Top 10 software selection mistakes

December 2007 from CAmagazine and written by Michael Burns – “For many companies, replacing a system is like going to the dentist: necessary, but potentially painful. Often, you can stave off the need for replacement with preventive action such as upgrades. But if the system is no longer supported, or if there has been a change in the business that renders it inadequate, you have no choice but to go to market. And when you do, it’s easy to make big mistakes. Here are the biggest ones…”

Software Evaluation and Software Selection

December 17 from TEC – “It is daunting for corporate IT buyers to discern the true capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses of a given enterprise application suite. Buyers’ project teams are inundated with marketing information from vendors struggling to differentiate themselves. Functional cross-over and software integration have caused product overlap and a lot of confusion in the market. Mergers and acquisitions are also creating problems, as companies cannibalize the competition to gain access to a client base or functionality, which may result in solution overlap or forced migration. As a result, organizations are surrounded by ambiguity when making their implementation decisions.

Evaluating and selecting enterprise software is a complex process characterized by both striking potential and dramatic risks. Executed properly, this process and its outcomes can deliver exceptional benefits. If executed poorly, however, the results can range from disappointing to devastating. Organizations that select the wrong hardware, middleware, or software will learn the hard way that the money they’ve lost is a result of inadequate vendor information and evaluation processes. Such losses are increasingly apparent within price-sensitive, small and medium enterprises, which require accurate IT information to be collected quickly and cost-effectively during the software evaluation process. Vendor’s hype, consultants’ conflicts of interest, user doubt, tediously long selection processes, and unclear decision rationale are some of the unfortunate watchwords for most selection processes.”

180 View – The article is clearly self serving to TEC in that they offer a potential solution to avoid the problems that they describe in the article. “TEC’s evaluation centers (online decision support tool) support the analysis and comparison of thousands of criteria on hundreds of vendor solutions that have been vetted by TEC’s analysts, using industry standards and benchmarks. Because vendors respond to TEC’s RFIs without a project in mind, the responses are more typical of their capabilities.” TEC also lets users “prioritize their needs in a manner that gives greater priority to criteria that are considered more important.”

You should know that TEC is in some ways a competitor of 180 Systems. We have not spoken to any of their customers about the usefulness of their services or used it ourselves. Our first impressions are that we find it hard to believe that they have vetted thousands of criteria on hundreds of vendors. Second we don’t think that the vendor’s responses will be more typical of their capabilities because they are responding to TEC's RFI. Rather, we think the vendor will be more forthright when respondong directly to a customer RFP if the questions are specific. The vendor must be honest or trust will be lost, and the decision in the end is mostly about trust. We also note that their priority system is at a very high level – for example financial systems rather than at a more detailed level, which we believe could lead to misleading results. Nevertheless, we recognize that TEC may have a useful role to play in a selection project even if it means that a potential client would use their services rather than the services of 180 Systems.

Lately we have been thinking that we should also provide a similar service to TEC based on our extensive knowledge base. We would like to hear from our readers about their experience with TEC and whether we should offer something similar.

SAP’s next-generation application platform

On the one hand we have:

I’ve seen the future of SAP software, and its name is Business ByDesign

December 7, 2009 from Bruce Richardson at AMR Research – “Business ByDesign is the foundation for SAP’s next-generation application platform. It will ultimately replace the SAP Business Suite, albeit gradually and maybe transparently over a 5- to 10-year horizon (or more). In the interim, SAP will retain customer loyalty through Enhancement Packs and continued NetWeaver investments that move SAP Business Suite closer to Business ByDesign. The business user, critical to SAP’s future revenue stream, may be placing it in a potential showdown with Microsoft.”

And on the other hand we have:

Forrester points out missing pieces in SAP's A1S

September 20, 2007 from ComputerWorld Canada – “SAP AG's launch Wednesday of Business ByDesign, a hosted on-demand offering for mid market customers, is a significant improvement relative to its other offerings in this space, but simplicity and ease of use still remain elusive to the vendor, an analyst observed.

According to Ray Wang, principal analyst for enterprise applications with Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research Inc., SAP's new offering is complex despite considerable research into the mid-market space. "Key features like easy access to reporting, quick portal construction, and easy integration to Office remain missing."

180 View – We lean towards AMR’s perspective. Forrester may be right about some shortcomings, but it’s early days for the product. It will surely get better.

