Epicor Named to CRN’s 2011 Partner Programs Guide With the Coveted 5-Star Partner Rating
Epicor’s Partners for Growth Program Is Recognized in CRN’s Annual Guide and 5-Star Partners Listing as One of the IT Channel’s Most Elite Vendor Partner Programs
Epicor Software Corporation (NASDAQ: EPIC), a leading provider of enterprise business software solutions for the midmarket and divisions of Global 1000 companies, today announced that the Company has been named to CRN’s 2011 Partner Programs Guide, and has also been awarded a 5-Star Partner rating. CRN’s Partner Programs Guide and 5-Star rating serves as the definitive list of vendors who have robust partner programs or products that service solution providers offer directly to the IT channel. The annual list recognizes the vendors who offer solution providers the best possible partnering elements for channel success.
“We are honored that Epicor’s Partners for Growth program is recognized as a 2011 5-Star Partner Programs Guide winner by CRN,” said George Klaus, chairman, president and CEO of Epicor. “Epicor is proud to work with our channel partners around the world who are leaders and industry experts in their chosen focus. Epicor’s Partners for Growth program is designed to help our partners achieve even greater levels of performance with our industry-leading business software solutions and compelling business proposition. We continue to focus on adding superior partners to assist us in delivering on our commitment to provide our customers with innovative products, leading technologies, and best-in-class service and support. We thank our partners for their significant contribution to Epicor’s growth and success.”
Epicor’s Partners for Growth program is a comprehensive sales, marketing and support program that offers partners significant opportunities to grow their businesses with award-winning products, training and support in a highly competitive, dynamic marketplace. Epicor provides the best tools and services to enable its partners to win more business with industry-leading business software solutions, increase profitability with margins created to increase bottom line, and improve professional services revenue utilizing Epicor’s proven Signature Implementation Methodology and customization tools. A very important distinction to make is Epicor partners are considered an extension of the organization, they receive the same training and are treated as if they are a direct Epicor employee. In return, when Epicor engages with a prospective customer, whether it’s via a channel partner or Epicor directly, the customer gets the same level of experience and support.
“The companies listed on the 2011 Partner Programs Guide represent the best channel programs in the market today. Of those, only a few get our five-star award, based on their commitment to the channel, breadth of program offerings and services offered to their partners. Each of these organizations understands that technology alone does not make for a successful channel program. By focusing on delivering a comprehensive partner program, ERP vendors and solution providers can work together to drive business opportunities and revenue,” said Kelley Damore, vice president and editorial director, for Everything Channel’s CRN.
More than 300 authorized partners worldwide participate in Epicor’s comprehensive partner program. For more information on Epicor’s Partners for Growth program, visit us on the Web at: www.epicor.com/partners.
The 2011 Partner Programs Guide and 5-Star Partners listing will be featured on CRN.com and in the March 28, 2011 issue of CRN.
About Everything Channel
Everything Channel is the premier provider of IT channel-focused events, media, research, consulting, and sales and marketing services. With over 30 years of experience and engagement, Everything Channel has the unmatched channel expertise to execute integrated solutions for technology executives managing partner recruitment, enablement and go-to-market strategy in order to accelerate technology sales. Everything Channel is a UBM company. To learn more about Everything Channel, visit us at http://www.everythingchannel.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/everythingchnl.
About United Business Media Limited
UBM (LSE: UBM) focuses on two principal activities: worldwide information distribution, targeting and monitoring; and, the development and monetization of B2B communities and markets. UBM’s businesses inform markets and serve professional commercial communities — from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewelry traders, from farmers to pharmacists — with integrated events, online, print and business information products. Our 6,500 staff in more than 30 countries are organized into specialist teams that serve these communities, bringing buyers and sellers together, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently. For more information, go to www.ubm.com.
