As global competition accelerates, businesses are challenged to span a wider array of networks, continuously improve their processes, and meet greater demands from customers. Managing operations with speed, efficiency and quality is becoming increasingly difficult. The 1990's boom in technical innovation alleviated some of that pressure, but businesses have grown cautious in their spending, demanding that any technology they adopt must increase sales or cut costs.
Strategists have now refocused attention on the core values that drive business success: finding growth opportunities and sustaining profits. Yet the business environment is still marked by rapid change and growing complexity, with technology as a key driver.
Two of the most promising new areas of technology for producing a solid return on investment are collaboration (e.g., peer-2-peer & grid computing, open source products) and real-time organizing (e.g., instant messaging services, call me now-solutions). They improve communications between employees or between a company and its suppliers and other business partners. Because of the potential savings that can be realized, these technologies may be the most important trends in business e-commerce.
That's why catchy.concepts is dedicated to these two areas, of which we believe that they will play an increasingly relevant role in the netwerk economy.
catchy.concepts offers valuable, top-line research and advice for company executives. Get answers to the questions many executives are asking today - about products, companies, markets, technologies, and external forces affecting business, today and in the future. Concise. Thought-provoking. Business-focused. Grounded in reality.
Continually transforming your business is a key to survival in a world that is constantly changing. Success comes when you transcend day-to-day challenges to create and sustain true value in the network economy - value your customers want and your stakeholders demand.
A new era of electronic data collection and interactive reporting is here. catchy.research offers its clients exciting new ways to collect and report on data that are fast and easy to use and that are collected at a low cost. These data can then perfectly be used for customer satisfaction research, the development of new products and much more.
catchy.research has considerable experience providing high-quality research data to internet service providers, financials, retailers, and content providers and organizers.
Conducting market research is complex and challenging. High-quality data collection is the foundation of all successful research projects regardless of where and how the survey is conducted. catchy.research has the insight, practical knowledge and technical expertise necessary to meet the demands of the emerging electronic research revolution. Our staff can assist you with:
- Questionnaire development and design (e-mail, web)
- Programming
- Data processing and analysis
- Quick turnaround surveys
The internet is here to stay and electronic techniques are going to radically change the way market research is done in the future.
The fees we charge for our internet surveys are extremely competitive. Our goal is to attract and retain customers by providing them with high-quality service at a cost that is both fair and affordable.
catchy.concepts employs the PRINCE2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) methodology when working for clients. This methodology provides us with a framework to manage projects in an effective and structured way.
In PRINCE2 a project is defined by means of the deliverable end product. This contradicts traditional methods which focus on activities. To realise the total product, it is decomposed into partial products which are coupled with milestones for their deliverance.
The core elements of PRINCE2 are:
- Strong focus on the justification of the project (Why is the project started?).
- Pre-defined organisational structure for the project management team.
- Product-oriented planning and approach.
- Splitting the project in well-manageable and controllable phases.
The model can be visualised as follows:
catchy.mobile views its clients as partners in the development of succesful wireless services and applications. We deliver a broad spectrum of high-quality, dynamic, modular, and (semi) technology independent solutions in the form of information, communication, and transaction concepts and applications.
These strategic, creative, and technological solutions are as yet based on the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), SMS, i-Mode, and Palm - however with a clear eye towards the future.
To our customers, these solutions mean an investment in an increasing rentability through mobile internet applications, rather than mere experiments or costly investments.
To end users, mobile internet applications offer relevant advantages, like:
- (In)dependence of time and place (portability)
- Personalised services (based on profiles)
- Reliability (especially relevant for transactions)
- Speed and (necessary) availability of realtime services
- Convenience
Our proposition is built upon the creation of value for our customers and their end users and is based on the following fundaments:
- Multichannel strategy,
- Multichannel marketing,
- Wireless technology.
Although we offer a complete portfolio to our customers, one of our main strengths lies in the field of application building and service providing. Included below is a partially overview of current projects of catchy.mobile.
Today, technology is moving towards the future of the wireless web. Mobile devices such as palmtops, handhelds, and cellular phones are becoming all the rage. People want these devices to do everything from access their e-mail accounts, to utilize the internet, to access personal and corporate information.
One type of service that is available is a technology called SMS (Short Messaging Service). SMS is the technology that allows text messages to be received and sent over mobile devices.
