Avoid ERP Setbacks

Here are some guidelines from companies that have gotten it right:

CREATE A COMMON LANGUAGE. Frame the project as an organisational transformation, not an IT project. Make sure everyone in your organization understands the nature and goals of the ERP initiative, particularly in the early stages. Many companies battle their own history and legacy of past success in driving change.

APPLY THE 80/20 RULE. Focus on transforming the business activities that matter most to your organisation. Many of the companies in our study turned their ERP projects around only after recognizing that 80% of their business was driven by 20% of their business processes.

KEEP THE BEST OF THE OLD, DISCARD THE WORST OF THE NEW. Don't change things just for the sake of changing them. Preserve the activities and technologies that set your organisation apart and that customers like. Embrace only "new" things that will help move your business forward.

DEVELOP ENTERPRISE METRICS. Measure the performance of your organization as a whole to determine whether ERP is working. Finding improvement in certain business units doesn't necessarily mean your organisation has become more efficient overall.

PLAN FOR THE LONG HAUL. Cast the ERP effort as a long-term project, not a quick fix. ERP is a long, arduous and expensive process, but when executed properly, the potential payback is great.

Source: Wall Street Journal, Albert H. Segars and Dave Chatterjee

SMEs Resolutely Behind VOIP… but why?

A recent survey from IBISWORLD revealed that VOIP services are among the top IT technologies with an expansion of 20.1% in spite of an overall decreased growth rate in the IT sector.

“VOIP is an acronym for Voice Over Internet Protocol, or in more common terms phone service over the Internet. If you have a reasonable quality Internet connection you can get phone service delivered through your Internet connection instead of from your local phone company.”

VOIP Info

Colin Duffy chief executive of UK VOIP provider, Voipfone, cited the advent of the technology in 2008 as bringing advanced telephony features to SMEs, which were previously only available to big companies for tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Mass market penetration is now being achieved not just with large enterprises but with companies with as little as 20 employees. This rise in demand with SMEs was borne out by a recent survey carried out by Star which revealed that, amongst those businesses with 100 employees or less, 41% have already deployed VoIP technology since it was first introduced in the late 1990’s.

Increasingly, organisations require telephony systems which are not only cost effective but can help to deliver better customer services and enhance productivity. This is where VoIP can really deliver over traditional PBX systems. Beyond what is perhaps the most compelling reason, cheaper calls, there are a number of factors driving the demand.

As VoIP is based on software rather than hardware, it can be easier to maintain, upgrade and scale up or down. With IP telephony, SMEs can also add functionality and flexibility to their communications to deliver an enhanced level of customer service, such as directly connecting web users with customer support staff and using automated functions such as call forwarding and three-way calling, all of which are rapidly becoming essential tools in our 24/7/365 world.

VoIP is also the route to more advanced applications that converge together, much like the usually touted Unified Communications philosophy. What this actually means is that we are seeing facilities like ‘presence’, mobility solutions and rich-media conferencing converging voice, data, application and video technologies and services.

Sources: SME Web; Techwatch; VOIP Info

IBERIA Bank Improves Planning and Forecasting with SAP ERP Management Solution

Yesterday SAP announced IBERIABANK uses its enterprise performance management (EPM) solutions to improve financial forecasting, reporting and budgeting processes, as well as support the company’s rapid geographic expansion. Since implementation in 2004, the solutions have enabled IBERIABANK to analyze the profitability of individual bank branches, products and clients, and more readily meet balance sheet and liquidity requirements.

Source SAP AG

Over the past several years, IBERIABANK has grown from $2 billion to more than $10 billion in assets. Today, it relies on the SAP® BusinessObjects™ Planning and Consolidation application, version for the Microsoft platform, to support the accurate forecasting necessary for this growth, and to streamline its budget and financial reporting processes. The application has allowed IBERIABANK to eliminate the use of standalone spreadsheets, significantly cutting the time needed for forecasting and analysis and improving accuracy – even as reporting needs have grown. Though the bank's organizational structure has grown more complex, time spent on quarterly forecasting has been reduced by one-third and financial closing periods have been cut by three days. The company has also benefitted from the application's ease of use.