About Epicor Software Corporation
Epicor Software is a global leader delivering business software solutions to the manufacturing, distribution, retail, hospitality and services industries. With 20,000 customers in over 150 countries, Epicor provides integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), human capital management (HCM) and enterprise retail software solutions that enable companies to drive increased efficiency and improve profitability. Founded in 1984, Epicor takes pride in more than 25 years of technology innovation delivering business solutions that provide the scalability and flexibility businesses need to build competitive advantage. Epicor provides a comprehensive range of services with a single point of accountability that promotes rapid return on investment and low total cost of ownership, whether operating business on a local, regional or global scale. The Company’s worldwide headquarters are located in Irvine, California with offices and affiliates around the world. For more information, visit www.epicor.com.
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SAP Launches Next-Generation GRC, Enabling Unified View and Greater Control Over Ris
SAP BusinessObjects GRC Technology Foundation Provides Single, Common Architecture Across Business Analytics, ERP and GRC, Helping Organizations Ensure Safe, Compliant and Productive Operations
SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the availability of its newest release of governance, risk and compliance (GRC) software, providing a single, unified environment for the most comprehensive support for management, monitoring and analysis of enterprise risk and compliance activities. Nearly three years in the making, the new release integrates GRC capabilities into everyday business processes, helping make risk management, regulatory compliance and safe, productive operations a standard and a consistent practice.
The new release introduces a common look and feel across all applications in the GRC suite; embedded business intelligence (BI) reports and dashboards; and a graphical tool to define and depict risks. The new features make the products easier to use and enable people to garner attention to risks from business managers who have limited GRC expertise. By integrating GRC activities into core business processes and applications, executives can manage their businesses proactively and strategically rather than reactively.
The new release of GRC solutions from the SAP® BusinessObjects™ portfolio is the next step in SAP’s business analytics road map to deliver customer-friendly business software that combines best-in-class analytics with proven SAP business applications. The new release unifies all GRC activities on a standard platform and connects easily to other pieces of the business analytics portfolio for far greater transparency, control and support for corporate strategy
The software offers policy management and audit capabilities, granular security controls, enterprise support and the ability to transport and archive data. It thus helps executives overcome the common challenges that result from fragmented and disconnected GRC solutions: poor visibility into risk exposure; processes that are reactive, inefficient, costly or manual; large time and personnel requirements to effectively manage risk and compliance; and lack of alignment from not having risk and compliance processes embedded within the business.
“As organizations grow, they must manage different types of risks and controls to be successful,” said Paul Proctor, vice president and distinguished analyst, Gartner. “They also have to overcome the challenges of increasing audit and regulatory requirements in distributed environments. GRC management software can help companies succeed by automating traditionally manual processes to identify and manage risk so the organization can pursue new opportunities.”
The SAP® BusinessObjects™ Access Control, SAP® BusinessObjects™ Risk Management and SAP® BusinessObjects™ Process Control applications share processes and data, as well as a common, easy-to-use interface, and specifications for different industries and lines of business. This unified approach helps companies gain complete management of all risks and controls from a single environment. Customers also gain the following benefits:
- Optimized strategic performance through real-time analysis of risk across all lines of corporate strategy. With tools to manage risk and compliance effectively, businesses can operate with far greater risk awareness in order to help improve performance.
- Maximized visibility across all risk, compliance, policy and audit initiatives. By automatically monitoring risk and compliance effectiveness, business managers can identify, respond to and proactively prevent potential risks and compliance violations before they occur. Automatic identification and prioritization of risks combined with proactive alerting and escalations allow managers to take immediate action on the most critical risks and compliance violations.
- Increased operational efficiencies to raise the value and help lower the cost of GRC programs. By automating critical risk management, compliance and monitoring activities, organizations can minimize the associated cost and effort required. Additionally, a standardized technology platform drives lower configuration and management costs and allows companies to take advantage of their employees’ existing SAP skills.
- “Bow-tie” builder for defining and configuring risk and risk metrics. Through an easy-to-use interface, people can work collaboratively with a common language to create methodologies for managing and remediating risks. This helps promote a better understanding of the contexts in which risks are to be assessed, and can help make compliance and risk management more strategic initiatives for the overall organization.
- Policy life-cycle management capabilities automate and simplify policy definition and scoping, review and approval, and overall management processes. This enables companies to implement and support collaborative, transparent policy life-cycle management activities.
