Business Technology

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:18:00 +0000

IFRS - Time to get moving

June 2008 from CAmagazine – “According to a recent CICA survey the vast majority of Canadian publicly accountable enterprises are closer to the starting gate than to the finish line when it comes to preparing for the transition to international financial reporting standards (IFRS).

The survey was conducted in March with 550 senior Canadian executives who are chartered accountants, almost 300 of whom must report using IFRS by 2011. Only 8% of those executives indicate they have begun the conversion process; while 72% have not yet reached the stage of assessing the impact of IFRS on their operations…”

180 View – Every problem for someone is an opportunity for someone else. You can bet that the consultants, auditors and ERP software vendors will reap IFRS benefits other than the benefits intended.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:33:00 +0000

Microsoft ships Dynamics AX 4.0

June 12, 2008 from InfoWorld – “Other Dynamics AX 4.0 features include a new user interface more closely resembling the look-and-feel of Microsoft's Office 2003 desktop application suite. "When Office 2007 ships, we'll do a refresh [of Dynamics AX] to look more like that," McKee said. Dynamics AX 4.0 will ship with roles-based features so that users can gain access to the ERP data relevant to their position within a company…

The June release of Dynamics AX 4.0 is another indication that Microsoft remains on track with its business applications strategy, McKee said. The first wave of that strategy is to release new versions of the major Dynamics ERP and customer relationship management (CRM) products. Microsoft's ultimate goal is to merge the disparate applications into a single code base beginning in 2008. "

180 View – We thought the "single code base" (formerly called Project Green) was dead.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:29:00 +0000

NetSuite acquires OpenAir

June 2, 2008 from ZDNet – “NetSuite said Monday that it has acquired OpenAir, which provides on-demand professional services automation software, for $26 million in cash.

All 56 OpenAir employees will continue to work at NetSuite–will give the company a Boston beachhead and an avenue to target the professional services vertical. NetSuite said in a statement that it will integrate OpenAir’s software to target services companies including IT consultants, legal and accounting firms and government contractors."

180 View – Smart move for both OpenAir and NetSuite. The deal will give OpenAir much higher visibility and more opportunities. As well, NetSuite will provide missing OpenAir functionality in financials and CRM. NetSuite gets a new/big market opportunity for professional service based companies.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:23:00 +0000

NetSuite Eyes Midsize Manufacturers

June 12, 2008 from eWeek – “Called NetSuite for Manufacturers, the package is part of NetSuite’s effort to compete with SAP for small and midsize companies in vertical markets.

The time is right for NetSuite to release this package, said Mini Peiris, NetSuite’s vice president of product marketing, because SAP doesn’t have a manufacturing suite that is scaled for the budgets of most midsize manufacturers.”

180 View – NetSuite is on a roll. We have not seen their manufacturing suite yet, but anticipate that it will appeal to light manufacturers. Sounds like another good move by NetSuite.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:06:00 +0000

Optimizing Processes for Innovation and Agility

June 18 from CIO Update – “Working from current process models, process analysts and domain experts collaborate to generate to-be models that can satisfy the aims of business model scenarios. Next, they perform a gap analysis between the current process model and each to-be model to determine which processes need to be eliminated, streamlined, automated, or outsourced and to anticipate the potential impact of these changes on supporting applications and systems.”

180 View – We disagree with creating “to-be models” unless the organization plans to make any necessary system changes themselves or has unique requirements. We recommend understanding the problems with the existing business processes, but rather than creating the ultimate “to-be” process, we think organizations should work with their vendors, VARs or solution providers. There are usually multiple ways to get the job done. It is not necessary to always create a unique business process. Take advantage of existing or embedded business process for the routine work. You may need to do a little tweaking for some unique business processes. It only makes sense to build the "to-be" from scratch if the business process is not only unique but also contributes to an organization's value proposition, which describes the unique mix of product and services, customer relations, and corporate image a company offers or what defines differentiation.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:02:00 +0000

Starting Small Is Good Way to Build BI Benefits

June 10, 2008 from ITBusinessEdge – “Whenever I talk to customers, I ask them how they determined their ROI. And they’ll often say they haven’t yet, or it’s very difficult. With BI, companies will see the benefits of BI and keep on investing in it, because it’s helping them with certain efficiencies and with performance management issues. But at the same time, it’s hard to actually quantify the value in dollar terms. Is it just doing a cost benefit analysis, so over a certain number of years, the money the company might have been spending in certain areas will be less now that it's adopted a BI platform?