SMS is a very inexpensive method of communication. Messages are delivered immediately (or when the phone is turned on). Like e-mail, they can be reviewed or stored in your phone for as long as you wish. SMS messages can also be sent out to huge groups of people with the single press of a button. SMS also allows for unified messaging. This is where SMS can take on a number of different message formats (including voice mail, e-mail and fax) and allows users to access them from their mobile device.
catchy.mobile can build SMS extensions for existing internet applications (including websites). With these extensions, your internet applications can cost effectively harness the many opportunities of SMS.
Mobilizer is our open source mobile internet browser. It is the product of a research project with the goals to collaborate with developers over the world to deliver a fully-featured, standards compliant mobile internet browser for Windows and a large number of Unix platforms.
The functionalities of the most recent version include:
- Standalone WAP en i-Mode browser
- Compliance with latest WML & WMLScript specifications
- Developed for Windows and Linux platforms (Linux version is open source)
More information on mobilizer can be found at SourceForge.
Our product GroupCom is based on the concept of multichannel closed user group communication, and offers you and your company:
- A multichannel corporate communication tool (sms, wap, web e-mail)
- A hybrid mobile internet solution (wap & sms)
- A mobile extension of your corporate intranet
- A time and place independent closed user group tool
GroupCom offers the following features:
- Secure web messages (SSL)
- Superuser management and reporting tool
- Messaging of one-to-many (GroupSms)
Let's offer you an example.
You would like to reach more than 10 of you colleagues for a message, so you use GroupCom:
- You enter your message in the GroupCom Message Center per wap, web or sms.
- Your colleagues receive an sms with your complete message or are notified per sms to use GroupCom.
- Your colleagues read your message per wap, sms, e-mail or web.
This mode of communication offers the following general benefits:
- No sms text limitations (more than 160 text characters as mobile message)
- Cost reduction for sending long mobile messages (the central wap pages have no text limitations)
- Cost reduction for sending sms to a large amount of users (purchase discounts)
- Cost control for sending messages
- All correspondence is stored for later usage
If we take secretary services as an example, GroupCom offers the following benefits:
- Less phone calls per client
- Online reporting to clients replaces reporting per fax
- More time & place independent comfort for clients
- More effectiveness in reaching clients
- No technology investments
- Creation of "fatter clients"
Besides these, corporate usage of GroupCom in general benefits from:
- Control of corporate mobile costs (sms and wap)
- Reporting of corporate (mobile) communication
screenshot:
catchy.mobile also builds wireless LANS or W-LANs. A W-LAN is an on-premise data communication system that reduces the need for wired connections and makes new applications possible, thereby adding new flexibility to networking. Mobile W-LAN users can access information and network resources as they attend meetings, collaborate with other users, or move to other locations. But the benefits of W-LANs extend beyond user mobility and productivity to enable portable LANs. With W-LANs, the network itself is movable. W-LANs have proven their effectiveness in vertical markets and are now experiencing broader applicability in a wide range of business settings.
A W-LAN is a flexible data communication system implemented as an extension to, or as an alternative for, a wired LAN within a building or campus. Using electromagnetic waves, W-LANs transmit and receive data over the air, minimizing the need for wired connections. Thus, W-LANs combine data connectivity with user mobility, and, through simplified configuration, enable movable LANs.
Over the last seven years, W-LANs have gained strong popularity in a number of vertical markets, including the health-care, retail, manufacturing, warehousing, and academic arenas. These industries have profited from the productivity gains of using hand-held terminals and notebook computers to transmit real-time information to centralized hosts for processing. Today W-LANs are becoming more widely recognized as a general-purpose connectivity alternative for a broad range of business customers.
W-LANs frequently augment rather than replace wired LAN networks-often providing the final few meters of connectivity between a backbone network and the mobile user. The power and flexibility of wireless LANs make possible many applications, like: consulting or accounting audit engagement teams or small workgroups increase productivity with quick network setup; network managers in dynamic environments minimize the overhead of moves, adds, and changes with wireless LANs, thereby reducing the cost of LAN ownership; and trade show and branch office workers minimize setup requirements by installing preconfigured wireless LANs needing no local MIS support.
catchy.people specializes in providing IT & ICT professionals on a permanent / contract basis in the form of project sourcing, outsourcing, interim management, and professional search.
For more information you can visit our catchy.people website (http://people.catchy.net).
catchy.people specializes in providing IT & ICT professionals on a permanent / contract basis in the form of project sourcing, outsourcing, interim management, and professional search.
For more information you can visit our catchy.people website (http://people.catchy.net).
catchy.net is a network of internet business experts who are driven by the same vision - to contribute to shaping tomorrow's network society together with our clients and partners in order to create a better world to live in.