- Openness for partner-built content, enabling tailored risk and compliance solutions that meet the specific needs of high-risk and highly regulated industries such as financial services, oil and gas, utilities, aerospace and defense, and life sciences. While advancing each core GRC area, SAP has also worked in parallel to create a platform that allows customers to benefit from the domain and content expertise of the vibrant SAP partner ecosystem.
SAP’s GRC Strategy, Solutions Well Received by Customers and Partners Worldwide
“With users located across the globe and multiple SAP systems, managing user access risk effectively is an audit concern for most companies, and Levi Strauss & Co. is no exception,” said Tammy Amirault, vice president, Information Technology, Levi Strauss & Co. “In our effort to improve Levi’s overall compliance strategy and user provisioning model, the centralized capabilities that the new release of SAP BusinessObjects Access Control delivers are very timely and fit extremely well with the SAP global approach at Levi.”
“The opportunity to experience at this year’s SAP GRC conference the capabilities of the new identity management and SAP BusinessObjects Access Control 10.0 confirmed my belief that GRC will continue to serve Westinghouse as a strategic solution for regulatory compliance and effective identity management,” said Matt Tolbert, global manager, Information Security, Westinghouse Electric Company.
Tapping into the substantial catalog of complementary solutions from the SAP partner ecosystem, the SAP BusinessObjects GRC technology foundation incorporates best-practice processes and content for industry- and line of business-specific risk and compliance management. This enables customers to quickly get up to speed with managing the particular risk and regulatory requirements for their businesses and industries. They also can efficiently support new industry requirements as they arise, identifying and aligning specific risks with the necessary supporting policies and procedures.
“Whenever a new risk or compliance issue hits the news, the question on the mind of every executive is, ‘Can this happen to us?’ and SAP BusinessObjects GRC solutions provide the most comprehensive platform for compliance and risk professionals to answer these types of tough questions,” said Jim Dunham, group vice president, GRC Solutions, SAP. “The best-run companies focus on GRC as an enabler of better business performance that can help them protect value and optimize organizational performance.”
About SAP
As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 109,000 customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.
Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
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Oracle Stops All Software Development For Intel Itanium Microprocessor
After multiple conversations with Intel senior management Oracle has decided to discontinue all software development on the Intel Itanium microprocessor. Intel management made it clear that their strategic focus is on their x86 microprocessor and that Itanium was nearing the end of its life.
Both Microsoft and RedHat have already stopped developing software for Itanium. HP CEO Leo Apotheker made no mention of Itanium in his long and detailed presentation on the future strategic direction of HP.
Oracle will continue to provide customers with support for existing versions of Oracle software products that already run on Itanium.
About Oracle
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world’s most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems company. For more information about Oracle and Itanium, please visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com/itanium.
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Who are the Top ERP Vendors in 2011?
The 2011 ERP Report shows some interesting trends that began last year and continue into this year. For example, the accelerating adoption of SaaS and the increased focus on business case and benefits realization are both trends that aren’t too surprising in this economic environment.
However, two trends in particular stand out in our recently published report. First, implementation durations and costs both decreased fairly dramatically in the last year. This year’s report, which was based on data collected in 2010, shows that implementation durations fell from 18 to 14 months over the last year, while the average total cost of ownership fell from 6.9% to 4.1% of implementing companies’ annual revenue.
These numbers may seem surprising on the surface, but the detail behind them helps provide some clarification. While it is partially good news that companies are not spending as much on ERP implementations as they have in years past, the bad news is that many companies are cutting corners in their attempts to do more with less. This is partially reflected in the fact that the percentage of companies that took more time and money than expected compared to years past. For example, the percentage that took longer to implement than expected jumped from 35% to 61%, while the percentage of budget overruns escalated from 51% to 74%. These numbers suggest that even though implementation costs and durations decreased, more companies beginning their projects with unrealistic expectations at and are blowing their budgeted time and resources at an alarming rate.
A second surprising metric from this year’s report is that Oracle was selected at a higher rate than all other ERP vendors since we begin tracking this data in 2006. Although SAP is still short-listed at the highest rate (38% vs. 32% for Oracle), Oracle is selected 22% of the time (including eBusiness Suite, Peoplesoft, and JD Edwards), followed by SAP (19%), and Microsoft Dynamics (14%). While SAP is still considered the leading ERP vendor in terms of market share, might this data be a leading indicator for Oracle beginning to take market share from SAP?
