WORKFLOW REPORTING

(Paper)Less is More - Electronic Document Management and Digital Workflow Help You Do More With Less

2011-01-19T02:13:00.002-08:00

In a rapidly changing business environment, intelligence is no longer enough to provide the compound knowledge and composite data required to make judicious business decisions. Organizations that are experiencing rapid growth-as well as those that struggle to be competitive-need quick access to detailed, timely information to satisfy customer demands, enhance services, and stay ahead of competitors.

An electronic document management (EDM) and workflow system vastly improves corporate intelligence, making scattered information instantly accessible to those requiring it, regardless of source or location. A webaccessible electronic repository enables easy access, centralizing information or pointing to its location in other systems. Whether you are searching for a document, image, email, voicemail, fax, letter, or a real-time status report, a document management system returns answers within seconds.

This article explores typical benefits companies can expect from EDM and workflow solutions. It also explains the interplay of "less" and "more" to achieve better business results.

More information, less paper
Technologies such as the Internet, Instant Messaging, faxes, voice mails, and email have resulted in an explosive growth of business data. Additionally, recent regulations require collection and storage of increasingly detailed information. To comply and provide quality service, data must be secure, yet easily retrievable. Managing incoming documents effectively is vital, but with paper, it can be challenging.

EDM facilitates indexing and searching of an organization's collective data. Auto-indexing standardizes filing, reduces hours of manual filing and searching for information, and enables staff to contribute more meaningfully to the business. Document management systems can point to data in diverse line-of-business applications, keeping data pools separate, yet ensuring information is found quickly. Data redundancy and misfiled papers become history with a strong document imaging system. More data minus manual searching equals greater efficiency.

More data, less loss
Faster data capture might suggest an unmanageable workload to managers whose staff is already struggling to handle incoming work effectively. However, by capturing data at its source, your company not only reduces time spent on manual filing and searches; it also raises your corporate IQ through instant availability of detailed, real-time information. Checks, forms, and inquiries that would have taken days or even weeks to organize and send to the appropriate parties on paper can be stored electronically, tracked, and forwarded automatically via digital workflow. They can be reported on the same day they are received, often within hours or minutes. Help desk staff acquires instant answers regarding the status of forms, applications, check deposits, and other action items. Auditors and regulatory agencies requesting data that is stored in multiple places-including emails and voicemail-can find what they need. Phone calls, written inquiries, and call-backs requesting status reports are eliminated. Thorough and detailed indexing ensures that there are simply no more 'missing persons' or files. Satisfaction replaces frustration.

More sensitive information, less vulnerability
The high volume of lawsuits against companies that break regulations, fail to respond to timesensitive matters and regulations, or breach security is enough to make any business manager nervous. Document imaging gives managers a distinct advantage, enabling them to preauthorize who can view, annotate, alter, approve, deny, or otherwise act on information and document types as they enter the system. Sensitive data, such as Social Security numbers, PINs, or financial and medical records, is blocked or invisible to those who are not permitted to view it, making companies less susceptible to security infringements. Detailed automatic tracking means each interaction with a document or data can be traced to a specific user in the case of a suspected violation.

Businesses that produce or receive high volumes of documents are also vulnerable to making costly errors and failing to react on actionable items in the most urgent and logical order. A document management system addresses this challenge, providing automatic alerts that notify appropriate persons when new or changed information is received or requires action. Pre-set business rules enable automatic prioritization of time-sensitive material.

More high-level services, less routine work
Another great challenge for companies is maximizing the use of each employee's intellect and strengths, rather than wasting their talents and time on routine tasks that require little thought or creativity. Our society is more mobile than ever. People migrate easily from the role of employee to job seeker when they are not challenged or see no path to career growth.

Document management removes the monotony of routine tasks such as filing documents and searching for information. Likewise, digital workflow enables companies to mechanize time-consuming tasks such as prioritization, distributing work, and chasing information, instead pushing specific action items to the right parties for timely action. Productivity reporting tools enable management to gain a real-time overview of the quantity and quality of work produced by each department and its employees. By freeing workers' hands from paper and the tedium of repetitive work, your staff stays focused on the job at hand and is able to focus on higher-level thinking that makes a positive difference in your organization.

More satisfied customers, fewer lost opportunities
Document management and workflow enable companies to reap the reward of better and faster work with existing staff; more thorough, accurate, and timely information; and enhanced service at a lower cost. Eliminating paper, storage costs, mailing, and waiting times means faster service and more satisfied customers. In an age where many companies' products and services are difficult to differentiate, the ability to provide stellar customer service is often the only way to gain a true competitive edge. EDM and workflow provide the corporate intellect that results in a connected view of old and new information, past and present transactions, and information generated far away or near to home. It gives you needed insight into your company, your customers, and helps you understand the influence of, and relationship between, all of your transactions. With EDM and workflow, paper(less) truly is more.

The keys to success: plan ahead, but take one step at a time
The paperless office is inevitable. The ability of a business to remain competitive depends on its willingness to embrace change intelligently and to adapt to the external environment. The greatest monuments of the world were planned carefully, but built one step at a time. An EDM solution must mirror the wisdom of methodical, careful planning and logical, stepwise action. With careful planning, regular and thorough communication, a strong document imaging solution, and a vendor that will be able to service your needs as you grow and advance, you will travel the path to long-term success.

Laurel Sanders
Director of Public Relations and Communications

Laurel Sanders joined OIT as the Director of Marketing in August, 2004 and was named Director of Public Relations and Communications in January of 2008. She previously served as the executive director of The Muse Machine in Dayton, Ohio, where she was also a consultant in the planning and launching of a collaborative arts education program in Beaufort, South Carolina based on the Dayton model. Laurel was the development director for Dayton Opera and subsequently taught music and English in Germany. She holds a Masters in Arts Administration from the University of Cincinnati; a Bachelor's in Voice, magna cum laude from Ithaca College and the London Centre in England; and pursued business studies at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio as well as vocal studies at the Hindemith School in Switzerland. She chairs public relations for the State College Downtown Rotary Club, assists with communications for the United Way, and is a member of the board of trustees for the Junior Baroque Music Festival in State College. Laurel is a published writer on business and technology topics and is fluent in German.

Topmost Things in Choosing Outsourcing Software Development Company By Jason Himes

2011-01-19T02:13:00.001-08:00

As it is well known IT industry tends to grow very fast nowadays and the competition between both the innovators of IT ideas and vendors will never reach its top - it grows constantly.

One of the most interesting questions in software development outsourcing business is about the strategy of choosing the best partner whose skills and experience are appropriate for the project and who would be able to turn venturous idea into successful technical solution.

This question is of high priority for outsourcing services providers and allows enhancing the value of services and loyalty of existing and new customers.

To my mind, the first and the foremost item the IT customers should consider while looking for software development providers is the real level of expertise the team has. This item stands above all the other important facts, like the size of the company, the references, communication and etc. The references could address another team working at previously completed projects and no longer employed by outsourcing software development company. The size of the company can not reflect real level of professionalism. Net profits will not represent the actual grows of business, as the major part of expenses can be related to investment into company grows and the team trainings.

Technical knowledge, skills, experience, understanding of business requirements and ability to generate solutions are the foundation of successful project development and launch to the market of robust solution.

Before choosing the partner, it's very important to get acquainted with the team of developers and organize serious technical interview with each member of the team assigned to your project. The team members must possess high level of proficiency and provide clear answer to all your technical questions. Except the technical convenience the developers must have excellent communication skills and provide regular and effective communication with you and the other team members over the project building. Regular team meetings, discussion of the progress, issues and ongoing tasks planning will allow to stay on the same page and timely alarm in case of any discrepancies.

On negotiation stage you should represent the project details to the Lead Developer of software outsourcing company, so he can analyze carefully all the requirements, assess the scope of work and give his suggestions of project building, advise on used tools, technologies, CMS and Frameworks, ask necessary questions to clarify the details and prepare the plan of project implementation with the breakdown of all the tasks and time necessary to accomplish each task, the start and final delivery date. The questions of Lead Developer and the initial project plan will give you good idea on the provider's proficiency and correspondence to your needs.

It would be good if you have your own estimation and vision on the project development, so you have an understanding of how much the project should cost and how long it will take. This will definitely help to get better vision on outsourcing software development company capabilities and understand if the company is able to achieve your goals and yield excellent results.

The outsourcing team should follow transparent approach in software development. You should always know what is happening with your project or what is doing each member of your dedicated team. You should receive regular (daily, weekly) reports on the status of the project, so that the work is completely visible and you can easily coordinate it and give the feedback and requirements or simply ensure the deliverables match the requirements and the work is going in accordance with the plan.

The very important item while choosing an outsourcing software development company is to ensure the latter has all the necessary resources to produce high quality results and handle effective communication. The vendor must have the required environment for the work: hardware equipment, operating environments and databases, different programs and applications for development and testing. The team has to be versatile with various versioning and reporting tools, like SVN, CSV, VSS, BaseCamp, Redmine and etc. to optimize project management, workflow and reporting process, so you can easily monitor the status of the project.

It would be useful to visit personally each potential software development service provider to meet the team face-to face and see the specialists in work.

There are many other very important things you should take into consideration, but these tips are primary areas you should concentrate on and hopefully can help to choose the best IT minds and reach the business effectiveness

Accounts Payable Software - What to Look For

2011-01-19T02:12:00.003-08:00

Accounts payable professionals know that there is much more involved with their job than just paying invoices! There are certain aspects of AP that can be simplified and streamlined with the setup of a good accounts payable accounting software program. Here are some key things to look for in accounting software to help you streamline your accounts payable.

MICR check capability

MICR Check printing lets you print checks on blank check stock (with a special ink) instead of on preprinted check stock. This can be useful when the check information changes, such as address changes, etc. With MICR check printing, you simply change the data and print the checks instead of wasting the remaining preprinted checks. This same tool can allow signatures to be printed, rather than requiring a manager to be present to sign checks.

View vendor balance when entering purchases

Being able to view vendor balances when entering AP transactions can be helpful, since you can instantly see your status with that vendor. If a payment is necessary, you can promptly make one from the system and then process the new transaction.

Flexible vendor sorting

Perhaps you can't remember the vendor's name, but you can recall their city or contact name. Having a system that allows you to sort or look up vendors in a variety of ways can be extremely helpful for this reason.

Useful reporting

Accounts payable software is meant to make your job easier and also to pull information out of the system when you need it. Be sure to find a system that can provide the information you and your managers need, the way you need to see it, and in a timely manner. Can you sort credit card purchases from line of credit purchases? Can you move around the fields of information as needed for your accounts payable aging report? Can you sort your purchases by vendor and by account? Not only will strong reporting keep you well organized, it will also keep you looking good when others request details from you, and you can provide them what they need in a timely manner.

By setting up and using a good accounts payable software system, you can make your job so much easier, and also impress your peers with your simplified workflow and reports.

Red Wing Software has accounts payable software to meet the needs of a growing business. Please follow the below link to learn more about Red Wing Software products.

Construction ERP Software Is Simplified With New ERP Workflow

2011-01-19T02:12:00.001-08:00

The next time you find yourself held up in traffic due to highway construction; take the opportunity to sit back, take a deep breath, and think green. In spite of all the diesel fumes, you just might be looking at one of the most efficient and most productive operation in the country. I say that because in to-days economy, construction companies have to be efficient and productive or they simply don't survive.

There is probably no other type of business owner more in tune with the concept of lean and green than the owners of a construction companies. Their concept of efficiency is getting the job done as quickly as possible, as cost effectively as possible, with as little fanfare as possible and as little paperwork as they can get away with. Ask almost any contractor what his number one enemy is and he will likely tell you it is down time, severe weather conditions and the never ending paperwork bureaucracy.

To-day we are going to talk primarily about the first one, down time. Down time is production time lost, usually due to equipment failures or unsuitable working conditions caused by uncooperative weather.

A good contractor knows that the key to minimizing down time in equipment failures is through preventative maintenance. New equipment goes a long way toward reducing down time but even tired iron can be coaxed along, remaining effective even in demanding conditions, as long as the equipment is serviced regularly and treated with a level of respect commensurate with its age and history.

Even small tools require regular maintenance in order to maximize their usefulness over as long a period as possible. While small tools may represent a relatively small monetary investment, the cost of their not being in top notch working order can be huge. Substandard tools can result in decreased productivity, shoddy workmanship and unrecoverable down time. Just as annoying, and perhaps even more costly than the tools themselves, is having to locate a replacement tool or part, only to discover the replacement is not instantly available. It may require days or even weeks to acquire..

Every contractor knows that changing the oil in the crankcase every 150 hours will likely extend the efficiency level and life of a particular piece of equipment. He is also well aware of the fact that writing down the fact that the oil was changed will do nothing for the equipment or improve the bottom line of the financial statements. As a result, if recording the service activity is the least bit difficult, or it takes him out of his way to do so, it will probably not get done, at least not on a consistent basis.

There are a number of real good reasons for tracking service work done to equipment and most readily and easily accomplished in a fully integrated seamless workflow construction ERP software.

• It is important to record service to every unit so that we know when it was last serviced and can be prepared for the next, knowing when it is due.
• It is important to record service so business owners know that all the necessary precautions are being taken to comply with the requirements for a good preventative maintenance program.
• It is also important to know that service is a regular activity, not hit and miss. On newer equipment, good service records may be critical in instances whereby warranty claims are presented to suppliers or equipment manufacturers.
• It is important to know that someone is taking a look at, and making notes on what may prove to be abnormal conditions, situations which might lead to serious and or costly equipment failure.
• Every piece of equipment eventually reaches a critical life point whereby decisions must be made to either replace or overhaul. Service records present extremely useful data for equipment lifeline analysis.

The fully seamless integrated workflow approach to ERP for construction makes physical access to equipment and job costing data and reporting relatively simple, easy to use and very affordable as compared to traditionally modular accounting and ERP systems.

In the seamless workflow ERP, it is not only remarkably easier to do what you want and need to do, but data is also captured at a significantly higher level of accuracy resulting in unprecedented quality and reliability in equipment costing reports.

Finally, in seamless workflow systems all the data collected is retained for extensively long periods of time making it possible to review the entire life of a particular piece of equipment. When it comes to making decisions about repairing or replacing your equipment, your decision can now be based on actual facts instead of a few recent details and a lot of educated guesswork. Nothing gets left to chance in this construction ERP software.

Ron Bunn, joint founder and author of unERP technologies, is an accountant by trade and an information systems designer and computer programmer by desire. His first personal home computer purchased in the late 1970's costing more than $40,000.00 in to-days dollars was his launching pad to an exciting and challenging career in information technologies. He lives in Rothesay, N.B., Canada where he continues to spend his time in nurturing the development of new ideas to simplify both accounting and computer system user activities within all levels of administration.

Workflow, BPM, ERP and ERP Workflow Integration

2011-01-19T02:11:00.002-08:00

The aim of an ERP system is to provide an integrated solution to all business areas of a particular enterprise. Ideally, you have one software system that the entire company can access and work with. So, for example, all the data for finance, sales, accounting, human resources and inventory is managed in one central repository and each business group within the organization accesses only the subset of data that they need.

Workflow as a concept is nothing new. Even before the era of computers, there have always been established procedures for handling operations within a corporate structure. Take a purchase order, for example: an employee notifies their manager that they require a particular item; the manager then puts in a requisition, which, depending on his level of authority, may need to be bumped further up the management chain until it is authorized; it is then handed over to the purchasing coordinator and finally purchased. The workflow can be relatively straightforward or very complex, but it is basically a business process that consists of a number of sequential tasks performed in a particular order or following a set of rules that is designed to facilitate a particular objective. Examples of processes for which workflows are commonly in place include order processing and fulfillment, sales cycle and campaign management, performance reviews, medical/insurance claims processing, expense reporting, warranty management, invoice processing and more.

The ERP workflow can be part of the larger concept of Business Process Management (BPM), which is a more holistic approach to business processes. Companies that employ BPM aim to optimize their business processes while striving to be more efficient, more effective, and improve the level of tracking and control built into their processes as a whole.

BPM and workflow implementation force companies to sit down and evaluate their processes and the rationale behind them: what is the flow of a particular task (e.g. draft -> ready -> financial approval -> final authorization -> sent to vendor), what possible scenarios exist, what rules need to be applied at each stage of the process (e.g., a purchase order cannot be moved from a status of "cancelled" to "sent to vendor" or any order over $10,000 needs another level of authorization), who is involved at each stage and what level of authority should they be granted. Creating a detailed blueprint of business processes, streamlining and regulating the workflow facilitates a greater degree of control; enhanced ability to respond to any potential issues; and increased efficiency, accountability and transparency for continued auditing and analysis of the process.

In many of the available solutions, in addition to automating the routing of documents and tasks from one person to another, email or SMS notification is employed to inform the next person in the chain of events that a document or process requires their attention. Rules can often be set so that another person in the chain is notified if a document remains at a particular status for too long (e.g. if the tracking document for an item in a repair shop remains by a certain technician at the status "in process" for more than two days, both the technician and his or her supervisor will receive automatic notification so that they can investigate the delay).

BPM and workflow functionality are increasingly a part of many ERP solutions, and it makes sense to implement such process maps and controls early in the game in order to maximize the benefits of the ERP system. Some ERP vendors offer built-in workflow functionalities, while others offer possibilities for third-party integration. If third-party solutions are employed, it's very important that the ERP and BPM/Workflow groups understand and communicate about the technology and processes that are being implemented.

Remember: workflows involve humans, and the people involved at all levels of the process should also be involved in the initial mapping out of the processes before they are implemented. While mapping out the process, you may discover new and better ways to perform tasks or provide better oversight. The defining and modeling phase is often a learning process for both employees and managers. Collaboration during the definition process can produce enhanced processes, improve performance of both the system as a whole and of individual employees, and ultimately foster a sense of "ownership" in each individual regarding his or her part in the process itself.

In conclusion and to recap, workflow and BPM systems control the flow of information between individuals or departments, and direct it to the next appropriate processing stage according to an established workflow map. A good system should enable managers to monitor the progress of a particular process within the workflow, handle exceptions, escalate individual exceptions and generate reports that can be used to improve performance. It is therefore advisable that you make BPM and workflow one of your priorities when selecting or implementing an ERP software solution.

By Rebecca Haviv

Currently Director of International Customer Relations at Eshbel Technologies, Ms. Haviv has over 20 years of both technical and managerial experience in the IT world, including software development, multimedia and product management. Since joining Eshbel in 2004, Ms. Haviv has continued to expand her knowledge and experience in the ERP field in particular.

Advantages of Workflow Management

2011-01-19T02:11:00.001-08:00

Workflow management helps the businesses in streamlining the efficiency of every elements of the company. There are number of departments in every company, performing different set of task. In order to dilute the flaws in the connectivity there is a need of a system which will integrate every element into a single bunch. So that flawless communication is established between the every department. This will enhance the efficiency of every member in the company and they will be in a position to deliver their best.

Below are the some of the advantages of workflow management system

Company or the organization can only run successfully if the performances of every member are measured precisely. Workflow software arms the management with most advance tools, by which they can easily monitor the growth of every elements in the company. This will automatically boost the company performance and they will swim in the ocean of the profit.

Workflow advance reporting system provides well documented data that will help the company owner in navigating the changes that are taking place inside the company. This management tool is so efficient that no important data can shy away from their eyes

Performance of the every employee in the company can be easily tracked by taking the help of the this management tool and if anyone is seating ideal they can also be monitored

Once the performance of every employee is improved, it will have positive impact on the quality of the products offered by the company. This will automatically boost the sale and the company reputation.

Above points clearly highlight the benefits workflow management, so every business should try their best to implement this tool.

Building Reporting Solutions and Dashboards With Sharepoint

2011-01-19T02:10:00.002-08:00

Comprehensive reporting solutions and dashboards provide the busy executive a quick snapshot of the right information, at the right time, in the right format, in real time. SharePoint based reporting solutions and dashboards leverage SharePoint's intrinsic features like extensibility, integration capabilities, flexibility, and collaborative framework to facilitate building robust, secure and tailored solutions that virtually become the one stop shop for all the critical information requirement of business users.

Issues with the current state of the Enterprise:

o Business systems are in multiple technologies, with specific processes that take too much time and money to make changes.
o Information within Business systems are not easily extended to use in the content of the user with documents, websites, or to be shared with customers, business partners, suppliers and others securely.
o Licensing models of enterprise systems make it cost prohibitive for enterprises to licenses all users who need to be casual users or consumers of information from these systems.
o Lack key features like Workflow, Forms, Self Service, Document Management, Web Publishing, Integrated reporting and Search functionality.

SharePoint in the Enterprise

Benefits

o Leveraging existing investments in SharePoint software to deliver more functionality and solutions in SharePoint.
o Reduced training costs.
o Integrated systems with Microsoft Office, Outlook, Active Directory, Exchange.

Furthermore, SharePoint will also allow creation of applications that will be put together in portable, manageable components called "web parts" that can be targeted to customers, employees, and partners.

o My orders, My Invoices, My Benefits, My Inventory, My Supplies among many quick to add features that pull together information from multiple places within an organization.

SharePoint can be the single source, collaboration platform to access the various information and services from all areas of the organization.

o Allows for seamlessly accessing information pan enterprise in a secure, personalized and centralized fashion.

Some Facts as to why SharePoint can be used as the Target Platform for Building Business Applications for the Enterprise.

o SharePoint with its business user friendly and self service driven application model reduces the need for business to cultivate their own independent "IT shops".
o Reduces the need for custom software development by making many of the common forms, workflow and collaborative applications configurable based on a "point and click" model.
o Enterprise wide adoption of SharePoint could lead to reduced licensing costs of other software by being the 80% solution for various Content Mgmt, Document Mgmt, Reporting and Collaboration needs across the Enterprise.
o The Web architecture of SharePoint lends itself to developing collaborative infrastructure nationwide, overseas, and with Business partners.
o Native integration and collaboration features with Outlook, Active Directory and Microsoft Office making it the platform of choice upon adoption of Exchange/Outlook for Email.
o The new feature of SharePoint allows for easy integration of the ERP systems and centralization of the Document Management, Reporting applications etc.
o The fastest growing product platform for Microsoft and is predicted to be adopted by 90% of the companies in the next few years -Aberdeen Group.

Automating Your Help Desk Workflow

2011-01-19T02:10:00.001-08:00

Do you know you can open, answer, close and report help desk information without human intervention?

Automation is a powerful feature provided by most enterprise level help desk products; however, most organizations rarely take advantage of these features. Based on a survey conducted by RightStar Systems, only 5% of the help desk managers interviewed were using automation to its fullest capacity. Most use it to some degree while others do not use it at all. Tom Jud, Emerging Growth Manager for BMC Software, has observed "...that the Business Rules Engine provided by the Magic Help Desk product, is the key feature that organizations should leverage to drive support efficiency and cost savings." He explains that the two main reasons for organizations not deploying workflow automation are 1) the perceived level of difficulty in implementing these functions and 2) The lack of workflow planning used in developing the helpdesk program. Once organizations learn the importance of workflow automation and the benefit gained, they embrace the feature and drive added value from their help desk product.

After having conducted over 600 site visits and product demonstrations, I have identified 4-main focus areas where organizations can benefit from deploying workflow automation.

o Enforcing best practices through automation.

Companies looking to provided better and less expensive support services have adopted any number of help desk "best practices" guidelines. Automating workflow to enforce a help desk's best practices deployment can drive even more value and efficiency. By pairing certain best practice areas with automated workflow, a help desk can provide a consistent and predictable level of support.

o Improving incident response time through automation.

Incident response time is how most service support organizations are judged. According to Beverly Wells, Help Desk and Groupwise Manager for CarMax, "Of all the statistics gathered by the CarMax Help Desk, the one area reviewed with the most scrutiny, is how fast we responded to and resolve calls." Workflow automation can drastically improve incident response, problem resolution, and change requests, by incorporating predetermined "if, then" capabilities. For example, if a call for a printer problem is received at the help desk, workflow automation can determine the type of call and direct that call to the right person or provide an automated answer to the requestor. In other words, "if" you receive a request like this, "then" do this specific task.

o Increase Reporting Accuracy

Automating workflow provides the ability to capture accurate help desk statistics by removing the various inconsistencies injected through human error. I know help desk managers that spend hours each month collecting, editing and refining help desk statistical reports. They spend most of there time correcting errors and adjusting the numbers that tell the real story of the help desk. Automating workflow is one primary way to assist help desk managers prepare and create accurate reporting.

o Create Consistency while Reducing Call Volume

Have you ever called a help desk and received two or three different answers for the same problem, or worse, no answer at all? It's frustrating and it reflects poorly on the help desk. Several help desk tools provide the capability to deliver answers on various issues in a consistent automated manner. This provides the requestor with confidence that they received the right answer while taking the guesswork away from the help desk analyst when answering questions. In many cases, the answer can be provided without human intervention. There are various ways of deploying these capabilities; collectively they can provide a tremendous reduction in call volume and a higher degree of customer satisfaction.

