JDA Portfolio: For the Retail Industry
Part Five: Analysis of Market Impact Given the competition for retail customers and wholesale orders is intense, retailers, including software vendors, must be able to meet consumer demand quickly, accurately and at the most competitive price. Despite its failed QRS acquisition, which promised to expand JDA's retail demand chain optimization applications, JDA Portfolio may be able to help retailers if it can overcome the challenges of servicing a fragmented sector and withstand the increasing competition.
JDA Portfolio: For the Retail Industry
Part One: Event Summary From how to price and promote products to how to optimize profits, JDA Portfolio tries to create that perfect "moment of truth"--when the right consumer product at the right price is at the right place and at the right time. Yet, the portfolio rounding out process has to continue in earnest, especially after JDA’s aborted merger with QRS.
Understanding SOA, Web Services, BPM, and BPEL
Part Two: BPEL and User Recommendations In a somewhat simplified language, while Web services allow applications to easily exchange and reuse information, it is only when they are orchestrated (coordinated) into long-running business flows or processes that enterprises can realize their true value.
December 23, 2004
Predictive Demand Supply If you're in the supply chain business, right up there with Newton's law of gravity stands Murphy's other law stipulating that demand and supply, if left to their own tendencies, will always tend to diverge and get you in trouble. Welcome to the world of predictive demand and supply planning whose mission is to predict imbalances as far in advance as possible, in order to provide ample time and opportunity to design and implement corrective sales and operations solutions. So how do we design a system for identifying potential issues and expressing them via a commonly understood key process indicator (KPI) where the cause and effect of our actions can be readily measured? Read this article by the former director of Dell's operations and demand management.
December 23, 2004
The Changing Face of the Holiday Season It seems that Santa will need to relocate to China! When traveling abroad (with the exception of low wage countries) it is becoming increasingly difficult to find items actually locally made in the region you are visiting. What are the implications of this for brands, companies, and consumers?
December 23, 2004
N-Tier Demand Management The classic bull-whip effect means that the further a supplier is removed from the end consumer, the worse are the fluctuations in demand that they see. This has led many to recommend an n-tier approach to demand management, where everyone gets visibility to the end-customer demand at the same time. In practice, very few companies have been able to actually realize this vision. There are some practical approaches that a few leading suppliers deep in the supply chain are have taken to successfully mitigate the bull-whip effect.
December 23, 2004
A Mid-Winter's Nightmare: Economic Notes for the Winter Holiday Season The US is the largest debtor nation in the world, with the largest per capita consumption of energy, and its currency is in decline. Does that mean a decline in America's wealth and super power status? This article makes some sobering observations, predictions, and recommendations.
December 22, 2004
Understanding SOA, Web Services, BPM, BPEL, and More
Part One: SOA, Web Services, and BPM In the larger schema of things, SOA would espouse general, more abstract concepts of software reusability and encapsulation within certain boundaries (as to then provide access to that software via defined interfaces), Web services would then make these SOA concepts vendor-independent due to their use of generally accepted standards, while BPM and BPEL would be some of the engines making the whole system work.
December 20, 2004
Lean Asset Management--Is Preventive Maintenance Anti-Lean? How can we determine the right maintenance strategy for a specific asset? To meet the objectives of lean, we need to evaluate the cost of failure in terms of both not meeting business objectives and any extra cost due to the need for unplanned or even emergency repairs.
December 18, 2004
Stand Up, Sit Down...Don’t Fight, Fight, Fight Can you relate to the following software demo situation? Jennifer, the sales engineer, is at the keyboard. She's on a roll. She's been setting the stage to show how her price matrix capability will eliminate costly errors. This is all-important to the prospect. She has the audience's full attention and is steadily moving them toward her objective. Suddenly Robert, the account executive, interrupts from the back of the room. "Jennifer, I think this would be a great time to show how the information you’re working with updates the data warehouse and is immediately available for sales analysis purposes." Everybody shifts their attention from Jennifer and the all-important price matrix capability to Robert and the equally important data warehouse function. In an instant, the momentum Jennifer has been building dies.