Downlad the full 2011 ERP Report in our ERP Resource Center.
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Deltek Announces Enhanced Version of Deltek Connect for Microsoft Outlook
Over 60 government contractors and architecture and engineering firms have purchased Deltek Connect for Microsoft Outlook since it was released; enhanced solution is now compatible with Microsoft Outlook 2010
Deltek, Inc. (Nasdaq: PROJ), today announced the availability of an enhanced version of Deltek Connect for Microsoft Outlook that is now compatible with Outlook 2010. Connect for Microsoft Outlook integrates Deltek Vision, Deltek Costpoint, and GovWin CRM with Microsoft Outlook, enabling business development and marketing professionals to perform important Vision, Costpoint, and GovWin CRM tasks in Microsoft Outlook, ensuring that all sales and marketing activities are recorded in one CRM system of record.
Connect for Microsoft Outlook offers numerous innovative capabilities, allowing business development professionals to manage their business appointments, emails and contacts, as well as manage clients, activities and opportunities – all from Microsoft Outlook. By enabling personnel to manage their CRM records directly in Microsoft Outlook, user adoption of Deltek CRM can expand significantly within organizations that use both solutions.
Connect for Microsoft Outlook was created in partnership with InvisibleCRM – a leading technology custom solutions developer. Leveraging technology from InvisibleCRM, Deltek was able to successfully launch Connect for Microsoft Outlook in 2010. Since its launch, 60 government contractors and architecture and engineering firms have purchased the solution including organizations such as Overwatch Systems, Ltd. and Sebesta Blomberg – a nationally-recognized engineering and design services firm and one of the largest engineering firms in the United States.
“It was a struggle to keep our CRM data maintained and current,” said JJ Brantingham, CIO at Sebesta Blomberg. “With Connect for Microsoft Outlook, our users have more power and can access data through a familiar environment, making adoption of this new solution smooth and simple. We didn’t have to change what we do, but overall, we’re much more efficient.”
“Our partnership with Deltek proves once again that our solutions work to bridge business applications,” said Vlad Voskresensky, CEO of InvisibleCRM. “Our key design principle ‘Do not change the people, change the software’ can be seen working inside Deltek’s Connect solution. Our technology helps to deliver the integration and synchronization that Deltek’s customers leverage on daily basis to power their business development initiatives.”
“Leading government contractors and professional services firms are embracing technology to streamline and improve their sales and marketing processes,” said Namita Dhallan, Executive VP, Product Strategy and Management for Deltek.“In conjunction with InvisibleCRM, we were able to deliver Connect for Microsoft Outlook to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our customers’ business development processes, and as a result, these Deltek customers are seeing a better adoption rate of their CRM software across their organizations.”
About InvisibleCRM
InvisibleCRM is a technology provider of tools engineered to increase user adoption and ROI of enterprise applications by seamlessly integrating them into the way businesspeople work every day. These tools enable users to work with their customer and corporate information, without leaving their favorite applications – Microsoft Outlook and Windows. InvisibleCRM was named Cool Vendor by Gartner and was an “Under the Radar” winner in 2007.
About Deltek
Deltek (Nasdaq: PROJ) is the leading global provider of enterprise software and information solutions for professional services firms, government contractors, and government agencies. For decades, we have delivered actionable insight that empowers our customers to unlock their business potential. Over 14,000 organizations and 1.8 million users in approximately 80 countries around the world rely on Deltek to research and identify opportunities, win new business, optimize resources, streamline operations, and deliver more profitable projects. Deltek – Know more. Do more.™ www.deltek.com.
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Infor Announces Plan to Hire 400 Engineers and Reports Q3 Software License Growth of 17 Percent
Major New Product Releases Shipping This Year
Infor, a leading provider of business application software serving over 70,000 customers, today announced it will expand its engineering organization by hiring approximately 400 additional software developers.