Incorporating automation in your help desk workflow provides many benefits. As with any undertaking, it takes forethought and planning, but with the right help desk tool and the desire to provide timely, accurate answers with little or no human intervention, the effort will off-load pressure from the help desk staff and integrate an atmosphere of help desk brilliance.

Dan Wilson currently works for RightStar Systems, a leader in Help Desk Service and Supprot Consulting; including problem, asset, change and desktop management.

How to Run Your Small Business Like a Large Enterprise

2011-01-19T02:09:00.000-08:00

As your small business takes on new staff, implements new processes and expands its operations, it's important to have a robust business system that supports this kind of growth. If your goal is for your business to grow into a large enterprise, start running it like one! Running your business like a large enterprise will help you improve productivity, cut costs and keep your business running smoothly. Here are some tips and lessons learned by the big IT operations over the years that you can implement:

Choose a business management system that is flexible and will grow with you, such as an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. An ERP system integrates most functions of a business, including quoting, planning, manufacturing, sales and marketing.

One of the main reasons business owners and managers source alternative business software is purely due to growth. As a business grows and more staff are added, entry-level accounting systems like MYOB start slowing down and losing performance.

An ERP system will not slow down as you add more users, customers and suppliers. As you change a process or procedure in your business, you can change your ERP system's workflow rules to match your company policy. I recommend you choose a powerful multi-user ERP and business accounting software solution, built for small and medium businesses. An ERP can manages each phase of a business' workflow cycle - from stock control, sales, servicing and customer contact to quoting, invoicing, financials and reporting.

Implement a virtual office system. Becoming a (virtually) paperless office and changing manual processes into automated electronic processes can save hundreds of hours per year in administration. An ERP system allows quick access to all files and records within a business so data can be retrieved on demand. Information can be integrated across applications and shared between offices, suppliers and customers, with multiple access allowed to the same file without corruption of data.

Report like a 'big business'. Reporting for small business often means pulling different data from a number of different systems and putting them together to form a meaningful, consolidated report. This is inefficient, cumbersome and time-wasting.

An ERP system brings all your data together and lets you customise your reports so you can see exactly what you need instantly. ERP systems provide true stock control and true costing as opposed to average costing. Reports such as "job costing", "profitability", "job profit", "daily labour" and "actual time" can be extracted from a good ERP system.

ERP Systems also let you expand overseas Expanding offshore requires a more robust business system that combined accounting with work flow and operational information reporting. You'll need a solution that could provide support with multiple foreign currency transactions, improved stock control and workflow management including stock serial number

Creating a Records Management Policy That is Right For Your Business

2011-01-19T02:08:00.000-08:00

Establishing a solid records management program is a challenge for any organization. Just like the planning of a new college campus or the revitalization of an existing city center, it has to be planned carefully from start to finish. All organizations benefit from consistent, thorough, and well-maintained records, but records management is rarely given priority status. Most organizations focus on "the next thing" that will take their business forward, without spending enough time on creating, completing, updating, maintaining, protecting, and even purging or destroying their records at the appropriate times.

Humans are notorious for being motivated when there is a sense of urgency to act. Many of us can identify with the need to diet or eat properly, but we first take action when we realize in a panic that our clothes no longer fit. We study like we should when there is a fear we might not get into the college of our choice, or might have to repeat a class. Unfortunately, few people do what they should do without an external motivation. Regulatory compliance, and the fear of litigation that accompanies it, have provided the necessity for records management to move up the organizational priority list for many businesses. Factors for establishing a successful policy are outlined below, along with software considerations to make implementation easier.

Communicating the Need for A Records Management Policy
The key to a successful records management program is a well thought-out records management policy that is accompanied by consistent records management processes. A clear policy establishes rules that inform staff what to create, manage, purge, and destroy, and helps record managers, as well as the agencies with whose rules they must comply, to know when infringements have occurred.

It is imperative to keep in mind, however, that automation is not a substitute for a policy. If you are still working from paper records, automation will not solve your problems, nor will it improve upon the inherent weaknesses in the policy. The need for compliance is true whether records are stored electronically or are still on paper. A sound policy sets clear expectations for records management, and helps staff to follow procedural expectations consistently.

As stated by Steve Weissman, Senior Analyst and Director of Marketing from Art Plus Technology, "Simply automating your records management program often results in automating the existing chaos. By failing to set up a plan for the creation, management, and purging of data, companies are at risk of simply getting into trouble more quickly. Although managers may aim to prove compliance, their lack of a policy may actually demonstrate expediently that they have not complied. This spells unwanted trouble for those organizations that could have been avoided if they had established a solid policy from the start."

Even the act of creating a policy can help with legislation, in particular Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, because it demonstrates that an organization has made sincere efforts to ensure compliance and implement internal controls. If your organization has not felt the urgency to create and communicate a clear records management policy, the records manager should elevate the importance of compliance and the undesirable consequences of compliance failure. This can serve as a motivating tool to implement a plan from which your company will benefit on multiple levels. The policy will give management the tools they need to effectively oversee one of the most critical assets a company owns: its collective corporate records.

Review: Defining a Record and its Lifecycle
The ISO (International Organization of Standardization) defines records as "information created, received, and maintained as evidence and information by an organization or person, in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of business". The form of a record can vary from a paper document to an email, voicemail, fax, image, or notes about the documents. Each record should have important information, or metadata, about the record that accompanies it. Who created the record? Where will it be stored? Who is allowed to access it? How long must it be stored? When should the record be purged from the files? When should it be disposed of or destroyed?

During the first and shortest part of the record cycle, an organization is typically concerned with managing an active document and its contents, including who has accessed, viewed, annotated, or otherwise taken action on the material. The remainder of the lifecycle is focused on record storage (records that are temporarily or permanently inactive), controlled access, maintenance, purging, and disposal.

Record Storage: Establishing A Clear Path for Easy Retrieval
The first step in records management is the effective classification of records and a storage system that enables quick, easy, and secure retrieval of information when it is needed. Regardless of whether you employ OCR, ICR, barcodes, or another method of capturing your information, electronic storage of your documents, images, and historical records can make records management easier. However, it only works to its maximum potential if information is classified thoroughly and intelligently.

In a digital world, a clear indexing plan takes into consideration the diverse sets of people and departments that need to locate records, and the terms by which they need to search for them. By taking the time to create a solid record classification or indexing plan, your staff, auditors, and regulatory agencies will be better served, and you can reallocate staff skills to more important tasks than searching for records.

Recently, e-discovery has made it imperative for companies to be able to provide whatever information is relevant to an issue during investigations and other regulatory response projects that require specific data. Legislation that was revised as recently as 2006, in particular the rules of civil procedure, now give courts of law the power to demand data as evidence, regardless of the cost to the companies that are required to provide it. Emails, text files, data stored on PDAs and other devices, backup tapes, databases, videotapes, voice files, and other materials are all subject to these regulations. A comprehensive and efficient records management system with easy retrieval helps companies avoid the crippling problems that can arise from eDiscovery challenges. Companies with technology that enables electronic searching of e-content and compliance with these demands have a significant advantage over those that do not. Those that have implemented an efficient system to enable easy e-discovery, coupled with a clear policy, have an indisputable edge in a court of law.

For the long term, companies should aim to create a corporate file plan, a single hierarchical structure for all corporate records. This lofty objective is difficult to achieve, and can be accomplished more easily if done so gradually. By applying record retention policies at the department level first, the foundation can be laid for enterprise-wide success.

Controlling and Auditing Access: Creating Clear Guidelines
The need to control who views, reads, annotates, and acts upon documents during the active portion of a record's lifecycle was apparent long before regulatory compliance was the buzz. In decades past, organizational hierarchy, trust, and respect provided many of the rules related to who should access materials. In today's world, those standards put organizations at risk if access is not properly controlled and monitored. With HIPAA, Sarbanes Oxley, SEC and other regulations, it is no longer enough to rely on respect and an arms-length handshake.

Easy and effective auditing of the policy is critical. Breaches of security can and do occur, but they can be prevented easily in a digital solution that is configured to control who is authorized to take specific actions. Equally important, the system should be capable of providing thorough audit reports. If certain portions of a form should be accessible to everyone, but specific portions require viewing or annotation restrictions, good document management software programs can address this need. If documents travel through an automated workflow process during the active part of the record lifecycle, reporting tools can provide the information needed to demonstrate compliance with internal policies, as well as external regulations.

Record Maintenance
Once a policy for records management is in place, many of the maintenance challenges are eliminated. By establishing a clear plan for storage, indexing, and access, the numerous actions that surround a record during its lifecycle are easier to manage. If your organization has moved beyond basic digital storage to include automated workflow, there are multiple benefits. Changes to documents or record updates to a policy or application can be configured to launch a routine process automatically, delivering a document with instructions for action, generating customized letters or calls based on data stored within a record, and much more. While the cost savings and increases in efficiency are enough to encourage any savvy records manager to consider this carefully, the reporting tools that help to monitor action and maintain compliance make it an important consideration.

Record Retention: Knowing When to Purge Records from the System
Since most records gradually lose their relevance to a company's current business over time, purging helps to reduce the plethora of irrelevant material through which the staff has to search for pertinent data. Just as the Statute of Limitations defines the maximum period that one can wait before filing a lawsuit, record retention schedules guide the user to eliminate information that may no longer be relevant to a business from a legal point of view. Purging appropriately (as soon as it is logical and permitted by law) keeps business data relevant and accessible, and removes what is no longer needed. Workers are no longer distracted by data that is not pertinent to their businesses. Purging promotes efficiency, while simplifying searches for information.

Vijay Magon, Technical Director for OITUK, Optical Image Technology's partner in the United Kingdom, states, "Timely purging of materials in accordance with retention schedules is a vital part of compliance. Companies need to demonstrate that they have a policy and system in place that results in purging the right materials at the right time. Technology makes it much easier to monitor and enforce these policies, while providing a clear audit trail of access and activity. Without this proof, companies place themselves at considerable and unnecessary risk."

Solutions to Document and Record Management Challenges
There are many components to a complete record management solution. Once a solid policy has been established, there are several powerful tools that can make management of the document and record lifecycle considerably easier. Automated workflow (during the business lifecycle of a document), email management, a hierarchical storage management product (to manage document retention and audits), and Web services are important components of a thorough solution. The role of each component in a records management program is explained below.

The Role of Automated Workflow during the Record Lifecycle
Digital workflow is the key to effectively managing, monitoring, and auditing each of the steps involved in every business process that is related to a document or record. Automated workflow facilitates a record manager's need to monitor document access and processes relating to those documents. If a court order arises, a company may be required to provide access to the records or show who viewed, altered, or forwarded a document or any other action related to it. An automated workflow product with robust reporting tools makes this process faster, easier, and considerably less time consuming and less expensive. Electronic workflow can be configured to demand the level of consistency and thoroughness that a recordkeeping department requires, and robust reporting tools to prove that the system and workers are following the expectations and rules set forth in the policy guidelines.

Leading electronic workflow products on the market today can integrate thoroughly with diverse line-of-business software applications. This maximizes the value of data that is stored in those applications and enables data to be shared appropriately across the enterprise based on the company's pre-set rules. Digital workflow pushes the right documents and data to the correct parties for timely action, dramatically improving efficiency. Updates in the database relating to a policy or application can automatically send an alert for action, or generate an appropriate call or letter. Workflow reporting tools enable all transactions to be monitored and analyzed in formats that suit the business and simplify compliance with auditors. These same tools provide managers with productivity analysis, clear audit trails, and information that enables continual quality improvement in the processes that relate to a company's documents. During the business lifecycle, the value of digital workflow in aiding compliance and assisting organizational efficiency can not be overstated.

A solution provider with automated workflow should have a product with tools to customize workflows to the needs of the business, tracking tools to show where documents are within a process, and reporting and auditing tools to help facilitate compliance. The software should be scalable to grow with your organization, and should integrate with other line of business software to provide maximum benefit from the investment. Organizations with limited IT staff and resources should ask their vendor about the availability of professional services to help them design, configure, and make potential changes the system to fit their changing needs.

Email Management Tools to Promote Efficiency and Compliance
Emails are similar to other corporate records because they hold content relating to a company's business. A large majority of companies' emails have valuable business content, as well as information regarding how decisions were made. Industry statistics suggest that 60 to 70% of corporate communications are housed within emails, and sometimes more.

Effective management of email messages is a critical piece of proper records management, since they often store important corporate information and communications. As Steve Weissman states, "A record is a record, regardless of its source or its form. Whether the information is stored in a voicemail, fax, document, image, or email, there is content, and it is a record. Companies are wise to manage all types of records effectively and thoroughly." Email messages should be stored in the company repository to enable easy searching of their content, including the transmission information in the header and the metadata about the email. Many companies now store their emails in a corporate repository as a step toward compliance. If a court of law requires proof that email messages were sent out or received on a particular topic or in a stated timeframe, the auditors will expect data to prove facts unequivocally. The cost of providing the data an auditor requires may be irrelevant to the governing agency, but disastrous for a business in cases where searching or complying proves to be difficult.

While tracing who forwarded specific emails beyond your company's direct email recipients is an enigmatic challenge, your company needs to be able to prove what was sent out, and to whom, if questions arise. Without a searchable system, the tracking of such data about emails becomes a labor-intensive, time consuming, and expensive process. Establishing clear and consistent rules for autoarchiving of emails promotes greater efficiency and fewer errors, and makes compliance easier.

An email management solution provider should include robust search tools that make true management of this critical information easy. The software should be able to monitor email on multiple servers simultaneously, and run on any platform to allow easy integration with other current and future technologies. The solution should be scalable, to enable it to grow with your company. The inclusion of blacklist and whitelist capabilities helps record managers to facilitate management of incoming emails and provides the added benefit of dramatically improving efficiency.

Hierarchical Storage Management Tools to Automate Retention and Audits
A strong hierarchical storage management product removes the human component to managing a document and information repository. This makes the system more efficient and less prone to errors. Retention schedules can be automated, with built-in alerts when a record needs to be purged. Vital information can be backed up routinely and automatically based on the rules you set in place.

A hierarchical storage management solution addresses the document-centered stipulations set forth in regulations and eliminates the human element in ensuring compliance. It includes retention schedules, audit trails, move and purge requirements, data migration, and various other records management tools. It should allow for automated and regular backups of data within pre-set rules that state the hierarchy of data importance. When paired with other products in an integrated document management suite, your organization will be empowered with a solution that not only addresses regulatory challenges, but also provides the means to increase the control of content, reduce risks, and ensure document integrity.

Web Services to Ensure Interoperability
Recently, Web services have gained increasing significance in records management. Since documents and records concerning those documents often are stored in and processed by diverse line of business applications, interoperability of systems is vital. Web services enable the systems to communicate with each other, ensuring that data stored in different applications can be accessed and centralized for easy reporting and analysis. They enable organizations to tap into multiple technologies within their familiar applications. Data can be extracted from those applications behind the scenes, and as an additional benefit, specific operations can be performed by tying Web services into workflow to push work behind the scenes to those who need it. By configuring the system to automatically extract data or perform whatever is needed behind the scenes, efficiency is dramatically improved. In addition, compliance is made much easier by the ability to pull emails from multiple sources and provide data about the emails that is needed for analysis and audits.

Summary
Records management is a never ending process. It helps to have a clear policy and effective tools that integrate with each other, both within each department that holds records and even across the enterprise. Consider your existing policies before you begin, and rectify weaknesses or inconsistencies so you understand your needs completely before choosing a solution provider.

When evaluating vendors to contribute to a complete records management solution, make sure you also consider a workflow-driven document management solution that will integrate seamlessly and make it easier for you to manage the business lifecycle of your documents while they are still active. Don't wait for an emergency to give you a sense of urgency to establish a strong records management program. With a solid plan, and tools that take advantage of workflow, reporting, storage management, email management, and Web services interoperability, your business should be able to manage records effectively and you should reap tremendous gains in efficiency. More importantly, you should be able to police your records effectively so the real police don't have to.

Workflow, BPM, ERP and ERP Workflow Integration

2010-06-13T00:48:00.000-07:00

Workflow Management Software: Businesses are Getting into the Flow

2010-06-13T00:47:00.000-07:00

Overall, most of the daily business activities include collaboration with committees, departments, that board, or this client, in order to bring everyone onto the same page. Though collaboration is the most effective way to enable workflow, the challenge is finding workflow management software that enables effective workflow.

Drafts of budgets, sales reports, market presentations, and more, flow back and forth as fast as a mouse can click "send." The back and forth, or ebb and flow of these documents is often a challenge to manage. About two-thirds of businesses do collaborative work as a normal part of the business day, and I am sure that most of them know what I am talking about. Workflow management software is now available in a variety of workflow management software packages. In fact, if you type "workflow management software" in Google, the search yields about 8 million 120 thousand indexed pages regarding the subject. This is a reflection of the growing need for workflow management software which helps businesses track documents that are incoming and outgoing.

True, the right workflow management software will help you feel that you are standing on solid ground again, but searching through the over 8 million options available may make you feel that you are drifting out on the water again.

There are two major challenges to adopting workflow management software. First, it is often intimidating to adopt new technology. Second, it is a challenge to find workflow management software that meets your businesses needs.

These do not have to be challenges. There is a way to whittle down the 8 million options available to find one that is easy to use and meets all of your business's needs. In searching for workflow management software, most businesses are not interested in adding new IT to their technology. They simply want software that will work for them the minute it is downloaded. Search for workflow management software that does not require IT. It is easy to use and it is not at all intimidating. It is helpful to use the free demo to see exactly how the workflow management software helps you to track document workflow and to see if it is what your business is looking for.

In addition to simple workflow management software, compatible software is what studies show businesses are looking for. By compatible, I mean that businesses use email to collaborate. That means that attachments are often included. Is there workflow management software able to track documents through email and computer drives? Is there workflow management software able to work with the most common office applications? The answer to both questions is yes.

New technologies are now available in workflow management software that enables you to track documents and its changes through email, desktops, and hard drives. This technology is called Digital Thread, and it threads document versions together, tracking the who's, what's, when's, where's, and how's of documents.

Extensible Business Reporting Language

2010-05-01T06:44:00.002-07:00

The Christopher Cox modernization commission proposes that companies provide their financial statements to the Commission and on their corporate Web sites in interactive data format using the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). A statement on Page 29 of the PDF states that the decision about this request becoming compulsory was to have been decided on December 15th, 2008.

XBRL was derived from the XML standard. It was developed and continues to be supported by XBRL International, a collaborative consortium of approximately 550 organizations representing many elements of the financial reporting community worldwide in more than 20 jurisdictions, national and regional.

The proposal is a significant one for Mr. Cox as he is a proponent of modernization and the use of current technology to reduce business and government expenses. His legacy will be the promotion of “interactive data” and modernization of SEC filings through the use of XBRL.

Mr Cox has decided to retire at the end of President Bush’s term. During Mr. Cox’s tenure, the regulator has convinced over 8,000 companies to use XBRL in various types of filings. Large international organizations such as Proctor and Gamble and Pepsi file with GAAP and IFRS, are using XBRL, and are on the very pro XBRL bandwagon.

About the only criticism I have about Mr. Cox’s plan is the timeline. CFOs balked at the aggressiveness of the schedule that SEC proposed. SEC wants them to aim for concrete results for 2010.

Sharing SharePoint and Unified Communications

2010-05-01T06:44:00.001-07:00

Microsoft SharePoint is the platform for portal-based collaboration and document management/enterprise content management (ECM). The product also works tightly with Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and Unified Communications (UC), both Microsoft technologies that will be described in detail later on. This integration provides great visibility for workflows related to documents and document libraries, and improving collaboration through the “presence” and “click to communicate” features.

Today, SharePoint is the universal portal technology for the Dynamics portfolio; for example, in Dynamics AX 2009, the AX Enterprise Portal (formerly Axapta Enterprise Portal) is now based on SharePoint. The portal was devised from the standard SharePoint design experience, whereby a gallery of Dynamics AX Web parts is now available, making it very simple to bring to the surface Dynamics AX data (with the inherent AX security model enforced) on SharePoint portal pages.

In addition to Web parts, other strategies for SharePoint integration are its Business Data Catalog (BDC) Web Services feature (currently used within Microsoft Dynamics GP [evaluate this product] and Dynamics CRM [evaluate this product]), and data binding (within Dynamics AX). It is likely that BDC services will grow further in importance, and we should expect a broad Microsoft Dynamics consistency around this feature.

The abovementioned UC technology provides the ability for applications to identify users’ “presence” and enable “click to communicate” capabilities. Via Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Dynamics AX 2009 and Dynamics CRM 4.0 currently work with UC (which is envisioned for the upcoming Dynamics ERP releases too). For example, whenever a user sees a person in the application screen, he/she can also see a presence indicator showing if they are “out of the office”, “in a meeting”, “on a call”, or “available”. By clicking on the indicator, a user gets to pick the preferred method to communicate with them with a single click, whether it might be via email, instant messenger (IM), or phone, if the company has the computer telephony integration (CTI) capabilities.

The Microsoft Dynamics team is working together with the UC team to develop even more advanced scenarios that bring people closer to the processes represented in their applications. One such possible scenario, “Call Center of the Future”, was showed at Convergence 2008 during Steve Ballmer’s keynote speech. Expected scenarios for the next version of UC platform will revolve around how to factor in application embedding, advanced in-context collaboration scenarios, and blending UC and business process management

Microsoft’s Underlying Platform Parts for Enterprise Applications

2010-05-01T06:42:00.000-07:00

Innovation is now surfacing as a result of integration between the Microsoft Visual Studio.NET (VS.NET) development platform and SQL Server. Namely, there is now the ability to launch Precision Report Designer and maintain the Dynamics AX semantic models in VS.NET and to pass the data in a closed-loop manner to and from Dynamic AX logic models. These models can in turn look into the Dynamics AX database (SQL Server) via database secure views. The future development will make these currently static models dynamic for report-customization purposes.

Along similar lines will be the use of Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), whereby all Dynamics role centers within the user experience (UX) project (mentioned in Part 1) will feature embedded contextual business intelligence (BI). Currently, Dynamics AX 2009 has the cube generation capability, whereby analytics perspectives have been added to the business logic model, and which can generate Data Source Views (DSV’s) and Online Analytic Processing (OLAP) cubes. The future research and development (R&D) forays will likely enable the round-trip (between VS.NET and SQL Server) advanced features that will require similar features to the abovementioned reporting tools.

As a little caveat, these native reporting and analytics features will not be automatically available to the users of the proprietary Microsoft Dynamics NAV C/Side database (about half of the install base) and Dynamics AX Oracle instances. For Dynamics NAV customers using the older C/Side database, most of them upgrade to SQL Server when they move to a new NAV version anyway, while Dynamics AX users on Oracle can access the new reporting and analytics features by adding SSRS and SSAS to their deployment. Still, Microsoft will, for the foreseeable future, honor the ongoing support for these databases alongside its SQL Server.

What About the Microsoft .NET Framework Parts

2010-01-27T07:42:00.000-08:00

The situation is much less “crystal clear” when it comes to leveraging components of the Microsoft .NET Framework. Namely, on the programming and development platform side, only Microsoft Dynamics SL [evaluate this product] is leveraging Visual Basic.NET (VB.NET), one of the languages embraced by .NET. Having already abandoned the gut-wrenching route of a single code base, as noted in Part 1, Microsoft now has to live with the proprietary platforms within Dynamics GP (i.e., Dexterity) , Dynamics NAV (i.e., C/Side AL), and Dynamics AX (i.e., X++/MorphX).

But, on the upside, the abovementioned Windows WF technology, which is an application-hosted workflow orchestration engine, and with a VS.NET design experience, is much more pervasively used throughout Dynamics. WF tools are VS.NET-based tools for developers that add simplified analyst (information worker) experiences.

The technology originated in the Microsoft BizTalk Server team (to be described later on), and in a future major release of BizTalk, WF will become the orchestration engine for BizTalk. WF is used in SharePoint and within Dynamics applications (i.e., Dynamics GP 10, Dynamics AX 2009, and Dynamics CRM 4.0) as the workflow engine. A distinct feature is its Tracking Provider architectural design (Dynamics AX 2009 implements this) that allows users to capture process execution information in the same database as the transaction data.

There is the ability here to track and record data about WF instances as they execute, such as the current status of long running processes, time spent across parts of/the whole process, exception paths taken, etc. This enables an analysis like, for example, how much time or how many escalations is it taking the user to approve Purchase Orders (PO) for his/her preferred suppliers with PO’s value under US$25,000.

