Top 10 ERP Systems

180 Systems has just released the System Analysis Tool, which will select the top 10 ERP systems based on an online survey you complete that includes company size, geography, language, industry, technology and functionality (generic, financial, distribution, manufacturing and professional services). There is no charge for this tool and we will keep your information confidential.

To see the vendors that have signed up and how it works, click on the expand button for "Current Vendors" and "How it Works".

Not all the ERP vendors have signed up yet but we expect many will soon once the word gets out about this new service. As we don’t charge the vendors anything for participation, we don’t see any reason for them not to sign up unless there is something to hide.

We would very much appreciate your feedback.

Sage Launches Major ERP Upgrade

January 20, 2010 from Managing Automation - "The Sage Group plc today unveiled a major release of its Sage ERP X3 suite for mid-sized businesses that uses Web 2.0 and other new technology to give users real-time access to global data and collaborative tools in user-configurable dashboards...

Sage worked with a number of technology partners to design the X3 release. For example, the suite can be operated on Microsoft SQL Server 2008, and integrates with Microsoft Office to increase ease of use and accelerate user adoption. The system can also run on Oracle Database 11g R2. According to Sage, the X3 software can support several thousand concurrent users, process several hundred thousand transactions per hour, and synchronize data across customers’ sites.

Sage focused heavily on improving the customer experience in this release. Among the enhancements is new, multi-language Sage VisualProcesses software, which provides templates so that users can create their own customized interfaces. Users also can link to external applications and the web to access information and create financial and other reports quickly..."

180 View - X3 will be on our list of potential solutions for mid market organizations with complex and/or global requirements.

The Quest for Canada’s Smartest IT

January 25, 2010 from Info-Tech Research Group –“Industry analyst firm Info-Tech Research Group has launched a nationwide contest to recognize and reward both Canada's smartest and greenest mid-market IT departments. Nominate yourself or a friend to 'Smart People' today, or stay tuned to the contest and nominees via Twitter.”

180 View – We just found out about this site from Joel Martin formerly Product Manager for Microsoft's Dynamics ERP products in Canada. I have a lot of respect for Joel who I once asked to speak at a CICA technology conference when he worked for IDC as a research analyst before Microsoft. The fact that Joel is involved leads me to believe in the Quest. If you know of a great IT project, I suggest you nominate the person responsible.

ERP: can do better

October 2009 from Conspectus - “…Nearly half of firms (47%) are not using their enterprise systems’ full capability and could increase utilization if they had more time, training and/or budget…

In summary, for organizations that have made strategic ERP investments in recent years, now is the time to work those investments even harder. With a focus on data, discipline and systems flexibility, IT leaders can squeeze far more value from their enterprise software and stop leaving as much as a third of their investment on the table.”

180 View – It does seem strange that organizations would not use more of their ERP system if only they had more time, training and/or budget. If the benefits greatly exceed the costs, why would they not make the investment? But if it’s breakeven, then one would understand the reluctance.

We think a bigger problem in not utilizing the full ERP system is that organizations are stuck with old versions and don’t know what to do. Our opinion is that replacing a system should be a last resort because of all the costs to implement a new system. We suggest documentating requirements just as if selecting a new system, letting the vendor demonstrate their ability to meet the requirements and a business case to determine whether to upgrade/improve the existing system.

Find Microsoft Dynamics VARs and Solutions

From Microsoft – “Find partner-built solutions that work with Microsoft Dynamics to meet the unique needs of your business and industry. Enter a search keyword or use the Advanced Search fields to create a custom search query...”

180 View – This site is a well kept secret by Microsoft. The advanced search includes country, industry, vertical, company size and location and will return Microsoft solutions and partners. You will probably be surprised at the extent of solutions and partners amd wonder why a solution or partner shows up. As well, you may wonder what is meant by the ratings or the number of references for a solution or partner. Nevertheless it’s the best place to look for Microsoft Dynamics solutions and partners. Other choices are calling Microsoft directly or taking a look at our ERP Portal for Microsoft partners.

The future of ERP: Why the 'big ERP' approach is dead

November 23, 2009 from InfoWorld – “…"With ERP, you can't do a one-size-fits-all," Read says. "The corporate office of a $10 billion organization just has different needs than the local operations in Australia. And if you try to deploy [SAP or Oracle] everywhere, you're effectively going to be deploying an enterprise solution in a midmarket company, and the costs are going to explode.