“We will ship significantly more new features and new releases this year than ever before. This investment in core research and development is a milestone in Infor’s commitment to innovation,” said Soma Somasundaram, senior vice president, Global Product Development. “All of our existing and newly hired engineers will focus on one thing – building great applications.”
This accelerated investment comes after the first quarter closed under the leadership of the new management team. “Our third quarter results have put us in a strong position for our second half, and we saw great performance on both the top and bottom lines for the quarter” said Stephan Scholl, executive vice president of global field operations. “Our license growth of 17 percent and increased cash operating margins of 24 percent demonstrates the strength of the momentum we are seeing. Strong revenue performance and improved operational efficiency has increased our operating margins and generated cash flow beyond our targets for the quarter. The improved margins, along with further improvements in operating efficiencies, will fund the additional investment in product development. ”
“Customers are responding well to the new releases, standards based integration through our ION platform, and our planned consumer-grade user experience. We added 400 net new customers in the quarter. For existing customers, our plan is to increase the value of support by delighting them with deep industry features they asked for and others they didn’t expect.” said Duncan Angove, president, Products, Support, and Marketing.
Infor will immediately begin to recruit development staff, with plans to complete the expansion before the end of 2011. The focus of innovation will be on both Infor’s core industry specific applications in manufacturing, distribution, public sector, and hospitality, and also on Infor’s best in class cross-industry applications including financial management, asset management, workforce management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, and product lifecycle management.
About Infor
Infor is a leading provider of business software and services, helping 70,000 customers in 125 countries improve operations and drive growth. To learn more about Infor, please visit www.infor.com.
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New Business Win: Sentinel Security Life Selects Callidus Software’s ActekSoft ACom3 Suite
Insurer to Use the ACom3 Suite to Manage Its Growing External Sales Channel
Callidus Software Inc. (NASDAQ: CALD), the leader in Sales Performance Management (SPM), announced today that Sentinel Security Life Insurance Company, located in Salt Lake City, UT, has selected ActekSoft, a Callidus Software company, for its ACom3 Commission and Incentive Compensation System. The agreement was signed in the first quarter of 2011.
“Providing higher service levels to our growing broker and personal producing general agent community is critical to our success at Sentinel Security Life,” said Dan Acker, CFO at Sentinel Security Life. “The ACom3 solution will enable us to design and communicate effective, performance-based incentive and bonus programs to drive better alignment with business objectives and build trust by delivering accurate, on-time payments to our agents and partners.”
Sentinel Security Life will use the ACom3 solution to manage its external sales channels and improve service levels to the broker community as it expands its producer network. The company will use the ACom3 Commission and Incentive Compensation System to support incentive payments to both the Life and Medicare Supplement lines of business.
“The ability to effectively deploy and communicate targeted incentive compensation programs is mission critical to ensuring alignment across external sales channels for different lines of business,” said Farley Lavett, vice president of insurance, Callidus Software. “At the same time, with the accurate, timely commissions data that we create and record, producers gain transparency into the performance of their business, their products and services, and their customers, which in turn drives long term producer loyalty and growth.”
ActekSoft’s ACom3 suite is an incentive compensation automation solution built to deliver extreme automation in integration, plan configuration, producer management, payout calculation, and communications. The solution is specifically tailored for business users, with focus on simplifying the complexity of managing dynamic incentive programs to drive the performance of sales executives and the sales force across multiple channels and regions. The result of this focus is a highly user configurable system supporting rapid deployment, ease of use, and reduced operational complexity.
About Sentinel Security Life
For over 60 years Sentinel Security Life has helped ease the financial burden for thousands of families. Sentinel Plan insurance policies are available to assist with your family’s Final Expense needs. Sentinel Plan Medicare supplement and Select policies can help pay some of your medical expenses not covered by Medicare.
The Company was organized in 1948 by a group of Utah funeral directors for the purpose of providing the public with an insurance product designed to help pay funeral costs at the time of need. One of the original founders still serves the Company as a member of the Board of Directors.