Epicor's Mid-Market Pitch Becomes Higher For (One) Scala
Part Two: How Scala Complements Epicor The merger looks like a positive move for both companies and their customers, since Epicor obtains a foothold in some complementary geographic regions, and in certain discrete manufacturing and service industries it has not really penetrated in the past by acquiring a reasonably run vendor without much excessive baggage.
December 13, 2004
Epicor's Mid-Market Pitch Becomes Higher For (One) Scala
Part One: Event Summary One should imagine Epicor has carefully thought out the rationale for the recent acquisition of its European counterpart Scala. The merger seems to have much of a strategic merit as opposed to a knee-jerk, ‘me too’ impulse owing to the ongoing consolidation craze in the market.
December 9, 2004
Vertical Marketing--What Is A Vertical? What is vertical marketing? Vertical marketing is product and promotion efforts targeted at specific industries. Many benefits are derived from vertical marketing. These include messages that are better received, credibility, marketing budgets that go farther, less competition, etc. A common mistake is the failure to understand the verticals you choose to target. The definition of a vertical is not what the vendor thinks; it is what the prospects think.
December 8, 2004
Understand J2EE and .NET Environments Before You Choose The Microsoft .NET versus J2EE platform argument often takes on the vehemence of a religious debate. Choosing one may amount to "betting the farm", whereas choosing neither or both typically forces unwieldy workarounds or excruciating duplicate development efforts.
SAP Bolsters NetWeaver's MDM Capabilities
Part Four: SAP and A2i The A2i acquisition will in the short term bring together two complementary e-commerce products that should help retailers, manufacturers, and suppliers manage and sell their products to other companies and customers on-line.
December 3, 2004
SAP Bolsters NetWeaver's MDM Capabilities
Part Three: Market Impact As business applications' scope continues to expand, so does a propagation of data sources across the businesses and IT systems. Achieving consistent understanding of this scattered data has become a major hurdle to improved business processes, with redundancy, waste and a plethora of lost opportunities as a result.
December 2, 2004
SAP Bolsters NetWeaver's MDM Capabilities
Part Two: xCat and SAP MDM SAP purports that SAP MDM also lays the foundation for efficient and accurate exchange of cross-business information. Consumer products companies, for instance, can exchange timely product information with retail distributors, avoid costly inaccuracies, enhance merchandizing, and improve supply chain operations.
December 1, 2004
SAP Bolsters NetWeaver's MDM Capabilities
Part One: Event Summary SAP's determination to become a service-oriented architecture (SOA) applications lingua franca evangelist through SAP NetWeaver might have been further shown by its recent willingness to acquire catalog and product content management (PCM) vendor A2i, knowing its inclination to acquire little when it comes to technology vendors. Apparently, there should be some compelling time-to-market urge to add PCM value within the master data management (MDM) realm.
November 2004
November 30, 2004
A Spoonful of SugarCRMCase Study and Review of an Open Source CRM Solution SugarCRM is a rapidly growing open source CRM company with solutions that appeal to a community of enthusiastic users. This study, based on a client who selected the Sugar Sales Professional CRM solution, compares product functionality to the competition and highlights some of SugarCRM's open source business practices.
November 29, 2004
Do You Need a Content Management System? Understanding what content management means is the first step to determine how a solution will suit your company. Because of the abundance of information both inside and outside of organizations, it is crucial to harness it as an effective business asset.
November 27, 2004
When Is It Time to Re-implement? One "universal truth" still remains with all ERP systems deployed in companies today.
Change in your business model is inevitable and if you do not readjust your ERP systems
to support the change, your system can (and probably will), cripple your organization.
Do You Know What Are the "Unintended Consequences" of Your CRM Project? CRM, in its most straightforward definition, mandates that a company harmonize between a product/brand view of its business and the all-important customer view. Many companies, hard as it is to believe, do not have a clear idea of who are their most profitable customers.