There are more than 125 IBERIABANK users of SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation – including the entire executive team and three different levels of managers – and the company plans to continue expanding its user-base. In the application, users create additional financial and product dimensions; include analyses of credit exposures and past-due accounts by individual market to help banks decide where they should deploy resources, pursue opportunities or allocate staff; and run specific reporting for loan officers in a fraction of the time. All in all, IBERIABANK has cut three days from its financial close cycle and reduced the forecasting process by four weeks.

Are SMEs missing out on the benefits of the cloud?

SMEs appear to remain unconvinced that they should consider Cloud and Cloud-Like alternatives.

Independent research, commissioned by Rise, investigated opinions among small businesses towards cloud computing. It found only 42% of small businesses have heard of cloud computing and as many as a quarter (26%) of those who have heard of it, said they don't really know what it is.

Of those who have heard of Cloud Computing, 26% said they are skeptical about its benefits and only 4% of small businesses said they use Cloud Computing and are happy with it.

The hype around Cloud Computing could be the issue in terms of assuring SMEs of the true benefits that they could potentially yield.

What is cloud computing and why should SMEs be interested?

“Cloud computing means that instead of all the computer hardware and software you're using sitting on your desktop, or somewhere inside your company's network, it's provided for you as a service by another company and accessed over the Internet, usually in a completely seamless way.”

Chris Woodford, 2009

Here are some of the cited advantages from a number of sources.

Lowered Costs – Cloud Computing offers tremendous advantages to small and medium size business in terms of reduced costs. You pay for what you use.

Greater level of security - Cloud computing can be more secure than traditional IT. It's all about economies of scale - many established cloud suppliers employ leading security experts, invest vast amounts of money into securing their applications and develop technology beyond the means of any small business.

Scalable Storage Options – You can scale your companies storage needs seamlessly rather than having to go out and purchase expensive hardware.

Automatic Updates – There is no need for IT to worry about paying for future updates in terms of software and hardware.

Remote Access – Employees can access information wherever they are, rather than having to remain stationary much of the time.

Green Computing - Cloud Computing uses less energy than traditional data centers which is important to many in this day and age.

Ease of Implementation – Without the need for implementation of hardware and various other components which can take several hours. You can be running your business in almost as much time as it takes to setup a facebook account.

Skilled Vendors - Would you rather these guys manage and protect your data – Microsoft, Google, IBM, Yahoo, Sales Force and Amazon or an incompetent over paid IT staff?

Response time – Cloud computing accomplishes a better response time in most cases than your standard server hardware.

Even playing field for small startups – This allows small companies to compete more effectively with some of the larger businesses. This balances the playing field.

A more collaborative way of working - Using cloud computing applications, people can work more closely together, accessing and working in the same documents in real time - without the need for hundreds of emails with attachments.

Performance and Durability - Run your websites and saas applications at a much faster rate with the benefits of using a much more durable service.

Improve Customer Satisfaction and Sales - Cloud computing offers opportunities for businesses to take full advantage of the latest user-friendly marketing and sales tools available on the Web with the hassles and pains of software installations and maintenance.

Social Media Made Easy - Integration and Monitoring

The world of social media is vast and your involvement can be time consuming. Each feature and platform is new to me and integrating each element is a key way in which I recognise I can save time. The tools are available so why not use them!

TweetDeck is a desktop application which allows you to readily update your different social media accounts via one platform as well as monitor the activities of your friends and networks across the various platforms within which you have a presence once the accounts have been linked in and verified.

TweetDeck offers an excellent reply capability. Unlike the Twitter web site, TweetDeck doesn't only show you replies that start with @yourusername—it shows you any tweet that contains @yourusername anywhere in the body. Similarly, it can show you a constantly updating search for a particular term, like a search for "Lifehacker." The more modules you add to TweetDeck, the wider it gets.

It’s easy to use, customised to your needs and can be minimised to allow you to concentrate on your work whilst supplying you with updates in the same fashion as your outlook account.

Hootsuite is another desktop application which is comparable to Tweetdeck.

Ping.fm is tool which can help you deal with social media updates. As with TweetDeck you can post one update at Ping.fm which can be spread across the various social media sites; contacting them simultaneously. Updates can be made from your browser via the ping.fm dashboard, email or via SMS or if you are using the Twitter iPhone App Tweetie you can also integrate ping.fm.

As you become involved in the various platforms you are sure to be interested in how it is supporting your company or brands presence across the web. How Sociable and Social Mention are sites which readily condense and assimilate all this information for you across the whole web.