Furthermore, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), formerly called Indigo and WinFX, is an application web services inter-communication framework, and can be used to access Dynamics AX 4 and 2009 business logic through web service interfaces. This provides a higher level document interface to the application for integration, complementing the .NET Business Connector which offers more granular, lower level component interfaces to the Dynamics AX business logic. Microsoft’s .NET Business Connector replaces the older Microsoft Component Object Model (COM)-based COM Business Connector.

Sharing SharePoint and Unified Communications

2010-01-27T07:39:00.000-08:00

THE QUEST FOR FINANICAL DIRECTION

2009-12-04T04:52:00.002-08:00

The role of todays controller runs the gamut from the data gatherer to the big-picture observer. The corporate controller will still continue to drive reporting processes but now is also needed to help establish financial direction via hands-on intelligence that only that role can provide. However handson should not mean hands in the ERP system. There are now alternative solutions that can keep enterprises from diverting crucial finance personnel from strategic business opportunities.

From the vendor perspective, a valuable solution set will need to addresses core operations like accounting but also extend to address multiple types of financial reporting, internal controls, due diligence, audit support, tax process support and other specific financial services. Corefino offers this type of amplified finance support that will strengthen enterprise financial strategies.

Enterprises need to consider all options as the worldwide economic outlook, mid-2009, remains uncertain. Performing finance tasks as they were performed five years ago will not make sense for the future. New hybrid approaches that combine finance expertise, IT solutions and business process improvements are an attractive alternative to the past. This type of offering will only prove more valuable to companies as finance becomes even more complex and potentially disruptive but also integral to long-term enterprise fiscal health.

MEASURING SUCCESS

2009-12-04T04:52:00.001-08:00

A successful finance transformation creates several benefits. These benefits include better utilization of corporate talent that is re-directed to address business management challenges and opportunities. Direct cost savings can be garnered through consolidation efforts of disparate financial functions and removal of redundant processes or IT solutions. Further cost savings can also come from areas such as:

* Migrating to one IT platform
* Moving finance departments to one business model
* Reductions in finance cost-to-revenue ratios
* More efficient business processes
* Savings realized through headcount reductions

These types of cost savings are the result of a successful finance transformation, resulting in finance roles, such as the Controller and the CFO, becoming high-performance players. Finance functions also become lower cost components of the enterprise overall. But, for most enterprises the problem in finance transformation is not a desire to achieve these savings, but where to start and how to begin.

Both CFOs and Controllers will also need to turn to trusted partners, for finance transformation support for important and recurring routine accounting functions as well as more strategic finance efforts. In the past, these partners have been mostly large enterprise software vendors and large business service providers or consultants. While these types of partners may understand the problems of finance, their costs and one-size-fits- all approach does not serve most enterprises well.

The need for consistent and reliable IT solutions and services is one critical aspect of any finance transformation project. An IT partner who offers access to finance applications for processes such as accounting, payroll and audit reports while also offering services that keep business process current and compliant with GAAP (or IFRS) practices, provides a large portion of necessary support for a successful finance transformation.

The new breed of IT provider, like Corefino, addresses the basic needs of finance that impact Controllers and CFOs alike. By looking at the need for finance efficiency and daily operations management, Corefino allows Controllers and the finance group overall to free itself from predictable transaction processing and establish financial directions for the enterprise. This solution removes non-value add processes from the enterprise scene and creates the framework for the strategic relationship between the Controller and CFO to deepen.

THE MISSING LINK: FINANCE TRANSFORMATION SUPPORT FOR ROUTINE ACCOUNTING

2009-12-04T04:51:00.000-08:00

The need for consistent and reliable audit-ready financials is an established imperative, but whats not been defined well among organizations nor established, support-wise, by vendor partners is a finance transformation framework for Controllers. Controllers direct the preparation of financial reports, such as income statements, balance sheets, and analyses of future earnings or expenses, that summarize and forecast the organizations financial position. Controllers also are in charge of preparing special reports required by regulatory authorities. Often, controllers oversee the accounting, audit, and budget departments. So to achieve finance transformation for routine accounting, an enterprise will have to address three parts:

* Finance Support and Expertise
* Technology Solutions and Infrastructure
* Best Practices Framework for Improved Business Processes

These three parts are crucial to deliver different elements of support to the Controller, as shown in Figure 1. Finance staff is needed to deliver accounting expertise for everyday issues like expense and revenue accounting, cash management and tax preparations support. Technology solutions provide avenues (e.g., Software-as-a-Service, cloud computing configurations) for real-time access to data and financial information across business units. Finally, improved best practices and workflow frameworks support solid business process improvement for accounting, financial reporting and internal control, among other finance processes.

As important as this formula is to elevate the Controller and transform finance it is not easy to achieve. For many enterprises, these three elements that address people, IT and business processes are not best served via a traditional ERP approach. The buy-install-maintain software cycle is unfortunately still a large part of many job descriptions for Controllers and leading the integrations of new ERP systems can turn talented financial talent into second rate-IT personnel. To avoid this problem, enterprises need to look beyond traditional ways to help the controller achieve a big-picture view of finance. Therefore what is now needed for enterprises that cannot afford or dont want to allocate time and personnel to the black hole of standard ERP is a new approach and model.

What have emerged from this inefficient scenario are new IT solutions that are in turn creating new IT markets. Vendors, such as Corefino, have created unique offerings to not only address Controller issues but that resonate favorably with CFOs who are looking to achieve finance transformation.

By offering a hybrid IT solution-service approach to clients, Corefino directly speaks to Controllers and CFOs to remove problems from their overflowing plates of responsibility. This new type of finance model offers the professional expertise of business process outsourcing with the latest IT solutions for cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service, which addresses immediate controller needs but also broader financial goals. This type of support is crucial for a finance transformation that will create a more strategic position for finance as well as the individual roles of the Controller and the CFO.

Finance Transformation and Routine Accounting: Enabling the Corporate Controllers Role as a Strategic Contributor

2009-12-04T04:49:00.000-08:00

Enabling the Corporate Controllers Role as a Strategic Contributor

Throughout the history of accounting, the first role of the Corporate Controller has been ensuring corporate financial controls and, as a very distant second, making strategic business contributions. That gap widened mightily near the end of the 20th century. The installation of on-premise ERP and accounting software corralled even the most business-minded controllers into the demanding role of financial software aficionado, or at the very least, caretaker.

Today, when controllers arent installing, adjusting, or adding to their software deployments, they are mentoring and monitoring their on-premise staffs to coax needed reports out of these systems. The goal, of course, is to facilitate operations to close the books, produce audit-ready reports and be ready to deliver whatever numbers their CFOs, CEOs or auditors want whenever they want them.

With so many responsibilities to address, finance transformation (the process of realigning and streamlining finance functions) for routine accounting would be logically a top priority for controllers. However, guidance and practical strategies to achieve finance transformation has been sorely lacking.

In fact, many finance stakeholders and related parties -- CFOs, accountants, auditors, service providers, consultants, and software vendors -- recognize the value in enterprise finance transformation, but the infrastructure/methodologies just havent been there in an economically viable way. Today there are now practical options coming from a new breed of vendor which enable finance transformation and, in the process, can help elevate the role of controller to strategic enterprise contributor.
WHAT FINANCE TRANSFORMATION ACCOMPLISHES AND HOW TO GET THERE

Efficient and cost-effective finance processes that are dependable, risk adverse and consistent are always necessary for an enterprise to truly thrive. But in todays economy, with mounting pressure for performance improvements, finance transformation is even more of an imperative for all businesses. The process of finance transformation is distinct for each enterprise. What will remain constant are the major elements that are a combination of redefined business processes, supplemental professional services, and IT solutions that support and define a transformed finance landscape. The perfect combination of elements in a successful finance transformation will accomplish three main goals:

* Optimize the financial business processes of an enterprise
* Create a framework to lower the total cost of finance processes
* Increase marketplace competitiveness of an enterprise

From a broader financial perspective, finance transformation addresses various issues, such as maintaining stability during non-routine business periods (e.g., mergers, divestitures, down economic cycles); addressing talent shortages; assuring internal stakeholders, such as the CEO and CFO, that regulatory and financial processes are defensible; and/or delivering more insightful data environment for financial decision making.

However, the one missing link in most finance transformation models is providing the Corporate Controller with a fresh approach to less time-intensive, people-heavy paradigms for delivering routine accounting information.
Addressing the Controllers Needs in Finance Transformation

To make a finance transformation project valuable to the Controller as well as other financial stakeholders (such as the CFO or accounting personnel) basic tactical requirements and problems must be addressed. Processes and solutions included in the finance transformation project must include those that impact the role of Controller such as:

* Monthly and annual financial reporting
* Financial regulatory and compliance issues
* Tax planning and annual audits
* Global tax compliance
* Financial planning and analysis (e.g., budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis)
* Internal controls and corporate governance

Many enterprises that have not undergone finance transformation still depend solely on basic ERP systems to supply the Controller with data and controls to address these issues. This is regardless of whether the ERP system can support budgeting, tax processes, internal controls or any of the crucial elements that falls under the controller responsibility umbrella.

Workflow Components

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The individual components that make up workflow are rules and associated actions — tasks, field updates, and alerts.

In general, a workflow rule is the main container for a set of workflow instructions. It includes the criteria for when the workflow should be activated, as well as the particular actions that should take place when the criteria for that rule are met. Every workflow rule must be based on a single object that users will choose when they define the rule, as this object then influences the fields that are available for setting workflow activation criteria.

For example, if a user defines a workflow rule for the “Job Application” object in an HR application, he/she will be able to set workflow activation criteria based on the values of fields like “Job Application Number” and “Status”. Users can also set workflow activation criteria based on standard fields, like “Record Owner” or “Created Date”, as well as fields based on the currently active user when a rule is evaluated, such as their “Role” or “Time Zone”.

When a workflow rule is triggered, there are many types of actions that can occur, starting with a workflow task (or step), which assigns a task to a user according to a particular template. Just as in Microsoft Outlook, tasks include information about something that needs to be done by a certain time, such as making a telephone call, creating an order, shipping goods, or paying an invoice. Typically, assigned tasks appear in a user’s “My Tasks” related list on their home tab (or page) and generate reminder messages that pop up when a user logs in.

When an administrator defines a workflow task, he/she provides default values for data fields like “Assignee”, “Subject”, “Status”, “Priority”, and “Due Date” for tasks that are generated by its associated workflow rule. Administrators can also make sure that a notification email is sent to the assignee when a task is automatically generated.

In additon, a workflow field update changes the value of a particular field on the record that initially triggered the workflow rule, while a workflow alert sends an email according to a specified email template. Unlike workflow tasks, which can only be assigned to users of the application, workflow alerts can be sent to any user or contact, as long as they have a valid email address.

A workflow rule can include any combination of these actions when the rule is triggered. For example, one rule might send out an alert and update two fields on a particular record. The action that one workflow rule takes can also trigger the execution of another workflow rule.

Workflow-enabled Applications

Many enterprise applications today come with built-in workflow management capabilities, such as the Salesforce.com Enterprise Edition on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) suite and its on-demand Force.com (formerly Apex) platform, Agresso Business World (ABW) or Exact E-Synergy, to name only some.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM too includes a workflow module that users can use to automate their business processes based on the rules, logic, and actions that they design. Microsoft has revamped the workflow functionality in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 so that it now uses the Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), whereas previous versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM used their own proprietary workflow engine.

The result of the revised workflow functionality is that users, administrators, and developers can design and create business processes using the workflow tools with new features and a new UI for creating and monitoring the workflow processes.

Windows WF provides a comprehensive programming model, run-time engine, and tools to manage workflow logic and applications. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM workflow UI relieves users and administrators from the need to interact with WF directly. Therefore, users do not necessarily have to understand the underlying workflow technology to create workflow logic in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

As a recap, a built-in workflow provides a tool to help companies set up and define business process activities (including the proper sequencing) that involved employees can use when working with the enterprise system’s data. Conceptually, one should think of a workflow as an application or service that runs in the background, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, constantly evaluating the data and the multiple workflow rules in the company’s deployment.

When the workflow service encounters a trigger event, it activates the appropriate workflow rules to run the workflow actions. Typical workflow actions include sending an e-mail message, creating a task, and updating a data field on a record.

By implementing workflow processes in the enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM) or CRM systems deployments, users can enjoy many benefits, such as:

1. Ensuring that users track and manage their customer data and processes in a consistent fashion — instead of relying on users to remember the appropriate steps for processing data, managers or administrators can create workflow rules that will automatically determine the next required steps and assign activities as necessary;
2. Processing the customer data more quickly so that, for example, new sales leads or customer service requests are assigned and routed immediately upon record creation; and
3. Allowing users to focus on more value adding activities — instead of having to perform a large number of manual repetitive steps.

It’s About Process (or Ability to be Responsive) – Part I

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After several years (if not decades, even) of painstakingly corralling and setting up all their custom data, objects, tables and whatnot, and making sure that these static and/or dynamic transactional data are secure, many enterprise applications users have realized that the time is long overdue for them to start looking at ways to make their applications more process-savvy.

Companies are increasingly trying to adopt and implement standardized (and yet flexible and easily modifiable) business processes to help their operations run more consistently and smoothly. For example, the chief executive officer (CEO) might decide that as of, say, next month “All customer service cases must be resolved within 24 to 48 hours,” or, “We are going to institute a new sales process for all deals worth over US$100,000.”

However, these business processes often get communicated to employees in an ad hoc and unregulated manner. A process document with instructions may exist on a network file share, but people have not the foggiest idea that it’s there. And some employees might rely on word-of-mouth information from co-workers (so called “tribal knowledge”) to learn the processes for their jobs.

Consequently, standardizing and instituting new business processes can prove challenging for most companies, particularly larger organizations.

Indeed, until recently most enterprise applications have hardly been anything more than glorified databases — they could hold all of the information users may need and allow users to search for records based on various criteria, but they could not really help users to perform the functions of their daily jobs more effectively.

There’s still often no native automation and agility within the system that lets, e.g., a recruiter instantly know when the status of a candidate has changed or when a new position requisition has been entered into the system.

Indeed, when any changes are made somewhere in the organization, users have to remember to notify one another of the change or else rely on others finding the updates on their own. Neither solution is practical in the long term and invites the possibility that the software solution or best practice will not be adopted consistently by all employees at the company.

How can one then build processes into enterprise applications so that users won’t need to, time and again, rely on manual (pedestrian) methods of communication to inform others of changes, increasing the risk that many issues will fall through the cracks?

Introducing Workflow Automation

To that end, a built-in or an external standalone add-on tool (or capability) that can be used to solve the process automation problem is called workflow automation (or workflow management). Some will refer to it as business process management (BPM), and we will shortly try to point out the differences between the two – i.e., workflow and BPM.

Traditional enterprise applications typically feature some built-in functionality, such as a human resource management system (HRMS) or a procurement application, with some capability to tailor the base functionality through parametric configuration options (e.g., via “order types” that entail different mandatory and optional “order steps”) that users have to learn by heart.

To be fair, some enterprise applications have introduced workflow capability into their products to give users some ability to control the process behavior of documents such as an invoice or an engineering specification. But in most enterprise applications workflow is implemented through hard-coding, which means that programmers must develop and maintain the code.

In addition, workflow automation of the typical enterprise application is generally limited to a single document or task routing. This usually means that companies implementing an enterprise application must choose between accepting the vendor’s pre-built business process behavior or paying the vendor dearly to make expensive modifications to accommodate more complex processes, which will then make upgrades either costly or impossible.

In contrast, a specialized workflow tool enhances a single task and/or document routing by providing an integrated capability to include rich user interfaces (UIs), system integration, rule processing and event handling.

Rules are necessary to determine which path users should take next in a process that has multiple possible paths, e.g., an order worth less than US$1,000 does not need manager approval, but over that amount it does. On its part, an example of event handling would be a necessary step after a product recall: a “pull from shelves” notification must be sent throughout the distribution channels.

These capabilities can be pretty powerful, since in general, if users can come up with a standard rule that specifies when a particular event should happen, they can make it happen automatically with workflow. In other words, workflow becomes the magic ingredient that transforms many traditional transactions-capturing applications from a glorified database into fully functional tools that basically everyone in the company should find useful.

What’s the User’s Choice Then

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As said in Part I, the BPM market remains quite stratified, whereby there seems to be a number of powerful and full fledged BPM software packages (e.g., from IDS Scheer, Appian, Tibco, Lombardi, Ultimus, Fujitsu, Oracle-BEA Systems, Metastorm, etc.), many of which can be found in TEC’s BPM Evaluation Center.

BPM is considered one of the most overlooked trends in enterprise applications today. In fact, it is increasingly becoming a native part of the IBM WebSphere (best shown by the recent acquisition of ILOG), SAP NetWeaver and Oracle Fusion Middleware platforms and applications, which could be a glimpse into the future of modeling, workflow, re-engineering, and continuous change, all around ERP.

For a typical implementation that leverages a comprehensive on-premise (which is still a dominant deployment model) BPM suite, companies should count on forking out up to US$500,000 to address a few meaningful processes in their organization. Moreover, potential hidden costs include (all on top of already hefty investments in existing enterprise applications):

* Having to license and deploy multiple development, test and/or production environments to support multiple BPM initiatives;
* Additional application and database server licenses;
* Additional staff to provide the care and feeding of these servers; and
* Internal cost of direct involvement from business users to participate in process modeling, business rule definition, user interface (UI) design, testing and rollout activities.

At the lower end of the market there are a slew of workflow-based software packages addressing specific processes, such as bug or issue tracking systems. While upper-range BPM packages address complex business processes and issue tracking systems typically deal with one simple workflow, a number of workflow (possibly BPM wannabe) vendors like FloWare, Skelta, Red Maple, Web and Flo, Quask, XALT Technologies, ZyLAB Technologies, etc. are addressing a space in between.

How About Workflow (and Eventually BPM) On-demand?

But again, not many of these solutions are delivered in true no-frills software as a service (SaaS) fashion, as they still require significant hardware, software and professional service resources to be deployed on the customer’s site. Also, some business processes, although mission-critical for the company, are not transactional in nature and do not necessarily need to be part of the back-office database.

In fact, trying to capture every step and status of every little case (e.g., a customer’s product complaint or improvement suggestion that needs to be investigated by several employees) would only unnecessarily encumber the ERP or customer relationship management (CRM) database.

Maybe mapping only some critical data between the case management process and ERP database (e.g., for inventory or invoice adjusting purposes), and doing application programming interface (API) exchanges only periodically in a batch fashion might make more sense there.

BPM — Much More than Integration

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BPM is often used to integrate multiple enterprise applications and various internal and external users into a new process, but it goes way beyond mere integration. Whereas traditional enterprise application integration (EAI) products help companies to move data between applications, BPM adds interaction with people and the ability to support processes, which then become as manageable as data.

BPM integrates existing applications, Web services and people in order for companies to quickly change, destruct or construct processes as required. Again, BPM enables a company to more cost-effectively and quickly model and change its business processes to meet the specific requirements of a particular business. Via BPM, people can be involved in two ways:

1. From a rank-and-file employee point of view — BPM represents units of work from the business process as tasks, whereby each task contains work instructions, status, priority, due date and other attributes. Workers use BPM to monitor and execute the tasks that are assigned to them or to the workgroup to which they belong; and
2. From a manager or executive point of view — Managers and executives use BPM to monitor process performance by viewing graphical reports that summarize task status and alert them to process bottlenecks. They also frequently get involved with tasks by participating in approval or escalation process steps.

Thus, many BPM products provide real-time monitoring and insight into the process operation. The process flow model of BPM allows management the ability to not only easily identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the process, but also to more easily modify the process to improve productivity.

For instance, with industrial (plant-level) BPM deployments, companies can digitize their work processes and close the loop on performance with actual execution data. By applying BPM in manufacturing plants, companies can manage and audit their production more effectively and consistently thus improving their conformance, compliance, throughput, and ability to deliver. They can also empower their workforce by integrating people and their roles and by customizing individuals’ work styles and decision-making processes.

Astute BPM suites that focus on manufacturing can enable companies to close the loop on production process improvement, digitize good manufacturing practice (GMP) tasks, standard operating procedures (SOPs) and work instructions. They can also enable corrective action/exception management, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) monitoring procedures, and also orchestrate high-level processes and manage data between various disparate systems and empower domain experts to solve production problems immediately on the shop floor.

For more information on BPM, see TEC’s earlier articles entitled “Business Process Management: How to Orchestrate Your Business” , “Giving a Business Process Management Edge to Enterprise Resource Planning” and “Business Process Analysis versus Business Process Management.”

Special credit also goes to CIO Magazine’s articles entitled “ABC: An Introduction to Business Process Management (BPM)” and “Making Workflow Work and Flow for You.” All of the above articles were quite leveraged for this blog series thus far.

It’s About Process (or Ability to be Responsive) — Part II

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Microsoft, for example, informally demarcates the Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) focus on “internal processes” from Microsoft BizTalk Server’s “external BPM” use. Namely, the first tool (somewhat of a BizTalk spin-off) is used for automating processes within an enterprise (and its enterprise resource planning [ERP] system), whereas the latter is intended for inter-enterprise process orchestrations across several disparate enterprise applications.

BPM Suite Components

Full-fledged BPM system components thus include visual process modeling: a graphical depiction of a process that becomes a part of the application and governs how the business process performs when companies run the application.

They also feature Web and systems integration (SI) technologies, which include displaying and retrieving data via a Web browser and which enable companies to orchestrate the necessary people and legacy applications into their processes.

Another important BPM component is what’s been termed business activity monitoring (BAM), which gives reports on exactly how (and how well) the business processes and flows are working (for more information, see TEC’s article entitled “Business Activity Monitoring - Watching The Store For You”).

Optimizing processes that involve people and dynamic change has been traditionally difficult, and one barrier to optimization has been the lack of visibility and ownership for processes that span functional departments or business units, let alone different enterprises. In addition, the industry often changes faster than information technology (IT) departments can update the applications set that the business relies on to do its work, thus stifling innovation, growth, performance and so on.

But today, the pervasiveness of Web browsers and the emergence of simpler application integration technologies such as Web sevices, simple object access protocol (SOAP), extensible markup language (XML), business process execution language (BPEL), etc. have enabled IT staff to deploy technology that supports the business process across functional, technical and organizational silos.

In the broadest sense, BPM components address the issues of the following: process modeling, documentation, certification, collaboration, compliance, optimization, and automation (i.e., via a workflow engine that is rule-based).

Again, highly functional, top-of-the-range BPM suites use graphical (visual) process modeling tools that enable business users and business analysts (i.e., those people that are most familiar with the process) to implement and manage the process definition. To complete any transaction, the BPM suite must also call on various siloed legacy applications that hold necessary information, for example, customer, inventory or logistics data.

But to the ordinary user the complex process that runs over many enterprises and various systems should appear seamless. End-users should be spared the effort of hunting down the scattered information themselves, since the underlying BPM platform provides tools for:

* Business analysts to model (and change) the business processes and define the business rules that control how those processes behave;
* IT departments to integrate the necessary legacy systems;
* Joint teams to build applications for the end user that enforce the processes and rules; and
* Management to review process performance (e.g., the required time to resolve client return exceptions) and even adjust process parameters in real-time (e.g., increasing the dollar value threshold during peak periods to trigger management review and approvals of client returns).

Therefore, the most vital BPM attributes would be the following: being event-driven, orchestrated, intended for both internal and external processes/customers, and leveraging human-centric workflow and business analytics.

With the leading BPM platforms/suites, everyone in the company will be working on the same shared data and process model, so changes to the process can be put into action very quickly. This is because these sophisticated platforms provide integrated process modeling, real-time process monitoring, and Web-based management reporting — all working in unison to support rapid process innovation.

Microsoft’s Underlying Platform Parts for Enterprise Applications: Somewhat Explained – Part 2

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concluded that Microsoft would not converge all of its diverse Microsoft Dynamics product lines into a single enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. Rather, the vendor has been attempting to leverage the best practices and technologies across all of the products, where possible.

The idea is to deliver applications that have the following characteristics: are familiar to users within their organizations, fit with existing corporate systems, fuel business productivity, and enable confident and informed decision making processes.

Reporting, Analytics & Collaboration Enablers

To expand further on the use of the Microsoft SQL Server database that was discussed at the end of Part 1, all Microsoft Dynamics reporting capabilities will in the future come natively (which also means without new license fees) through SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and associated tools. This was first developed within Microsoft Dynamics GP 9 and Microsoft Dynamics AX [evaluate this product], and will be adopted more broadly across other Dynamics products. In the Microsoft Dynamics AX 4 release, there was the capability of creating ad hoc reports, whereas most recently released Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 also uses SSRS for all production reports.

