Tag: erp.teletech

What To Look For In An ERP Solution

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

What is your ERP’s Legacy?

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is key to integrating all areas of a business. It controls the financials, the inventory, the purchasing and the ordering. There are a lot of ERP software vendors. The market though has consolidated in the past few years since the Y2K upgrade fever and the downturn of the software market.

Now ERP is undergoing a resurgence and many companies are looking to either purchase new systems to replace a collection of disintegrated systems or to upgrade an older ERP system that just doesn’t cut it anymore. With the market consolidation, there have been a lot of mergers and acquisitions of software companies. These acquisitions often result in the name of the company being revised and the software being renamed to something “more modern” or catchier to the ear.

One such software is Infor’s Syteline. At one point it was Symix Software’s Syteline. Then it became Frontstep. Then it was acquired by Mapics. Then Mapics was purchased by Infor. Thus Syteline the product has had a lot of masters. The core functionailty has remained relatively unchanged through the transitions. It has gone through some serious upgrades though along the path, including a switch to the .NET programming platform.

Baan is another software solution that has been through the wringers. But where Syteline continued to upgrade, Baan laid dormant for a couple of years. Baan had some financial difficulties and then it was purchased by a British company Invensys. Invensys held on to it for a while and then Baan the software was ultimately purchased by Infor. Under the hood, it is still relatively the same code base, although a lot of new functionality has been added.

On other fronts, older legacy software is becoming upgraded. Take JD Edwards World Software. It has a lot of clients who were running on the old green screen software for a long time with minimal upgrades. A few patches. Then in the past few months, Oracle, the new parent to JD Edwards finally released a comprehensive upgrade.

A key point to understand is that while many systems seem to be modern, you need to look at the history behind the software, especially if you are about to purchase a new ERP system. Key answers to find out are the history of the package, the customer base of the software, and the industries it typically serves. Often people will buy software and find out it was meant for a different market. Find out too if the software has remained on a consistent upgrade path. Some software systems have been completely rewritten in modern languages while other systems have had a window dressing interface applied, while the underlying engine is still antique code. Dig deep and hopefully you will be sure that you are not buying the proverbial pig with lipstick.

How to Select and Implement an ERP System

How to Select and Implement an ERP System
Michael Burns
WHAT IS ERP?

ERP is a term that is widely used yet probably not well understood. It stands for Enterprise Resource Planning and although it was initially targeted to manufacturing companies, today it encompasses any product that can be used across an enterprise. When implemented effectively, ERP enables companies to break down traditional organizational silos, replacing them with a tightly integrated horizontal structure in which strategy, organizational structure, process and technology are closely aligned. Applications can include financial, distribution, manufacturing, human resources, payroll, and project costing.

There is a lot of confusion between an accounting system and ERP. In the past, an accounting system was limited to just Continue reading How to Select and Implement an ERP System

The top 20 ERP implementation tips

We ran across an interesting article on the things you should do during an ERP implementation. Worth a read:

The top 20 ERP implementation tips
By Jan Stafford, Site Editor
22 Jun 2005 | SearchOpenSource.com

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) software project can be daunting for first-timers or veterans handling a migration. Get started on the right foot with the top 20 ERP implementation tips from Linux users, consultants and vendors.

Planning

1. Know your goals for your ERP implementation. Choose the product that promises to meet those goals and put measurement tools and processes in place to gauge your success, advises Lance Williamson, engineer, Engenio Information Technologies, Inc., Wichita, Kan. In particular, he said, set goals for performance, response time and downtime.

2. Don’t do any project without a plan, particularly an ERP project which touches almost every part of your organization, said Bernard Golden, CEO, Navica Inc., a consulting firm in San Carlos, Calif. Create process with regular milestones and participation from affected organizations. And be sure to test, test, test, all the way through. “All of these things seem like ‘nice-to-haves’ rather than critical elements in a project, but can make the overall project much more successful,” Golden explained.

3. Involve users in your ERP project planning phase, said Andy Klee, president of Klee Associates, Inc., a consulting firm in Cedaredge, Colo. “The software is not going to do you much good if you don’t have employee buy-in,” he added.