Could there be a resurgence in "best of breed" app strategies for vertical-specific business areas -- whether that's on-premise or in the cloud -- without all the integration headaches of yore? AMR Research Chief Research Officer Bruce Richardson thinks so. "The Burger King approach -- 'have it your way' with SaaS, on-premise, BPO," Richardson says, "is going to force vendors like SAP, Oracle, and Infor to get very aggressive in offering other deployment models…

Industry consultant Reed sums it up this way: "'Empower me. Give me the tools to create differentiating processes that allow me to define myself from my competitors. And make sure that it's easier for me to do, so I don't have to hire 100 programmers. Give me the building blocks to put that together quickly, so that it's just humming in the background, and leave me free to focus on what makes us better than other companies.' That's what customers are expecting now and really want."

180 View – Large organizations often want their subsidiaries to adopt the same system in all the local countries. There are advantages including visibility of information such as inventory across the organization and all the subsidiaries. Other advantages would be likely be in the consolidation, reporting and forecasting process. But there can also be problems in forcing one of the high end ERP systems on a subsidiary such as increased costs, complexity, delays and company morale. Once again, a business case is recommended to determine best course of action.

SAP Introduces Two-Tiered Support

January 14, 2010 from InformationWeek – “SAP has stepped back from its plan to move all customers to Enterprise Support contracts priced at 22% per year. Instead it will adopt a two-tiered system that reintroduces a Standard Support option set at 18%...”

180 View – In the past, most organizations did not worry too much about the annual support fee or only considered it in the final contract negotiations. Today, it has become an important consideration as buyers have become more sophisticated and ERP systems have matured. Buyers don’t want to go through another ERP implementation in their lifetime and the Net Present Value of the maintenance costs should be considered over a long period of time.

The Evolution of Organizational Process

December 8, 2009 from Baseline – “Despite a multidecade focus, business-technology processes in many companies are unmanaged, invisible and unmeasured.

Consequently, they are executed haphazardly and inconsistently. This results in delays, errors, low quality and high overhead costs. Such unmanaged processes cannot detect and adapt to changing market conditions—and that can be fatal in today’s business environment.

There are countless reasons for this continuing breakdown. Principal among them is that many processes cross an enterprise’s internal and external boundaries as part of business networks and, therefore, they become the province of no one…”

180 View – It is true that one of the reasons for suboptimal business processes is that processes cross boundaries but the problem is not just that they become the province of no one. The problem is more likely that the various departments, profit centres, or business units often have their own agenda. As they are measured on what they do and not on the business as a whole, they can optimize their own processes at the expense of the enterprise. There are some suggestions in the article as to methods to improve business processes using “business technology capabilities”, which are helpful but don’t address the underlying lack of motivation problem.

Back to Basics (Requirements Analysis)

January 4, 2010 from gannthead – “When I first started managing projects, I treated requirements as an input to the project--they would magically appear and tell me what the scope of my project was. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I was taking the wrong approach, that requirements gathering was actually an integral part in the execution of the project. But I am still surprised by how many organizations are unable to come up with good requirements…

…We still only have the functional requirements, what is to be delivered. The project team still needs to determine how those deliverables are going to be achieved…”

180 View – In preparing requirements for our clients, we try to focus on “what” needs to be done rather than the “how.” But sometimes it is believed that there is an optimal “how” and we will document it as a requirement too. For example, an organization may want to analyze their operations across multiple dimensions such as by department, region, manager… - consider this the “what”. One vendor could accomplish the requirement with a segment for each dimension in the account structure/coding block – an example of the how. Another vendor could accomplish the requirement using reporting structures or analysis codes, which for complex organizations is a much better way to get it done.

Information Technology Governance- it's really just a corporate road-trip

180 View (written by Graeme Booth) – Unfortunately, IT Governance has been made to seem too complicated which, in turn, has led to unnecessary confusion. IT Governance, and corporate governance for that matter, really only consist of three sets of activities all of which cascade into important sub-activities and processes.

Set the direction for IT- this is the basis for business alignment and drives IT investments and decision making toward the achievement of corporate objectives- strategic planning to enforce alignment of business initiatives.

Support the direction for IT- after establishing where you are going, the organization needs to figure out how it is going to get there. Considerations include business and technology architecture, infrastructure, application architecture and portfolio, organization structure, policies et al. Systems management, often referred by the acronym ITIL, enters the fray at this stage- make the decisions and choose the tactics that enhance the chance of strategic success.

and finally,

Sustain the Direction for IT- operating procedures, management and operating controls, internal control and audit, COBIT. Clearly, if your environment is not resilient and cannot be managed, measured and monitored, the value from strategy etc. is significantly diminished. It's all about establishing accountability for IT processes.