Innovation is now surfacing as a result of integration between the Microsoft Visual Studio.NET (VS.NET) development platform and SQL Server. Namely, there is now the ability to launch Precision Report Designer and maintain the Dynamics AX semantic models in VS.NET and to pass the data in a closed-loop manner to and from Dynamic AX logic models. These models can in turn look into the Dynamics AX database (SQL Server) via database secure views. The future development will make these currently static models dynamic for report-customization purposes.

Along similar lines will be the use of Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), whereby all Dynamics role centers within the user experience (UX) project (mentioned in Part 1) will feature embedded contextual business intelligence (BI). Currently, Dynamics AX 2009 has the cube generation capability, whereby analytics perspectives have been added to the business logic model, and which can generate Data Source Views (DSV’s) and Online Analytic Processing (OLAP) cubes. The future research and development (R&D) forays will likely enable the round-trip (between VS.NET and SQL Server) advanced features that will require similar features to the abovementioned reporting tools.

As a little caveat, these native reporting and analytics features will not be automatically available to the users of the proprietary Microsoft Dynamics NAV C/Side database (about half of the install base) and Dynamics AX Oracle instances. For Dynamics NAV customers using the older C/Side database, most of them upgrade to SQL Server when they move to a new NAV version anyway, while Dynamics AX users on Oracle can access the new reporting and analytics features by adding SSRS and SSAS to their deployment. Still, Microsoft will, for the foreseeable future, honor the ongoing support for these databases alongside its SQL Server.

Sharing SharePoint and Unified Communications

Microsoft SharePoint is the platform for portal-based collaboration and document management/enterprise content management (ECM). The product also works tightly with Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and Unified Communications (UC), both Microsoft technologies that will be described in detail later on. This integration provides great visibility for workflows related to documents and document libraries, and improving collaboration through the “presence” and “click to communicate” features.

Today, SharePoint is the universal portal technology for the Dynamics portfolio; for example, in Dynamics AX 2009, the AX Enterprise Portal (formerly Axapta Enterprise Portal) is now based on SharePoint. The portal was devised from the standard SharePoint design experience, whereby a gallery of Dynamics AX Web parts is now available, making it very simple to bring to the surface Dynamics AX data (with the inherent AX security model enforced) on SharePoint portal pages.

In addition to Web parts, other strategies for SharePoint integration are its Business Data Catalog (BDC) Web Services feature (currently used within Microsoft Dynamics GP [evaluate this product] and Dynamics CRM [evaluate this product]), and data binding (within Dynamics AX). It is likely that BDC services will grow further in importance, and we should expect a broad Microsoft Dynamics consistency around this feature.

The abovementioned UC technology provides the ability for applications to identify users’ “presence” and enable “click to communicate” capabilities. Via Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Dynamics AX 2009 and Dynamics CRM 4.0 currently work with UC (which is envisioned for the upcoming Dynamics ERP releases too). For example, whenever a user sees a person in the application screen, he/she can also see a presence indicator showing if they are “out of the office”, “in a meeting”, “on a call”, or “available”. By clicking on the indicator, a user gets to pick the preferred method to communicate with them with a single click, whether it might be via email, instant messenger (IM), or phone, if the company has the computer telephony integration (CTI) capabilities.

The Microsoft Dynamics team is working together with the UC team to develop even more advanced scenarios that bring people closer to the processes represented in their applications. One such possible scenario, “Call Center of the Future”, was showed at Convergence 2008 during Steve Ballmer’s keynote speech. Expected scenarios for the next version of UC platform will revolve around how to factor in application embedding, advanced in-context collaboration scenarios, and blending UC and business process management (BPM).

What About the Microsoft .NET Framework Parts?

The situation is much less “crystal clear” when it comes to leveraging components of the Microsoft .NET Framework. Namely, on the programming and development platform side, only Microsoft Dynamics SL [evaluate this product] is leveraging Visual Basic.NET (VB.NET), one of the languages embraced by .NET. Having already abandoned the gut-wrenching route of a single code base, as noted in Part 1, Microsoft now has to live with the proprietary platforms within Dynamics GP (i.e., Dexterity) , Dynamics NAV (i.e., C/Side AL), and Dynamics AX (i.e., X++/MorphX).

But, on the upside, the abovementioned Windows WF technology, which is an application-hosted workflow orchestration engine, and with a VS.NET design experience, is much more pervasively used throughout Dynamics. WF tools are VS.NET-based tools for developers that add simplified analyst (information worker) experiences.

The technology originated in the Microsoft BizTalk Server team (to be described later on), and in a future major release of BizTalk, WF will become the orchestration engine for BizTalk. WF is used in SharePoint and within Dynamics applications (i.e., Dynamics GP 10, Dynamics AX 2009, and Dynamics CRM 4.0) as the workflow engine. A distinct feature is its Tracking Provider architectural design (Dynamics AX 2009 implements this) that allows users to capture process execution information in the same database as the transaction data.

There is the ability here to track and record data about WF instances as they execute, such as the current status of long running processes, time spent across parts of/the whole process, exception paths taken, etc. This enables an analysis like, for example, how much time or how many escalations is it taking the user to approve Purchase Orders (PO) for his/her preferred suppliers with PO’s value under US$25,000.

Furthermore, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), formerly called Indigo and WinFX, is an application web services inter-communication framework, and can be used to access Dynamics AX 4 and 2009 business logic through web service interfaces. This provides a higher level document interface to the application for integration, complementing the .NET Business Connector which offers more granular, lower level component interfaces to the Dynamics AX business logic. Microsoft’s .NET Business Connector replaces the older Microsoft Component Object Model (COM)-based COM Business Connector.

What Else Might Come Down the Track?

As a glance into the future, Microsoft BizTalk Server, which delivers orchestration and integration capabilities between disparate applications while handling broad ranges of scale and volume, is envisioned to expand the Dynamics ERP and/or customer relationship management (CRM) products’ integration and BPM capabilities. Dynamics products occasionally work with BizTalk for tricky orchestration and integration between third-party systems, for example handling orders in business-to-business (B2B) commerce integrations, whereas WF is used for orchestration inside an individual Dynamics application.

Other potential ambitious undertakings in the future should revolve around Master Data Management (MDM), whereby the Stratature acquisition in 2007 should be a good start towards embedding MDM capabilities into SharePoint. The Dynamics products are seen as key drivers for scenarios in a future Microsoft MDM offering. Along similar lines should be the FAST acquisition in 2007, when it comes to the enterprise search capabilities (that entail both structured data and unstructured/rich media files).

Top 10 Ways the Transition to IFRS Will Impact Your ERP System

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GAAP, or Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, have long defined the standards for accounting and related practices in the US. GAAP ensures that companies can produce documents that auditors can verify according to standardized accounting practices.

GAAP is also important because it provides for consistency across industries and companies. A company using GAAP can have its financials compared with similar GAAP-compliant companies.

IFRS, or International Financial Reporting Standards, is a standard that has been implemented in over 120 European and Asian countries. On August 25, 2008, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published a proposed schedule for IFRS to supplant GAAP. The deadline for full conversion/compliance by US publicly traded corporations is 2016. Canada is expected to be completely IFRS-compliant by 2011.

The main effect of IFRS relates to a minimum standard for companies to recognize, measure, and disclose items in financial statements.

IFRS financial statements are significantly more complex than GAAP financial statements. Some (particularly those who earn their livelihood based on GAAP expertise) argue that this complexity threatens to undermine the utility of IFRS financial statements. Indeed, there is a real danger that the preparation of IFRS financial reports will become a technical compliance exercise rather than a mechanism for communicating actual organizational performance (to say nothing of financial position).

Because the transition to IFRS is so substantial, I decided to list my top 10 most important accounting-related business issues that are impacted by the transition from GAAP to IFRS. These are some of the ways in which IFRS will impact your ERP system.

Note that I do not mention SOX-related issues, since SOX is a topic that deserves a blog post in its own right (stay tuned for that…)

Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) Back in the News Again

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Visiting the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) web site, I came across this 143-page PDF file, which deals with XBRL. As a gung-ho proponent of automation, I’m calling attention to it here to show that the head of the SEC (Mr. Christopher Cox) and I are on the same wavelength when it comes to promoting cost saving automations. Here is some interesting stuff from the PDF, together with my comments.

The Christopher Cox modernization commission proposes that companies provide their financial statements to the Commission and on their corporate Web sites in interactive data format using the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). A statement on Page 29 of the PDF states that the decision about this request becoming compulsory was to have been decided on December 15th, 2008.

XBRL was derived from the XML standard. It was developed and continues to be supported by XBRL International, a collaborative consortium of approximately 550 organizations representing many elements of the financial reporting community worldwide in more than 20 jurisdictions, national and regional.

The proposal is a significant one for Mr. Cox as he is a proponent of modernization and the use of current technology to reduce business and government expenses. His legacy will be the promotion of “interactive data” and modernization of SEC filings through the use of XBRL.

Mr Cox has decided to retire at the end of President Bush’s term. During Mr. Cox’s tenure, the regulator has convinced over 8,000 companies to use XBRL in various types of filings. Large international organizations such as Proctor and Gamble and Pepsi file with GAAP and IFRS, are using XBRL, and are on the very pro XBRL bandwagon.

About the only criticism I have about Mr. Cox’s plan is the timeline. CFOs balked at the aggressiveness of the schedule that SEC proposed. SEC wants them to aim for concrete results for 2010.

XBRL is the next big wave to the financial modules of ERP software packages. In subsequent blogs I will address this topic with gusto.

One Year Later at Deltek: More of the Same (And Then Some More) – Part II

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explained Deltek’s ebullience despite a hostile and depressed environment. The continued cash-generating operation has been complemented by in-house developments, acquisitions, and partnerships.

The previous blog post also talked about the recent developments (and anticipated future developments) at Deltek’s Professional Service line of business, which is largely represented by Deltek Vision [evaluate this product]. Parts II & III will analyze the recent developments (and anticipated future developments) at Deltek’s remaining lines of business.

Government Contracting (GovCon) Market

Deltek has invested in a lot of research and development (R&D) in the GovCon market recently, with two major product announcements being the availability of the new release of Deltek GCS Premier [evaluate this product] and the release of the Deltek Performance Management (DPM) suite. GCS Premier 5.0 was a huge release for Deltek because the goal behind the launch was to put to bed perceptions that its competitors (most frequently Microsoft Dynamics and its network of partners) have been putting in the marketplace for a while.

Namely, GCS Premier has long featured an old technology foundation (with a “welcome to the 1980s” look-and-feel), and the market perception has been that Deltek is not really committed to improving the product. Deltek’s presumed strategy was to force GCS users to upgrade to the upper-range Deltek Costpoint [evaluate this product] suite. These assumptions could not be further from the truth, and the 5.0 release is proof.

Generally available from late August 2008, GCS Premier 5.0 delivers significant enhancements to the renowned and widespread project accounting solution for small-to-medium-sized government contractors. The release is focused on producing enhancements to the following three important areas:

1. Ease of use
2. Improved invoicing
3. United States (US) Defense Contract Auditing Agency (DCAA)-mandated compliance reporting.

GCS Premier 5.0 delivers a new user interface (UI) with a more versatile and contemporary look-and-feel, and bolstered billing capabilities that make invoicing faster and easier. The latter capability is accomplished by the addition of flexible invoicing to the billing process (Microsoft Office Excel-based) and the first installment of billing functionality improvements.

In addition to completely changing the product’s UI to make it more intuitive and modern, Deltek also updated reporting schedules and formats that reduce customers’ reporting workload. The release also added additional compliance reporting capabilities such as Incurred Cost Submission (ICS) reports, and important integration with Microsoft Office for billing. Some GCS Premier clients that have upgraded to the 5.0 version have reportedly seen billing times go from a few hours to 90 seconds (which should translate in a much better cash flow).

The familiar workflow graphics that GCS customers have traditionally liked remain in this new version. However GCS 5.0 also adds greater navigational ease with the new UI that features the Explorer-Tab-Icon combination, and that puts users almost instantly anywhere they need to go (a couple of clicks away from anywhere).

Incidentally, Deltek believes its decision to invest in GCS Premier was a wise one: it has been among the best-selling software packages within Deltek over the last year or so given the number of small government contractors that continue to enter the market. With Obama’s potential spending plans, GCS is likely to continue to have a strong run.

Furthermore, Deltek continues to invest in GCS Premier. In keeping with a performance management theme you will see below, the company is planning on releasing Executive Dashboards in 2009 and new reporting capabilities that will leverage all of the key data in GCS to allow government contractors to make better business decisions.

Nothing Without Business Performance Management

DPM was released in the late summer of 2008, and it was an important release for Deltek because – as we all know – analytics, dashboards, and business performance management (BPM) are all the rage these days. While companies could always do reporting within Deltek Costpoint, DPM puts the power of analytics into the hands of the end-users and out of the hands of the information technology (IT) department.

The idea was to empower all employees with self-service access to the information they need to make more informed decisions on a daily basis. DPM is based around IBM Cognos 8 business intelligence (BI) technology and includes 50 pre-built reports that are further configurable, 13 ICS schedules, 181 Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) control screens, and has a standardized look-and-feel and drill-thru capabilities.

The offering is integrated and compatible with Deltek Costpoint 6.0 and 6.1 and with the Deltek Time & Expense 8.0 and 8.1 products. Sales of Costpoint and Cognos have evidently been so strong that Deltek was named Cognos’ original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partner of the year at Cognos’ recent conference.

For the future, Deltek’s major focus within the GovCon line of business is on the Costpoint side, specifically completely converting it to a Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) architecture (from the original Gupta/Centura blueprint) and continuing to invest in executive dashboards and scorecards for improved usability. Namely, the current Costpoint 6.1 release’s focus has been on enterprise-class scalability and performance, support for SOX via Segregation of Duties (SoD), auditing and other internal controls, and support for earned value management (EVM) via Deltek Cobra integration. Last but not least, there are improved GovCon project accounting capabilities via support for the Accounting Classification Reference Number (ACRN) Bills, Wide Area Work Flow (WAWF) Interface, and Award Fee Revenue.

Another important GovCon focus is on expanding the capabilities of Deltek GovWin, Deltek’s business development/capture management solution for government contracting. In this tough economy, responding to the right bids and winning business are more important processes than ever. With this upcoming release, GovWin will manage the complete business development lifecycle, from opportunity identification and management, to contract award.

The product follows this specialized sales lifecycle from gathering and tracking competitive, market and human intelligence to opportunity identification and management, pursuit decision management (bid/no bid), capture planning and proposal management. The release will also allow users instant access and search of all documents and information from competitive information to pricing and estimating information to existing contracts and proposals.

Deltek Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Portfolio

The Deltek EPM product portfolio has also been a top seller for Deltek over the last year or so. Compliance and tight project controls are paramount during these economic times, and the US government has stepped up enforcement and project auditing. According to the proverb “might makes right,” Deltek’s customers like government agencies’ contractors, systems integrators, aerospace & defense (A&D) manufacturers, and capital investment architecture, engineering & construction (A/E/C) companies have no choice but to comply.

Deltek is also gaining traction inside government agencies themselves who use Deltek EPM solutions to better manage their programs. Therefore, these companies badly need the likes of Deltek as they strive to do more with less while eliminating inconsistent project management practices and meeting a plethora of mushrooming compliance requirements. The overwhelming set of requirements could include:

* The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 300;
* Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (or DFARS);
* British Standard (BS) 6079;
* SOX;
* The US Department of Defense (DOD) 5000 2R, Part 11; and
* The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) 748-98A.

Particularly, having the EVM capability is no longer optional when dealing with the abovementioned federal agencies. Impacts from failure to comply and missed schedules can be devastating. For example, how would you feel about losing EVM accreditation and having up to 10 percent of supplier payments withheld by the agency for failure to adequately implement and maintain a validated EVM system?

Making matters even worse, the requirements from US agencies like Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Energy (DoE), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), General Services Administration (GSA), and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are continuing to expand into ever smaller projects (in terms of the contract value thresholds) with ever more reporting requirements. The ability to manage earned value is no longer just a nice thing to do (to impress the “big brother”), but is being rigorously enforced. There are the indications that the government is also considering lowering the dollar thresholds for all the projects where EVM is mandated.

The Deltek EPM solution set [evaluate some of these products] accordingly incorporates all aspects needed to manage project performance. From material management, time collection and cost accounting (within enterprise resource planning [ERP] systems like Costpoint) to cost management, EVM, scheduling, and risk management. This information rolls into analytic reporting and then down into dashboards for easy viewing via the Deltek WelcomHome project collaboration software.

The final part of this blog series will analyze the recent developments (and anticipated future developments) at the Deltek EPM line of business. Your views, comments and opinions, particular experiences with the aforementioned products, etc., are welcome in the meantime.

May a New Day Begin for Mature Enterprise Applications – Part 1

2009-09-05T11:50:00.001-07:00

While attending a number of vendors’ annual user conferences and/or by being briefed by vendors about their future directions, I’ve lately discerned this trend: virtually every vendor is attempting to win its users’ hearts and minds (as well as wallets) via a more intuitive and appealing user interface (UI). But it would be a real understatement to attribute everything to improved screens without talking about improved (i.e., “rich” and targeted) user experience (UX) design as a whole.

Namely, a UI is a means to an improved UX end, and the recipe for success is to deliver forms and screens designed for a particular user’s role in the organization. In other words, employees can now log into their own role-tailored user profile and personal place in the business management system. The role-personalized UI displays only the selected tasks, metrics, alerts, and activities they need to perform, providing the users with an overview of what they’ve done and what’s next in line.

One of the most common problems plaguing business software users has been the deluge of data coming from all directions, especially in complex and expanding global supply chain networks. In addition to complex integration and disruptive heterogeneous system upgrades, a major global network’s challenge is confusing UX due to multiple views of information that come from independent resources (e.g., trading partners’ systems) and disparate business processes. Confusing UX means that users spend much more time interacting with business applications, searching for the right information, and consolidating data manually, rather than on actually acting on that information to create value.

The Role of Role-tailored UI and UX

One way to reduce this unproductive time is via a configurable interface that allows users to focus on key tasks, presenting current information from virtually any data source onto a tailored home Web page. Each user’s homepage is then replete with pertinent (contextual) reports and key performance indicators (KPIs) based on the specific user’s role in the company. This means that a modern functional UI has to create a holistic view of dispersed pieces of information that are drawn from various sources such as financial systems, Web storefronts, warehousing management systems (WMS), time & expense (T&E) management systems, and so forth.

Moreover, underlying enabling technologies like workflow management, event management, business intelligence (BI), enterprise portals, etc., bring information and action together. Actionable content means that users can drill down into disparate source systems for further analysis or to enter transactions (as necessary further actions).

The result is that employees have a central repository to find the information that they need in real-time to make decisions and complete their work. Each person then more clearly understands the progression of work in a way that is personalized to their specific job, regardless of whether they belong to the board room, the shop floor, human resources (HR), sales, warehousing/shipping, and so on.

As an illustration, employees in the procurement and sourcing departments can use the system’s consolidated data reporting to make business decisions that reduce excess expenditures and maverick spending, manage vendor compliance and viability risks, and identify opportunities to consolidate multiple vendors and suppliers. On the other hand, tailored reports could provide users in the sales department immediate visibility into trends in sales volumes and customer service levels, as well as the costs of servicing customers. Finally, finance and accounting can gain greater insight in less time into cash flow, total cost-to-serve customers, and other germane metrics that will enable them to make more informed decisions that improve profitability and productivity.

As a result, this modern UI and UX design reduces end-user dependency on assistance from the IT department. That is to say, programmers no longer have to build customized reports for each end user, who now can personalize their own views and the system outputs. In short, this UX approach enables everyone to focus on their tasks and organize their time in the way that works best for their company.

Enter Infor MyDay (Not Mayday, Folks!)

At the Inforum 2008 annual user conference in late 2008, Infor outlined its painstaking effort to incrementally build upon its vast portfolio of acquired products. I concur with Ray Wang’s estimate in his recent blog post that the vendor has moved on from collecting disparate (and sometimes antiquated) products to build a more cohesive strategy and value proposition for customers.

At the core of this ambitious endeavor is the Infor Open SOA architectural framework. Infor Open SOA is an event-driven architecture (EDA) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) that leverages a standards-based approach to distribute data between Infor solutions and non-Infor systems and data sources.

The grandiose idea behind Infor Open SOA is that Infor’s customers can relatively rapidly and economically add future Infor, third-party, and in-house software applications (and component-based enhancements) without the need to “rip-and-replace” software or interrupt other systems during operations. I should commend Infor for being quite up-front about how huge undertaking the delivery of the total Infor Open SOA (sometime also referred to as Infor Network) framework is.

The vendor frankly admits that it is only perhaps halfway done three years after embarking on the journey. This candidness has even lately warmed up some “doubtful Thomas” observers that are known for their customary harsh skepticism towards vendors. I refer here to a relatively positive blog post by ZDNet’s blogger Dennis Howlett.

Most of the Infor Open SOA framework’s components have been delivered by now (or will be delivered soon) and are free of charge to customers who are on active maintenance contracts. The major SOA platform’s parts start with the Development Studio that consists of the following components:

* Modeler - caters to UI Personalization, Dynamic Enterprise Modeler (DEM) Process Choreography, DEM Monitors, and Reporting Studio; and
* Eclipse open-source Integrated Development Environment (IDE) - contains Web 2.0 UI gadgets and Spring IDE plug-ins.

Then, the Administration Environment caters to Security Administration, User Logging & Auditing, Component Registry, Licensing Monitoring, Packaging (in accordance with the OSGi Alliance guidelines), Deployment, and User Management. Finally, the Run-Time Services module consists of the following components:

* Core Application Services – provide Master Data Management (MDM), Business Information Services (BIS), Infor MyDay, Hierarchies, and Resource Control;
* Core Platform Services – provide Monitoring, Workflow, On-Ramps, Configuration Software Infrastructure (CSI), Component Framework, and Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).

To explain some of these “ominous-sounding” components, Infor MyDay role-based user home pages are enabled by BIS, another major Infor Open SOA component that helps enterprises capture and consolidate data in a centralized and secure database for reporting processes. The analytic and reporting services come with built-in contextual analytics and support the ability to drill down to the original data source from the user’s home page (into both Infor and third-party applications).

For its part, CSI is a configuration infrastructure for messaging (not CBS’ famed TV series) that entails the technical details of how Infor provides standards-based connectivity. “On-ramp” is a term Infor uses for the connector or adapter for a specific Infor application. So, there will need to be an “on-ramp”–e.g., for Infor BIS database, Infor ERP LN, Infor ERP Syteline, Infor Warehouse Management, Infor EAM Enterprise Edition, and so on.

Given the several dozen Infor software assets that will require their own on-ramps, one can imagine the magnitude of the still outstanding development work when it comes to Infor Open SOA. Still, Infor can do some interesting things with on-ramps. When configured, an on-ramp essentially creates peer-to-peer (P2P) network messaging.

This network architecture has a fairly distributed (via a number of lightweight on-ramps) and “standardized” approach. In my opinion, however, “standardized” is a relative term, since standardization requires that you have other industry players who buy into that standard. We will have to wait and see if Infor will be successful there and exert some clout in the industry.

I also noticed a shift in the Infor Open SOA approach toward a P2P network, away from ESB, as initially stated and intended. As an explanation, a service bus is a hub-and-spoke architecture where the processes and decisions are made at the central hub, which undermines the supply chain nodes’ autonomy that network architecture promotes.

Moreover, Infor is moving to use OSGi to do the packaging of its software components to simplify the deployment and management of the environment, and current ESBs are not compatible with the standard (although Progress Software is moving to support it). In addition, the requirement to offer the SOA platform to customers as part of maintenance (the vendor has lately seen increase in maintenance buybacks from once off-maintenance customers) is simplified if Infor provides all parts of the solution, and is not dependent upon third parties’ ESB offerings.

Open SOA, So(a) What!?

So, why did I dwell this much on this SOA technobabble? Well, for the simple reason that without this ambitious framework, it would be difficult (if not even impossible) for Infor to viably deliver any refreshing value proposition to its customers (beyond merely milking the recurring support and maintenance revenue).

In addition to enabling flexible buying and deployment options for customers, the Open SOA framework is instrumental to taking companies’ current IT assets beyond transactional systems, to extended directive and prescriptive systems that can respond proactively to prescribed business rules and handle exceptions. The noble idea here is that the software can adapt quickly as business conditions change.

Infor Open SOA offers solutions to the abovementioned global supply chain network challenges (and remnants from inflexible enterprise-centric client/server architectures) via directive and prescriptive UX, a single network view of information, collaborative resource sharing, agile business processes, standard-based integration, and non-intrusive upgrades.