About Callidus Software®
Callidus Software (NASDAQ:CALD) is the market and technology leader in Sales Performance Management (SPM). Callidus customers gain a competitive advantage by maximizing sales cost efficiencies and driving improvements in sales effectiveness. Our award-winning Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications set the standard for performance management of a company’s sales force and channel partners. Over 2 million employees and channel partners have their performance managed by Callidus Software. For more information, please visit www.callidussoftware.com.
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2011 ERP Report: ERP Implementation Project Costs and Durations Down, Business Benefits Up
Our 2011 ERP Report, published today, unveils some interesting data about ERP implementations during the last six months of 2010. One thing is remarkably clear from the findings: economic woes had a major impact on how companies chose to implement solutions during the recession. But we’re pleased (and somewhat surprised) to report that not all of the news was bad. Indeed, we discovered that although companies were forced to cut ERP implementation budgets and duration periods, they nonetheless realized significantly more business benefits from their ERP software than they did in 2009.
Key comparative findings from the study include:
- The average ERP implementation cost dropped from $6.2 million to $5.48 million.
- The average project duration dropped from 18.4 months to 14.3 months.
- The percentage of companies who realized between 51- and 100-percent of anticipated business benefits increased from 33-percent to 42-percent.
- The percentage of companies who realized 50-percent or less of anticipated business benefits decreased from 67-percent to 48-percent.
- The percentage of companies who realized 30-percent or less of anticipated business benefits decreased from 55-percent to 21-percent.
- The percentage of companies reporting project overruns (61.1-percent) and budget overruns (74.1-percent) increased significantly from 2009 (35.5-percent and 51.4-percent, respectively).
- In 2010, the percentage of companies who chose not to customize their solution at all (15-percent) was nearly half what it was in 2009 (28.3-percent).
- The percentage of companies who developed a business case as part of their implementation process rose from 85-percent in 2009 to 97-percent in 2010.
Companies’ growing tendencies to customize ERP solutions indicate a willingness to take on the additional risk and cost in order to achieve the best ERP solution for their business. On the flipside, it appears that increased customizations, smaller budgets and shortened timeframes wreak havoc on ERP project assumptions.
No matter which way the economic winds are blowing, it’s critical that executives create realistic and manageable expectations for themselves, their implementation and their system end-users. Cutting the budget and instituting deadlines is one thing; holding people to unrealistic and ever-changing goals is another.
For further analysis of the 2011 ERP Report, please join me for a free webinar on February 24 at 10 a.m. MST. Click here to register. The 2011 ERP Report and additional industry analyses are available here.
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Only a Master Builder With a Strong Blueprint Can Create a Solid ERP Foundation
Would you build a new house without an approved construction plan? Most likely the answer to that question would be no. Would you implement a new ERP system without an approved implementation plan? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is many times yes.
The year 2010 was the year of ERP failures, so it is hard to believe most companies are launching ERP implementations with a proper project plan.
Building a House is Like Implementing an ERP System
In many ways, ERP projects resemble construction projects. Exchange the house for an ERP system and you will quickly find similarities. Both projects employ project managers; both have project budgets and cost estimates; and both have a large list of activities, tasks, and owners. In both projects, a large variety of activities need to come together to produce the desired outcome.
Construction projects have achieved a great level of predictability in producing a consistent, quality result within a planned budget and timeframe. In the planning stage of a construction project and well before construction begins, there is often an architect’s drawing showing the planned appearance of the finished structure along with documentation that details cost, schedule, and the engineer’s blueprints. A construction project typically has a comprehensive project plan and a very predictable outcome.
ERP projects have not yet achieved the same consistency and predictability as the contraction industry. An excessive amount of large ERP failures were reported and published during 2010. It is as if the ERP industry has forgotten about the foundation. It is as if the ERP industry has forgotten about the core concepts of project planning and ongoing project management. Are we becoming to accustom to ERP failures and losing sight of real ERP success?
Organizations need to return their focus to the core concepts of project management. They need to revisit the practices of the construction industry, so their ERP initiatives can have predictable and successful outcomes. They need to understand that not everyone is capable of building a house and that a true expert needs to be consulted to hedge against disastrous results.
The Blueprint Needs to Make a Comeback
A construction project has a blueprint, so why shouldn’t an ERP implementation? A great ERP project manager knows the key to ERP success is to make the ERP implementation as predictable and consistent as a construction project. The only way to truly do this is to form a solid foundation early and do so with a thorough ERP blueprint.
