This week HighJump Software officially launched the HighJump™ App Station™, an “app store” for our HighJump™ Supply Chain Advantage™ product suite.  Admittedly, this was done with some marketing flair and included a fancy video to explain the offering.
While we expect this new offering to generate interest from buyers of supply chain systems, the greatest value is for HighJump customers.  Here are things I encourage HighJump customers to consider when thinking about the HighJump App Station.

Simplified Access to New Supply Chain Workflows
At its core, the HighJump App Station is about providing customers access to more product features that can power their distribution and logistics operations.  HighJump has always had a unique product architecture that made upgrading the HighJump Advantage Platform a relatively straight-forward IT project.  That said, using the merge utility to merge in new features was more complex than it needed to be.  With the new snap-in architecture of the HighJump App Station, it makes adoption of new features much more straightforward (and faster).  Additionally, the HighJump App Station frees HighJump and our customers from the burden of waiting for product releases to deliver new features.  Workflows are uploaded to the HighJump App Station as they are available.

Faster Innovation
The HighJump App Station allows you to innovate your business processes faster by having access to a library of supply chain workflows.  While not every app may be applicable in your business, the HighJump App Station will grow to have hundreds of best practice business processes available as you need them. 

The HighJump App Station also allows HighJump to innovate faster.  It provides a framework for HighJump to identify features being delivered around specific customer requirements and “harvest” these workflows into the HighJump App Station so they benefit the broader community of HighJump users.  Many other software companies utilize a similar approach, but always add customer-specific features to the main code line of the product.  The competitor’s approach creates a monolithic application that will suffer from “code bloat”.

The HighJump App Station also provides a framework that allows customers to develop internal App Stores for their own purposes.  This capability is especially applicable for customers with large multi-site deployments that require different workflows at each facility.  An internal HighJump App Station provides good governance and supports the variation in business process across different locations.

Increased Value in the Maintenance and Support Program
Many organizations have questioned the value of the enterprise software maintenance and support programs.  While HighJump continues to invest a substantial portion of customer’s maintenance and support fees back into the product in the form of enhancements, not all enterprise software companies have the same approach. 

HighJump has made a conscious decision to include access to the HighJump App Station as part of our maintenance and support program – at no additional charge.  We think it is important that customers see value in this program not only for the great technical support, but also come to rely on the program for a steady stream of product enhancements.  The new HighJump App Station is yet another way to deliver value to our customers through this program.

Additional Resources:
HighJump App Station Web Page
HighJump App Station Datasheet
Customer Portal Access to HighJump App Station

Upcoming Events:
Look for communication coming soon from HighJump Territory Managers inviting customers to a webcast to discuss the details of the HighJump App Station.