November 24, 2004
ICICI-Infotech's North American Strategy for Success
Part Three: Challenges and User Recommendations ICICI-Infotech is starting to make its presence felt in North America and raise some ERP eyebrows. Read on as to why you may want to take a closer look at this vendor and its product. In this research note, you'll also learn about the company’s strategy to target small and medium-size enterprises in order to enlarge its footprint in North America. It may appear that ICICI-Infotech is buying its way into the North American ERP market. The reason is simple; they are.
November 23, 2004
ICICI-Infotech's North American Strategy for Success
Part Two: Customer Focus and Innovative Pricing ICICI-Infotech is starting to make its presence felt in North America and raise some ERP eyebrows. In this research note, you'll also learn about the company's strategy to target small and medium-size enterprises in order to enlarge its footprint in North America. It is targeting companies migrating from legacy systems or software that is simply out of gas.
November 22, 2004
ICICI-Infotech's North American Strategy for Success
Part One: Company Background and Market Focus You may not yet have heard of ICICI-Infotech or its ERP offering, ORION. Well, for some time the rest of the world has. ICICI-Infotech is starting to make its presence felt in North America and raise some ERP eyebrows. Read on as to why you may want to take a closer look at this vendor and its product. In this research note, you’ll also learn about the company's strategy to target small and medium-size enterprises in order to enlarge its footprint in North America.
Inovis Delves into PIM by Snatching QRS
Part Four: Market Impact While owing to a number of similar products and to former competition between the merging parties this merger has a merit of growth by acquisition in a slow growing (or even declining) EDI-VAN market, the merger of Inovis and QRS may well emphasize some interesting dynamics within the retail market segment.
November 18, 2004
Inovis Delves into PIM by Snatching QRS
Part Three: QRS Background As Inovis and QRS now review the prospects for their combined business, they might acknowledge expecting continued decline in the existing EDI-VAN component of the QRS business, which represents roughly $66 million (USD) in revenues over the past twelve months.
November 17, 2004
Inovis Delves into PIM by Snatching QRS
Part Two: QRS Marketing QRS believes that it adds value to its customers because it offers the products and services that companies need to connect, transact, collaborate, and differentiate themselves, ultimately driving overall business performance improvement and improved brand equity as measured through customer awareness, image, preference, and loyalty.
November 16, 2004
Inovis Delves into PIM by Snatching QRS
Part One: Event Notes The termination of QRS' merger with JDA Software opened a window of opportunity for business commerce automation provider Inovis to acquire QRS, indicating a potential shift in its traditional strategy of B2B e-commerce connectivity (i.e., to drive its offerings well behind the enterprise firewalls).
November 15, 2004
Knowing Your Prospect's Influencers A prospect is listening to many different people at the same time. While you are doing your best to influence the decision, the prospect sees you as only a single input to decision-making. Prospects listen to many, with each type of influence having a different degree of trust and therefore of influence. Understanding where you stand and how to influence the influencers can help you win.
November 13, 2004
Mainstream Enterprise Vendors Begin to Grasp Content Management
Part Three: Challenges To conduct collaborative processes, businesses need embedded intelligence, and business intelligence (BI) or analytics applications focused on structured data offer only a part of the total solution. In other words, businesses also need content management for the unstructured data and content, which can contain a majority of business information, given that many decisions makers collaborate via e-mail or voicemail, which are examples of vast unstructured info that currently resides outside of business processes and of the reach of ERP and BI systems.
Atrion User Conference Highlights Need for Regulatory Compliance in PLM The Atrion International User Group met in Montreal, Quebec (Canada) to discuss ways to improve regulatory compliance for their respective companies. At the conference, Atrion presented a vision and product strategy to their customers that will provide critical regulatory and compliance capabilities needed to support the product life cycle. The conference pointed out the importance of regulatory compliance as an important element of a product lifecycle management (PLM) strategy, and the role that environmental health and safety (EH&S) plays in protecting PLM value.
