News & Views

February 13, 2012 from Computerworld – “A massive Oracle ERP (enterprise-resource-planning) software project being conducted by the U.S. Air Force continues to experience difficulties, with the defense agency deciding to toss out some completed work as part of a restructuring plan that will be announced soon, according to an official communication released last week…

Dubbed the Expeditionary Combat Support System (ECSS), the project was started in 2005 and is supposed to replace more than 200 legacy systems. Its total estimated costs, which were originally placed at about $3 billion, have grown to more than $5 billion…”

180 View – And you thought you had problems. It is hard to understand how such a high profile project could fail so badly. But the problems are likely the same problems that plague other implementations such as lack of clearly defined requirements.

February 9, 2012 from CRM Daily – “Business software maker Oracle Corp. has turned down $272 million in court-ordered damages from SAP AG in hopes of leaving a much bigger dent in its rival’s pocketbook and reputation during a second trial over allegations of corporate theft…

After SAP took over TomorrowNow in 2005, Oracle uncovered evidence that TomorrowNow was breaking into Oracle’s computers to steal instruction manuals and other technical information  about copyrighted software.

SAP acknowledged much of the misconduct before the first trial began in 2010, but argued it shouldn’t be penalized severely because it didn’t gain that much from the stolen data. SAP estimated it picked up about $40 million in revenue from the skullduggery, prompting it to set aside $160 million for the damages that it thought it might have to pay…”

180 View – We think Oracle made a smart move in rejecting the offer. The reason given is they believe they should have been awarded a lot more than the $272M. I think another reason is that they can continue to embarrass SAP in the court of public opinion.

January 2012 from CAmagazine and written by Michael Burns – “Anyone who has been involved in selecting software knows the road is strewn with pitfalls — many of which we covered in “The top 10 software selection mistakes” (www.camagazine.com/selectionmistakes). But how do you avoid those mistakes altogether? In the next few columns, we hope to shed some light on the subject…”

December 20, 2011 from Computerworld – “With the year drawing to a close, one thing seems abundantly clear: There are still an awful lot of ERP and other software projects running off the rails out there.

Software project failures are no fun for anyone involved. They lead to piles of wasted money and effort, heaps of accusations and recriminations, and even to lawsuits. Here’s a look at some of the highest-profile problem projects to surface this year…”

180 View – One of the 10 biggest failures is “the attempt to provide electronic health records for all of the country’s citizens.” This is not an ERP system. Another of the 10 was for a company with 20 employees. It seems to me that the author had trouble finding big ERP failures in 2011.

November 15, 2011 from The Enterprise System Spectator – “I attended two days at SAP’s SapphireNOW conference in Madrid earlier this month, at the end of a month-long trip to Spain and Italy. The trip to Madrid gave me a good opportunity to catch up with the latest developments with SAP since the Sapphire conference last May in Orlando.

Jim Hagemann Snabe gave the Wednesday keynote, which I found tighter and more balanced than similar messages delivered in Orlando. Back then, the keynotes seemed to overly emphasis HANA, SAP’s new in-memory database technology. Although HANA is still hugely important to SAP, the message is now more balanced between SAP’s three focus areas of innovation: mobile, cloud, and in-memory computing…

My consulting team at Strativa recently evaluated ByD (Business ByDesign) in a competitive deal and came away favorably impressed. Customer reference checks during the Madrid conference were also encouraging. I believe SAP has a winner with ByD: both for subsidiaries of its large customers and in net-new small business deals. Those who question the viability of ByD at this point should reconsider their assumptions…”

180 View – Although the author, Frank Scavo, was paid to attend the conference by SAP, Frank did a good job in providing an unbiased opinion about the conference. What was also interesting about the article was what was not discussed – mainly SAP ERP, SAP Business All-in-One and SAP Business One. SAP ERP and All-in-One are the same system except that All-in-One is preconfigured for a specific industry. It seems that SAP is betting on in-memory computing for these systems – “From an economic standpoint, in-memory computing is a sustaining innovation for SAP. SAP can use in-memory computing to continue to sell big-ticket licenses to big-ticket customers and receive large annuities in the form of maintenance fees.” But there was no mention of SAP Business One, which is conspicuous by its absence.

October 10, 2011 from CPA Practice Advisor – “As with most organizations, nonprofits vary in size and scope, and their software needs vary, as well. As an accounting professional, you know that the software needs of the local animal shelter will vary widely than the needs of the United Way.

While this may be a drastic comparison, it really highlights the wide range of organizations served by nonprofit software vendors. Entry-level, off-the-shelf systems are intended for different types of nonprofits than the top-line, robust solutions. This is not a one-size-fits-all market… The review includes the following systems with their ratings:

• AccuFund – AccuFund Accounting Suite for Non-Profits (Overall: 4.75 Stars)
• Blackbaud – The Financial Edge (Overall: 5 Stars)
• Blackbaud – Fundware (Overall: 4.5 Stars)
• Cougar Mountain Software – Denali Fund+ Accounting (Overall: 4.75 Stars)
• CYMA Systems, Inc. – CYMA Not-for-Profit Fund Accounting (Overall: 4.75 Stars)
• eTEK International Inc. – eTEK Fundamentals (Overall: 4.5 Stars)
• Fund E-Z Development Corp. – Fund E-Z Accounting (Overall: 4.5 Stars)
• Intuit Inc. – QuickBooks Premier Nonprofit Edition (Overall: 4.5 Stars)
• Sage North America – Sage Fund Accounting (Overall: 5 Stars)
• Sage Peachtree Premium Accounting for Nonprofits 2012 (Overall: 5 Stars)
• Serenic Software – Serenic Navigator (Overall: 5 Stars)”

180 View – Although all the systems have a high rating and the rating seems somewhat arbitrary, the article should benefit a not-for-profit organization seeking a new system. However there are many more systems available. For example, check out Unit4 and Tyler Technologies, both of which are good high-end solutions.  You will also find that many of the well known ERP systems have either built not-for-profit functionality or have partners that have extended their system with not-for-profit functionality using the same tools and database as the core product.