Panorama believes in preparing an ERP blueprint to properly prepare clients before they “pour the concrete” or “hammer any nails”. An ERP blueprint is best done even before you install the ERP system or start choosing configuration settings. You need to know where the equivalent of windows, doors, bedrooms and other details are going to fit before you begin to build.
Business blueprinting helps you to plan the ERP implementation and design the new business processes according to the organization’s individual needs. Business blueprinting gives you a plan to follow and is an important ingredient in ERP success.
Every ERP Implementation Needs a Master Builder
A construction project has a master builder, so why shouldn’t an ERP implementation? Architects and builders develop their professional expertise through years of experience and multiple projects. ERP experts develop their professional expertise through years of experience and multiple ERP implementations. A master builder and true ERP expert can only take claim to their title if they have a level of expertise that is both proven and that provides predictable results.
Unfortunately for the ERP industry, there is no governing body that reviews the expert’s credentials or steps in at each project milestone to determine if the project is at appropriate level of building code. If there were, we would see a lot less ERP failures. Instead, the ERP project manager and implementation team are left to their own devices. They alone must decide if the project is a go or no go. They alone determine success or failure.
Plan for ERP Success
By taking the time to develop an ERP blueprint, you create a foundation and you build predictability and sustainability into your ERP project. You set yourself and your ERP implementation on the path to ERP success, business benefits realization, and obtainable ROI. By consulting an ERP expert and planning ahead, you begin to act like a master builder and avert ERP disaster.
If you would like assistance in building your ERP blueprint, contact one of Panorama’s experts of consider enrolling in our upcoming ERP Boot Camp training course.
Blog post written by Greg Griffith, a business analyst at Panorama Consulting Group.
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ERP Vendors Are Working on Upgrades and So is Panorama
When Panorama redesigned its website late last year, we made a conscious effort to have our new website serve as a one stop source for education and news on the ERP industry. In the past week we have continued this quest by launching the first phase of our ERP database.
The new ERP database provides information on the enterprise software industry and lists over 140 software vendors with groupings for the various tier I, II, and III segments. Each ERP vendor has a detailed profile that includes a list of their product offering, an overview of their target market and industry experience, contact information, and recent news or press releases. In addition to the basic profile information, the vendor listings provide an opportunity for website visitors and ERP users to rate their existing software supplier based on a variety of criteria such as presales activity, technical support, functionality, and obtainment of ROI. We feel the vendor profiles and their respective scorecards are imperative for providing an unbiased and unaltered view of the ERP vendors direct from within their user community.
As we move forward into phase two of this launch, we are encouraging the ERP vendors to review their profiles and provide updates, as well as information on their social media communities, literature, white papers, and any images or supplemental content that will help provide the most informative profile possible.
What differentiates this information from other ERP vendor listings is that it is provided for free, without need to register, and without restrictions. While ERP selection and ERP implementation is at the center of our core service offering, website visitors should be informed and educated even if they chose not to engage with Panorama as their chosen independent consultant. This philosophy is aligned with Panorama’s mission statement and the original reason I founded the company years ago.
While the ERP database is quickly becoming one of the most content rich areas of our website, our ERP database is only a part of the upcoming changes. We have more enhancements planned for the 2010 calendar year. I applaud my team for performing due diligence in their research and I look forward to the next phase of functionality that is coming to the ERP vendor profiles.
All of us at Panorama hope the new ERP database helps you and your ERP selection teams become acquainted with the ERP market, as well gives you a baseline for understanding the various offerings and a baseline for choosing the best ERP vendor for your organization’s unique requirements. As always, if my team can be of assistance, I welcome you to contact us so that we can help you make your ERP project a success.
You can visit the ERP database at: http://panorama-consulting.com/resource-center/erp-database/
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- Oracle Consultant – eBusiness Suite
- IT Manager
- Senior ERP Consultant
- SAP Consultant
- Organizational Change Management Consultant
- Senior ERP Business Analyst
- Business Analyst Intern
- Marketing Assistant