Its like a road trip really- decide where you are going, choose the route, and try not to get lost along the way.

Crisis fosters change in the relationship between IT and the Business

October 30, 2009 from Deloitte – “Scanning the dark clouds of the current crisis for a silver lining? Take a look at the relationship between IT and the Business. The difficult environment is providing an unprecedented opportunity for IT leaders to show their added value and significantly increase their impact at board level…”

180 View (written by Graeme Booth) - In the third edition of Deloitte’s IT-Business balance Survey, 2009 the author's contend that the current economic and business climate provides an "...an unprecedented opportunity for IT leaders to show their added value and significantly increase their impact at board level". Fair enough. However, what is less clear is how this worthy objective is to be accomplished. Much time is surely spent on talk of business alignment and strategy but organizations spend insufficient effort translating their strategic decisions into activities and processes that will directly support key corporate initiatives. And even when reasonable tactical decisions have been made, the measurement of results against critical success factors (CSF's) is lacking.

Retooling Technology for Economic Recovery

December 9, 2009 from the Resource Centre of Industrial Distribution Magazine – “In October 2009, Industrial Distribution conducted a study on behalf of Microsoft Dynamics to learn more about industrial distributor goals, challenges and initiatives. Specifically, the study examines what role technology plays in achieving business profitability and growth…”

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – This White Paper is based on a study done of 303 industrial distributors in October, 2009 by RBInteractive Research Group on behalf of Industrial Distribution magazine for Microsoft Dynamics. The purpose of the study was to learn more about industrial distributors’ current business goals, challenges and initiatives, and specifically what role technology will play in achieving business profitability and growth going forward.

The study cites the following key challenges facing today’s distributor:

1. Managing the realities of the current economic climate, which has led to intense competition and pricing pressure.
2. Dealing with excess inventory, as the same number of distributors compete for less business with more products considered commodities.
3. Retaining current customers and facilitating new client relationships.

Accordingly, respondents to the study are looking to improve efficiencies in their businesses that help to achieve their sales and profitability-related goals. Planned actions are focused in the areas of marketing, customer service and support, inventory forecasting & management, warehousing & distribution and e-commerce.

The number one action being considered or taken by respondents to prepare for the anticipated economic recovery is investing in technology (i.e. computer hardware and/or software applications). Whereas 2009 saw many of our prospects and clients putting technology-based projects on-the-shelf as they struggled to weather the storm of the recession, an increasing number of companies over the last few months have started to gear up for better times by evaluating and implementing new software tools and reengineered business processes.

However, we aren’t as sold on the study’s claim that 83% of respondents felt that the payback on their investment in technology would be two years or less (34% anticipated a payback of less than one year!). While we are not suggesting that the study misrepresented the responses of the respondents, we are concerned that the responses may not be reliable for several reasons.

First, only 46% of respondents even attempted to measure ROI, perhaps owing to the difficulty of doing so. As the study aptly points out, “There does not appear to be a “standard formula” used within the industry, with a wide array of views on what factors contribute to the measurement.”

Second, by definition calculating ROI ignores any benefit that cannot be sufficiently quantified so as to be measured (i.e. providing a better level of customer service will likely result in increased customer retention and therefore more sales and a better bottom line, but the calculation of ROI will ignore the value of this benefit unless the company is prepared to quantify the resulting improvement in profitability).

Accordingly, it is possible that some of the respondents to the ROI question may have used a method of calculating ROI that is not generally accepted and/or inconsistent with the method used by other respondents. Nonetheless, companies should consider using measures in addition to the ones included in traditional ROI calculations to justify whether or not an investment in technology is warranted. For example, these may include compliance to the requirements set forth by a dominant trading partner or regulatory body, such as internet portal or product traceability.

The article was sponsored by Microsoft and is somewhat self serving, but it does contain worthwhile information and it hopefully reflects that better economic times are around the corner.

Graeme Booth

Graeme hired me about 14 years ago to work as a consultant in the risk management group at Price Waterhouse, which soon became PwC. I enjoyed my years at PwC and learned a lot. I have not seen Graeme very often since I left but always considered him a friend. Out of the blue, I got a call recently from Graeme and his timing was perfect in that I had been wondering how to grow my business and realized I need help. I always consult my brother Stephen on strategic matters, and arranged a meeting for all of us to meet. I then found out that Graeme’s office is in the same building as Stephen. Fate is knocking and I answer by asking Graeme to join me. Graeme not only brings new services to 180 Systems, but he will also be a huge help in marketing all our services. Please welcome Graeme to 180 Systems.