December 2011 from CAmagazine and written by Michael Burns – “Few complex projects are undertaken without some estimating being done. Whether it’s a construction company that needs to do a custom project or an accounting firm that needs to prepare a proposal for a complex audit engagement, someone (often several people) will have to take a stab at calculating the effort and cost required to finish the job…”

November 14, 2011 from BusinessFinance – “As Workday continues to expand and the likelihood of its IPO becomes a more frequent topic of discussion, so does the movement of ERP systems to the cloud. Thus far, only a minority of companies have chosen to put their ERP and accounting systems in the cloud, but the numbers are growing and there’s evidence of success. NetSuite, for example, reported a 26 percent increase in its revenues to $145 million in the nine months up to Sept. 30, 2011. To be sure, this is not close to Salesforce.com’s size and growth rate over the past decade, but it does indicate a growing acceptance of the cloud for this software category…

Those identified as cloud vendors that publish financial statements are currently showing strong growth. Yet what we mean by “cloud computing” is likely to evolve, as will the incumbents’ offerings. The big vendors have big resources, they have (or will have) cloud offerings and are pursuing broader platform strategies that may provide compelling advantages to some customers. The smaller vendors are showing flexibility. The cliché of the fat lady has yet to sing applies to the current environment.”

180 View – Our view is that it is futile to resist the cloud. The major vendors have jumped on the cloud bandwagon and will soon offer cloud-like alternatives. We find that many small and midsized businesses are ready to take the leap into the clouds and believe there is a business case and that the cloud vendors will protect their data.

2011 from evaluation centre – “One of the most important, yet overlooked, activities in the ERP software selection process is the choice of implementation partner. In fact, the ultimate success of your project depends on the ability of the implementation team to work with you to configure the software to meet your needs. This means your choice of implementation partner should be a key consideration in the whole process…

Some areas to assess during the implementation partner selection process include:

1. Vendor experience.
2. Company longevity.
3. Proposed consultant CVs.
4. Methodology.
5. Billing rates.
6. Expected implementation timeline…”

180 View – We agree with the article on the importance of the implementation partner. We would also recommend interviewing the key people on the implementation team to make sure they are a good fit based on their experience as well as their personalities in adapting to the corporate culture.

October 18, 2011 from CIO – “…Among the threats is the exodus of baby boomers and the emergence of a younger generation that’s been less loyal to corporate employers and are more likely to move to another job…

Starting this year, an average of 10,000 baby boomers will be eligible to retire every day for the next 19 years in North America, “and a lot of them are IT people,” said Cappuccio, people who are taking corporate knowledge with them…”

180 View – I believe that we have just started to see a major acquisition binge by companies that have no choice but to invest in an ERP system as their legacy system will soon no longer be supported by the baby boomers.

August 2011 from CAmagazine and written by Michael Burns – “We are now in our 13th year for CAmagazine’s annual enterprise resource planning software survey. That is a very long time in software years. But while other programs come and go, ERP just keeps getting bigger, sweeping up more and more functions. This year, we added budgeting and forecasting, asset management and document management…”

June 2011 – “Just prior to the turn of the century, many companies were in a rush to implement ERP systems as part of their investment in IT. Many of those systems have now been installed over 10 years without replacement. This research reports looks at the overall performance of companies and what improvements companies were still getting from their ERP systems.  Find out what the benefits are from newer ERP systems, and when you should consider an upgrade or replacement…”

180 View – The report recommends that it’s time to replace ERP systems that are over 15 years old unless it provides a unique competitive advantage. The report had a number of interesting charts. One chart showed that that ERP extensions are mostly purchased from the ERP vendor for recently installed ERP systems but mostly from independent third parties for the old systems. Having one throat to choke is an advantage. Another chart shows a significant improvement in the time to implement the newer ERP systems which should not be surprising with all the lessons learned and better tools. The largest systems now offer preconfigured solutions. Another chart showed that the newer system required a lot less customization than the older ones.

August 11, 2011 from Computerworld – “Epicor is being sued by one of its customers over an ERP (enterprise resource planning) project that allegedly racked up five times its expected implementation costs, in the latest dispute of this type to become public…

The implementation costs were supposed to be US$190,000 but have reached more than $1 million, the complaint says. Whaley is suing Epicor for fraud, breach of contract, unfair trade and negligent misrepresentation. It wants its money returned along with additional money for damages…”

180 View – Unfortunately there are still failed ERP implementations. We believe that the problem is primarily people and not software. There is something seriously wrong with overruns of this magnitude. But overruns are avoidable. When there are unknowns and the implementer is unable to provide a firm price, we recommend that they be paid a fee to nail down the costs and prepare a project plan that includes the vendor’s time as well as the client.

August 8, 2011 from Computerworld – “A growing number of ERP software users are considering a jump to third-party support providers, according to new data from analyst firm Constellation Research…”

180 View – You may get great support from the third party, but you won’t get upgrades. This is probably ok for companies that are stuck with old versions of their software because of customizations. If you go this route, read the fine print of the contract to know costs to restart support.