Certification Requirements for Certifying Officers of TSX Listed Companies – Where We Are Today

December 2007 written by Geoff Rodrigues of Horwath Orenstein – “On November 23, 2007 through CSA Notice 52-319, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) announced an update to the regulatory regime to require companies to certify the design and effectiveness of internal controls over financial reporting. Under the current proposed requirements, companies must have a process in place to design and evaluate their internal controls over financial reporting as well as disclosure controls and procedures. This would include testing the critical controls to ensure they are operating effectively. These controls must also be relied upon by the Certifying Officers of the organization (i.e. CEO and CFO) when certifying the reliability and accuracy of all financial information reported to external users. Through the testing required, the Certifying Officers must ensure any “reportable deficiencies” identified have been disclosed as well as the status of remediation efforts. Reportable deficiencies are deficiencies identified in internal controls either individually or in aggregate that would cause a reasonable person to doubt the reliability of the financial information reported.

One of the most significant differences from the regulatory requirements under section 404 of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002, is the requirement for external auditor attestation in the United States. In Canada, the certification is a self-assessment and the issuer is not required to obtain from its auditor an internal control audit opinion regarding management’s assessment of the internal controls over financial reporting. The perception in the market is that this makes the process less onerous for management and keeps the compliance costs lower than in the United States.

However, there is still a requirement for management to self –assess their internal controls over financial reporting, and without the requirement to have these assessments evaluated by the external auditor, this puts more focus on management’s efforts to ensure the company has adequate internal controls. The Certifying Officers have a responsibility to the organization in which they oversee as well as the external shareholders to ensure that information reported is reasonably reliable, accurate, and timely. It is important to understand your regulatory requirements and ensure compliance with the appropriate laws and regulations.

Some of the highlights of CSA Notice 52-319 are:

• The Certifying Officers of Venture issuers will no longer be required to certify that they have designed and evaluated the effectiveness of their internal controls over financial reporting
• All other reporting issuers, except investment funds, are still expected to certify over the effectiveness of the internal controls over financial reporting, but the effective date is no longer June 30, 2008. At this point a new effective date has not been released by the CSA.

For further details on the recently released CSA Notice 52-319 or an interpretation of what this means for your organization, click here.

10 Tips To Secure Your Laptop

November 24 from InformationWeek – “As more people use laptops for their primary work PCs, the chances for being compromised because of wireless miscreants loom large. Here are 10 how-to tips to protect yourself and make the best use of a wireless network, whether you are at home, at work, or in between.

1) Make sure you are connecting to the right network. Although this sounds sort of obvious, I've noticed in my travels that there are lots of unscrupulous people who purposely name their wireless connection "Linksys," or some other common vendor's name, in hopes of getting someone who is less than careful to connect to them. The security industry calls these sorts of conditions "evil twins"…

When you are out on the road, look carefully at the screen that shows the available network connections, and particularly at the different icons next to the connections. The icon that looks like a light beacon indicates an access point, while the one showing two computers with connecting lines indicates a peer-to-peer connection. These peer-to-peer connections are the ones to avoid…”

180 View – We thought there were a few good tips in the article that you may not know about.

Learning – A Key To Profits

December, 2007 from Loma Resource – “According to a new research study by Towers Perrin, the people in an organization make the difference. Organizations need engaged employees to prosper, and one of the keys to producing engaged employees is providing learning and development, the study emphasized.

Julie J. Gebauer, managing director of Towers Perrin, said the study confirmed that organizations with engaged employees deliver higher performance and produce better financial results…”

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – When was the last time you wondered what it takes to attract and retain a stable workforce of highly motivated and productive employees? How often do you feel like you just keep spinning your wheels and wasting money when it comes to human resource management?

In this excellent article, author Ron Clark reports on a major Towers Perrin research study which found that learning and development is one of the key factors in increasing employee engagement, which, in turn, is linked to a company’s financial performance.

The article explains that engaged employees “have an emotional attachment to the organization, their job and their work. They have a rational understanding of the organization’s goals, values and how they contribute. And they have the motivation and willingness to invest discretionary effort to perform better.”

Clark then shares with us the five key insights gleamed from the research study conducted on almost 90,000 employees in 18 countries during the summer of 2007. Insightful indeed!

If you want to rid yourself of the stress that comes from managing people that aren’t ‘turned on’, you’ve got to invest a few minutes and read this article from beginning to end. But remember, the theory is only as good as how well you put it into practice.