Our portfolio of services extends from research and consulting through online marketing to human esourcing. For all these services, we focus on profitability, usability and the constant search for improvements in the client's interest.
The solutions we offer comprise three areas - knowledge, know-how, and know-where - and are delivered by catchy.concepts (business consultancy and project management), catchy.research (online marketing research), catchy.mobile (wireless solutions), and catchy.people (human esourcing of IT & ICT professionals).
With our experience, network, and professional culture with motivated and optimally informed professionals, we offer our clients entrance to relevant technology and disciplines to be succesful now and in the future.
We view the relationship with our clients as a partnership in which we can help each other with the complex problems and opportunities offered by the network economy.
To guarantee the seniority of our management, catchy.net has amongst others implemented an Advisory Board, which consists of the following persons:
- Bert Hijgenaar, strategy consultant, former CEO Skybernet, former principal of Deloitte & Touche Bakkenist, and chairman of the Advisory Board;
- Roland Notermans, founder ESEC: professionals in educational entertainment for the sectors Investment & Finance, Management & Organisation, and Sport & Entertainment;
- Maarten van de Biggelaar, CEO Quote Media and co-founder Planet internet.
The founders of catchy.net have been key figures in directing catchy.net's focus towards the internet, open source technologies, and the integration of both. All from the perspective of usability for end-users and strategic advantages for our clients.
True to their business vision and technical knowledge the founders have maintained the founders' control of the company and its direction through successful negotiations with strategic investors and partners. The founders are responsible for the overall business development of the company, investor relations, major partners, general strategy and tactical input in key accounts.
The founders of catchy.net have been involved in several successful internet ventures and projects in the Netherlands of companies as Planet Internet, IDG Communications Netherlands, PCM Uitgevers and has extensive business and marketing experience. All the founders have a profound insight and understanding of the network economy and are frequent authors on media-related issues.
Our mission is to support organisations in the development of succesful solutions to:
- optimize workflow (e.g. efficiency or cost reductive tactics), and
- increase market effectiveness (e.g. multichannel communication strategies)
Our clients are visionaries who are using new media to redefine the way they do business. We work with them to translate their business vision into an integrated strategy. Collaboration is the key: we immerse ourselves in their industry so we can understand the challenges they face, and we educate them about the capabilities and requirements of the different media and technologies involved. Together, we conceive, design, and execute strategies which catapult them to the forefront of their industry. In this process, we respect the social and cultural change this may bring about.
Our uncommon passion, insight, and integrity form the foundation of our vision and common purpose: to contribute to shaping tomorrow's network society together with our clients and partners in order to create a better world to live in.
We do this by acknowledging and challenging both existing assumptions, expectations and accepted truths, and the unknown. And by creating a company that inspires new thoughts and new business. A place in which employees are encouraged and supported to learn, teach and grow by developing and realizing their ideas.
We are right now in the early stages of a new, network-based economy, one whose core is as fundamentally different from its predecessor as, the industrial age was from the agricultural era. If you grasp this premise it's much easier to understand a lot of what's going on around you, including why a seemingly unrelenting tsunami of change keeps washing over you and your business.
It is fairly widely accepted that the developed world is changing from an industrial economy based on steel, automobiles, and roads to a network economy built on silicon, computers, and networks. Many people talk of a shift in economic relationships that's as significant as the previous displacement of the agricultural age by the industrial age. There are new dynamics, new rules, and new drivers for success.
But no one has asked the all important question - what's so new about the network economy?
The network economy is all about competing for the future, the capacity to create new products or services, and the ability to transform businesses into new entities that yesterday couldn't be imagined and that the day after tomorrow may be obsolete.
A dozen overlapping themes are emerging that differentiate the network economy from the old. By understanding these you have the precondition for transforming your business for success.
Learn more about these themes in the following whitepaper:
For our consultancy and software development activities, we focus on two areas of which we believe that they will play an increasingly relevant role in the network economy: collaboration and real-time organizing.
Collaboration, e.g.:
- peer-2-peer
- grid computing
- open source products
Real-Time Organizing, e.g.:
- instant messaging services
- call me now-solutions
As global competition accelerates, businesses are challenged to span a wider array of networks, continuously improve their processes, and meet greater demands from customers. Managing operations with speed, efficiency and quality is becoming increasingly difficult. The 1990's boom in technical innovation alleviated some of that pressure, but businesses have grown cautious in their spending, demanding that any technology they adopt must increase sales or cut costs.