Such a platform is the “secret sauce” foundation onto which Infor hopes to plug its upcoming next-generation of paid for, value-add components. These upcoming solutions will mean new revenue streams for Infor while, either individually or bundled together, they could make possible the rejuvenation of customers’ existing software assets. This is a win-win combination of a sort.

5 Things You Should Not Confuse Business Performance Management With

2009-09-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

If you search for business performance management (BPM) on Google, you’ll get around 700,000 results. Out of this huge number of results, you will presumably refer to a popular source—Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia, BPM is “a set of processes that help organizations optimize their business performance.” The same source affirms that some people see it as the next generation of business intelligence (BI). Both of these explanations—unfortunately—lack clarity.

Going back to the Google search, there are a few near-synonyms for BPM that one can choose from: business intelligence performance management, performance management scorecard, key performance indicators, and business performance metrics. Similarly, Wikipedia has four synonyms for BPM as well, including corporate performance management (CPM), enterprise performance management (EPM), operational performance management (OPM), and business performance optimization (BPO).

Confused? Is it BI, a set of processes, scorecards, performance indicators, metrics, or are all these equally valid parts of BPM? Since we intend to write a series of articles on BPM, we thought we might start this thread a bit differently and first try to explain what BPM should not be confused with.

1. Business Performance Management (BPM)
There is always a kind of confusion when using the same acronym (BPM) for different software packages (i.e., business performance management and business process management). In spite of the undoubted links between these two application types, they differ greatly for the majority of software users and IT professionals. Broadly speaking, a generic business process management system allows analysts and business managers to design and model business processes in a graphical and descriptive view, then execute them, monitor the processes, and finally, modify or optimize them.

There are similarities between business process management systems and enterprise application integration software and workflow automation solutions. By the way, notice yet another BPM abbreviation here: business process modeling, which is a substantial element of business process management. This is basically a business process capturing, visualizing, and description technique (or set of techniques) that provides companies a clear view on processes and helps them to analyze these processes in order to improve them.

2. Business Intelligence (BI)
Is BI part of BPM? Definitely! You can make any kind of business decision based on accurate information, and the efficient way to get that information is through a BI tool. Still, BI is not enough. The best BI tool in the world can give you the greatest dashboards, graphs, ad hoc reports, and so on, but they are completely useless unless you have a good idea of what to do with them.

It is safe to say that BI is the framework or the tool that will help you improve your business, but it will not complete this task for you. This is where BPM comes into play. A BPM provider should be able to support you in defining your business processes and objectives, as well as the metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) you need to follow. Furthermore, your BPM provider will assist you in building the tools you need in order to extract the right data from the right place and then interpret it according to the already defined objectives.

3. Balanced Scorecard, Business Process Measurement, and Key Performance Indicators
When talking about business performance management, we should clearly understand that it is possible to successfully manage “something” as long as that “something” can be measured. In other words, in order to estimate how well your business is doing, some formal methodologies, criteria, and metrics are required.

However, it is not enough to estimate your company’s achievements using financial criteria only. There are other important activities which (while difficult to quantify and evaluate) are necessary to compare and evaluate in order to have a more complete picture. Balanced scorecard, business process measurement, and KPIs were developed as a systematic approach to help managers of all levels effectively control the company or departments within the company and to be able to quickly react to market and environmental changes and challenges.

These three concepts are really closely related to each other, but represent different views of the same process. Balanced scorecard is used mostly by the top management level of a company to monitor overall business performance towards strategic goals of the company. Mid-level and operation management usually use business process measurement parameters to visually examine routine and day-to-day processes towards short-time or current goals of the department or organization. Both of these methods utilize KPIs as a metric to count and analyze countable and often uncountable criteria. Those indicators usually look like set of diagrams and graphs that fluctuate dynamically depending on how the numbers change. Sometimes these sets of diagrams are called dashboards (using the analogy of a car or plane dashboard with a number of gauges on them).

4. Total Quality Management (TQM), Lean, and Six Sigma
At a first glance, these mechanisms, methodologies, and concepts can be referred to as different types of business process management. They reflect different views of the same core business processes improvement and talk about product, process, customer satisfaction, quality, and practical techniques to plan, organize, and control this process. They all consider business processes improvement as a global strategic goal and, as a result, companies achieve better financial numbers.

Certainly they are not the same things. While there are plenty of books, articles, and Web sites available to help readers understand the concepts, at the same time the non-dedicated reader who isn’t a professional in these concepts can easily become confused in this ocean of information.

Generally speaking, total quality management, lean, and six sigma as methodologies are much wider and deeper in substance than business performance management—which is a very useful and helpful way to estimate the current business and financial situation of an organization, as well as providing food for thought for managers at all levels to assist them in optimal decision making.

5. Reporting and Analytics
An in-depth explanation of the difference between BI versus reporting and analytics exceeds the scope of this post. So we’ll make this part short but sweet: analytics is complex reporting, while BI is a sophisticated reporting and analytics tool.

Most accounting, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), product lifecycle management (PLM), solutions offer reports, and most of them even allow you to do analysis on sales, purchases, productivity, and more. As our jobs are becoming very information-intensive, reporting, analytics, and BI are essential to today’s workforce.

Reporting and analytics tools do not always provide data in a format that can be used by a BPM product. Oftentimes, information comes from a variety of sources and—just to make things worse—different tools are used to extract it. A BPM tool should be able to gather all the required data from all available sources and convert it into a format that can be used in the decision process.

The Dawn of the GRC Era for XBRL

2009-09-05T11:48:00.000-07:00

The current economic environment cries out for sustainable technology standards to be established at the core of information governance. The profound losses in the financial markets were the result of weak governance, failing risk management, and little regard for the consequences. The time has come to define and implement the methods needed to identify and manage risks, ensure oversight, and enforce corporate policies and procedures to exploit extensible business reporting language (XBRL). This extremely challenging economic climate is stimulating the demand to leverage the expanding taxonomy for financial reporting purposes to meet the challenges of operational risk and compliance management as part of the natural evolution of XBRL.

The inevitable combination of people skills, business practices, and information technology (IT) necessary to improve governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) management are not ends in themselves, but serve the organizational necessity of improving and sustaining performance. The next phase of enterprise performance management integrates the mandated requirements (regulatory, legal, and contractual) for an organization’s operations with the voluntary commitments (business practices, customer expectations, service levels) that help focus the organization on internally and externally directed improvements.

The complete portfolio of processes directly related to GRC include organizational and IT governance, business strategy, all levels of risk management, quality management, financial and IT auditing, legal obligations, security, compliance monitoring and reporting, social responsibility, and ethical culture. Synchronized planning and communication between multiple business departments, decision makers, business partners, suppliers, and customers is the key to successfully leveraging GRC across an extended enterprise of any size or shape.

To this end, diverse organizations with broad international experience and constituents are building the basic definitions and structure that will comprise a comprehensive taxonomy for GRC XBRL. Critical work on aspects of the emerging taxonomy and messaging standards for GRC have been undertaken by organizations as diverse as the Fujitsu Research Institute; the XBRL Risk Taxonomy Forum of the IBM Data Governance Council; AIIM’s StratML Work Group; and the International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR) group of the United Nations’ Council on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The major contributors to an XBRL taxonomy for GRC can contribute to the development of five defining domains, as follows:

* common financial and operational risk controls
* corporate social responsibility and transparency metrics
* issue and incident management taxonomy
* performance management reporting
* corporate policy and organizational strategy taxonomy

The construction of XBRL standards in each domain will address information standards based on authorities with respect to

* policies and processes modeling regulatory authority guidelines for laws, rules, and regulations;
* references and translation procedures based on authority documents;
* object definitions, elements, and specifications derived from authority documents;
* and metrics that define standardized process performance and risk indicators.

As painful as the economic environment has been for most businesses and markets, the opportunity for a deeper commitment to developing GRC components for XBRL has emerged. Over the next few years, as business performance improves and economic value ultimately rises, long-term efficiencies will be supported by a more coordinated set of information standards that inherently integrate risk and compliance processes. Advancing compliance and risk management capability across markets and industries is a deeply important and global role that is now a domain of XBRL.

To SaaS or Not, Is That a Question? – SaaSy Discussions

2009-09-05T11:44:00.000-07:00

described the opportunities for software as a service (SaaS) or on-demand applications, especially in the current difficult economic milieu. Part IIa then analyzed the top five SaaS assumptions (misconceptions) recently outlined by Gartner.

Before any vendor can embark onto delivering a SaaS offering, it must thoroughly consider a number of harrowing SaaS technology choices and their implications. Thus, Part IIa also analyzed the decision’s impact on the functional footprint (scope) of the future SaaS product, after which the aspiring SaaS vendor must identify gaps within its in-house skill sets and define how to fill them.

This part continues with the other major remaining technical considerations before any vendor can embark on delivery of a SaaS offering.

The Tenancy Decision

While the true multi-tenant design approach for SaaS is the best in terms of highest scalability and lowest operational overhead (and it allows moderate to extensive software modifications), it also requires the highest initial investment. Thus, in some cases, the traditional single-tenant hosted/application service provider (ASP) model or partial/hybrid (something in between) solution may be appropriate. Namely, the application virtualization approach enables single-tenant solutions via tenant management (virtualization) tools from Wrapped Apps Corporation, Parallels, or Citrix Systems.

The major considerations here for independent software vendors (ISVs) (not necessarily end users per se, although everyone should be informed at least) are the following: whether there is legacy code that could be somehow leveraged (or that would be difficult to rewrite), how many new SaaS implementations per year are forecast, and whether the SaaS model has been proven in the target market. In any case, it is critically important to get the product’s architecture right up front, since making any corrections and rectifications along the way will be complex and expensive.

In addition to the tenancy considerations, one must address the questions of scalability (in terms of load balancing and routing), availability, performance, and configuration-driven customization (both to accommodate personalized look-and-feel and special functionality). Other architectural factors are system integration, information security (including identity management), usability, communications (e.g., via e-mail, short message service [SMS], instant messaging [IM]), global (multinational) capabilities, audit and compliance, and system backup and recovery.

The above overwhelming combination of factors influences not only the SaaS applications architecture but also the underlying infrastructure (platform) architecture. I would also add the cost of full time employees (FTEs) charged with handling all these issues.

While there are costs with multi-tenancy, over time the costs to handle each of these architectures can and probably will exceed multi-tenant design costs. Current macro-economic conditions are making one or the other approach seem cheaper right now, but as the economy rebounds, the question will come up about long-term strategy.

Finally, the costs for compliance are very high (and can be so high that it is out of reach for new entrants) to get enterprise-class services and certifications and audits, such as ISO/IEC 27001, SAS 70 Level II, Systrust, etc. Each part of the system must be audited and these audits can cast to the amount of US$100.000 and higher. Thus, multiple components in any architecture will lead to higher compliance costs, but that’s another blog topic.

Forget Not About the “SaaS Plumbing” Thingies, Either!

But even solving these multiple pieces of the architectural puzzle is only the beginning, since one also must include many SaaS-specific “must have” pieces of functionality, such as a pricing engine, a billing engine and payment processing, tenant and subscription management, service provisioning, system usage and performance (uptime) monitoring, and subscriber management and self-service. Creating all these “SaaS plumbing” components requires significant effort (in addition to the necessary “know-how”), and the company must thoroughly plan for it.

During the Webcast mentioned in Part IIa, Scio Consulting International claimed that this functionality takes from 20 to 50 percent of the research and development (R&D) effort for an entire SaaS application. The conventional wisdom is to leverage commercial SaaS components and services for time-to-market (TTM) reasons.

For example, commercial SaaS billing applications options would be OpSource Billing CLM (Customer Lifecycle Management), Zuora, or Vindicia, whereas SaaS customer management applications would be OpSource Billing CLM and Aria Systems. While PayPal has become the standard for online payment processing, uptime service level agreement (SLA) monitoring can be done via TrustSaaS, Absolute Performance, and the SaaSMonitor.com offering from MVP Systems. Last but not least, SaaS enterprise applications integration (EAI, including links to on-premise applications as well) is offered by Boomi’s AtomSphere suite, and Cast Iron Systems. Sonoa Systems provides analytics, management, and IT governance solutions for cloud services and application programming interfaces (APIs).

PaaS The Hosting, Please!

This brings us to the discussion about choosing the technology stack (with the following technical layers: application, deployment platform, and infrastructure) in a do-it-yourself (DIY) or other fashion. Namely, as ZDNet’s blogger and SaaS connoisseur Phil Wainewright explains well in his recent blog post, there is a plethora of platform choices for vendors, including commercially available platform as a service (PaaS) options.

Some examples of available PaaS offerings would be the following: SaaSGrid from Apprenda, Force.com from Salesforce.com, Google App Engine, Bungee Connect, Facebook’s Platform, Apple’s iPhone Platform, pieces of Microsoft’s still upcoming Azure Cloud Platform, and so on. In the case of Salesforce.com, there are three main ways that ISVs can partner with the vendor as a platform: build, market, or sell.

Force.com is designed for those that want to build applications (without bothering with porting, integration, security, hosting, infrastructure, etc.), while the AppExchange directory is for ISVs that already have an application of their own and are focused on marketing it. The upcoming Checkout service (currently in the pilot phase) will be for those who want to fulfill sales using Salesforce.com’s infrastructure.

Force.com is also flexible, so that developers can use Salesforce.com’s Visualforce presentation-layer development environment or other toolkits such as Eclipse (Salesforce.com has an Eclipse plug-in), or other third party development environments to create custom applications that do not look like the traditional Salesforce.com user interface (UI). In addition, Force.com has its own programming language, Apex, which can be used to create highly customized applications via the Java-like language.

Indeed, selecting the right PaaS may simplify the technical decision process, accelerate time-to-market, and reduce development and operating costs. A PaaS takes care of software components (services) creation (via managing metadata and portals), deployment (i.e., ordering, provisioning, and metering), and execution (via SLA management, billing, and subscription management).

In fact, the abovementioned necessary SaaS add-on plumbing applications (monitoring, billing, provisioning, etc.) also come bundled within a PaaS, and can save time and money while adding value to the vendor’s operations. Finally, a PaaS also provides the necessary components for reporting, alerts, and dashboards.

Two Force.com Endorsements by ERP Veterans

Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce 2008 user conference, which coincided with the historic US Elections, was marked by exuberance, confidence, and an overall upbeat feeling, in sharp contrast to the ongoing market sentiments. Ray Wang and Vinnie Mirchandani have described the event in their respective blog posts.

What really caught my eye there was seeing the two longstanding enterprise resource planning (ERP) players, CODA (now part of Unit 4 Agresso) and Fujitsu Glovia, opting to write brand-new products on Force.com. Salesforce.com’s blustery chief executive officer (CEO) Marc Benioff even (half-jokingly or not) taunted SAP (during his intellectual debate with SAP’s co-founder Hasso Plattner in early 2008) to rewrite the SAP Business ByDesign on-demand product on Force.com, rather than to “further torture and embarrass itself” (and the rest of the traditionally stodgy on-premise vendor community).

Even though this challenge might sound ridiculous for too-proud SAP to acknowledge and succumb to, that suggestion begins to make sense to me, in light of the giant’s initial faltering with SAP Business ByDesign. Well, maybe SAP could acquire Salesforce.com and solve its SaaS conundrum once for all, but that might be a bit difficult to pull off (at least during these days of limited spending)?

I concur with Dennis Howlett, who in his recent blog post on CODA wondered why a company with a 30-year history of writing world-class finance applications and with 2,600 renowned customers would entrust its on-demand future (i.e., the CODA 2go SaaS product) to a new, relatively untested platform. According to Jeremy Roche, CODA’s CEO, the attraction came in the following four distinct forms:

1. Access to a pre-built infrastructure that includes a security model, workflow, reporting, and multi-tenancy.
2. The ability to gain immediate access to Salesforce.com’s customer and partner ecosystem.
3. The ability to have the Coda 2go product run from Salesforce.com’s datacenters, reducing the need for infrastructure and gaining access to massive painless scaling.
4. The inheritance of Salesforce.com’s credibility in maintaining a world-class service since Coda 2go runs on the same servers and infrastructure as Salesforce.com’s.

For its part, Glovia had initially ported a cut-down on-demand version of its established glovia.com ERP product. The vendor named its erstwhile SaaS product GSinnovate, but has apparently not sold a single license since 2006. In our recent discussions, Glovia conceded the need for the SaaS channel (and more), and thus the decision to go for Salesforce.com’s AppExchange and Force.com. Glovia plans to deliver on-demand products that will address one business process at a time, starting with the generally available glovia.com Order Management product.

There Is No Such a Thing as a Free Lunch PaaS

At the end of the day, a PaaS platform is not a charity that is free of charge, but rather a significant cost item that will cut into the SaaS vendor’s bottom line ever after (as well as will all the other necessary individual SaaS plumbing components). Thus, many SaaS aspirants might still opt for the grueling DIY approach by using some free and open source software (FOSS) LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP) bundle or Ruby on Rails (RoR).

On the commercial software side, there is always Microsoft’s stack, which consists of Windows, Internet Information Services (IIS), ASP.NET, and SQL Server. Progress OpenEgde, Oracle SaaS Platform, various SaaS programs from IBM, and so on are other SaaS platform (but not necessarily all-inclusive PaaS) alternatives.

In any case, the DIY vs. PaaS dilemma should take into the account whether there is a match between the technology requirements with the SaaS vendor’s available in-house expertise. When leaning towards PaaS, the SaaS vendor should ascertain whether its target market is part of a particular PaaS marketplace (ecosystem), as well as the time-to-market and R&D cost savings vs. the costs of using the PaaS. Certainly, there is a trade-off between the abovementioned benefits of a PaaS and the dependence on the PaaS provider (i.e., what happens if the PaaS provider goes out of business?).

Agile ERP Vendor Ditches a Microsoft Dynamics CRM Alliance for, well, its own CRM Solution (Part II)

2009-06-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

Part I of this blog topic has revisited Agresso’s post-implementation agility capabilities (as to accommodate businesses living in a change — so called BLINC’s), and its devised growth strategy via in-house developments, complementary acquisitions and/or partnerships. Most recently, Agresso expressed the intent to acquire the United Kingdom UK-based competitor CODA, but the analysis of this potential merger deserves a blog post on its own. For now, some other blog posts, such as these one from AccManPro on the merger and on CODA’s recent software as a service (SaaS) forays, should do.

As for the future customer relationship management (CRM) offering, I could quite understand Agresso’s initial temptation for leveraging Microsoft Dynamics CRM [evaluate this product], whose latest version, formerly code-named “Titan” has been completed and released to manufacturing in December 2007. The new version is offered under two product names: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 for on-premise and partner-hosted deployments and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Live for Microsoft-hosted deployment.

Designed with a single unified-code base for both on-premise and on-demand deployments, the product enables customers to choose the right deployment model for their specific business and information technology (IT) needs, with the flexibility to change deployment models over time if their needs or preferences change.

The new Microsoft Dynamics Live CRM service is offered only in the United States (US) and Canada, and is currently available to a limited number of customers via the Early Access program. Some of the significant new benefits and capabilities of this new release include these:

* An advanced multi-tenant architecture that supports multiple customers per server;
* Extended global capabilities including user choice of more than 25 languages and pervasive support for multiple currencies;
* New business intelligence (BI) capabilities including cross-entity views and an end-user ad hoc reporting wizard;
* Advanced business process automation (BPA) based on Microsoft Windows Workflow; and
* New collaboration capabilities with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 including real-time presence indicators within the CRM application;

The new release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM has been in extensive use over the past year by more than 600 partners around the world and more than 100 early access customers representing a broad range of on-premise, partner-hosted and Microsoft-hosted deployments. One such renowned partnership would be with Epicor iScala [evaluate this product]. The most recent Microsoft Dynamics CRM Live events were captured in this ZDNet blog post.

So, why then did Agresso have an 11th hour change of heart? Well, Agresso acquired the Spanish CCS ERP product line a year ago or so, to further penetrate the market in Spain. The product that has meanwhile been renamed in November 2007 as Agresso CRM, and which brought to Agresso a base of 1,700 customers (nearly 10 percent of which are in a software as a service [SaaS] model), has been evaluated independently against other vendors in the mid-market by the European technology evaluation firm, Penteo ICT Analyst.

Penteo is headquartered in Spain where it is the market leader, but it also has offices in London and Paris. The firm provides independent expert analysis of market trends and market research, and issues vendor positioning diagrams about technology solutions and vendors. Penteo’s recent report titled “SMB Business Solutions Spanish Market 2007″ positions CCS Agresso and its technology (which now includes Agresso CRM) as a “Star” in the “Universe Map”. Stars are players providing services, solutions or technology with remarkable viability, features and functionality performance.

Penteo believes that Stars are sound players that lead their markets. Agresso is reportedly a leader in the Universe Map (consisting of “stars”, “planets”, “satellites” and “comets”), as a result of a broad functional coverage for medium-sized businesses and strong support. Other noted products in the Spanish market are Microsoft Dynamics NAV , Microsoft Dynamics AX, SAP Business One and Sage Logic Class.

Still, somewhat embarrassingly, Agresso at long last took a look “under the hood” and realized that CCS had a strong CRM product too as well as a sizable and seasoned CRM implementation team. In fact, Agresso CRM offers five distinct advantages that lead against competitive software offerings:

1. A thin web interface, including a web-based executive dashboard;
2. Support for multiple operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Linux, Unix and Mac OS (wow and cool, since Microsoft Dynamics CRM supports only Windows);
3. Support for multiple databases, including Oracle, IBM DB2, MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server (again, Microsoft Dynamics CRM supports only SQL Server);
4. A right-priced and better feature/function match-up to mid-market service company requirements versus those of market leaders more oriented to tier one or manufacturing companies; and
5. Agresso’s customary lower total cost of ownership (TCO), while pre- and post- implementation ongoing change capabilities help too.

Agresso has hereby also established a CRM Service Hub of more than 100 full-time professional services experts. This team collectively has decades of CRM experience selling, implementing and supporting Oracle Siebel and Microsoft products, as well as the original product underpinning Agresso CRM (formerly CCS CRM). The Agresso CRM Service Hub is based in Barcelona, Spain and will lead the roll-out of the new offering to Agresso subsidiaries and partners throughout the world, most likely starting from Spanish speaking regions.

As said earlier on (in Part I), Agresso CRM will be the first BLINC ERP Solution Plug-In, whereby the similar Agresso Talent Management and Agresso RISK Management add-on’s are slated for 2008. The above-mentioned Agresso VITA architecture also implies a “Living Architecture”, for having supported multiple generations of technologies: from mainframe, via client/server and Web Services to service oriented architecture (SOA).

However, Agresso offers SOA-based deployments of disparate applications with one caveat: if underlying software components (services) are badly designed, an SOA concoction will be badly delivered. In other words, combining loosely-coupled applications will not provide business agility. We will have to see how Agresso will blend native VITA-based and non-native SOA-enabled plug-in solutions so that user companies can now get the combination of, e.g., a world-class CRM or talent management solution, albeit with unimpeded post-implementation agility.

Again, what is your view towards Agresso’s above CRM move (under the “self do, self have” proverb) and professed combined organic and plug-in footprint expansion strategy? Can a functional footprint indeed be significantly expanded without hampering the inherent core system’s agility?

Dude, where (and how safe and pristine) is my hosted compensation data?

2009-06-16T08:40:00.002-07:00

Sure, anyone observing the enterprise applications market and still naysaying the bright future of the software as a service (SaaS) on-demand deployment model and closely-related Web 2.0 technologies, is in serious denial or similarly delusional. He/she would sound similar to those lost souls that deny even a remote possibility of a global warming and climate changes, but, oops, this is not a political blog…

Anyway, recent predictions for 2008 by the two ZDNet bloggers, Phil Wainewright and Dion Hinchcliffe summarize well the reasons why these phenomena are not only here to stay, but to even take more slices out of the entire applications market pie. At this stage, I am still reluctant to believe that these advancements will render the traditional on-premise integrated (packaged) applications deployment mode completely obsolete any time soon.

In fact, as I have pointed out some ongoing drawbacks of SaaS applications in my recent series of articles, many comments on these two blog posts talk about similar lingering SaaS concerns. Most notably, there is still a discomfort among some users about their hosted data security and integrity, and what these SaaS vendors (and their hosting providers) can do about being more secure and compliant.

Further, in some malfeasance prone areas like managing sales and partners/channel compensation data, there is a pressing need to ensure higher levels of security and process controls for the purpose of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) compliance. For that reason, most publicly traded companies and other large-scale enterprises initially rejected the idea of SaaS because they thought they needed to take greater responsibility for their own SOX compliance.