For organizations making a first-time investment in BI, I find that if they have a small goal, such as helping customer service reps manage their time more efficiently, and can use BI to achieve those goals, that works better than making a large investment at the beginning.

180 View – We think the topic is interesting and could use a lot more discussion. First in terms of business case, we agree that building a cost benefit analysis for BI is difficult. Any estimates on savings from BI because of better decision-making are WAG (Wild Ass Guesses). However it is ok to have intangible benefits that justify an investment, especially if the benefit is linked to CSF’s (what an organization must do well in order to be successful). There also may be savings from BI that can be quantified. Some organizations need to go through hoops to get something equivalent using traditional reporting tools. Calculate the savings from eliminating these traditional reporting methods to help support the business case.

The other interesting idea in the article relates to starting small. When you can tell a senior executive that, in no later than three months, he will get a solution, it's very different from saying, I'm going to deliver a project in 18 months, and trust me. A small project is a good idea as long as the investment in BI considered the big picture. You would not want to invest in a technology that would fail at a later point.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:00:00 +0000

How to make SaaS CRM a success

June 2, 2008 from MyCustomer.com – “Has software as a service (SaaS) made it to the mainstream? Opinion is divided. Some of the leading voices in the SaaS market still see their outreach to the market as heavily educational and evangelical. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, argues that it can take up to 10 years before a technology makes it across Geoffrey Moore's famous 'chasm' of acceptance.

Others are more convinced that CRM SaaS at least has made it to mainstream thinking, among them Forrester Research. Forrester conducted a survey late last year of 1,017 IT decision makers and US and European firms to evaluate their opinion. The study found that nearly two thirds of those surveyed were either using or piloting SaaS offerings, with CRM the most commonly used.

180 View – We think that SaaS is mainstream for CRM. The same will happen for ERP over the next few years. One of the more interesting points in the article was “You also need to think getting a formal service-level agreement (SLA). You may find that your SaaS provider will not be eager to discuss this too closely in order to "avoid risk and responsibility when selling directly to business users.” Good luck in getting the SaaS vendors to agree to penalties. But is the risk of downtime or other problems any greater than an on premise solution when the network/server/ISP… fails?

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:57:00 +0000

IT research: Is it time to analyze the analysts?

May 28, 2008 from ComputerWorld – “There are more than 400 firms selling technology-related research, data and advice, sales of which topped $3 billion worldwide in 2007, according to Knowledge Capital Group (KCG), an analyst relations strategy firm in Austin.

IT departments across the country spend tens of thousands of dollars every year on IT research sold by Gartner, Forrester Research, IDC, AMR Research, Burton Group, and hundreds of other companies, raising the question of how, or whether, IT buyers can cut back or at least optimize their spending on research and advisory services.”

180 View – We do quote some of the IT research companies, and see value in what they offer. Many of these research companies provide services to both the vendors and their customers. Hopefully, the line between these services remains intact so there is never a compromise on independence.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:53:00 +0000

Microsoft SharePoint popularity comes with issues

July 1, 2008 from NetworkWorld – “Microsoft's SharePoint Server 2007 may be taking off in the enterprise, but the software doesn't come without holes, warts and a variety of other issues that need to be addressed in any corporate deployment.

Users will find weaknesses in all six areas that SharePoint focuses on -- collaboration, portal, search, enterprise content management, business process management and business intelligence -- along with custom coding needs, dependencies on other Microsoft products, a weak selection of social networking tools, a lack of offline support, challenges integrating identity management/provisioning, lack of centralized management tools for global operations and trouble finding qualified SharePoint developers and support staff.

180 View – We agree with the point in the article that said “Creese said it's all constructive criticism and users shouldn't feel compelled to abandon SharePoint, but they should be aware that custom work and additional software may be needed to bend SharePoint for specific needs.”

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:48:00 +0000

Microsoft: What Cost the Vista Fiasco?