CRM: What Is It and Why Do It?
Part One: Historical Background Many consultants, vendors, and analysts today define CRM in terms of being a customer-centric business strategy that is enabled by a set of applications that support customer-facing functions and management decision making. That may capture the essence of what CRM is, but it does not begin to capture why an end user organization should invest significant resources to pursue such an initiative.
November 6, 2004
Differences in Complexity between B2C and B2B E-commerce Business-to-business (B2B) selling has proven to be more intricate than business-to-consumer (B2C) selling, as B2B involves dealing with longer-term contracts and complex products with specific requirements that are not needed in the consumer world.
November 5, 2004
SSA Global--The Right Product Strategy SSA Global's Client Forum has reinforced our impression that the vendor's product strategy is an effective strategy that addresses the realities of today's market. However, the execution is not without challenges. Although we found confusion on the part of a few, customers appeared supportive of the SSA strategy.
November 4, 2004
Not All Acquisitions Happen: JDA and QRS
Part Two: Market Impact The QRS acquisition by JDA would have eventually brought together two providers of complementary e-commerce products that would help retailers, manufacturers, and suppliers manage and sell their products to other companies and customers on-line. JDA now remains on its own to define a revised PIM/GDS strategy.
November 3, 2004
Not All Acquisitions Happen: JDA and QRS
Part One: Event and Market Impact Recent QRS' announcement that it has terminated its agreement to merge with JDA Software, while, in a separate announcement, it stated that it will be acquired by Inovis for a $16 million (USD) higher price, might have more ramifications for JDA than merely an "unrequited love".
Where Has All the Service Gone? For some reason, once a product moves into the retail channel, most manufacturers lose control. The retailer abdicates responsibility. When faced with a problem, the consumer is alone! What happened to the lifetime value of the customer? This article examines the lapses and promises in providing service to the end customer.
November 2, 2004
Design for Serviceability When the product alone was the primary basis of competition, the life of a design engineer was a lot simpler. No more. Design engineers are being asked to make an increasingly complex set of trade-offs, requiring a very cross-functional and inter-enterprise approach to the design process.
November 2, 2004
An Interview with Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin Many corporations have failed the customer; they focus on transactions, rather than customers. Ann Grackin recently talked to Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin, co-authors of The Support Economy, Why Corporations are Failing Individuals and The Next Episode of Capitalism, who have inspiring and radical ideas, as well as a proposal for the new corporation.
October 2004
October 30, 2004
Automated Enterprise: Many High-ROI Opportunities An automated data center promises to self-configure, self-optimize, and self-protect. When looking to implement an automated data center, one must consider best practices in user and resource provisioning, infrastructure availability, and user management. Doing so will allow automated data centers to expedite the automation processes in IT operations and administration; virtualization and provisioning; security; and availability.
Will Recent Acquisition Catalyze Catalyst's Strategy?
Part Three: Catalyst and SAP Catalyst serves customers in several different industries, representing several major vertical market categories, and it targets industries that have the most demanding supply chain requirements, hoping this should enable it to leverage its expertise and experience for competitive advantage.
October 26, 2004
Will Recent Acquisition Catalyze Catalyst’s Strategy?
Part Two: Current Strategy Catalyst is one of the first supply chain execution suppliers to offer both the "flow-through" functionality and traditional warehouse management features in one system, allowing a facility to run in either or both modes. Its current strategy, termed "Best-for-Business," is to offer componentized products based on an open, modular technology, and solution-neutral consulting services driven by customers' business goals.
October 25, 2004
Will Recent Acquisition Catalyze Catalyst’s Strategy?
Part One: Event Summary For years, Catalyst International was a leading public WMS/SCE vendor before missteps by its previous management team caused serious problems in strategy and execution. Over the past few years Catalyst's turnaround strategy has returned it to growth and profitability. As a result, it has recently been acquired by ComVest, a wealthy, private investment firm. This development may indicate private equity investors' renewed interest in this market and might validate the company's turnaround strategy that began in late 2001. Still, the question remains whether the anticipated infusion of capital from ComVest will enable Catalyst to become a consolidator and rejoin its mightier direct competitors in the industry's upper echelon.