This brings us to the realm of on-demand sales performance management (SPM) and enterprise incentives management (EIM), which has been one of the areas with a significant uptake of SaaS deployments. Indeed, companies of all sizes increasingly use on-demand packages for sales compensation and other incentives management, to accurately and strategically model and forecast commission/incentives costs and benefits, calculate commission and bonus earnings and gain real-time visibility into employees’ performance metrics.

These trends have prompted TEC to recently publish the pertinent up-and-coming Incentive and Compensation Management Evaluation Center.

On the other hand, the security and integrity of such remotely held sensitive data and processes has been in the back of every executive’s mind and a cause of serious anxiety. Compliance analysts keep on telling Chief Compliance Officers, Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and Vice Presidents (VPs) of Finance that SaaS solutions are affordable, safe and effective alternatives to traditional on-premise software, but only to the extent that their service providers (vendors) have the necessary controls and audits in place. It is relatively easy to say “Sure, we can do this and that to protect your data”, but it is another thing entirely to have those process controls documented, practiced consistently and audited.

Enter Centive, the Burlington, Massachusetts, United States (US)-based provider of on-demand SPM solutions. More than 100 user companies with nearly 16,000 total individual subscribers currently use Centive Compel [evaluate this product], a salesforce.com AppExchange certified solution and a winner of multiple software press/media awards.

Good news is likely to continue coming from Centive in light of its ongoing quarterly product releases, such as Winter 2008. The gist of the latest enhancements would be along the lines of interactive dashboard analytics, which graphically present multi-dimensional, interactive earnings and performance data to help sales representatives and their managers better monitor and measure individual and team performance.

The Winter 2008 release of Compel also features enhanced reporting (dynamic reporting to analyze revenue and commission spend across any transaction or dimension attribute, such as customer, product, territory and region), enhanced document distribution and acceptance workflow, personal multi-currency management (enables local currency views for all sales reps and managers while providing corporate reporting in any relevant currency), and deeper application programming interface (API)-level integration with Salesforce.com [evaluate this product]. Last but not least, a sales commission cost analysis tool can detail the credit distribution and exact commission cost of every sales event, including commissions paid across all plans at all levels of the organization.

Prior to that, the Summer 2007 release of Compel featured enhanced custom reporting capability by adding calculated fields to reports on-the-fly, with full charting and graphing capabilities. The release also added the support for Adobe Flex 2.0 forms and introduced fully auditable and integrated crediting suite to provide crediting on combinations of dimensions, such as territory and product (with the support for direct credit, split credit, team credit, rollup credit, etc.).

Also noted has been the mid-2007 partnership with ADP, whereby Centive became a new original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partner for ADP. What that means is that ADP’s National Account Services (NAS) division has been selling Centive Compel as privately branded ADP Automated Incentive Compensation Management, and as a natural extension of ADP’s business. With $7.8 billion in revenue in 2006 and with about 600,000 customers worldwide, ADP is one of the first in the human resource management system(HRMS) and payroll industry to offer this SPM solution as part of a full-suite of on-demand HRMS offerings [evaluate the ADP Enterprise HRMS product].

Other related ADP on-demand services include, in part bolstered by the 2006 acquisition of Employease: management of payroll and HR systems; benefits administration; time & labor management; and administration of Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA). Both ADP and former Employease have been on-demand pioneers and savvies, which should bode well for “mashing-up” with Centive’s SPM solution. Further, ADP’s NAS division serves customers with over 1,000 employees, which should mean much more subscribers’ inflow for Centive down the track (currently, an average number of subscribers per customer for Centive is about 150 or so).

However, the most related news to our topic du jour would be the January 7, 2008 announcement by Centive that it has successfully completed an American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70 (SAS 70) Type II audit by Ernst & Young. Centive is now the first and only on-demand SPM vendor to be recognized as a SAS-70 Type II service provider.

The SAS 70 Type II report is internationally recognized as the authoritative benchmark of the AICPA against which service providers report control activities and processes to customers and their auditors. The Type II form of SAS 70 examination is the most stringent form; it not only includes the service organization’s description of controls related to information technology and security processes, but also includes detailed testing of these controls over a minimum six-month period. This is becoming an increasingly important issue as companies strive to conform to compliance initiatives such as SOX.

A SAS 70 Type II report basically serves as a proxy for a customer’s internal audit (for more on SAS 70, please see this great source ). So for example, when an XYZ Company undergoes its annual audit, the auditors will see that the company outsources some processes and stores some data off-site. They will ask for a SAS 70 Type II report from each service provider XYZ works with, and those reports will serve as a proxy for the security and integrity of the related systems.

We should, however, note that some companies have issued releases about providing a SAS 70 Type I report. This report serves no purpose for the vendor’s customers because it is not recognized by the AICPA as a proxy for an official audit. A Type I report merely says “A company has the following controls in place” but there is no audit to test those controls. For instance, Centive’s fierce competitor, Xactly Corporation issued exactly (no pun intended) such a press release back in early 2007.

Also, most SaaS vendors do provide SAS 70 Type II reports, but those reports typically come from their hosting partner (like CSC or MCI). Few vendors have put the proper controls in place and allocated the resources to undergo a six-month audit of their own internal controls. Again, that is what Centive has painstakingly done to supplement the Type II report from its hosting partner - CSC. In this market space, no other vendor currently provides a SAS 70 Type II report verifying their internal controls. For instance, Callidus Software [evaluate this product] and Xactly provide SAS 70 Type II’s from their hosting providers only.

Centive strongly thinks this will definitely help it with wooing future prospects, particularly amid publicly traded companies, but also with private companies that value the effort the vendor has put into ensuring it has the controls and processes in place (and validated by an independent third party) to protect their sensitive data. Centive is optimistic that the audit will make a difference in about half or more of the deals the company hopes to close in 2008.

On the down side, however, the hefty investments by Centive, mentioned above, on product development and the SAS 70 Type II audit will only postpone the break-even point, whereby the company should finally reach profitability. Also, I am not sure whether these moves can address Centive’s need for more international expansion. For more on Centive’s challenges, see TEC’s earlier series of articles on the vendor.

Is Epicor Poised to Rule the Mid-Market Retail Sector? (Part II)

2009-06-16T08:40:00.001-07:00

Part I of this blog topic introduced Epicor Software and its traditional vertical solutions. It also analyzed Epicor’s forays into the attractive retail sector via the CRS acquisition two years ago. Designed for integration and scalability, the Epicor/CRS Retail Suite can support a wide variety of retail enterprises’ requirements.

These environments range from the rapidly expanding regional retailer requiring point-of-sale (POS), store operations and merchandising, to the large, global retailer requiring central management, visibility and control over hundreds or thousands of distributed stores and outlets.

Epicor/CRS customers include leading retailers such as Aéropostale, American Eagle Outfitters, Ann Taylor, Cache, Chico’s, Coach, Eileen Fisher, Factory Connection, Foot Locker, GNC, J.Crew, Stage Stores, Trans World Entertainment, Tuesday Morning, Inc., Yankee Candle Company and Zumiez, among others. The retail division employs more than 360 employees based in Newburgh, New York, the United States (US), with regional offices in Seattle, Washington, US and Bracknell, the United Kingdom (UK).

The Epicor/CRS Retail Suite was devised to assist retailers in integrating their sales channels, order management, pricing, inventory, and resources to more effectively manage a real-time (or close to), multi-channel enterprise. Some of the retail applications that are presently generally available in the suite are:

* Epicor/CRS Merchandising Suite [evaluate this product] is a set of applications that includes tools to manage items, inventory, purchase orders and pricing. Modular applications in the suite include Allocation, Orders and Fulfillment, TransfersPlus and ECommerce. The merchandising suite includes the tools for users’ distribution centers (DC’s) to ensure more accurate receiving, replenishment, merchandising reporting, and more efficient distribution to the stores. In addition, through detailed transaction logging, the optional SalesAudit module provides an unbroken, audit trail of everything that happened in each store across each type of transaction for sales audit and loss prevention purposes. Also, a detailed Customer Sales Analysis module provides the information to build and broaden sales through the customer base. In addition to key applications for replenishment and reporting, the merchandizing suite includes interfaces to accounting systems.
* Epicor/CRS RetailStore [evaluate this product] is a Microsoft.NET Framework-based POS store system designed to assist store personnel to provide a better customer experience, and more effectively manage store operations.
* A more complete store system includes store management, operations and reporting applications, in addition to POS. Store operations are in that case managed through Epicor/CRS RetailStore Office, which provides the store manager the flexibility to work on inventory, employee maintenance, or other tasks while still monitoring the sales floor. The RetailStore Office module provides store management with secure control of tasks including employee maintenance, time & attendance (T&A), store opening/closing, preferred customer management, layaway management, inventory, POS administration, cash management, electronic journaling and reporting.
* Epicor/CRS RetailStore Central provides even more comprehensive systems management solutions to chain store retailers who need centralized control of store software and configuration profiles. Based on the Microsoft .NET Framework, the solution uses secure publish/subscriber-based technology to allow retail chains with hundreds to thousands of locations to monitor and manage their store system configurations and business rules more easily and with greater control. RetailStore Central provides control, monitoring and tracking of all unique changes, including those related to policies, procedures, payroll, security, marketing, taxes and inventory. Changes to RetailStore POS and back office configuration profiles can be managed remotely on a store-by-store basis or through user-defined store groupings without requiring information technology (IT) resources or customizations.
* Epicor/CRS MobileStore is designed to extend access to key store functionality and information beyond the cash register and manager workstation. Through wireless devices running the MobileStore application, store managers and sales associates can remotely perform inventory control, item lookup, manager authorization, along with other key store functions.
* Epicor/CRS RetailCRM is a customer relations management (CRM) solution based on Microsoft .NET framework. By gathering and analyzing customer information from multiple channels, RetailCRM can deliver a more accurate and comprehensive view of the customer to assist sales associates and marketing teams with better information to serve customers. Utilizing the data integration, analysis and reporting capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, the CRM application aggregates information on customer purchase history and shopping behavior across sales channels, enabling retailers to deliver a higher level of one-to-one marketing and personalized customer service at all points of customer interaction.
* Epicor/CRS ReturnsManagement is a multi-channel returns management application enabling retailers to reduce refund fraud and ensure accurate refunds, while improving customer service and employee compliance.
* Epicor/CRS EnterpriseSelling combines real-time inventory and location management with a configurable order manager to integrate inventory transaction processing of multiple sales channels allowing retailers to sell merchandise and satisfy customer demand from anywhere within the distributed enterprise.
* The Epicor/CRS LossPrevention module can be used at the corporate office or in the field to quickly identify patterns of suspicious actions, evaluate exceptions, track potentially fraudulent activities, and investigate individual employee behavior, to assist investigators in dismissing innocent mistakes or building cases for prosecution.

Finally, the Epicor/CRS Retail Integration module provides an integrated offering across the Epicor Enterprise Financials Suite [evaluate this product] and Epicor/CRS Merchandising Suite. Through Epicor Service Connect , a Web services-based business integration platform that came from the above-mentioned Scala acquisition, a secure, auditable two-way integration is supported across these diverse solutions. Service Connect functions as the central integration point for implementing secure workflow orchestrations within Epicor applications and with third-party applications to enhance collaboration and automate business processes. The Epicor/CRS Retail Integration provides the integration for feeding store-level information from merchandising to the financial application.

This brings us to the fact that Epicor’s products are increasingly developed on and use service-oriented architecture (SOA) concepts, which can help manufacturers, distributors, retailers and services organizations to more quickly and efficiently respond to changing business requirements and practices. SOA is a modular, standards-based approach to software development and its deployment is designed to provide a more agile and adaptable application foundation, which can help companies more effectively align their IT resources and enterprise software with their overall business objectives. Epicor’s early adoption of Microsoft .NET and Web services technology allows its product offerings, development and services to leverage the benefits of a SOA and provide growing mid-sized businesses with increased flexibility, inter-operability and cross-platform capability.

To be able to service its growing list of international retail customers, over the past year Epicor/CRS has engineered its POS product to support global market requirements. The latest version of RetailStore, 3.1, released in Q3 2007 – supports French Canadian, Italian, French, and Spanish languages. The release handles capturing customer data for multiple country formats and supports multiple currency denominations and rounding. Additionally, the solution is compliant with the Unicode standard for engineering software that works across multiple regions, countries, languages, alphabets, and scripts. And in early 2008, RetailStore is slated to support Unicode for the Japanese and Chinese markets.

Also, to further support its international retail customers, Epicor is continuing to grow and leverage its UK office located in Bracknell as its implementation and support services hub. The company’s Europe Middle-East & Africa (EMEA) consulting team also grew considerably in 2007, opening additional offices in Slovakia, South Africa, Kenya and India, as well as an office in Egypt, operated jointly with consulting partner IDTA. Epicor also plans to extend its Center of Excellence in Malaysia, which will provide implementation, training and help desk and support services, as well as maintenance, disaster recovery, and support for new store openings.

To further expand its presence and prowess in the retail sector, in December 2007 Epicor and NSB Retail Systems jointly announced that they have agreed on terms for the acquisition of NSB by Epicor for approximately US$320 million. NSB provides a range of software and hardware solutions to apparel, specialty, and department store retailers (which all sounds quite similar to the CRS’ offering).

As a vendor of software for retailers of apparel, footwear and other “specialty” merchandise, NSB is headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and registered and publicly traded in the UK. In 2007, NSB had over 600 employees and projected revenues of $91 million (with some sizable profitability too) from about 200 customers (mostly in the US). The deal is expected to close in February 2008.

Part III of this blog topic will analyze a continuation of Epicor’s strategy to capitalize on the red-hot retail software market, where it initially jumped into with its acquisition of CRS Retail two years ago. Your views, comments, opinions, etc. about Epicor’s moves in the retail sector are customarily welcome in the meantime.

IT Project Management Tools: MS Project and Its Alternatives (Part 2)

2009-06-16T08:38:00.001-07:00

In my last posting I wrote about the functions of project management. When I considered alternatives to MS Project, I started thinking about the functions of Project Portfolio Management (PPM) software and concluded that they were similar in many respects.

• Design
The project blueprint and design stage where are all Business Process Models are developed
• Modeling
Interviewing stakeholders and developing the transactional and business process to support enterprise software deployment
• Execution
The go-live stage to implement the business process and software solution
• Monitoring
Monitoring the end results to achieve the KPIs that were introduced as part of the justification to introduce the software solution

Advantages
The benefits to consider when using a PPM solution are:
• guaranteeing the availability of competencies and resources upon which project success depends
• providing key stakeholders a complete view of the project portfolio
• directing cost savings by prioritizing beneficial projects and eliminating unproductive projects
• aligning IT and other projects with the enterprise’s business strategy

Potential Vendors to Consider
To learn more about the vendors featured in this blog –post and to learn about other vendors in this knowledge space PPM consult TEC’s vendor showcase.

Deltek
Deltek provides an integrated toolset for PPM. Modules include portfolio analysis, risk management, planning and scheduling, project collaboration, and earned value management (EVM). This modular, integrated suite provides selective information to project participants, from CEOs, to project managers, to team members.

Epicor
Epicor for Service Enterprises 8.1 adds enhanced PPM, contingent workforce management, and advanced collaboration and customization capabilities, all enabling greater planning, performance, and execution.

Primavera
Primavera offers professional and new product development services. Its solutions include role-based dashboards, product-based forecasts, graphic trends reporting, and other customizable reporting. Users can establish priorities, view the status of current projects, and allocate resources, as well as receive early warning indicators and view performance trends.

There are a number of PPM tools available with a variety of features and functionality. Please refer to TEC’s website for a complete listing of what is new within PPM software, along with whitepapers that can further your understanding of the complexities of PPM.

A Guide to Selecting Process Enterprise Resource Planning Software

2009-06-16T08:29:00.000-07:00

In today’s global economy, manufacturers are facing new challenges. One of the main issues today’s manufacturers must contend with is compliance. As new chemical engineering meets present-day demands in such industries as food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, and textiles, manufacturers must now adhere to both domestic and international standards.

According to Technology Evaluation Centers’ (TEC’s) research, over 80 percent of companies that need to evaluate enterprise software to help automate and streamline their business, in addition to addressing compliance and other industry issues, do not use a standardized methodology, and thus run over time and over budget. On top of this, once a selection has been made and the software implemented, over 50 percent of the implementations fail to meet functional and total cost expectations. Project teams run into trouble for three main reasons:

They have no effective way to identify the critical vendor and product questions necessary to successfully initiate the evaluation process.
They have no ability to prioritize the different criteria, once identified, relative to one another. Consequently, final priorities are often more the result of internal political agendas than true needs and requirements.
They have no ability to gather objective, validated, updated data on different vendor alternatives. Vendors often have a tendency to exaggerate product, service, and corporate capabilities if it enables them to move to the next phase of the deal.

So What's the Solution?

The solution to the problems listed above is to create a structured, repeatable process for evaluating technology solutions and the vendors that provide them. Best practices drawn from TEC’s clients that have completed internal technology selections suggest that project teams examine five key categories of criteria. The first two categories examine product-specific capabilities, while the remaining three investigate the software vendor's overall corporate capabilities.

Let's review these five key criteria categories:

Category number 1—Product Functionality

Product functionality is the primary phase in process enterprise resource planning (ERP) software selections. Simply put, this phase of the evaluation assesses the features and functions delivered by the product as it currently exists—i.e., what capabilities are available out of the box. Other criteria, such as service and support, corporate viability, and strategy, also contribute to the software selection.

Category number 2—Product Technology

Product technology defines the technical architecture of the product and the technological environment in which the product can run successfully. The definition of mandatory criteria within this set often allows the client to quickly narrow the long list of potential vendors to a shortlist of applicable solutions that pass muster relative to the most basic mandatory selection criteria. Sub-criteria include application architecture, software usability, administration, platform and database support, application tools, workflow and document management, and reporting capabilities.

Category number 3—Corporate Service and Support

This set of criteria defines the capability of the vendor to provide implementation services and ongoing support. Repeated industry surveys have identified this category as the single largest differentiating factor among potential selection options, as well as the greatest indicator of ultimate user implementation success and long-term vendor viability. A proper professional services and support evaluation should include both subjective, qualitative measures validated by current product users, and objective, quantitative criteria within both the professional services and product support categories. Service and support includes such categories as consulting, systems integration, project management skills, geographic coverage, language and time coverage of the vendor help desk, and delivery mediums.

Category number 4—Corporate Viability

Corporate viability (also known as vendor viability) is a critical yet often overlooked category that examines the financial and management strength of the vendor. Given the huge number of dollars spent on IT procurement, the financial stability of the vendor simply can't be stressed too much. The vendor viability category should combine quantitative Wall Street ratio-and-metric analysis with qualitative management and corporate evaluations. Only by combining these two components can IT executives accurately assess the risk and benefit of corporate investment in a specific product and vendor option.

Category number 5—Corporate Strategy

Corporate strategy evaluates the corporate road map and strategy of the software vendor with regards to specific timelines of how the product will be developed, sold, and supported within the process ERP software market. This is the most strategic and long-term set of evaluation criteria, and it rates how effectively the stated vendor's three-to-five year product, support, and sales strategy maps to the overall market direction.

Snapshot of the Process ERP Software Landscape

The growth of the ERP market has been a direct result of the fierce global competition, short product life cycles, highly distributed operations, and information-driven management that characterize today's business environment. A process ERP software is a collection of technologies, components, and services that address the needs of the process manufacturing industry. A typical process ERP system today is suited for organizations manufacturing products that cannot be disassembled into constituent components, such as paints, chemicals, pharmaceutical products, plastics, food and beverages, and so on.

Process ERP applications, like all ERP software, aim at full integration of management, staff, and equipment. They also offer broad functional coverage; vertical industry extensions; a robust technical architecture; training, documentation, implementation, and process design tools; and so on.

The major issue facing process manufacturers is compliance. The steady increase in global trade and competition over the past 10 years, combined with a new awareness of health and governmental regulations, requires manufacturers to comply with both local and international standards. Following are the five main issues that process ERP vendors are focusing on in today’s global economy:

#

Compliance within process ERP software.

Software vendors that provide process ERP applications are meeting today’s compliance challenges by providing the following functionality: advanced planning and scheduling (APS), product data management (PDM), manufacturing execution systems (MES), customer relationship management (CRM), business intelligence (BI), and e-commerce tools. Within each module listed, certain functionalities that may be required are addressed. For example, within the BI module, the compliance needs can conform to industry-specific standards.
#

Sharper vertical focus.

Typically, ERP vendors have used a generic approach when developing their software. However, as businesses require industry-specific functionality, vendors have developed specific functionality that will meet these needs. Since process manufacturing has many different verticals, ERP vendors have developed modules to handle process manufacturing in different industries, such as pharmaceuticals, different chemical industries, and so on.
#

System flexibility enabled by adaptable architecture.

Given the increase in competition, number of regulations, globalization, and mergers and acquisitions, software architecture plays a key role in how quickly vendors can implement, maintain, expand, customize, and integrate their products. Software architecture does much more than simply provide functionality, the user interface, and the platform support; it also determines whether a product is going to endure, whether it will scale to a large number of users, and whether it will be able to incorporate emerging technologies—all in order to accommodate increasing user and regulatory requirements.
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Web and e-commerce enablement of ERP systems.

For the process manufacturing industry, the ability to conduct business online is crucial. Web-based collaboration between companies and their customers and suppliers has become the reality of doing business each day. In terms of compliance issues, companies can upload information from different Internet sources in order to keep abreast of new standards and to improve business activities, and to integrate these new pieces of information into the process ERP system.

Another advantage of Web commerce is that by extending the existing ERP system to support e-commerce, organizations not only leverage their investment in the ERP solution, they can also speed up the development of their e-commerce capabilities.

Leading ERP vendors have also made moves to adopt Web portal strategies. Essentially, the goal is to create a virtual, personalized workplace and marketplace for ERP users, where the ERP applications, other disparate back-end systems, and external content and services (such as catalogs, directories, travel services, benefits administration, and so on) can be seamlessly and transparently accessed by users via the Web.

5.

Intensified market merger and acquisition activity.

Presently, three vendors sit at the top of the ERP vendor market: Oracle, SAP, and Infor. Each offers very broad functionality, but each has made so many significant acquisitions that all three have vertical expertise in many areas as well. Since ERP software historically has been focused on manufacturing, these three vendors have extremely well-developed manufacturing modules.

Some other notable vendors that have a strong presence within the ERP market include CDC Software, IFS, Lawson, and Microsoft. Some older software vendors (those that have been in the industry for 10 to 20 years) have chosen to focus on specific verticals; they do well, but they cannot compete with such “giants” as Oracle or SAP.

A Brief Summary of Market Trends

ERP remains the information backbone for contemporary manufacturing enterprises. But today's ERP systems can also be characterized by new types of technologies, such as software as a service (SaaS) models and service-oriented architecture (SOA). These technologies have addressed more than the manufacturing process that is taking place within the walls of an enterprise. The advent of the above technologies has been a direct influence from Web and e-commerce. Other trends include easier enterprise applications integration (EAI), more flexible pricing, a lesser need for application customization, and the embedding of analytical applications and knowledge management within solutions.

ERP Showdown: Infor ERP LN 6.1 vs. Epicor Vantage vs. Lawson M3 Discrete Manufacturing Solutions

2009-06-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

Introduction

With enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems being the information backbone of the organization, we decided to take a closer look at three of the more popular discrete ERP solutions for the mid-market. Using TEC's ERP Evaluation Center, we compared Infor ERP LN 6.1, Epicor Vantage, and Lawson M3 Discrete Manufacturing Solutions head-to-head, based on the most recent data supplied to us by the three vendors.

We looked at eight standard ERP modules. To eliminate any chance of bias, and to ensure a level playing field, all 3,600 criteria that make up the modules and submodules in our ERP Evaluation Center were given equal weight and priority. In other words, no area of functionality was treated as being more important than any other.

The chart below shows the overall rankings.

Results

As you can see above, straight out of the box, Infor ERP LN 6.1 ranked first overall, with Lawson M3 Discrete Manufacturing Solutions coming in second, and Epicor Vantage placing third. (Overall scores were based on the average level of support the vendor offers across the entire ERP spectrum.)

As the chart below shows, Infor finished first in five of the eight modules (although by some fairly small margins in a few cases), with Lawson finishing first in three modules (two of which were extremely close), and Epicor failing to finish first in any of the eight modules.

As you can also see in the chart below, there’s an especially wide range of results in Human Resources. Infor ERP LN 6.1 is the only one of the three solutions that currently provides full HR functionality. Epicor Vantage requires third-party functionality, while Lawson M3 plans to offer full HR functionality in future releases. (It should be noted that clients do not always require an HR component in a new ERP system, as many prefer to retain their existing HR solution or add on a third-party solution.)

