complex social issues they faced day in and day out and helping to manage the data to make it useful for client service, research and funding. Why was this case if such a huge market exists today for case management systems? IBM and Siebel seem to think it’s a significant marketplace.[2]
“IBM and Siebel Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SEBL) today announced the two companies have agreed to jointly deliver case management solutions to the $24 billion social services and social security market.”
Chris Gibbon, IBM’s Global Social Services and Social Security Executive headquartered in the UK is quoted in the same press release. “Extending our alliance with Siebel Systems will help bring market-leading CRM capabilities to the social services and social security market. By providing social services organizations with a more complete and more accurate picture of the families and individuals they serve, IBM’s Integrated Case Management Solution and Siebel Systems will allow organizations to deliver critical services more effectively, more efficiently, and more responsively.” That’s getting on the band wagon for sure. I had the pleasure of having a chat with Chris over a coffee in 2004 and he said that IBM’s focus over the next few years would be to dramatically increase their market share of the community sector through an effort of hyper growth. This is not going to happen if there isn’t a large market and a very large need that has been “discovered”.
According to Harvard Business Review, services which less than a decade ago would never be thought of as being removed from direct government delivery, such as prisons and other correctional institutions, are now being managed by major corporate entities such as Martin Marietta, the Marriott Corporation and Youth Services International.[3]
All of these trends point to a strong market need in Government, the for-profit and non-profit domains for enterprise level case management systems for outcomes measurement, client management and above all accountability.
So the nagging question: Why aren’t there numerous case management systems around? The answer to this question is that technology is only now able to meet the practice needs of this widely distributed and disparate sector. With the rise of the Internet in the last ten years, technical standards like XML coming into play in the last five, and technologies like LAMP, ava and .NET, we are now able to approach the challenges of this marketplace.
What does this mean for the social services industry? Who or what is driving this technology “need”? The Answer: Public Sector Reform.
[1]A Market Study, SocialNet, Artemis Pr and Design, 2000
[2]NEWS RELEASE, IBM and Siebel Systems Target the $24 Billion Social Services and Social Security Market , IBM Selects Siebel Public Sector as Key Component of Its Integrated Case Management Solution ,BARCELONA, Spain—April 19, 2005
[3]“The Changing Face of Nonprofits”, Harvard Business Review, January - February, 1999.
“Given the overall size of the potential market, there are surprisingly few comparable products available. Of more than 600 products identified and marketed as being designed for use in the non-profit and human service sector, more than 90 percent were membership-tracking, accounting or fundraising products. Of the remaining 10 percent, only seven could be considered as being comparable to SocialNet.”
(SocialNet was the case management application we had developed at that point). It seems that technology developers thought the most important software for social services agencies would be donation tracking and reporting. There was also software for volunteer management and some diagnostic systems and assessment systems; but there was virtually nothing for helping social workers deal with recording the complex social issues they faced day in and day out and helping to manage the data to make it useful for client service, research and funding. Why was this case if such a huge market exists today for case management systems? IBM and Siebel seem to think it’s a significant marketplace.[2]
“IBM and Siebel Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SEBL) today announced the two companies have agreed to jointly deliver case management solutions to the $24 billion social services and social security market.”
Chris Gibbon, IBM’s Global Social Services and Social Security Executive headquartered in the UK is quoted in the same press release. “Extending our alliance with Siebel Systems will help bring market-leading CRM capabilities to the social services and social security market. By providing social services organizations with a more complete and more accurate picture of the families and individuals they serve, IBM’s Integrated Case Management Solution and Siebel Systems will allow organizations to deliver critical services more effectively, more efficiently, and more responsively.” That’s getting on the band wagon for sure. I had the pleasure of having a chat with Chris over a coffee in 2004 and he said that IBM’s focus over the next few years would be to dramatically increase their market share of the community sector through an effort of hyper growth. This is not going to happen if there isn’t a large market and a very large need that has been “discovered”.
According to Harvard Business Review, services which less than a decade ago would never be thought of as being removed from direct government delivery, such as prisons and other correctional institutions, are now being managed by major corporate entities such as Martin Marietta, the Marriott Corporation and Youth Services International.[3]
All of these trends point to a strong market need in Government, the for-profit and non-profit domains for enterprise level case management systems for outcomes measurement, client management and above all accountability.
So the nagging question: Why aren’t there numerous case management systems around? The answer to this question is that technology is only now able to meet the practice needs of this widely distributed and disparate sector. With the rise of the Internet in the last ten years, technical standards like XML coming into play in the last five, and technologies like LAMP, ava and .NET, we are now able to approach the challenges of this marketplace.
What does this mean for the social services industry? Who or what is driving this technology “need”? The Answer: Public Sector Reform.
[1]A Market Study, SocialNet, Artemis Pr and Design, 2000
[2]NEWS RELEASE, IBM and Siebel Systems Target the $24 Billion Social Services and Social Security Market , IBM Selects Siebel Public Sector as Key Component of Its Integrated Case Management Solution ,BARCELONA, Spain—April 19, 2005
[3]“The Changing Face of Nonprofits”, Harvard Business Review, January - February, 1999.
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