News & Views

April 2011 from CAmagazine and written by Michael Burns – “Welcome to our 2011 survey on corporate performance (CPM), budgeting and business intelligence (BI). When we ran our first BI survey back in 2004, it was all on its own. But surveys have a way of morphing from year to year, gathering and discarding functions and products as they go. So it is that by 2006, our BI survey had been more or less taken over by corporate performance management (CPM).  Now, in a further evolution, our roundup encompasses both products, plus budgeting…”

April 2011 – We have now expanded out Systems Analysis Tool to include Business Intelligence, Corporate Performance Management and Budgeting. By completing a brief survey, we will provide you with the top 10 systems that meet your profile and requirements. Systems included are Actuate, Adaptive Planning, BizTools, Dynac, Enterprise Spreadsheet Manager, Indicee, Information Builders, Intellicus, myDIALS, Planning Maestro, Prophix, Style Intelligence, Infor PM, TARGIT and Yellowfin. If you know of other systems that should be included, please let the vendors know that they should contact 180 Systems.

April 4, 2010 from TechCrunchIT – “…Apax says it intends to combine Activant and Epicor to create “one of the largest global providers of enterprise applications focused on the manufacturing, distribution, services and retail sectors” with over 30,000 customers and $825 million in annual revenues…”

180 View – It is inevitable that consolidation will occur in the ERP marketplace. It’s a brutal sales cycle for the vendors and customers are reluctant to change even if they are unhappy. It will be in the best interest of Apax not to give their new customers any reason to doubt their commitment to their newly acquired products.

April 7, 2011 from TEC – “…Those who prefer on-premises solutions typically like to control the upgrade process, are concerned about security, and are uneasy about outsourcing some processes and functions that are mission-critical. These companies also like the ability to customize locally. Therefore, Sage’s Online Business Solutions strategy retains a three-tier character: 

1. Pure cloud computing for the smallest enterprises, and the most cost conscious new startup businesses
2. A hybrid (on-premises and on-demand) approach for the broad middle
3. Rejuvenated traditional on-premises products for established conservative businesses that want continuity and few surprises…”

180 View – The article discusses Sage ERP Accpac’s single-tenant cloud edition. One of the characteristic of SaaS is multi-tenant architecture where one instance of the software can be used by multiple customers. Multi-tenant architecture should lead to lower prices for customers as there is less infrastructure and need for support by the vendor. However single-tenant architecture could provide for more customization for a particular customer.

2011 from ProjectTimes – “…What is a successful ERP Implementation and how do we measure whether it was successful or not…”

180 View – The article brings up a great subject but misses the mark in how to define success. The article discusses success in terms of scope, timing, budget with the bottom line that the client is pleased. Clearly all of these are important but we think not enough. We believe that the project should start with a definition of critical success factors (what an organization must do well in order to be successful) and the measurements of success or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in attaining CSFs. There should be KPI goals for an ERP implementation, and only when these are met is it time to break out the champagne.

March 10, 2011 from BusinessFinance – “Here are some pretty startling figures for 2010 from Panorama’s cross-industry sample of ERP adopters of various sizes. The percentage of ERP implementations in which:

• The effort took longer than expected — 61 percent
• Cost exceeded budget — 74 percent
• Benefits realized were less than 50% of those expected — 48 percent…

ERP projects are fairly complicated and involve considerable risks. They may very possibly go awry, bringing in other issues like going over-budget, having to pay overtime, and so on, which will lead to low benefits realization…”

180 View – It is not surprising that ERP projects take longer and cost more than expected. However the benefits failure should not be linked to “going over-budget, having to pay overtime, and so on”. The benefits should be linked to the measurements of success or Key Performance Indicators that should have been identified at the beginning of the project. It is a gross overstatement that tons of ERP projects still bomb. ERP runs the business processes of any sized company and if tons of them are bombing, one would expect tons of companies to go out of business because of ERP, which is not the case. This reminds me of the rhetoric of the Y2K consultants who reaped the benefits of companies ready to do anything to avoid the anticipated disaster.

March 23, 2011 from InformationWeek – “Can software licensing get any more ridiculous? My company recently concluded a $900,000 software purchase, after reviewing the products of three major vendors… I understand that our software vendors must earn returns that support continued investment and innovation. But how much time and effort would be saved by both parties with simpler, more transparent licensing methods? It’s time for a change.”

180 View – We too have seen a wide variety of pricing models making it difficult to compare costs by vendors. Don’t wait until a decision is made to know the fine print.

July 21, 2010 from Modern Materials Handling – “…We began by looking at the top providers of warehouse management systems (WMS), but our focus has evolved… While the lines between supply chain execution and supply chain planning providers were once clearly drawn, that is no longer the case; ERP providers supply WMS, and supply chain execution providers supply planning and optimization solutions.

180 View – Don’t you love the 3 letter acronyms – ERP, WMS, SCM…? Some of the higher-end ERP systems include WMS and SCM, but when it comes to supply chain planning and optimization, you will likely require a best of breed option with one of the SCM vendors that specialize in that market.

180 View – Babies have a lot to say.

180 View – And so do our parents/grandparents.