June 13, 2008 from NewsFactor.com - “Charles Di Bona, a senior analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein and a noted bull on Microsoft, said in a June 10 report that "dampening" adoption of Vista by corporate customers will shave $395 million in revenues and 2 percent a share in earnings from the company's financial results for the 2009 fiscal year, which begins July 1. According to a Bernstein Web survey of 372 information technology professionals fielded in May, companies expect just 26 percent of their PCs to be running Vista by the beginning of 2011, down from an estimate of nearly 68 percent of computers by respondents to a similar survey a year ago.”

180 View – We had problems initially with Vista but we were early adopters. A small company should be able to resolve Vista problems fairly easily. However, large organizations face bigger challenges with their widespread and diverse users.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:38:00 +0000

Is there magic in Web services?

May 2008 from CAmagazine and written by Michael Burns – “In last month’s column, we looked at why it is so difficult to integrate different systems, whether they be inside or outside a company. Some of the problems, such as gaining access to data from different systems, can be solved using technology such as open databases. But when it comes to other hurdles — integration with trading partners, in particular — Web services and extensible markup language (XML) are now being held up as the best solution…”

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:35:00 +0000

You’re Not Tiger Woods!

March 26, 2008 from AMR Research – “What do software and golf have in common? A lot, actually…Companies can buy all the enterprise software they want, but unless their companies are performing well to begin with, as Tiger Woods is, that software isn’t going to help a whole lot. To most companies, these investments are a cost without an ROI...”

180 View – The article does make a few good points as to why ERP systems fail to deliver ROI and is interesting. However, it’s not clear whether the conclusions drawn can be generalized based on the surveys conducted. Were the surveys for organizations spending millions of dollars or done 5 years ago or for companies with complex processes not found in a typical survey?

Another problem is the suggestion to improve the operational efficiency of the business processes before purchasing new software otherwise you will just have an automated mess. The implication is that organizations should re-engineer their business processes before implementing a new system. This is bad advice for most companies. You could develop the best processes and find that the costs of their implementation would be prohibitively expensive. Why not leverage the business processes already implemented by the ERP vendors than start from scratch? Why re-invent the wheel every time? There could be a few unique processes that make an organization successful, which may require some new processes, but there is a lot of similarity between companies in the basics.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:33:00 +0000

BlackBerry gets new CRM goodies thanks to RIM-SAP alliance

May 5, 2008 from IT Business.ca – “SAP and Research in Motion have teamed up to bring SAP's back-end business applications, beginning with CRM, to BlackBerry devices… SAP's CRM is the first application that will run natively on the BlackBerry, but eventually the companies plan to build mobile versions of SAP's applications -- including ERP (enterprise resource planning) and supply chain -- for BlackBerry devices, said Bill McDermott, president and CEO of SAP Americas, Asia Pacific and Japan.”

180 View – ERP in the palm of your hand with access anywhere anytime sounds good to us. The only concern is ERP will need to be dummied down to make it easy.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:22:00 +0000

Five things to know before committing to SAP

May 8, 2008 from itWorld Canada – “Installing SAP applications is not easy. Employees who are capable of deploying and maintaining SAP software are in extremely valuable and practically form a whole profession by themselves.

SAP, which built its reputation with ERP software, is rarely chosen by enterprises for one-off applications, AMR Research analyst Jim Shepherd notes in a report this month titled "The five SAP strategies that you need to understand." "For huge organizations, this is typically a multiyear, multimillion-dollar effort to transform the business," he writes. Unfortunately, executives often pay little attention to SAP installations after they are deployed, he adds. That's a big mistake. Let's take a look at the five SAP strategies Shepherd details in his report, and how they affect your technology decisions…”

180 View – Despite bad press, SAP keeps on truckin. The thing is they had the vision and ability in early ERP days to build systems that would work across large organizations with complex business and infrastructure. Decision makers are risk adverse and think that if it works for the best companies (as the SAP ad says), then it will work for me. Another compelling reason to go to SAP is that the most well known and trusted consulting and accounting firms were on board and would help with the implementation.

SAP won the first ERP War fought over automating business across departments, Client/Server technology, and support for multiple databases and operating systems. We are now in the midst of the second ERP War being fought in the trenches of ease of use, web based architecture, SaaS, embedded BI and CRM, customization outside of source code and integration tools.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:20:00 +0000

BPM Goes Mainstream

April 3, 2008 from Baseline – “The good news is that technology to support business process management (BPM) has become widely accepted, with a majority of enterprises having BPM projects, according to a pair of recent surveys.

