Today we feature an interview with Stephane Carrez – head of Planzone’s R&D Department and Architect. Stephane will tell us about Planzone’s ambitions and plans for the near future, how the team works, what social media tools Planzone is using and how the company managed to become a success on a crowded market in a year.

CIO Happy Hour (CHH): Could you please briefly introduce yourself?
Stephane Carrez (SC): Gladly! My name is Stephane Carrez, I am head of Planzone R&D team and architect of Planzone.

CHH: Stephane, in several words, what is Planzone about?
SC: Planzone is about creating an easy-to-use online collaborative workspace, where all project data is centralized and can be shared amongst the project team. Through the internet, this workspace is accessible to all parties no matter the time, location or language. In short, Planzone is the perfect Internet application for a comprehensive “Management by Project” approach to group activities. It is easy to use and to learn, without the need to be an expert project manager to be proficient. We also chose to deliver our solution as a SaaS (Software As a Service) application because we don’t want our users to have to install and maintain a piece of software before they can get to work.

CHH: How did you manage in such a short time starting only a year ago, to be more competitive than your mature rivals like Basecamp for example?
SC: In its time, Basecamp had set a standard in terms of usability and simplicity. We absolutely loved it at first sight but we rapidly grew frustrated by its limitations. The focus of Planzone is more towards being productive by providing the right combination of tools to manage multiple projects with different groups. Since our experience and references in this domain are different to Basecamp, it is hard to make a comparison. We run our own race.

CHH: Nowadays project management goes together with document management, collaboration and many other activities. How do you solve the dilemma – either to provide a simple project management tool or extend its functional scope, but make it heavier?
SC: Our focus lies in the synergy between project management and collaboration. Every feature in Planzone is analyzed in terms of customer relevance, complexity, and expected usability. One of our goals is to keep Planzone as easy and accessible as possible, while using the standard Internet infrastructure. This results in higher accessibility, efficiency and adherence.

CHH: FLEX and Silverlight applications seem to be the next generation of applications. Will Planzone have a desktop version via AIR engine or a similar solution?
SC: FLEX and Silverlight are amazing technologies we follow closely. We will probably integrate some FLEX components in our service for example to have interactive multi-project reports. In the short term however, we have no plans for the development of a desktop application. The ability to work “offline” on project data could be an important feature so we keep that option open.
We have a very open architecture and the Planzone API is a component that could be used for implementing such a desktop application. In fact, with our API, anybody could write such application (although it could be complex).

CHH: Palnzone is developed by project management pros with outstanding background in software projects. Does Planzone fit the description of «best of all» for IT businesses?
SC: IT departments, IT services companies and R&D organisations are a big part of our traditional client base. These customers often require specific functionalities to run their processes and manage their businesses. Besides functional depth, these customers require first-class product usability to facilitate adoption with their staff. Satisfying these different requirements is one of our strengths.
However, Planzone goes beyond the specific needs of IT businesses. In fact, Planzone is used by all sorts of organizations, from marketing and sales agencies to headhunters, venture capitalists, construction firms, relief organisations, government agencies, universities, students, churches…
Planzone usage really flourishes, when different departments within any organisation decide to work in a true transverse manner, while being capable to include outside parties in their projects processes. This is project collaboration inside and outside the enterprise firewall.
For example, imagine the business development team of a large retail chain in charge of opening new stores. They need to collaborate seamlessly and efficiently with their financial, HR, sales and marketing departments while connecting with external consultants, agencies and suppliers at the same time. When you can collaborate on projects “inside and outside the firewall”, it is a beautiful form of efficiency.

CHH: Who is a leading the project developer? What kind of crucial skills one must have for making the product successful? What is the role of users’ feedback?
SC: One key objective for Planzone was to create, test and launch new product functionalities in a very short time-frame. We also wanted to involve our R&D team beyond their usual responsibilities and have them take full ownership of their work by participating actively in our product roadmap. For these reasons, we adopted an Agile development methodology. We have a very flat structure in our R&D departments and developers are working in teams on specific subjects.
In order to make the product successful, you have to manage a delicate balance between marketing and sales investments, your R&D roadmap and what evolutions you perceive in the marketplace. You constantly have to ask yourself: are we creating value for our customers and does it make sense for our target market? The only way to know this is to constantly work with your customers and get their feedback.

