Welcome to ERP and More!

When entering into an ERP selection and implementation, the more you understand what you are getting into, the better. We have collected a few key sites that give a great basis for understanding and are resources we turn to now and again. We have also conscientiously stayed away from vendor references. What we show below are references to help you before you start talking with vendors.

1. CIO.com ABC An Introduction to ERP - This is an detailed article on all facets of an ERP undertaking. Looking at the cost factors, the project aspects, and the realities of ERP.

2. The ePMbook - The FREE ePMbook by Simon Wallace is a great resource for project management concepts. Broken into two sections - the Day Job and the Night Job; the Day Job is an exhastive look at project management and the Night Job is a quick guide to concepts such as Program Management. Well worth a read.

3. TEC Vendor Showcase - This is a very detailed summary of ERP, CRM, BI, and other enterprise solutions. The site goes into detail as to what the software is, who it is targeted at, and provides contact info for each of the vendors.

4. Bridgefield Group ERP/Supply chain Glossary - A detailed glossary of terms for ERP and the Supply Chain.

5. ERP @ IT Toolbox - A great collection of articles and information. There are also discussions and various white papers. Just be careful of all the vendor sponsored information.

6. ERP Graveyard - You can’t keep track of the players without a scorecard. This site sizes up the acquisitions and mergers of all the ERP companies. You will be surprised at the long list of players in the Graveyard Scorecard!

7. ERPandmore.com Books - If you are going to attempt an ERP roll-out, you will want to read even more in depth than even these brief articles.

Software as a Service is an emerging method of utilizing software.  Rather than buying a license and installing it on your own servers, you, in a sense, lease it and access it via the web.  ERP vendor Netsuite is one example. CRM vendor Salesforce.com is another. 

The following article looks not only at how a company implemented SAAS, but did it as a complete strategy.  Up until now, only a particular application has typically been run as an outsourced web tool.  With the advent of Google Docs, Windows Live, and other forms of SAAS, companies may be outsourcing their entire IT software platform.  The next few years should be quite interesting…

Shaklee Cleans Up with SAAS
Software as a Service

Shaklee looks to the cloud to effectively align IT with business requirements.

Shaklee was green before green was cool. Now the company is applying that forward-thinking philosophy to SAAS.

Shaklee, based in Pleasanton, Calif., has been around for more than 50 years. What started with a vitamin formulation developed by Dr. Forrest Shaklee has evolved into a broad spectrum of all-natural cleaning, nutritional and skin-care products that have recently won accolades from no less than Oprah Winfrey and nods in Time, Woman’s Day and In Style, among many other magazines.

This is something of a resurgence for the company, which was taken private almost four years ago by Roger Barnett (now the company’s chairman and CEO) and private equity organizations. In 1982, Shaklee was a Fortune 500 company, but between then and 2004, when the company was acquired, Shaklee had been shrinking, according to the company’s CIO, Ken Harris.

Shaklee’s new owners brought in a management team to turn the company around, including Harris, who was formerly CIO of companies such as Gap, Nike and PepsiCo.

One key objective for the company’s new management was to make Shaklee relevant to a new generation of consumers, as well as to a new generation of independent sales representatives—the major channel through which Shaklee products are sold.   Read the rest of the article here.

Tags: SAAS, ERP, CRM, Software as a Service

With many software selections, people spend a lot of non-value-added time looking at software features that really do not differentiate the software vendors from one another. Honing in on those features that make you unique as a company and set aside the various software vendors are the key decision points you should look at.

For example, every software system should be able to do an A/P voucher, but how many of them can do multiple business units cost allocations on that voucher? The key is to focus in on those things that set your business apart in the market you serve.

Part of the key to a successful selection is determining the specific requirements of the business and then look at them from the perspective of “does everyone in our industry do this, or is it unique to us?” Is it something that sets your business apart and is it something that you should retain for business competitive advantage?

To understand more about this, take a look at this article that defines how one person defines the requirements set:

Bring your ERP projects in in 50% of the time, budget

Over the years, we CIOs have learned a lot about ERP initiatives. Many of these lessons have come the hard way — after costly, time- and company-consuming projects left us scrambling to find benefits to justify the costs. If you ask almost any ERP (or CRM or SFA or BPM or whatever) project manager what, in hindsight, they would do differently, the answer is usually the same:

“Do not customise the software!”

In spite of this advice, each time an organisation starts an ERP (or CRM or SFA or BPM or whatever) selection and implementation project, the going-in assumption is that the software must handle the unique aspects of the business.

Read More…

Browsing the web we ran across this article that is a good guide in helping in your ERP Selection process. Normally we are careful about vendor provided articles, but this one seemed to be on track. It clearly points out the issues that you need to be aware of when looking at an ERP solution. This is important today as even small companies are looking at larger tier vendors. Keeping an eye on the specific points made in this article will help you avoid choosing a software that just doesn’t fit.

What To Look For In An ERP Solution
Michael Panosh, Marketing Manager

Enterprise Resource Planning ERP describes software that integrates departments and functions across your business onto a single computer system. The intended outcome is a system that improves operational visibility, streamlines decision making, reduces costs and generally allows you to manage your business to better profitability.

Whilst there has been considerable hype - and horror stories - about ERP systems, up until recently only large corporations have implemented comprehensive ERP solutions, mainly because they have been perceived as cost prohibitive for smaller companies.

In recent years however, many small and medium sized enterprises SMEs have begun to see the value of ERP solutions as a way to respond to both legislative compliance and industry mandates for electronic trading. The reality now is that companies with a turnover of more than $10 million should be considering implementing an ERP solution, if not actively planning for one.

Read more at:What To Look For In An ERP Solution

In a rare interview, SAP’s Sachar Paulus talks about how the ERP software giant secures the software that may very well be your business’s backbone.

Today, more and more criminals are turning their attention to file transfers that carry consumer identifying data. Many organizations move this information with file transfer protocol FTP, and these servers are proving to be easy targets for thieves. Encryption may seem like an easy fix, but there is no easy answer to this complicated problem. If your company runs SAP, some part of your organization’s security–probably a tremendous part of it–depends on Sachar Paulus.

Until June, Paulus was CSO, responsible for IT, physical and organizational security at the $12 billion German company known for its enterprise resource planning ERP software. Now, he’s SVP of product and security governance, and as such is responsible for security strategy for all products. New threats, increasing complexity and emerging regulations have increased the importance of security on all fronts. Despite the high stakes, though, Paulus is not in the spotlight in the United States and does few interviews. CSO’s Katherine Walsh recently talked with him about SAP’s security strategy, global compliance issues, and how he stays on top of it all.

Read more at: The ERP Security Challenge - Web Exclusives - Online Column - CSO Magazine