The bad news is that implementing BPM—which requires real process change to succeed—is no slam dunk. In fact, in a recent survey from Forrester Research a majority of IT professionals at 142 companies reported the type of mixed results from BPM more closely associated with a three-pointer.”

180 View – Another misunderstood acronym is BPM. BPM is software to improve business process. Just like all new technology, there is the usual hype and implementation based on the potential merits of technology. It’s not surprising that there are lots of problems if the technology is purchased for the wrong reasons. It could also be difficult if the tool is not integrated with the existing systems. The article says “The most unexpected finding… was the frequent use of BPM technology as a tool to support new product development and innovation”. Our view is that BPM does make sense when creating new processes from scratch. You have a clean slate and don’t need to worry about integrating existing systems, data or processes.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:17:00 +0000

The Future Ain't What It Used To Be

May 20, 2008 from AMR Research – “It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.”—Yogi Berra” - Trying to predict the future based on current trends and conditions invariably misses the mark. The problem: conditions always change. If, in 1945, you tried to predict the success of a hotel chain like Holiday Inn without considering the creation of a national highway system, you would have thought it a bad idea and been dead wrong.”

180 View – It’s true that conditions change, and that the smart ones notice and take advantage of it.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:09:00 +0000

First Look: Adobe's Acrobat.com Document Collaboration Service

June 1, 2008 – “Today Adobe launched the free public beta version of Acrobat.com, a Web-based supplement to its popular PDF document creation application. The new site offers an array of services to help businesses share and collaborate on documents. It also supports basic Web conferencing (including desktop sharing) and limited free conversion of documents to PDF format.”

180 View - Richard Morochove wrote this article for PC World, and if Richard says it’s good, then it must be.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:06:00 +0000

Spreadsheet "Worst Practices"

May 14, 2008 from CFO.com – “There's little doubt that electronic spreadsheets are the most widely-used financial software application. But they are also the most-abused.

It takes some effort — often a lot of effort — to develop and maintain sound, proper, and effective spreadsheet practices. The spreadsheet's very ease of use encourages sloppy habits, and even seasoned finance professionals can find themselves falling into bad habits. At its worst, spreadsheet sloppiness, reflected in poor design, difficult manipulation, and lack of documentation, can lead an auditor to declare that a company has ineffective controls over some aspect of financial reporting. But even less serious spreadsheet follies can cause major headaches….”

180 View – A reader of the article commented online with the following – “A comprehensive set of Best Practice Spreadsheet Modelling Standards and Conventions are available at www.ssrb.org. The Standards aim to promote discipline and consistency amongst spreadsheet model developers. They Standards are quite comprehensive and can be applied to any spreadsheet modelling task.” I had not heard of ssrb.org before but did take a quick peek at their free 77 page document. If you have time to wade through it, please let us know what you think.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:04:00 +0000

Hosted CRM Buyer’s Guide

2007 from INSIDE.CRM – “…According to technology market analysts at Forrester, the CRM market is poised to hit nearly $74 billion in sales in 2007. CRM applications represent about $21 billion of that market, with services making up the rest. With so much money to be made, it’s no surprise the CRM landscape features scores of players, from up-and-comers to industry stalwarts. Key vendors include Amdocs, PeopleSoft, Salesforce.com and Siebel Systems, to name a few…”

180 View – The article is about a year old but does provide a few insights on the differences between Hosted vs. On-Premise CRM.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:00:00 +0000

Understanding Why Good Workers Quit

May 2, 2008 from an article by Robert McGarvey published on internet.com – “Keeping key employees really comes down to finding out who they are and what they like. And it’s more important than ever.”

180 View (written by Lawrence Young) – If you are Canadian, you undoubtedly have heard of the giant steel maker Dofasco. Why if you’re Canadian-because Dofasco always ends their radio and newspaper ads with the byline “Our product is steel. Our strength is people”.
I must say that this catchy phrase has always stuck with me, and in part is responsible for Human Resource Management being one of the areas of specialty in my consulting practice. And the more I advise companies on how to attract, manage and retain great people, the more I realize that for the most part, HR management is all about doing the simple stuff.

In fact, the two bestsellers of all time are my guiding lights on HR management. The Bible tells us to ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. And Dale Carnegie’s 1936 book called “How to Win Friends and Influence People” tells us to ‘Put yourself in the other guy’s shoes and ask yourself what’s in it for him’.

