Track 5 - Software Product Managers

Monday, May 5, 2008

Market Positioning - an overview of the trends in software industry and positioning XBRL technology and impact for vendors

The IT Industry has some tough decisions to make. That shows from an analyses of the trends for the upcoming 3 years, that PwC conducted amongst 20 leading IT companies (B2B) in the Netherlands.

The effect of XBRL on IT companies
The XBRL International Progress Report of November 2007 shows 35 software vendors that have solutions in place, including Microsoft and SAP. Although the progress is tremendous, it is safe to say that we are not their yet. In the Netherlands the Dutch Taxonomies and infrastructure are in place. Software vendors have mapped the taxonomies to their data structure. The XBRL standards are stable. Yet a minority of user companies are cautiously setting the first steps in exchanging data with XBRL. In February 2008, the first Dutch IT company provided statistical information to the Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS) after successful pilots for the exchange of Annual Reports in 2007.

In the Netherlands we have a unique position, where different governmental parties work together in harmonising and standardising of the requested financial reports. This unique cross domain approach is now being adopted in Australia.

However, it will not be the user company that effectively will implement the XBRL standard. They will buy whatever software there is on the market. A standard will only become a standard once it is adopted by the majority of user companies. Software vendors will have to start creating functionality. And for them there will be costs involved. Due to the standardisation, this should be an investment that can be rolled out over a large number of users. But how do these investments fit in the business model of IT companies? Will IT companies be pro-active or will they just sit and wait until end users come up with their demands?

XBRL is rather complex. There is a lack of knowledge and experience. Representatives of accountant offices, government and software vendors talk about XBRL, but do they really share that knowledge internally? And does their knowledge extend from theory and an occasional pilot?

The Dutch government stimulates XBRL, but its use is not mandatory. XBRL is seen as a tool to achieve one of the governmental policies on reduction of governmental burden. This gives XBRL an ambiguous political undertone.

So, in order to make XBRL succeed, government and IT companies need to burst the chicken-and-egg situation. Together with accountant organisations the advantages and functionality should be brought to the attention of end users and strategies for the adoption should be jointly developed.

The Future of XBRL -- A Developer/Software Town Hall

This session will be led by John Turner, Chair of XBRL Standard Board (XSB) and will include a panel of members of the XSB and Hugh Wallis, Technical Director, XBRL International. John will give a presentation on the road map and proposed timelines for XBRL technical work for the coming years and the XSB members will discuss the implications of the different work efforts (Rendering, Versioning, Formulas, and Base Specification). There will be Q&A time allocated and audience interaction is encouraged.

XBRL and the Semantic Web

The Semantic Web is fast becoming a reality and one of it’s main focuses is to integrate the data on the Web and help the Web become a “Web of Data”. Ivan Herman, Semantic Web Activity Lead at W3C. and member of SWSA (Semantic Web Science Association), will give a brief introduction to the Semantic Web, and then there will be a moderated discussion led by Diane Mueller, JustSystems and panelists Ivan Herman (W3C), David Vun Kannon (PwC), Hugh Wallis (XBRL Int) will discuss the implications for integrating XBRL into the Semantic Web.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

XBRL for Small-Medium Enterprises

It’s no secret that SME companies now and in future have to report and will benefit from XBRL. This said a lot is still not clear in which format the standard(s) per country for XBRL will be. As a software developer you are faced with choices about Build versus Buy versus Partnering.

Build -- With the obvious consequence that you will have to maintain and manage all XBRL changes now and in the future? For one country it will probably be manageable, but if you have an international focus you will be faced with certain challenges. Is it worth it to invest your R&D money in this strategy?
Buy --This will be a strategy that can be considered however which party is for sale and what are the investments you’ll have to make to implement it in your core product. How will you merge the different company cultures and do you have the time to do this in order to be prepared for the XBRL need in the market.
Partnering -- A partnership with the specialist for XBRL (not only for the Netherlands) is also a consideration. The Time to market and no in dept knowledge for the different countries are certainly an advantage. However Connectivity must be possible via web service, each party can spend development money on her own focus areas.

Twinfield is the market leader for online accounting (SaaS). With customers in 22 countries Twinfield has to make every day decisions on build versus buy versus partnering. André Kwakernaat, CEO and Founder of Twinfield International will explain more on the chosen strategy for Twinfield.

XBRL Integration in (GL/ERP/TAX) applications and architectures, from production to consumption, preparer software and regulatory systems.

This session is about implementation issues, from the business point of view, when integrating XBRL reporting to existing applications. Based on an actual case of integration and further works on XBRL reporting, the themes will cover:

• The general understanding of the integration process with issues like selecting the right taxonomy portion, mapping accounts and dimensions
• The issues relating to integration: what level of integration? How to manage several taxonomies? How to deal with XBRL Taxonomies logics? How to deal with extensions and data transformation? How to manage audit trail and validations?
• And the issues relating to the maintenance of the bridge and versions over time.

The world has started to engage the use of XBRL for filing regulatory reports.  The power of regulation is propelling the standard forward to adoption.  The real power of XBRL to achieve system interchange of data within and without companies is yet to be recognized or realized.  The opportunity for the thousands of world business systems to be able to exchange data and schematic understanding of that data without human intervention  is a powerful achievement.  One that will revolutionize the market of business systems.  It will empower small innovative software vendors to compete with unique value propositions like never before. Large multi-system integrators will  leverage XBRL to substantially reduce the time and costs related to  delivering integrated systems.  Most importantly the enterprise customer will finally own their own information - rather than the system that holds the related business model as is the case today.   

What will the market for business systems look like if they could all talk to each other?

Leveraging XBRL & DITA to Deliver Authoritative Literature to the Web

One of the core capabilities of XBRL linkbases is to link the concepts in an XBRL taxonomy to the Authoritative Literature and Reference Materials via the Reference Linkbase. In this session, you will learn how FASB and IASB are delivering this functionality and content on the web today by leveraging DITA, the XBRL reference linkbases, and content management systems. Speakers include Tom Saleh (FAF), Holger Obst (IASCF), Jim Stock (Empolis), in a panel moderated by Diane Mueller (JustSystems).

Business Case - how to extend the offering to the customers and strategy for software vendors and IT staff in delivering XBRL into product portfolio.

This session explores the impact of XBRL on the software industry in the financial reporting area. XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is a language that has established itself as the standard for communication of business information between different organizations and information systems. XBRL is targeted at exchanging financial and other business reports electronically between companies and regulators, banks and stakeholders as well as internally between different subsidiaries and business divisions. XBRL will be utilized in the existing product suite of small, mid sized and large software vendors.

Confronted with the emerging XBRL standard independent software vendors (software vendor’s) need to answer questions that - amongst others - involve:-
• In what way are your existing users confronted with having to comply to XBRL?
• Does it mean you have to provide XBRL functionalities?
• If so, for which applications do you want or need to use XBRL?
• And what exact XBRL functionalities are needed?
• For the identified applications, how much time, resources and investment are required and available to be ready in time?
• Do you make or buy the necessary XBRL (enabling) technology?
• Do you build XBRL components into your (legacy) applications or do you obtain the use of a web based XBRL service provider providing XBRL functionality?

Therefore many software vendors already have been confronted with these and other questions. Many vendors have to cope with strategic decisions at hand.