October 23, 2004
Secure Transfers of Large Files Over the Internet Using YouSendIt A growing problem with rich multimedia electronic presentations is their increasing file size. Data files, in general, are larger, making it challenging to send them over the Internet. Most e-mail clients have limitations on attachment sizes, thus securely sending a one hundred megabyte PowerPoint presentation with embedded video over e-mail is nearly impossible. YouSendIt, however, offers solutions consisting of a free web service and the YouSendIt Enterprise Server. Both solutions offer comprehensive security options. The YouSendIt Enterprise Server is an enterprise level, complete large file transfer consisting of a dedicated server that can integrate with existing network security infrastructure.
October 22, 2004
CRM, Success, and Best Practices: A Wake Up Call
Part Two: Modeling Success with Senior Management and CRM Culture To maximize the return on investment of a customer relationship management system, a new CRM best practices model should be used. A point-based system, self-assessment model that emphasizes senior management leadership and the need to create a culture consistent with CRM can lead to a deployment strategy that is correlated with success. An interactive version of this assessment is included with this article.
October 21, 2004
CRM, Success, and Best Practices: A Wake Up Call
Part One: Searching and Establishing the Business Parameters of CRM Customer relationship management is a sophisticated set of customer-facing tools; however, its technology has outpaced the management strategy used to implement it. Moreover, murky definitions and objectives have caused varying degrees of success and failure to emerge from the same initiative. Clearly defining the objective, implementing holistic best practices, and ensuring that senior management understands CRM as a business strategy can help maximize a CRM investment.
The Data Explosion RFID and wireless usage will drive up data transactions by ten fold over the next few years. It is likely that a significant readdressing of the infrastructure will be required--in the enterprise and the global bandwidth.
October 20, 2004
RFID Case Study: HP and Wal-Mart HP is making strides in complying with Wal-Mart's RFID mandates. This article describes the key lessons learned.
October 20, 2004
RFID in Healthcare--A Whole Industry of Value This article talks about recent and expected FDA regulations and how RFID can help meet those requirements while improving supply chain performance.
October 20, 2004
What's Your Global Market Price? Thoughts on global trade, outsourcing, and your pay--how we can stop the downward pressure on wages and salaries.
CRM Testing Throughout Implementation In terms of strategic partnerships, the acquirer is responsible for judging how well customer relationship management (CRM) software will function on the equipment and at the site, and with staff, customers, and third-party applications. Acceptance testing involves three basic flavors: user acceptance, operational acceptance, and contractual acceptance. While it is not the only step involved when implementing a CRM system, testing is a fundamental way of finding information and will help you judge a system’s returns and pitfalls.
October 12, 2004
Master Requirement Planning and Master Production Scheduling Software: Hard Facts
Part Two: Materials Requirement Planning and Master Production Scheduling Most of the manufacturing software vendors have planning and scheduling software which assume either infinite production capacity for calculating quantities of raw material and work in progress (WIP) requirements or infinite quantities of raw and WIP materials for calculating production capacity. There are many problems with this approach. This paper discusses the pitfalls of this approach and how to avoid these by making sure that the software you buy indeed takes into account finite quantities of required materials as well as finite capacities of work centers in your manufacturing facility.
October 11, 2004
Master Requirement Planning and Master Production Scheduling Software: Hard Facts
Part One: Planning and Scheduling Concepts in Manufacturing Most of the manufacturing software vendors have planning and scheduling software which assume either infinite production capacity for calculating quantities of raw material and work in progress (WIP) requirements or infinite quantities of raw and WIP materials for calculating production capacity. There are many problems with this approach. This paper discusses the pitfalls of this approach and how to avoid these by making sure that the software you buy indeed takes into account finite quantities of required materials as well as finite capacities of work centers in your manufacturing facility.