However, as with most aspects of enterprise software, it's not that simple or clear-cut.

Rankings, either overall or by module, do not tell you everything you need to know. What they do provide is a basic, high-level view of vendors' general strengths and weaknesses right out of the box. However, the fact is, few businesses, if any, can use an ERP solution right out of the box. Businesses have special needs and priorities that need to be supported by any ERP solution they use.

For example, if your business requires an especially robust quality management functionality, even though Infor finished first overall, Lawson scored higher in the Quality Management module, and may therefore be a better choice for your organization.

The same applies within individual modules, where the top-ranking vendor may not necessarily be the right one for your organization's needs. Although Infor placed first overall and in Product Technology, the chart below shows Lawson as stronger in both the Reporting and Workflow and Document Management submodules. If either of these functional areas is key to your organization's business model, Lawson may be a better choice than Infor.

Conclusion

Given that 'out of the box' rankings rarely, if ever, reflect the real-world needs of an organization, and that the rankings can shift depending on what area(s) of functionality you look at, how then do you determine which ERP solution is best suited for your business?

The fastest, simplest way is to do what we did to produce the results you see here: use TEC's ERP Evaluation Center. We got our results in less than 20 minutes, versus weeks—or even months—of struggling with huge Excel spreadsheets.

TEC's ERP Evaluation Center allows you to set priorities that reflect your organization's business model and special needs at every level of functionality. At the modular and submodular levels—even down to the individual criteria—you can tell the system which business processes are critical, important, or not important to your organization. The system then compares your priorities against the vendor responses to produce a shortlist of solutions. You get a custom comparison—one that ranks vendor solutions not on out-of-the-box functionality, but rather on how well that functionality matches the business requirements of your organization.

It's the best way we know of to evaluate ERP solutions, and we invite you to try it out. Simply click on the link below to visit our ERP Evaluation Center and conduct your fast, free custom ERP comparison. After all, there's no other organization quite like yours.

The Certification of an ERP Accounting Package

2009-06-16T08:18:00.002-07:00

Flexi wins again.

I recently completed a certification exercise for the Flexi Software’s FlexiFinancials package, a functionally rich accounting package that is complete in every way and geared for the banking, insurance, and financial services industries. A package that has integrated business objects with drill-down searching and with full functional and reporting capabilities.

We proceeded as follows: I prepared a certification document that I e-mailed to Flexi Software (Flexi). Flexi (www.flexi.com) set up a remote desktop and I logged on from my office one thousand miles away, to begin the certification process. To review the items that were certified, visit the vendor showcase on our website at

http://www.vendor-showcase.com/browse/174/Accounting-ERP-for-SMB.html

My role was “to verify the Flexi Financials application’s functionality and to verify the vendor’s claims.” Together with Flexi, we stepped through the certification document using it as the “show me it does what you claim”. During the demonstration, I asked for additional related tasks to be done and they were demonstrated. I noted that the application exceeded the capabilities offered by some other accounting modules that are integrated into other ERP systems. I noted that the software has clearly laid out menus, and forms, making it easy to use

The bottom line is that the Flexi product passed with excellence. It met all the vendors’ claims and more. The following list is just a summary of what we audited and certified.

FlexiFinancials Suite:

* setup of the chart of accounts, including budgets, sub-ledgers, for multi-company and regions within the companies
* perform transaction processing, including reversing entries
* perform month-end and year-end operations (closing, reopening, etc)
* examine all onscreen displays, control reports and financial statements
* verify all aspects of accounts payable, accounts receivable, budgeting, vendor and customer management
* perform additional processing against accounts making use of journal entries, memos, and vouchers
* examine project and job management
* test the purchasing and order entry systems, testing invoicing, purchase limits, credit limits, escalation when limits are exceeded, and respective adjustments.
* perform buyer and salesmen handling
* examine field and user security controls
* ad-hoc reporting demonstrated with Flexi Vision, with drill down from onscreen displays.
* Accounts payable workflow and approval

I highly recommend the Flexi Accounting package as it is functionally in the competition class with packages from SAP, Oracle, Epicor Lawson and Sungard.

My efforts and the vendors’ at preparing for the certification was a labor-intensive activity for both of us. I am certain that we are both glad that all ended well.

As an addendum, the preparation time at my end was about three man days, and the time to complete the certification, three hours.

It’s About Process (or the Ability to be Responsive) — Part III

2009-06-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

Part II of this blog series continued the introduction of the concepts of workflow automation and business process management (BPM). It also zoomed in on similarities and subtle differences between the two related software categories. Finally, the idea of on-demand workflow and/or BPM solutions was introduced.

To that end, Webcom Inc. has leveraged its vast expertise earned while addressing many complex sales quote-to-order (Q2O) process issues (i.e., channel quote approvals, special pricing approvals, special non-standard product feature request approvals, etc.) and has created a brand new workflow engine, which can be (and is already) used for many generic business processes.

Such examples of processes would be: RMA (Return Material/Merchandize Authorization), NFR (New Feature Request), ECN (Engineering Change Notice), NPR (New Product Release), Bug Tracking, Engineering Change Request, and many other business processes that require approval steps.

The Ability to Respond, On-demand

In May 2008, Webcom announced the availability of ResponsAbility, its newest offering addressing the case management and workflow processing areas. ResponsAbility is designed to speed the “time-to-resolution” process, eliminate unnecessary time delays and improve overall value chain communications and productivity through improved transparency and collaboration.

The idea behind this case management and workflow solution was to help organizations keep their projects on track and their employees on the same page, thereby making the lives of internal and external team members much less complicated (and more productive and enjoyable).

This straightforward application provides a central location (repository) for managing the key aspects of many types of cases, including product and service defects, customer and supplier complaints, non-conformance issues, health and safety incidents, and RMAs. Separate tabs keep key information within easy reach, whereby team members can log issues as they arise, prioritize them, and update their status as appropriate.

Built-in reports let users see open issues by project, projects by stage, and many other categories. On a proactive side, the tool can be leveraged by companies to create and implement corrective and preventive actions (CAPA) and to support a plethora of regulatory and compliance requirements. All in all, users that have always had the responsibility now have the “ability to respond”, as required.

This case management software may not currently have all the bells-and-whistles associated with full-fledged BPM packages, such as programmatically driving a workflow engine, visual process modeling, process monitoring and optimization, or automatic task allocation based on workload. Still, it seems well suited for small and medium size companies, who can leverage such a software tool with an intuitive user interface (UI), for handling many, if not all of their processes, in an incremental manner.

The design and enforcement of processes is enabled because both administrators and end-users are able to design workflows, notifications, and data collection forms, as well as setting up permissions accordingly. The system manages cases by ushering each case through the resolution process, and by tracking the progress of each case throughout the entire process.

The multi-tenant software as a service (SaaS) delivery model ensures that a customer can be up and running quickly with all of the selected critical processes being modeled and functional. No onsite deployment is necessary and the software only requires a Web browser and some modest to minimal data and process setup to be up and running.

Brethren Software Vendors as Likely ResponsAbility Users?

For example, a software development company can deploy this tool within a day or two and allow its customers to report bugs. This information can then be internally routed according to a customized workflow to the support department, then to the engineering and testing staff, and then back to the customer for approval and case closure.

To elaborate, the Software Bug workflow logically starts with the customer reporting a software bug. Then a default assignee at the software vendor reviews it, and then either resolves it on the spot (hopefully) or assigns it to the software engineering staff by providing a test case. Then the software engineering team determines a cause for the bug and either provides a workaround, fully fixes the bug, or determines that the software behaves as designed after all.

At the same time, ResponsAbility can be used to allow customers to create new feature requests, which are then routed via a different customized workflow starting from project management, via development, release scheduling, back to development, quality assurance (QA), documentation (technical writers), product management, and finally to marketing teams.

Again, if the bug can be fixed, the case is assigned to the testing staff, back to the support team, and finally back to the customer for approval and case closure. But, if the issue turns out not to be the bug after all, the case is then converted to a new feature request and follows an entirely different workflow.

To that end, the New Product Feature Request process starts with customers, sales & service people, channels and/or product managers requesting a new feature. Often, the existing users (install base special interest groups [SIGs]) are allowed to vote on it, and based on the number of votes and other factors, some new features are assigned to the engineering department to estimate the effort entailed to implement the requested feature.

Based on the estimate and other criteria, some new features are then assigned to the engineering or research and development (R&D) departments for implementation. Upon implementation, the new feature is assigned to the QA department for testing and approvals. Finally, based on the QA results, a new feature is returned back to engineering for a rework or is scheduled for production (or general availability).

Apparently, various instances of a process (called cases) can be changed midstream. For example, something that was initially entered as a bug upon investigation may be classified as an expected behavior. The customer who did not expect such behavior from the software can then change a case type of this instance from a bug to a new feature request, without having to re-enter any information and this case will then follow the prescribed new feature workflow process.

Also, a built-in notification and permissions engine ensures that all communication and collaboration happens within ResponsAbility, so everybody is aware of anything that anybody ever stated about the case via comments, file attachments, etc.

Unlike some of the simple issue tracking software packages mentioned in Part II, ResponsAbility can be used not only for tracking things, but also for enforcing a process in order to ensure that things get done correctly. For example, a workflow engine can be set up to make sure that a process status cannot be changed from “bug fixed” to “in testing” until a concrete test case scenario is provided by a user via customizable online forms.

Webcom — “Eating Own Dog Food”

It might be interesting to note that Webcom, as a software developer itself, has since late 2006 been using ResponsAbility internally for its older sibling WebSource CPQ product’s bug tracking and new product features introduction.

The traditional model, whereby the dedicated product/project manager and support staff were the only bidirectional conduit between the client’s team (i.e., WebSource CPQ users and administrators, local project manager, application owners, stakeholders, etc.) and Webcom’s team (i.e., developers, modelers, QA, consultants, product managers, etc.), has over time been shown to have many disadvantages.

Namely, despite the dedicated project manager’s intimate knowledge of the individual client’s installation and the established relationship and hand-holding comfort level, the challenges have repeatedly been the bottleneck nature of the dedicated project management and support team, with no significant value being added by this additional layer of communication.

Other disadvantages would be the all too often “black hole” syndrome due to the lack of a single project/client/tasks/issues depository. Therefore, priorities are often managed on an inefficient (and often redundant or conflicting) one-to-one basis.

The advantages of the new support model, with ResponsAbility providing a single repository of all cases (in a hub-and-spoke manner), start with collaboration and the ability for all parties to both instantly contribute to the case/task/issue and have instant visibility into the case status. Also, new resources that include clients, Webcom employees and third-parties (partners) can all immediately participate and be notified, while the enabler for everyone is also an advanced searching capability within the system.

The Webcom Q2O clients’ adoption was initially somewhat tepid due to the ingrained human habit of emailing or calling directly the preferred contact or due to the clients having their own issue tracking systems. Of course, there is always the need for a human touch and chatting (as a “bonus”) with Webcom associates about the “critical” issues like a “lovely” winter weather in Wisconsin or about the Green Bay Packers’ revival.

Nonetheless, joking apart, from the end of 2007 ResponsAbility has been the sole vehicle for communication, tracking and managing tasks and cases at Webcom. Prior to that, Webcom had used the JIRA issue tracking system, which at the time allowed users to create a workflow based on a set of offered statuses.

However, at the time (the things might have meanwhile changed though) there was not the user’s ability to create statuses and workflows at will. For instance, the offered statuses were “open,” “in progress,” “closed,” etc., but the user could not create a custom status like “material returned”, “in engineering”, “being analyzed” or so.

Further, users could add custom fields, but they could not design forms in a drag-and-drop fashion. There was no way to specify forms and fields for each action (task) either, so that, e.g., when the process passes from the “bug fixed” into the “in testing” phase, the user could not create a mandatory field named “test case.” While administrators had ample controls, the end users had very little control over what fields they could see on the screen, and so on.

Key ResponsAbility Design Tenets

In contrast, ResponsAbility was built with several design concepts in mind, starting with scalability in terms of users’ ability to create an unlimited number of cases, processes, statuses, status transitions, custom fields, users, user types, departments, etc.

There is also flexibility in terms of creating permissions (e.g., by project, by process, by custom fields, etc.) and the assigning of rules and permissions is visible system-wide. As for data flexibility, there are custom fields and forms and process-related fields and forms, while at each process point (step) fields can be assigned as read-only (viewable), editable, and/or required (mandatory). There is also a flexible definition of assignments, notifications, and recipients, whereby conditional actions drive implicit and explicit notifications.

Furthermore, the ease-of-use concept translates into hardly any training required, whereby the idea for the tool is to be perceived by users as their enabler for getting things done instead of an enforced mandatory tracking tool by the “ivory tower.” Some examples of the ease-of-use features are:

* An intuitive drag-and-drop interface for administrators to design and preview online forms;
* An instant system feedback regarding the field size, informing users how many characters they still have left or by how many characters they have exceeded the maximum field size, and all of this happens dynamically while they are still typing;
* When looking at the list of cases, dragging a mouse over a case will bring additional fields in a hover (a so called “mouseover”), so that a user can find out more about each case while browsing a list, without having to open each case (thereby saving valuable time); and
* Each list of cases can be customized (personalized) by users in order to show fields as columns based on what that user is interested in or what a user considers to be important. If, e.g., a case type has 100 fields, it is impractical to put them all as columns in a list of cases on the screen. It is also impossible to select 10 most important fields universally because their importance depends on individual user needs. Therefore, each user can determine (select), in a drag-and-drop manner, which fields are truly important for them.

Last but not least, the ease-of-setup tenet starts with a pre-built library of processes, but companies can certainly create their own processes with an intuitive and flexible setup of forms, workflows, notifications and permissions. In addition to the abovementioned advanced search capability, users have a facility of unlimited comments and uploading of attachments.

The administrator is able to create brand new processes, new fields and forms and to define the workflow(s) for new processes. He/she can define which field and when in the process is mandatory, visible, hidden and for whom. The administrator is also able to define who has access to which types of cases and projects, who can oversee which users, and so on.

It is thus small wonder that ResponsAbility has reportedly been deployed in only a few days at some customers including setting up processes, users, permissions, and import of legacy data.

Part IV of this blog series will continue to delve into the Webcom’s ResponsAbility on-demand workflow/BPM offering. In the meantime, your comments, thoughts, suggestions or individual experiences with workflow/BPM tools are more than welcome.

TEC’s I&CM Evaluation Center (Slowly but Surely) Gaining Traction – Part II

2009-06-16T08:15:00.001-07:00

Part I of this blog series expanded on some of TEC’s earlier articles about companies’ need for better commission and incentives calculations and best sales performance management (SPM) practices. It also introduced the latest entry in TEC’s I&CM (Incentive & Compensation Management) Evaluation Center, Varicent Software’s flagship product, Varicent SPM [evaluate this product].

Varicent SPM Architecture Overview

The product suite’s architecture consists of several layers, starting with a number of source systems that can handle diverse structured data. Such data can come from customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and from the order entry, human resources (HR), payroll, accounts payable (A/P), and general ledger (G/L) modules of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The source systems layer can also handle unstructured data coming from Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF documents.

At the data storage layer, there is support for the Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and IBM DB2 databases, while at the presentation and analytics layer, there is support for the IBM Cognos TM1 (formerly Applix TM1), Microsoft Analysis Services, and Oracle Hyperion Essbase online analytic processing (OLAP) platforms.

Finally, the output destination layer presents several options from Microsoft Excel documents and hypertext markup language (HTML) Web pages, via mobile devices, to business intelligence (BI)/online analytical processing (OLAP) cubes, G/L and Payroll systems.

Out of the above layers, the Varicent Application Layer encompasses the data storage layer, Varicent SPM’s calculation engine (written mostly in the Microsoft .NET Framework) and the presentation & analytics layer. Such multi-layered architecture was designed with scalability, flexibility, and openness in mind.

Furthermore, based on the above-mentioned architectural blueprint, the system features advanced reporting & analytics, modeling & simulation, and dashboards & alerting capabilities. For example, users can use a plethora of dimensions for out-of-the-box reporting purposes such as: accounts, time period, customer, product, territory, payee, payee group, etc.

Broadening Reach

The recently released Varicent SPM 5.0 ’s user interface (UI) is backed by a calculation engine that leverages an Excel-based syntax, allowing business users to more easily replicate and manage their company-specific compensation models directly within Varicent SPM. This empowers end-users to control the application, including integration with source systems and scheduling routine tasks such as importing and exporting information to and from other enterprise systems.

Without relying on the IT department, business users (or end users) gain the ability to have a comprehensive review and approval wrapped around business processes while also managing compensation plans, creating and scheduling automated maintenance tasks, and configuring the system directly. In its quest to broaden the product’s reach to less IT-savvy users, the new UI features more workspace, and an improved layout and presentation based on customers’ feedback.

In July 2008, Varicent announced that its newly released Varicent SPM 5.0 features integration with Microsoft PerformancePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. The combined solution makes it possible for organizations to deliver a holistic solution for both SPM and corporate performance management (CPM). Specifically, Varicent SPM 5.0 now:

* Offers synchronization of SPM data – including details on territories, quotas, incentive compensation and related analytics – with Microsoft PerformancePoint Server;
* Includes Microsoft Office SharePoint Server dashboards, providing customers with a single, integrated source of corporate information; and
* Enables Varicent SPM 5.0’s Quota Planning module directly in the financial planning mode of Microsoft PerformancePoint Server, delivering a single application for both financial and quota planning.

Varicent, previously a Microsoft Certified Partner, has now achieved a Gold Certified Partner status in the Microsoft Partner Program. This distinction shows that Varicent has demonstrated proficiency with Microsoft-based technologies.

Varicent’s Current State of Affairs

Varicent SPM is a relatively new offering (started in 2003), so gaining visibility and getting in more competitive selections has been its primary challenge to this point. In some instances, providing a number of reference clients of a certain size and in a certain industry quickly can be somewhat problematic, in comparison to better established players like Callidus Software or Oracle Incentive Compensation (OIC).

Also, having thus far supported only English and being primarily present in North America have been additional limitations for the vendor. While this is true, Varicent has achieved significant traction in the marketplace, including triple digit revenue growth year-over-year for the last four years and is tracking to do the same in 2008.

2008 would mark the year of expansion in terms of management team, board members and rank-and-file employees, as well as international expansion into the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. In addition to the above-mentioned Microsoft Gold certification, Varicent has announced partnerships with Deloitte Consulting, Revelwood and Merador and signed its first Fortune 10 customer.

In late April 2008 Varicent announced the general availability of Varicent SPM 5.0, which introduced:

* a newly designed UI that allows organizations to more broadly deploy Web-based SPM reporting, analysis and dashboards throughout the enterprise;
* enhanced workflow, data collection, task management and audit capabilities to better manage and control complex variable pay plans and processes;
* improved dispute resolution functionality for faster, real-time management and tracking of field inquiries;
* a Web Form builder so business users have more flexibility in the design and rollout of Web-based input templates, performance scorecards and compensation reports (both with quantitative and qualitative metrics); and
* Varicent Composer, a new graphical management capability that gives business users visibility and control of sales performance management business processes.

Besides new UI, broader reach is hoped to be bolstered via the Web Form builder and input templates. These tools enable flexible design of reports, performance scorecards, wizard driven template creation, and data validation fields. The remaining new features (bullet points) from the list above will be fleshed out shortly.

Key Tenets of Varicent’s Success thus far

Varicent wins most often when prospective customers value the speed, flexibility, and visibility of their EIM/SPM processes. When it comes to “speed,” Varicent SPM is designed to be administered and maintained by business users (process owners) with minimal IT staff involvement.

Given the vendor’s financials management focus and heritage (rather than its focus coming from the HR management pedigree of many competitors), the product also has advanced dispute resolution, modeling, reporting, analytics and other capabilities that give organizations the ability to make quicker business decisions and speed in terms of performance management.

As indicated earlier, Varicent SPM 5.0 includes a new simplified UI designed for various business professionals across the enterprise: sales representatives, management, finance, HR personnel and executives. The new UI enhances the human interaction and usability of the solution, which makes the product accessible to more casual users who need to gain insight into sales productivity, profitability and performance.

Existing and New Flexibility and Visibility Enablers

As for “flexibility,” Varicent SPM was designed to meet the broad requirements of mid-size companies to large Fortune 500 enterprises. The product can scale from hundreds to tens of thousands of users, and has advanced workflow management capabilities out-of-the-box that can be tailored to organizations business specifics. It has other notable capabilities including the above-mentioned Varicent Composer, which is a graphical visual application manager that gives system users insight into incentive calculations, business rules and data flows.

Varicent SPM 5.0 includes built-in business rules, and supports the creation and maintenance of any type of unique or customized business process flow. Companies can also easily configure their own approach to payment approvals, retroactive period adjustments, exception alerts, performance scorecards, management by objectives (MBO) management, field inquiries, document sign-offs, data collection and reporting.

The new Workflow module can be based on groups and/or hierarchy trees. In a drag-and-drop manner, users can create workflows for managing plans, reports, Web forms, documents signoffs and inquiries. Workflow management can help with inquiry and dispute updates and with faster, real-time management and tracking of field inquiries.

For its part, Varicent Composer enables system administrators to create and edit dynamic graphical representations of calculations, business rules and data flows, thereby giving them greater visibility and control over incentive compensation rules, territory assignments, deal crediting, adjustments, overlays and exceptions which are usually buried deep in custom configuration or code. This new visual illustration tool, with the drag-and-drop and drill down ability (all the way to database tables) provides a visual representation of the entire process from source data through to final compensation payouts.

As a recap, Varicent SPM’s flexibility makes it easier for end users to learn, set up, manage and show complex calculations, business rules and data flows. Users and companies thereby gain more insight and control over incentive compensation rules, territory assignments, deal crediting, adjustments, overlays, exceptions, and so on.

Final Thoughts

Last but not least, in terms of “visibility,” Varicent gives business users greater visibility into plan and organizational changes with notable audit capabilities and the Varicent Mobile module (in a partnership with Vaultus, and currently the only SPM hand-held offering in the market, to my knowledge).

Meeting the increasing need for better visibility and compliance, Varicent SPM 5.0 introduced enhanced audit and security mechanisms for more system control, better audit trails and improved user activity tracking. Users can drill into summarized audit reports to get detailed transactional information. The solution’s audit reporting and analytics capabilities are designed to meet ever-changing compliance and audit requirements.

As said in Part I, Varicent is headquartered in Toronto, with direct sales and reseller partners throughout North America and EMEA, and a reseller partner in Australia. This way, Varicent has its system users in more than 20 countries around the world. To facilitate global requirements Varicent has multi-currency input and payout capabilities, multi-rate set functionality and supports both centralized and decentralized (e.g., geographic based) SPM processes and systems.

Varicent SPM is distributed in English and a language translation support layer is provided to translate the application into other required languages. The vendor has mentioned translations for six languages in process at this stage.

Varicent has both traditional on-premise and more modern on-demand (albeit in a single-tenant hosted manner) offering. The vendor claims to not have a deployment mode preference and believes the choice should best meet the customer’s business requirements. Whether on-demand, or on-premise, Varicent delivers the same comprehensive SPM functionality (i.e., Incentive Calculation Engine, Workflow, Territory Management, Quota Planning, Performance Analytics and Mobile Handheld capabilities). Varicent also lets organizations switch from one mode to the other, in both directions, as business needs change.

Hence, dear readers, what are your views, comments, opinions, etc. about Varicent’s moves and abut the EIM/SPM software market in general? We would also be interested in your experiences with this nascent software category (if you are an existing user) or in your current (possibly painful) practices, and your general interest to evaluate these solutions as prospective customers.

Microsoft’s Underlying Platform Parts for Enterprise Applications: Somewhat Explained – Part 2

2009-06-16T08:14:00.004-07:00

Part 1 of this blog series concluded that Microsoft would not converge all of its diverse Microsoft Dynamics product lines into a single enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. Rather, the vendor has been attempting to leverage the best practices and technologies across all of the products, where possible.

The idea is to deliver applications that have the following characteristics: are familiar to users within their organizations, fit with existing corporate systems, fuel business productivity, and enable confident and informed decision making processes.

Reporting, Analytics & Collaboration Enablers

To expand further on the use of the Microsoft SQL Server database that was discussed at the end of Part 1, all Microsoft Dynamics reporting capabilities will in the future come natively (which also means without new license fees) through SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and associated tools. This was first developed within Microsoft Dynamics GP 9 and Microsoft Dynamics AX [evaluate this product], and will be adopted more broadly across other Dynamics products. In the Microsoft Dynamics AX 4 release, there was the capability of creating ad hoc reports, whereas most recently released Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 also uses SSRS for all production reports.