4. Don’t do the planning and implementation alone if you don’t have the in-house skills to make it happen, said Jorg Janke, president of open source ERP vendor Compiere Inc. in Portland, Ore. “Determining which options and features to use requires experience,” he said. If the in-house team doesn’t have that experience, Janke advises, find a local ERP expert who is trustworthy and who collaborates well with your team.

Read the rest of the article here…

What the ERP Salesperson doesn’t tell you

An interesting article from ITToolbox on ERP:

What the ERP Salesperson doesn’t tell you

“Let me show you how easy our software is to use”
Salespeople or professional demonstrators are trained to present their software to look as easy as possible. The truth is it is impossible to know how easy the software is until you have been using it for over 12 mos.
Ask the Customer references you speak to if the system is as easy to use and implement as they originally anticipated.

“I will give you three references for you to call …”
Software Vendors commonly offer three, carefully selected customer references for you to speak to. What do you learn from speaking to three ecstatic customers? Absolutely nothing!
A Suggestion: Ask for a list of customers in your area that have been using the system for 12 mos, preferably with similar requirements and a similar size. Then from that list you can choose which to speak to, and maybe visit one (you might even know one). If they do not have customers in your area that meet all the criteria, ask to visit a local customer that is a similar size, and to speak over the phone to a customer in a similar industry (confirming the system has had success in your industry).

Read more on: What the ERP Salesperson doesn’t tell you

MySQL disclaims interest in the ERP market

In the ERP world, there are three database platforms that ERP software companies focus around: Oracle, MS SQL, and Progress. The up and coming database in the Open Source world is MySQL. According the the linked article, Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL has spoken up about his database and ERP, essentially saying that SAP will run MySQL.

It is interesting that most open source ERP applications are using Oracle or Postgresql. Compeire and TinyERP for example use these databases, but not MySQL. They for some reason have chosen not to go that route. So if SAP is getting behind MySQL, it will be interesting to see how that will change the market of ERP, especially open source ERP systems.

DBMS2 — DataBase Management System Services»Blog Archive » MySQL disclaims interest in the ERP market

The Future of ERP

The Future of ERP
November 15, 2006
By James Maguire

The dream of enterprise resource planning systems is that a single application can track and monitor all of a business’s functions. In a perfect world, a manager opens a single ERP app to find data about any aspect of the business, from financials to HR to distribution schedules.

Alas, we’re not there yet – or at least most companies aren’t.

Looking at the ERP landscape, “there still tends to be a lot of disparate components, that are either homegrown or older packages,” says Forrester analyst Paul Hamerman.

Moreover, there are still a lot of gaps in ERP systems, particularly in industries where ERP functionality has grown up from its historic origins in manufacturing. There are even gaps in core ERP areas, Hamerman tells Datamation, “where they just haven’t done a particularly good job, in areas like budgeting, and recruitment…where the vast majority of customer use something other than their ERP vendor.”

But despite the challenges, the movement toward a global ERP system is a key factor shaping the future of enterprise resource planning.

“It’s a trend that’s going on, and most companies are going in this direction: Read more about The Future of ERP

What is your ERP interface?

Being techno-enthusiasts, how ERP vendors are pushing the envelope to develop new and easier ways for people to process their business data has fascinated us. But we often forget the end-user, who simply has to work with an ERP Software tool day-in and day-out.

Recently we participated in a series of demonstrations that included SAP MySAP, Oracle EBusiness Suite, Microsoft Dynamics AX, IFS, and JD Edwards Enterprise One. The interesting outcome of this demonstration series was that the users gravitated towards the systems that had “old fashioned” grey data form. They were confused by the Web Based Portals and any other non-traditional form. MySAP even showed a great interface from Adobe Forms, but that confused the team even more.

Bottom line, the team was looking at the systems from the current frame of reference that they all possessed, which was a Windows-like form that was easy to understand. It was interesting in how little they grasped that was outside of what they were familiar with. Even with great explanations on how this could help them, if it didn’t make sense, it didn’t register.

Lesson learned: keep the discussion within the frame of reference within the users and introduce the new interface options in small easy to understand sessions. Do not give the latest and greatest to a group that cannot conceptualize it.