October 9, 2004
Business Intelligence Success, Lessons Learned Is business intelligence (BI) an application that pays off? We have all heard mixed results but a 2003 extensive study on on-line analytical processing (OLAP) states that BI usually pays off over 60 percent of the time , explains where the value is found, and describes what’s required to get the pay off.
Intentia: Stepping Out With Fashion and Style
Part Three: Movex, a Case Study of Fashion Industry Software The requirements for the fashion industry are some of the most demanding and unforgiving in the world of manufacturing. If you're not careful, you may find your profits falling on the cutting floor and money being swept out with the scraps. Read on to find out why running with a pair of scissors is not the only dangerous thing when selecting software for the fashion industry and why Intentia's offering bears investigation.
October 5, 2004
Intentia: Stepping Out With Fashion and Style
Part Two: Software Challenges in the Fashion Industry The requirements for the fashion industry are some of the most demanding and unforgiving in the world of manufacturing. If you're not careful, you may find your profits falling on the cutting floor and money being swept out with the scraps. The product segmentation in the fashion industry brings into play every type of manufacturing scenario imaginable.
October 4, 2004
Intentia: Stepping Out With Fashion and Style
Part One: Characteristics and Trends of the Fashion Industry So your software vendor says that they can do fashion. You better make sure that the software features go far beyond styles, colors, and sizes. The requirements for the fashion industry are some of the most demanding and unforgiving in the world of manufacturing. If you're not careful, you may find your profits falling on the cutting floor and money being swept out with the scraps.
October 2, 2004
SAP's Approach to the Retail Market SAP and its ERP peers appear to understand that continuously improving the way enterprise information is presented and by marrying analytics, optimization, and retail operation systems on top of an ERP platform is starting to win over retailers.
Warehouse Management Systems: Pie in the Sky or Floating Bakery?
Part One: Myths of the Warehouse Management Systems and Implementation When searching for a warehouse management system (WMS), a number of myths surface. "Huge staff reductions", "quick and easy implementation", and "fast and big" returns on investment are common promises. These combined with the enticing "bells and whistles" of a system can ultimately turn an eager customer into a patient suffering from confusion or at the very least disorientation. Knowing the stories behind the myths and determining what your warehouse needs are can lead to a profitable investment.
September 29, 2004
The Many Flavors of Application Software Outsourcing Many companies are looking to outsource development and maintenance of their application software. Common reasons that companies outsource application software are to reduce their costs, improve quality, obtain flexible staffing levels, and obtain improved service and support so they can focus on their core competence such as, designing clothes, managing equity portfolios, or running hospitals. Choosing whether to outsource or not is a strategic decision for a company. Once a company has decided to outsource, however, it must still choose an outsourcing approach that best fits it needs. This paper will describe the many different options for application software outsourcing, including the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative.
September 27, 2004
Production Planning and Scheduling Software for the Textile Industry: Unknown Frontiers The textile industry is famous for its very different characteristics when compared to industries in either process or discrete manufacturing. Developing production planning and scheduling software for any textile mill is a real challenge even for seasoned industry experts. This article focuses on some of the unique challenges posed to master requirement planning and master production scheduling (MRP / MPS) software vendors by the textile industry.
September 25, 2004
The Trap of Accountancy Systems; When to Move on to ERP The differences between ERP and accountancy solutions are huge. Accountancy solutions help with financial management and statutory reporting, but do little to streamline or control operational activities.
September 24, 2004
Lawson's Approach to the Retail Market Lawson Retail Operations Suite solutions are built for high-volume retail enterprises and encompass a range of activities, including the management of item information, category planning and review, assortment, pricing, promotions, warehouse replenishment, multichannel ordering, store replenishment, forecasting, and order determination.
September 23, 2004
Maximizer Enterprise 8: A Strong Competitor on the SMB Front Line TEC recently reviewed Maximizer Enterprise 8. Tailored to the latest Internet technology, the offering is aggressively priced. Rich functionality is offered in a three-module structure that continues to compete in the demanding "best fit," customer relationship management, small and medium enterprise marketplace.