In this practical, down-to-earth article, Robert McGarvey says us that ‘the secret to retaining your best employees starts with knowing who they are’. HR expert Beverley Kaye suggests that we get to know them by proactively doing a ‘stay’ interview instead of reactively doing an ‘exit’ interview. She suggests that ‘when stay interviews are part of the culture-and this a practice in very few companies-attrition of the people you don’t want to lose plummets’.

So what do you ask in a stay interview? The simple stuff. Ask your employees simple questions, like ‘what can we do to keep you?’ Ask them what they like and don’t like about the company and their job. And be honest with them. ‘If the employee asks for things you cannot deliver, be direct in acknowledging it but also indicate what you can do. Know too that that just by talking to employees in this way you are scoring points because it’s something that just does not happen in most companies’.

At the end of the day, human resource management comes down to this – you either believe, like Dofasco, that one of the greatest strengths of your company is the people you employ. Or you don’t!

If you are a believer, then continuously do the simple stuff. Show your valued employees that you care about them. Treat them with respect. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. And above all, make it easy for them to tell you how they feel, and listen to them with an open mind.

And if you are not a believer, then…good luck to you!

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:01:00 +0000

Integration Woes

April 2008 from CAmagazine and written by Michael Burns – “Integration still is the No. 1 problem facing many organizations that require more than one internal system…”

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:58:00 +0000

Five misconceptions about ERP

April 2008 from Manufacturing Automation and written by Michael Burns – “There are so many misconceptions about ERP, it’s a wonder that the acronym has not been replaced. Are you guilty of harbouring one of those misconceptions?”

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:50:00 +0000

New CRM Website

We have just launched a website for CRM (http://www.crm180systems.com/), to join our other websites on ERP (http://www.erp180systems.com/), Corporate Performance Management/Business Intelligence (http://www.cpm180systems.com/), and Business Process Improvement/Governance Risk Compliance (http://www.bpi180systems.com/)

The objective for all these site is to provide unbiased information about products, implementers and relevant articles. We would appreciate any suggestions on how to improve the site and recommendations for products or implementers to add to our site.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:44:00 +0000

Leading waste hauler sues SAP claiming ERP rollout a 'complete failure'

March 27, 2008 from ITBusiness.ca – “The trash disposal giant, Waste Management is suing SAP over an ERP implementation it dubs "a complete failure." In its court complaint, Waste Management said senior SAP executives, including SAP Americas' president and CEO, Bill McDermott, participated in the "rigged and manipulated" demos.”

180 View – It’s hard to believe that SAP would intentionally rig or manipulate a demo. A canned demo is apparent if you are asking questions. The demonstrator will be unable to show anything other than what was planned. It’s also unlikely that SAP would have answered specific functionality questions dishonestly. That would be a big problem in court. It would also be a big problem during the selection process if the truth was uncovered as the decision is largely based on trust. But perhaps the requirements were not well defined. And perhaps SAP was not forced to be specific in responding to requirements. A “Yes” can mean many things including out of the box functionality, third party, customization or workaround.

It’s not to say that the vendors are always blameless. We have recently heard a number of horror stories of failed implementations. In these cases, the problem lay with the Value Added Reseller who promised the world and failed to deliver. One question raised by these failures is to what extent the developer should be responsible for the failures of their Value Added Resellers. Many of the developers have certification processes, but it’s no guaranty. We would like to hear your thoughts on this.

noreply@blogger.com (180 Systems) — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:40:00 +0000

SAP and Oracle: Who’s Ready for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses?

June 2007 from Nucleus Research – “Who’s’ delivering the greatest value to the SMB market? An in-depth analysis of 56 customers showed significant differences between the value delivered by SMBs by Oracle and SAP today…”

180 View – If you read the article you will find that 44% of the Oracle respondents would recommend Oracle to their peers. If you think that’s bad, only 10% of SAP customers would recommend SAP. Is SAP getting a bad rap? Perhaps based on a limited survey base or because SAP’s midmarket systems were not included. I (Michael Burns) have used SAP at Ryerson University to demonstrate ERP concepts. I think SAP would overpower most SMB’s. SAP does offer All-in-One, which is preconfigured for a specific industry and would reduce the setup hit. Also SAP has two SMB solutions – SAP Business One and ByDesign.