What's the biggest casualty of the 18-month economic upheaval in the IT industry? Hype, says Craig Conway, PeopleSoft Inc.'s CEO and president. "Hype is dead," he says. "You can't push through tech purchases based on outrageous claims and public relations."

PeopleSoft monitors the quarterly results of public companies, Conway says, and 85% of companies that reported improved financial results during the first half of this year attribute the improvements to better internal processes rather than revenue growth. That's why business-process management looms large for Conway & Co.

Conway is also big on the idea that connectivity between companies and their customers and suppliers should be direct, seamless, and immediate. Basically, it's the FedEx way: Because Federal Express' systems are integrated with one another and with customers' systems, its customers can always order package pickup, view service pricing, check package status--and count on the company to deliver.

"That's the way all companies will run," says Conway, who envisions businesses with customers who can easily get prices for custom-configured products or services, place orders, check order status, and plan for deliveries. "Everything we do is directed toward creating this concept of the real-time enterprise."

An Oracle veteran who projects the leadership and strength of a sharp-dressing, successful basketball coach leading his team from the sidelines, Conway led PeopleSoft back from a $178 million loss in 1999 to the best year in company history: Last year, the company posted $190 million in income on $2.1 billion in sales.

Conway says customers want applications that are easy to integrate with the rest of their technology portfolios, so they can rack up savings in time and integration costs. That's why, in his view, the argument for an integrated suite of applications that can handle nearly all of a company's operations has never been stronger. "You can buy what you need now and add what you need when you need it," he says.

Business processes, integration, immediacy: Going forward, those are the essential elements, Conway says. That's also why, rather than focusing on new individual applications in the coming year, PeopleSoft will unveil a set of offerings built to manage entire business processes. One part of that product set will be Order-to-Cash, which will manage nine discrete functions: marketing, sales, order entry, inventory, invoicing, shipping, accounts receivable, collections, and after-sales support. Among the other offerings will be Procure to Pay, Inquiry to Resolution, and Customer Service.

The big losers in the evolving IT industry, Conway predicts, perhaps not surprisingly, will be best-of-breed software vendors that scooped up billions in revenue by selling categories of software that should have been part of enterprise software suites all along. He points to standalone customer-relationship management systems and E-procurement systems as examples.

His company also offers E-procurement and CRM tools, which customers insist be top caliber. The difference: These tools are integrated with the rest of PeopleSoft's suite. "I don't know what it would be like being a single-solution provider claiming to be best of breed," he says. "It's a life-or-death situation."

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