Feds Warms Up to ERP Spending, but Will Contractors and Their ERP Vendors Comply?
Part One: Event Summary and Market Impact There has been noise in the US public sector about a strong federal (Feds) interest in ERP applications. This, coupled with the Feds customary huge purchasing appetite for goods and services ranging from consulting to purchasing military devices and components, building, many businesses that have previously competed only in the commercial sector are tempted to feed the Feds. However, the Feds' peculiar and idiosyncratic regulatory requirements provide high barriers to entry, and novice companies that are not already offering the functionality for the sector will likely not be able to tap the recent surge in Defense and other federal markets.
September 18, 2004
Positioning Starts With A Message Strategy In business-to-business (B2B) software marketing, you'll get little debate about the importance of positioning. Yet few B2B software companies do it well, thus failing to set themselves apart from their competitors. There are many reasons for this void, and this column will help fill one big one by describing the business process of creating effective, compelling message strategies for your products or services.
September 17, 2004
SSA Global Forms a Strategic Unit with an Extended-ERP Savvy
Part Three: Challenges and User Recommendations While the Strategic Unit team formation should help SSA Global to figure out how to fully integrate organizational structure where employees are best integrated, service offerings best coordinated and cross-selling opportunities best tracked and pursued, the vendor must continue to clarify the position and integration of competing and complementary products in its fold, which gets complicated with every new addition to the family.
September 16, 2004
SSA Global Forms a Strategic Unit with an Extended-ERP Savvy
Part Two: Market Impact Through its recently formed Strategic Solutions team, SSA Global might be showing that it is not just an ERP collector that is living off milking its install base, but rather an extended enterprise applications provider that can appeal to both its current and new users.
September 15, 2004
SSA Global Forms a Strategic Unit with an Extended-ERP Savvy
Part One: Event Summary SSA Global seems to be doing some proper thinking while continuing to acquire new software companies. Recent unification of its broadening collection of supply chain management (SCM) solutions under the SSA SCM brand and formation of a specialized Strategic Solutions division--which also includes other extended enterprise capabilities, such as customer relationship management (CRM), product lifecycle management ([PLM), and more—are both aimed at nurturing existing customers while attracting new prospects with products that exceed far beyond mere enterprise resource planning (ERP) capabilities.
September 14, 2004
Retail Market Dynamics for Software Vendors
Part Two: Progress ERP vendors are making their way into the retail market by bundling, acquiring point solutions or partnering strategically to embed retail-specific functions within their suites. Like in all other enterprise applications markets, eventually, albeit not any time soon, the retail market too will come to a showdown between the pure retail vendors and the enterprise application vendors (e.g., Oracle, SAP, Lawson, PeopleSoft, SSA Global, Geac, Intentia, etc.), which have been striving to natively embed more retail-specific capability into their products.
September 13, 2004
Retail Market Dynamics for Software Vendors
Part One: Software Requirements for Retail Although the retail and wholesale customers have typically invested a low proportion of their total revenues in information technology, retail industry leaders have begun to demonstrate an ability to achieve market advantage through the effective use of specialized enterprise applications. As a result, the requirement for all retailers to increase their investment in IT and adopt best practices has thus grown.
September 11, 2004
International Trade Logistics Challenge Automated Global E-Trading The Internet has enabled a networked world, a communication infrastructure, and emerging enterprise applications, which have opened the door for international trade in earnest. But not many applications really offer multi-enterprise services and software to automate the transportation and Internet-based logistics management needs of a global trading network.
September 10, 2004
Product Review: GFI's LANguard Network Security Scanner Performing patch management is one of the most tedious chores that must be completed by network administrators. While there are many patch management tools available, they can be expensive, have sharp learning curves, or are not deployable across all software platforms. One third party solution, however, GFI LANguard Network Security Scanner, version 5, is an affordable option that can scan the network and deploy patches efficiently while looking for other potential security vulnerabilities.