Online presence: The Great Equalizer

December 3, 2007 from The International Herald Tribune - “MOM-AND-POP retailers have helplessly stood by over the last decade as big-box merchants steamrolled over them. Online, though, small merchants are not going down without a fight.

The number of small- and medium-size retailers selling online has swelled in the last two years, from 21 percent to 32 percent, according to a survey by IDC, a consulting firm. Aided by less expensive and more sophisticated technology, stores like RealmDekor.com, CleanAirGardening.com and SitStay.com are competing with retailers as well as bigger sites like Amazon.”

180 View (written by Esther Friedberg Karp): It’s penny-wise and pound-foolish to avoid a web presence today. Naturally, the tools chosen must fit the business model of the company. You wouldn’t use e-commerce and online ordering for a small restaurant. But you would promote the restaurant with its own website complete with testimonials, and you would join consumer forums and business networking sites. In other businesses, e-commerce as a convenience for customers is a great way to grow sales, and can be either an add-on to an existing business or a launch pad on its own for a new one.

Push vs. Pull - Perception Versus Reality

2007 from the Wight Line - “Push and Pull are terms that have become synonymous with specific supply chain designs. In recent years, these words also have come to characterize the “quality” of said supply chains. The preconceived impression is that “Push” is inappropriate, while “Pull” is the preferable or acceptable methodology. In addition, Push and Pull have been relegated to certain inappropriately pre-assigned techniques. As an illustration, Push is typically aligned with Material Requirements Planning (MRP), while Pull is placed alongside Kanban. This, by extension, transfers these techniques (practices) to the corresponding level of appropriateness.

In the market, we see many professionals and organizations making decisions on which techniques to use and how to structure the management of their supply chains influenced only by those preconceived judgments. Few, however, actually base their decisions on a sound analysis of their business practices and requirements. This paper explains why Push and Pull cannot be automatically associated to one or another technique and describes other factors that have a critical influence on how to configure the supply chain…”

180 View – If you find this interesting, we suggest you subscribe to the Wight Line Newsletter at http://www.oliverwight.com/wightline.asp.

Internet Traffic Jam

November 28, 2007 from the Globe And Mail – “Anyone who has ever found themselves trapped alongside other frustrated commuters during rush hour knows just how frustrating heavy traffic can be. But with more cars than ever crowding the highways, congestion and lane closures have become an unavoidable reality.

On the Internet, the resource isn't asphalt, it's bandwidth. But similar congestion problems have prompted some Internet service providers in Canada and the U.S. to restrict the flow of certain traffic on their networks.

They argue that bandwidth-intensive applications such as peer-to-peer file transfer programs clog their networks by using a large percentage of their traffic space, which leads to a poor experience for the rest of the customers, the same way a lumbering tractor trailer can impede flow on the highway. Their solution has been to "shape" traffic, essentially slowing down certain kinds of Internet activity while giving other data priority. Most of the traffic being shaped is peer-to-peer traffic.

Depending on the study, peer-to-peer traffic accounts for anywhere from 50 to 90 per cent of online traffic, but emanates from as few as 10 per cent of all users. Much of that traffic is facilitated through BitTorrent, a file-sharing protocol once synonymous with piracy but which recently has developed into a legitimate tool for quickly delivering large amounts of digital content…”

180 View – Most business people we know don’t know anything about BitTorrent and thought they (or you) should know a little about what’s consuming 50-90% of online traffic. We have heard rumours about the internet getting bogged down but we have not seen any evidence or any compelling reports to support this theory.

Software License Fines Fall Hardest on the Smallest

November 28, 2007 from eWEEK – “Most small and midsize businesses aren't even aware when they violate a software license, according to software industry sources, but that doesn't stop the fines from piling up.

Nearly 90 percent of the fines collected annually by the Business Software Alliance for software license violations falls on small and midsize businesses, many of whom have no idea that they are violating copyrights and cannot afford to pay fines, SMBs and software industry sources told eWEEK.

The Associated Press reported that figure Nov. 26, claiming that close to 90 percent of the $13 million burden in BSA fines falls on SMBs. The BSA represents major software vendors and promotes copyright protection, cyber-security, trade and e-commerce.”

180 View – Considering on how much we rely on software, it’s a good idea to ensure that all your software is up-to-date, licensed and supported.