How Sociable is a website which can be used to readily assess the visibility of your brand or company across the web. It only takes minutes, sometimes seconds to acquire the data and you can then drill down to see where you have been mentioned within which sites and in what context.

When you input the name of your brand or company you receive a visibility score once it’s processed. The score is calculated based on benchmark results which were acquired using one globally recognised brand which was given a score of 1000. To ensure that even small, local brands would be recognised they introduced a sliding scale.

Keep an eye on your progress by regularly checking your score.

Social Mention is a social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user generated content from across the universe into a single stream of information.
It allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web's social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc…

Make your life easier and monitor your progress!

Facebook Questions Supplies Huge Opportunities for SMEs

Facebook has begun the rollout of its new feature, Facebook Questions. While online Question and Answer services are not exactly new, Facebook’s community of 500 million users adds a new dynamic to the space and could potentially create an exciting opportunity for small businesses.

“Ask Question” is now a feature of the Publisher, meaning Facebook places it on the same level as status updates, posting photos and sharing links. It’s also integrated on Facebook Pages, where a new “Questions” tab lets users ask questions directly on the Page that can be answered by Page admins or fans.

A Facebook blog post explained the service: “Millions of people ask their friends questions on Facebook every day. What new music should I listen to? Where’s the best sushi place in town? How do I learn to play the piano? With this new application, you can get a broader set of answers and learn valuable information from people knowledgeable on a range of topics.”

Some of the features that Questions will include will offer an opportunity to SMEs. For example, you will be able to create public polls within Questions. This means that SMEs will be able to get feedback on their products and services very quickly, and more importantly for free.

Another feature that will have a definite impact on SMEs is that you will be able to respond to questions about your business with your business name. In other words, if you have created a page for your business, ‘John’s Café’ you will be able to answer questions with your page profile. This allows anyone who comes across the question to visit your businesses page rather than your personal profile.

Also when you pose a question it can be easily spread to whom you like. If you tag it with a certain topic category, the question will be posed to all those users who have expressed an interest in the topic.

Facebook questions is only available to a limited number of users at this time but
Facebook developers are committed to making it available to all users as quickly and proficiently as possible as they gain feedback from their beta testers.

SAP proves a success for retail giant Walmart

SAP financial tools were sought after by Walmart having realised that they needed to replace their financial systems with a more scalable and flexible one.

Walmart is pushing ahead with the implementation of SAP financial tools across their global locations having successfully piloted the installation at Asda in the UK.

Asda reported improved financial reporting ability which has confirmed that Walmart’s objectives for implementing SAP financial tools can be achieved.

The SAP system replaces Walmart’s legacy, in-house developed system, which had grown over 30 years.

“The SAP implementation gave us the ability to improve our methodology for valuing inventory under the retail method of inventory accounting,” Walmart said in its financial report. “We have improved our ability to measure inventory at more granular levels.”

Meanwhile, Doug McMillon, Walmart’s international president and CEO, said: “In the United Kingdom, Asda continues to make good progress towards their strategic goals.”

“Walmart realised they needed to replace their financial systems for a more scalable and flexible one, “said David Dixon, SAP Programme Manager at Asda.

“It selected the UK to be the pilot for the global rollout because we are a reasonable size, second to the US in terms of business size, and language wasn’t a barrier. They also felt it [Asda] was a willing business.”

“The main rationale [behind the SAP rollout] was to have a ‘one version of the truth’ approach, to standardise and gain a degree of control around the world,” said Dixon, who added that one of the biggest challenges of the implementation was connecting the system to the global business.

Dixon said that the SAP system has introduced a number of benefits to Asda. “We have now reduced the time to close at the end of the month, we have got a more flexible and streamlined payment process and we have got improved reporting. We have also seen efficiency and control improvements,” he explained.

Asda were recognised by SAP in May of this year for their successful implementation and the approach they had taken. They were the gold winners within the Large Implementation category.

“Strong quality project planning pervaded the entire process and throughout the implementation the plan was matched to actual activity every step of the way. Asda Stores Ltd also agreed pre-defined success measures with all parties involved to ensure that everyone was working towards a common goal. These success measures were met and the judges considered the overall quality planning processes exemplary.”
SAP News

Adapted: Computer Weekly