CHH: Have you thought on integrating Planzone into big platforms? You have your own API, so it seems like a great natural next step.
SC: We agree. We are releasing the Planzone API gradually. The latest development has been the Firefox plugin, where one can access the personal to-do list instantly. We are also working on new add-ons and our goal is to have a full API released before Q2 2010.
Integrating Planzone into big platforms is possible but before we need to see a real customer need.

CHH: Has been SaaS model successful for planzone? Do you think this approach will change in the near future? If yes, what’s coming?
SC: The SaaS model has been extremely successful for Planzone. From a user perspective, this is an almost perfect model:
No upfront costs. Cheaper to adopt and manage than offline software;
No hardware to buy or manage;
Easier to use because of the internet infrastructure;
Software is always up-to-date.

CHH: Augeo Software, the company which is the owner of the Planzone solution also markets Augeo5, an enterprise project and portfolio management software. Do they compete in some way in the market?
SC: We had many debates in our company whether Planzone would compete or not with Augeo5, our enterprise product. Both products play in very different market segments and their delivery model is also different. Planzone is a pure SaaS product while Augeo5 is sold like any other traditional software. Augeo5 is also installed on client’s premises while Planzone is hosted in secured data centers.
We concluded that both our Planzone and Augeo5 products would benefit from each other. One key reason Planzone has been successful from the start is due to our extended market knowledge coming from our experience with Augeo5. Conversely, Augeo5 is also taking advantage of innovative technologies we developed for Planzone.
In the end, our customers will decide if our two products compete with each other. They seem to agree with our dual approach though. In fact we have now several customers that are using both Planzone and Augeo5 in their organization.

CHH: Everybody is going mobile now. Does Planzone have plans to step into this direction?
SC: Yes. We have noticed the market trend of instant real-time information to everyone concerned. We are developing mobile solutions for Planzone. It is one example of how we play into new evolutions.

CHH: How do social media tools help you in your everyday work? What tools would you advise everyone to use?
Popular tools in Planzone are Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and various messengers. While there are benefits to having company-wide chat possibilities, there is a danger of losing focus and using these tools in a compulsive manner. I guess it really depends case-by-case on the person, function and company.
CHH: You are using Twitter and several other social networks to promote Planzone. Are these tools productive?
SC: A lot of these tools’ productivity is creating awareness and brand recognition. Often it is hard to quantify how much effect they exactly have, since a lot of their effect is psychological.
The way I see it, these tools are free, take almost no time to use and give visibility to the service. That’s why we support them.

CHH: What is your product path for the coming years?
SC: Key elements that define our product path are: client feedback, technological and market evolutions, product flexibility and general ease of use. Many of our customers are “always on” meaning they want to access their project information and communicate with their team members almost at anytime, from anywhere and using many different devices. We are conducting several initiatives to support this kind of nomadic work style. Today, our work does not stop at the office door and we need to take these evolutions into account.

CHH: What are your ambitions on number of subscribers for 2009?
SC: We worked on Planzone for two years before launching in June 2008. Our software company has been publishing Project and Portfolio Management software for over 18 years. We have the unique luxury of a motivated and international client base that gives us an enormous amount of input. We combined all of this with our passion for new technology and our desire to reinvent ourselves. The result is Planzone – a product we are very proud of.
Our growth strategy should be viewed in the context of the Internet, where people have a near-perfect market information about products, prices and user satisfaction. Therefore, more than focusing on an absolute number of subscribers, our goal is to make an increased number of people from very different backgrounds understand how much they can benefit from using Planzone in their business or personal life and have them spread the word.
Excited and happy users result in an exponential growth – especially on the Internet. Today, we have over 8′000 users and we expect to double that in a few months.

CHH: Stephane, thank you a lot for the interview! Such a great product on the market as Planzone has a lot of potential. We are sure you will achieve a double of subscribers in a few months and will meet the coming year with a new great set of features and even more possibilities for your customers.