One of the most promising new technologies for producing a solid return on investment is collaborative software. These are programs that improve communications between employees or between a company and its suppliers and other business partners. Because of the potential savings that can be realized, collaborative technology may be the most important trend in business ecommerce.
The direct benefits from collaborative technology are productivity gains, transaction facilitation and enhanced planning. The premise of decentralized collaboration is that real-time, fluid communications among individuals drives the velocity of transactions and increases productivity. Being able to communicate with partners in a supply chain or demand chain in real-time can increase the level of 'touch' between parties in a network. Collaboration in a decentralized, peer-driven model permits a network of individuals to communicate in a manner akin to everyday life.
"Real Time" is a phrase borrowed from computer culture to describe events in which action (or command) and reaction (or execution) are simultaneous. There is no lapse in time and no element of distance in the event. While many real-time events are apparent, as when we speed-dial our broker to make that trade now, most are not. We insert our bank card into a London ATM and get money from our Dutch account. We watch important events live on TV. Such instant-gratification events change our frame of reference forever, because we begin to expect immediate satisfaction. We expect to judge our reality instantly in terms of truth or fiction, right or wrong, good or bad service, acceptable or unacceptable behavior. The technological effects on our environment force individuals and organizations alike to adapt in new ways, and these new ways of doing things begin to alter cultural and value-laden patterns of our society. The bottom line is that businesses must radically redefine their own perceptions and capabilities to keep up. They need to create "sensing" organizations that are always monitoring, feeding, querying, fact finding, adjusting, trying, and initiating.
A perfect example of how collaboration and real-time organizing can work together are corporate web portals. These portals will evolve into places on the internet where people can contact and collaborate with each other and with other businesses.
Major improvements in portal technology, including the integration software that links a portal's front and back ends, can give users one point of access from various devices, whether they be wired or wireless. These advancements meet one of the primary goals of companies doing business on the Web - making relevant information easily accessible to employees, business partners and customers, while driving profits in the process.
As portals turn into these one-stop shops for information, they'll depend on a number of factors:
- Real-time collaboration services, including instant messaging, discussion areas, group calendars, task tracking and shared document libraries with check-in/check-out services.
- Personalized delivery of content/applications which gives people access to information and applications specific to their functions.
- Integrated applications that bring together enterprise applications, syndicated content, websites, e-mail and workflow integration, amongst others.
- In addition, open and nonproprietary computing standards like XML and Linux, which allow businesses to connect easily and flexibly with one another, are crucial to achieving this kind of integration.
After the integration issue is solved, the next step is to extend the reach of the portal and improve the context for which the information is used by incorporating such items as location-based technologies and intelligent notification into the portal experience.
Hive computing and the larger P2P initiative are in the earliest stages of development. After all, it's only been over the last two years that broadband connections have achieved the kind of penetration necessary for such a scheme to work. If this is the beginning, what will the future look like?
Once the initial obstacles are surmounted, business hive computing networks will go beyond the current artificial division of labor between file sharing and idle resource maximization to provide a rich, collaborative and integrated marketplace of business capabilities both within the enterprise and externally. The current four P2P prongs will blur and merge to produce networks that provide ubiquitous computing power, content delivery, bandwidth, and collaboration support. We are moving toward a future in which your job is not defined as a place you go, but as an activity you undertake regardless of your location.
As they evolve, business computing networks will develop the following characteristics:
Learn more about these characteristics and the future of computing networks in the following whitepaper:
We build strategic, long-term relationships with our customers. Our goal is to work and share experiences with at least two leading companies in each industry, which enables every party involved to learn and grow at a greater rate. In this regard, we regard of our customers as partners on a same journey instead of mere clients.
Currently, our clients come from the following categories:
- Internet service providers
- Financials
- Retailers
- Content providers and organizers
Some recent examples of clients catchy.net successfully completed projects for are:
- Business Nieuws Radio + Online
- Endemol Entertainment
- Haarlems Uitgeef Bedrijf
- Hewlett-Packard
- IDG Communications Nederland
- ING Groep (E-Business)
- Lost Boys
- Ministerie van OC & W (Kennisnet)
- CRMPeople
- Planet Media Group
- Scoot
- Verduin Marketing Consultancy
- VISA Netherlands
- Young & Rubicam
Our Terms of Delivery are available in Dutch only.
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Under no circumstances, including but not limited to negligence, shall catchy.net mobile media be liable for any special, incidental or consequential damages that result from the use of the information or materials on catchy.net sites, even if catchy.net or an authorized representative of catchy.net, has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
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