Innovation is now surfacing as a result of integration between the Microsoft Visual Studio.NET (VS.NET) development platform and SQL Server. Namely, there is now the ability to launch Precision Report Designer and maintain the Dynamics AX semantic models in VS.NET and to pass the data in a closed-loop manner to and from Dynamic AX logic models. These models can in turn look into the Dynamics AX database (SQL Server) via database secure views. The future development will make these currently static models dynamic for report-customization purposes.

Along similar lines will be the use of Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), whereby all Dynamics role centers within the user experience (UX) project (mentioned in Part 1) will feature embedded contextual business intelligence (BI). Currently, Dynamics AX 2009 has the cube generation capability, whereby analytics perspectives have been added to the business logic model, and which can generate Data Source Views (DSV’s) and Online Analytic Processing (OLAP) cubes. The future research and development (R&D) forays will likely enable the round-trip (between VS.NET and SQL Server) advanced features that will require similar features to the abovementioned reporting tools.

As a little caveat, these native reporting and analytics features will not be automatically available to the users of the proprietary Microsoft Dynamics NAV C/Side database (about half of the install base) and Dynamics AX Oracle instances. For Dynamics NAV customers using the older C/Side database, most of them upgrade to SQL Server when they move to a new NAV version anyway, while Dynamics AX users on Oracle can access the new reporting and analytics features by adding SSRS and SSAS to their deployment. Still, Microsoft will, for the foreseeable future, honor the ongoing support for these databases alongside its SQL Server.

Sharing SharePoint and Unified Communications

Microsoft SharePoint is the platform for portal-based collaboration and document management/enterprise content management (ECM). The product also works tightly with Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and Unified Communications (UC), both Microsoft technologies that will be described in detail later on. This integration provides great visibility for workflows related to documents and document libraries, and improving collaboration through the “presence” and “click to communicate” features.

Today, SharePoint is the universal portal technology for the Dynamics portfolio; for example, in Dynamics AX 2009, the AX Enterprise Portal (formerly Axapta Enterprise Portal) is now based on SharePoint. The portal was devised from the standard SharePoint design experience, whereby a gallery of Dynamics AX Web parts is now available, making it very simple to bring to the surface Dynamics AX data (with the inherent AX security model enforced) on SharePoint portal pages.

In addition to Web parts, other strategies for SharePoint integration are its Business Data Catalog (BDC) Web Services feature (currently used within Microsoft Dynamics GP [evaluate this product] and Dynamics CRM [evaluate this product]), and data binding (within Dynamics AX). It is likely that BDC services will grow further in importance, and we should expect a broad Microsoft Dynamics consistency around this feature.

The abovementioned UC technology provides the ability for applications to identify users’ “presence” and enable “click to communicate” capabilities. Via Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Dynamics AX 2009 and Dynamics CRM 4.0 currently work with UC (which is envisioned for the upcoming Dynamics ERP releases too). For example, whenever a user sees a person in the application screen, he/she can also see a presence indicator showing if they are “out of the office”, “in a meeting”, “on a call”, or “available”. By clicking on the indicator, a user gets to pick the preferred method to communicate with them with a single click, whether it might be via email, instant messenger (IM), or phone, if the company has the computer telephony integration (CTI) capabilities.

The Microsoft Dynamics team is working together with the UC team to develop even more advanced scenarios that bring people closer to the processes represented in their applications. One such possible scenario, “Call Center of the Future”, was showed at Convergence 2008 during Steve Ballmer’s keynote speech. Expected scenarios for the next version of UC platform will revolve around how to factor in application embedding, advanced in-context collaboration scenarios, and blending UC and business process management (BPM).

What About the Microsoft .NET Framework Parts?

The situation is much less “crystal clear” when it comes to leveraging components of the Microsoft .NET Framework. Namely, on the programming and development platform side, only Microsoft Dynamics SL [evaluate this product] is leveraging Visual Basic.NET (VB.NET), one of the languages embraced by .NET. Having already abandoned the gut-wrenching route of a single code base, as noted in Part 1, Microsoft now has to live with the proprietary platforms within Dynamics GP (i.e., Dexterity) , Dynamics NAV (i.e., C/Side AL), and Dynamics AX (i.e., X++/MorphX).

But, on the upside, the abovementioned Windows WF technology, which is an application-hosted workflow orchestration engine, and with a VS.NET design experience, is much more pervasively used throughout Dynamics. WF tools are VS.NET-based tools for developers that add simplified analyst (information worker) experiences.

The technology originated in the Microsoft BizTalk Server team (to be described later on), and in a future major release of BizTalk, WF will become the orchestration engine for BizTalk. WF is used in SharePoint and within Dynamics applications (i.e., Dynamics GP 10, Dynamics AX 2009, and Dynamics CRM 4.0) as the workflow engine. A distinct feature is its Tracking Provider architectural design (Dynamics AX 2009 implements this) that allows users to capture process execution information in the same database as the transaction data.

There is the ability here to track and record data about WF instances as they execute, such as the current status of long running processes, time spent across parts of/the whole process, exception paths taken, etc. This enables an analysis like, for example, how much time or how many escalations is it taking the user to approve Purchase Orders (PO) for his/her preferred suppliers with PO’s value under US$25,000.

Furthermore, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), formerly called Indigo and WinFX, is an application web services inter-communication framework, and can be used to access Dynamics AX 4 and 2009 business logic through web service interfaces. This provides a higher level document interface to the application for integration, complementing the .NET Business Connector which offers more granular, lower level component interfaces to the Dynamics AX business logic. Microsoft’s .NET Business Connector replaces the older Microsoft Component Object Model (COM)-based COM Business Connector.

What Else Might Come Down the Track?

As a glance into the future, Microsoft BizTalk Server, which delivers orchestration and integration capabilities between disparate applications while handling broad ranges of scale and volume, is envisioned to expand the Dynamics ERP and/or customer relationship management (CRM) products’ integration and BPM capabilities. Dynamics products occasionally work with BizTalk for tricky orchestration and integration between third-party systems, for example handling orders in business-to-business (B2B) commerce integrations, whereas WF is used for orchestration inside an individual Dynamics application.

Other potential ambitious undertakings in the future should revolve around Master Data Management (MDM), whereby the Stratature acquisition in 2007 should be a good start towards embedding MDM capabilities into SharePoint. The Dynamics products are seen as key drivers for scenarios in a future Microsoft MDM offering. Along similar lines should be the FAST acquisition in 2007, when it comes to the enterprise search capabilities (that entail both structured data and unstructured/rich media files).

Part 3 of this blog series will analyze the ever-evolving user interface (UI) and visualization technologies, and related approaches of Microsoft and other independent software vendors (ISVs). Your views, comments, and opinions about and/or experiences with any abovementioned solution are welcome in the meantime.

One Year Later at Deltek: More of the Same (And Then Some More) – Part II

2009-06-16T08:14:00.003-07:00

Part I of this blog series explained Deltek’s ebullience despite a hostile and depressed environment. The continued cash-generating operation has been complemented by in-house developments, acquisitions, and partnerships.

The previous blog post also talked about the recent developments (and anticipated future developments) at Deltek’s Professional Service line of business, which is largely represented by Deltek Vision [evaluate this product]. Parts II & III will analyze the recent developments (and anticipated future developments) at Deltek’s remaining lines of business.

Government Contracting (GovCon) Market

Deltek has invested in a lot of research and development (R&D) in the GovCon market recently, with two major product announcements being the availability of the new release of Deltek GCS Premier [evaluate this product] and the release of the Deltek Performance Management (DPM) suite. GCS Premier 5.0 was a huge release for Deltek because the goal behind the launch was to put to bed perceptions that its competitors (most frequently Microsoft Dynamics and its network of partners) have been putting in the marketplace for a while.

Namely, GCS Premier has long featured an old technology foundation (with a “welcome to the 1980s” look-and-feel), and the market perception has been that Deltek is not really committed to improving the product. Deltek’s presumed strategy was to force GCS users to upgrade to the upper-range Deltek Costpoint [evaluate this product] suite. These assumptions could not be further from the truth, and the 5.0 release is proof.

Generally available from late August 2008, GCS Premier 5.0 delivers significant enhancements to the renowned and widespread project accounting solution for small-to-medium-sized government contractors. The release is focused on producing enhancements to the following three important areas:

1. Ease of use
2. Improved invoicing
3. United States (US) Defense Contract Auditing Agency (DCAA)-mandated compliance reporting.

GCS Premier 5.0 delivers a new user interface (UI) with a more versatile and contemporary look-and-feel, and bolstered billing capabilities that make invoicing faster and easier. The latter capability is accomplished by the addition of flexible invoicing to the billing process (Microsoft Office Excel-based) and the first installment of billing functionality improvements.

In addition to completely changing the product’s UI to make it more intuitive and modern, Deltek also updated reporting schedules and formats that reduce customers’ reporting workload. The release also added additional compliance reporting capabilities such as Incurred Cost Submission (ICS) reports, and important integration with Microsoft Office for billing. Some GCS Premier clients that have upgraded to the 5.0 version have reportedly seen billing times go from a few hours to 90 seconds (which should translate in a much better cash flow).

The familiar workflow graphics that GCS customers have traditionally liked remain in this new version. However GCS 5.0 also adds greater navigational ease with the new UI that features the Explorer-Tab-Icon combination, and that puts users almost instantly anywhere they need to go (a couple of clicks away from anywhere).

Incidentally, Deltek believes its decision to invest in GCS Premier was a wise one: it has been among the best-selling software packages within Deltek over the last year or so given the number of small government contractors that continue to enter the market. With Obama’s potential spending plans, GCS is likely to continue to have a strong run.

Furthermore, Deltek continues to invest in GCS Premier. In keeping with a performance management theme you will see below, the company is planning on releasing Executive Dashboards in 2009 and new reporting capabilities that will leverage all of the key data in GCS to allow government contractors to make better business decisions.

Nothing Without Business Performance Management

DPM was released in the late summer of 2008, and it was an important release for Deltek because – as we all know – analytics, dashboards, and business performance management (BPM) are all the rage these days. While companies could always do reporting within Deltek Costpoint, DPM puts the power of analytics into the hands of the end-users and out of the hands of the information technology (IT) department.

The idea was to empower all employees with self-service access to the information they need to make more informed decisions on a daily basis. DPM is based around IBM Cognos 8 business intelligence (BI) technology and includes 50 pre-built reports that are further configurable, 13 ICS schedules, 181 Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) control screens, and has a standardized look-and-feel and drill-thru capabilities.

The offering is integrated and compatible with Deltek Costpoint 6.0 and 6.1 and with the Deltek Time & Expense 8.0 and 8.1 products. Sales of Costpoint and Cognos have evidently been so strong that Deltek was named Cognos’ original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partner of the year at Cognos’ recent conference.

For the future, Deltek’s major focus within the GovCon line of business is on the Costpoint side, specifically completely converting it to a Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) architecture (from the original Gupta/Centura blueprint) and continuing to invest in executive dashboards and scorecards for improved usability. Namely, the current Costpoint 6.1 release’s focus has been on enterprise-class scalability and performance, support for SOX via Segregation of Duties (SoD), auditing and other internal controls, and support for earned value management (EVM) via Deltek Cobra integration. Last but not least, there are improved GovCon project accounting capabilities via support for the Accounting Classification Reference Number (ACRN) Bills, Wide Area Work Flow (WAWF) Interface, and Award Fee Revenue.

Another important GovCon focus is on expanding the capabilities of Deltek GovWin, Deltek’s business development/capture management solution for government contracting. In this tough economy, responding to the right bids and winning business are more important processes than ever. With this upcoming release, GovWin will manage the complete business development lifecycle, from opportunity identification and management, to contract award.

The product follows this specialized sales lifecycle from gathering and tracking competitive, market and human intelligence to opportunity identification and management, pursuit decision management (bid/no bid), capture planning and proposal management. The release will also allow users instant access and search of all documents and information from competitive information to pricing and estimating information to existing contracts and proposals.

Deltek Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Portfolio

The Deltek EPM product portfolio has also been a top seller for Deltek over the last year or so. Compliance and tight project controls are paramount during these economic times, and the US government has stepped up enforcement and project auditing. According to the proverb “might makes right,” Deltek’s customers like government agencies’ contractors, systems integrators, aerospace & defense (A&D) manufacturers, and capital investment architecture, engineering & construction (A/E/C) companies have no choice but to comply.

Deltek is also gaining traction inside government agencies themselves who use Deltek EPM solutions to better manage their programs. Therefore, these companies badly need the likes of Deltek as they strive to do more with less while eliminating inconsistent project management practices and meeting a plethora of mushrooming compliance requirements. The overwhelming set of requirements could include:

* The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 300;
* Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (or DFARS);
* British Standard (BS) 6079;
* SOX;
* The US Department of Defense (DOD) 5000 2R, Part 11; and
* The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) 748-98A.

Particularly, having the EVM capability is no longer optional when dealing with the abovementioned federal agencies. Impacts from failure to comply and missed schedules can be devastating. For example, how would you feel about losing EVM accreditation and having up to 10 percent of supplier payments withheld by the agency for failure to adequately implement and maintain a validated EVM system?

Making matters even worse, the requirements from US agencies like Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Energy (DoE), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), General Services Administration (GSA), and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are continuing to expand into ever smaller projects (in terms of the contract value thresholds) with ever more reporting requirements. The ability to manage earned value is no longer just a nice thing to do (to impress the “big brother”), but is being rigorously enforced. There are the indications that the government is also considering lowering the dollar thresholds for all the projects where EVM is mandated.

The Deltek EPM solution set [evaluate some of these products] accordingly incorporates all aspects needed to manage project performance. From material management, time collection and cost accounting (within enterprise resource planning [ERP] systems like Costpoint) to cost management, EVM, scheduling, and risk management. This information rolls into analytic reporting and then down into dashboards for easy viewing via the Deltek WelcomHome project collaboration software.

The final part of this blog series will analyze the recent developments (and anticipated future developments) at the Deltek EPM line of business. Your views, comments and opinions, particular experiences with the aforementioned products, etc., are welcome in the meantime.

May a New Day Begin for Mature Enterprise Applications – Part 2

2009-06-16T08:14:00.001-07:00

Part 1 of this blog series outlined the trend of enterprise applications vendors’ attempts to win their users’ hearts and minds (as well as wallets) via more intuitive and appealing user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design. What that means is that users can now more quickly obtain all of the relevant information they need in a personalized way, with drill-downs and other slick navigational Web 2.0 gadgets.

For users, personalized screens and forms provide immediate access to issues that require immediate action or reassurance that situations are under control. Such intuitive UI allows users to diagnose the most critical business situations they face and immediately drill into the source transactional systems to get the data they need and decide on appropriate actions.

May a New Day Begin for Mature Enterprise Applications – Part 1

2009-06-16T08:12:00.002-07:00

5 Things You Should Not Confuse Business Performance Management With

2009-06-16T08:12:00.001-07:00

To SaaS or Not, Is That a Question? – SaaSy Discussions (Part IIb)

2009-06-16T08:10:00.000-07:00

The first part (Part II) of this blog series described the opportunities for software as a service (SaaS) or on-demand applications, especially in the current difficult economic milieu. Part IIa then analyzed the top five SaaS assumptions (misconceptions) recently outlined by Gartner.

Before any vendor can embark onto delivering a SaaS offering, it must thoroughly consider a number of harrowing SaaS technology choices and their implications. Thus, Part IIa also analyzed the decision’s impact on the functional footprint (scope) of the future SaaS product, after which the aspiring SaaS vendor must identify gaps within its in-house skill sets and define how to fill them.

This part continues with the other major remaining technical considerations before any vendor can embark on delivery of a SaaS offering.

The Tenancy Decision

While the true multi-tenant design approach for SaaS is the best in terms of highest scalability and lowest operational overhead (and it allows moderate to extensive software modifications), it also requires the highest initial investment. Thus, in some cases, the traditional single-tenant hosted/application service provider (ASP) model or partial/hybrid (something in between) solution may be appropriate. Namely, the application virtualization approach enables single-tenant solutions via tenant management (virtualization) tools from Wrapped Apps Corporation, Parallels, or Citrix Systems.

The major considerations here for independent software vendors (ISVs) (not necessarily end users per se, although everyone should be informed at least) are the following: whether there is legacy code that could be somehow leveraged (or that would be difficult to rewrite), how many new SaaS implementations per year are forecast, and whether the SaaS model has been proven in the target market. In any case, it is critically important to get the product’s architecture right up front, since making any corrections and rectifications along the way will be complex and expensive.

In addition to the tenancy considerations, one must address the questions of scalability (in terms of load balancing and routing), availability, performance, and configuration-driven customization (both to accommodate personalized look-and-feel and special functionality). Other architectural factors are system integration, information security (including identity management), usability, communications (e.g., via e-mail, short message service [SMS], instant messaging [IM]), global (multinational) capabilities, audit and compliance, and system backup and recovery.

The above overwhelming combination of factors influences not only the SaaS applications architecture but also the underlying infrastructure (platform) architecture. I would also add the cost of full time employees (FTEs) charged with handling all these issues.

While there are costs with multi-tenancy, over time the costs to handle each of these architectures can and probably will exceed multi-tenant design costs. Current macro-economic conditions are making one or the other approach seem cheaper right now, but as the economy rebounds, the question will come up about long-term strategy.

Finally, the costs for compliance are very high (and can be so high that it is out of reach for new entrants) to get enterprise-class services and certifications and audits, such as ISO/IEC 27001, SAS 70 Level II, Systrust, etc. Each part of the system must be audited and these audits can cast to the amount of US$100.000 and higher. Thus, multiple components in any architecture will lead to higher compliance costs, but that’s another blog topic.

Forget Not About the “SaaS Plumbing” Thingies, Either!

But even solving these multiple pieces of the architectural puzzle is only the beginning, since one also must include many SaaS-specific “must have” pieces of functionality, such as a pricing engine, a billing engine and payment processing, tenant and subscription management, service provisioning, system usage and performance (uptime) monitoring, and subscriber management and self-service. Creating all these “SaaS plumbing” components requires significant effort (in addition to the necessary “know-how”), and the company must thoroughly plan for it.

During the Webcast mentioned in Part IIa, Scio Consulting International claimed that this functionality takes from 20 to 50 percent of the research and development (R&D) effort for an entire SaaS application. The conventional wisdom is to leverage commercial SaaS components and services for time-to-market (TTM) reasons.

For example, commercial SaaS billing applications options would be OpSource Billing CLM (Customer Lifecycle Management), Zuora, or Vindicia, whereas SaaS customer management applications would be OpSource Billing CLM and Aria Systems. While PayPal has become the standard for online payment processing, uptime service level agreement (SLA) monitoring can be done via TrustSaaS, Absolute Performance, and the SaaSMonitor.com offering from MVP Systems. Last but not least, SaaS enterprise applications integration (EAI, including links to on-premise applications as well) is offered by Boomi’s AtomSphere suite, and Cast Iron Systems. Sonoa Systems provides analytics, management, and IT governance solutions for cloud services and application programming interfaces (APIs).

PaaS The Hosting, Please!

This brings us to the discussion about choosing the technology stack (with the following technical layers: application, deployment platform, and infrastructure) in a do-it-yourself (DIY) or other fashion. Namely, as ZDNet’s blogger and SaaS connoisseur Phil Wainewright explains well in his recent blog post, there is a plethora of platform choices for vendors, including commercially available platform as a service (PaaS) options.

Some examples of available PaaS offerings would be the following: SaaSGrid from Apprenda, Force.com from Salesforce.com, Google App Engine, Bungee Connect, Facebook’s Platform, Apple’s iPhone Platform, pieces of Microsoft’s still upcoming Azure Cloud Platform, and so on. In the case of Salesforce.com, there are three main ways that ISVs can partner with the vendor as a platform: build, market, or sell.

Force.com is designed for those that want to build applications (without bothering with porting, integration, security, hosting, infrastructure, etc.), while the AppExchange directory is for ISVs that already have an application of their own and are focused on marketing it. The upcoming Checkout service (currently in the pilot phase) will be for those who want to fulfill sales using Salesforce.com’s infrastructure.

Force.com is also flexible, so that developers can use Salesforce.com’s Visualforce presentation-layer development environment or other toolkits such as Eclipse (Salesforce.com has an Eclipse plug-in), or other third party development environments to create custom applications that do not look like the traditional Salesforce.com user interface (UI). In addition, Force.com has its own programming language, Apex, which can be used to create highly customized applications via the Java-like language.

Indeed, selecting the right PaaS may simplify the technical decision process, accelerate time-to-market, and reduce development and operating costs. A PaaS takes care of software components (services) creation (via managing metadata and portals), deployment (i.e., ordering, provisioning, and metering), and execution (via SLA management, billing, and subscription management).

In fact, the abovementioned necessary SaaS add-on plumbing applications (monitoring, billing, provisioning, etc.) also come bundled within a PaaS, and can save time and money while adding value to the vendor’s operations. Finally, a PaaS also provides the necessary components for reporting, alerts, and dashboards.

Two Force.com Endorsements by ERP Veterans

Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce 2008 user conference, which coincided with the historic US Elections, was marked by exuberance, confidence, and an overall upbeat feeling, in sharp contrast to the ongoing market sentiments. Ray Wang and Vinnie Mirchandani have described the event in their respective blog posts.

What really caught my eye there was seeing the two longstanding enterprise resource planning (ERP) players, CODA (now part of Unit 4 Agresso) and Fujitsu Glovia, opting to write brand-new products on Force.com. Salesforce.com’s blustery chief executive officer (CEO) Marc Benioff even (half-jokingly or not) taunted SAP (during his intellectual debate with SAP’s co-founder Hasso Plattner in early 2008) to rewrite the SAP Business ByDesign on-demand product on Force.com, rather than to “further torture and embarrass itself” (and the rest of the traditionally stodgy on-premise vendor community).

Even though this challenge might sound ridiculous for too-proud SAP to acknowledge and succumb to, that suggestion begins to make sense to me, in light of the giant’s initial faltering with SAP Business ByDesign. Well, maybe SAP could acquire Salesforce.com and solve its SaaS conundrum once for all, but that might be a bit difficult to pull off (at least during these days of limited spending)?

I concur with Dennis Howlett, who in his recent blog post on CODA wondered why a company with a 30-year history of writing world-class finance applications and with 2,600 renowned customers would entrust its on-demand future (i.e., the CODA 2go SaaS product) to a new, relatively untested platform. According to Jeremy Roche, CODA’s CEO, the attraction came in the following four distinct forms:

1. Access to a pre-built infrastructure that includes a security model, workflow, reporting, and multi-tenancy.
2. The ability to gain immediate access to Salesforce.com’s customer and partner ecosystem.
3. The ability to have the Coda 2go product run from Salesforce.com’s datacenters, reducing the need for infrastructure and gaining access to massive painless scaling.
4. The inheritance of Salesforce.com’s credibility in maintaining a world-class service since Coda 2go runs on the same servers and infrastructure as Salesforce.com’s.

For its part, Glovia had initially ported a cut-down on-demand version of its established glovia.com ERP product. The vendor named its erstwhile SaaS product GSinnovate, but has apparently not sold a single license since 2006. In our recent discussions, Glovia conceded the need for the SaaS channel (and more), and thus the decision to go for Salesforce.com’s AppExchange and Force.com. Glovia plans to deliver on-demand products that will address one business process at a time, starting with the generally available glovia.com Order Management product.

There Is No Such a Thing as a Free Lunch PaaS

At the end of the day, a PaaS platform is not a charity that is free of charge, but rather a significant cost item that will cut into the SaaS vendor’s bottom line ever after (as well as will all the other necessary individual SaaS plumbing components). Thus, many SaaS aspirants might still opt for the grueling DIY approach by using some free and open source software (FOSS) LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP) bundle or Ruby on Rails (RoR).

On the commercial software side, there is always Microsoft’s stack, which consists of Windows, Internet Information Services (IIS), ASP.NET, and SQL Server. Progress OpenEgde, Oracle SaaS Platform, various SaaS programs from IBM, and so on are other SaaS platform (but not necessarily all-inclusive PaaS) alternatives.

In any case, the DIY vs. PaaS dilemma should take into the account whether there is a match between the technology requirements with the SaaS vendor’s available in-house expertise. When leaning towards PaaS, the SaaS vendor should ascertain whether its target market is part of a particular PaaS marketplace (ecosystem), as well as the time-to-market and R&D cost savings vs. the costs of using the PaaS. Certainly, there is a trade-off between the abovementioned benefits of a PaaS and the dependence on the PaaS provider (i.e., what happens if the PaaS provider goes out of business?).

The final part of this blog series will conclude with Internet hosting service considerations as well as key success factors (KSFs) for SaaS providers. In the meantime, your comments and feedback with regard to the opinions and assertions expressed thus far are welcome.