So, Tell Me a Little Bit About Yourself 0 comments

If you know nothing about a company, you should be able to figure out the bare essentials by visiting its About Us page, right?

Turns out this is only true sometimes.

When visiting the Digg website, for example. The first line on Digg’s About page is this: “Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web.”

Neat, huh? One click and sixteen words after visiting the site, you know, in a nutshell, what they do. Read another fifty or so words and you’ll find out that content is displayed and ranked based on votes from users. Go further and you’ll find out how that works. The information is there, and it’s not hard to find.

Enterprise software vendors, by contrast, don’t always provide such clear information so concisely. To show you what I mean, I looked at the About Us pages of the ten vendors listed in The New and the Noteworthy: 2008 Vendor Wrap-up, published late last year on this blog.

I wasn’t looking for anything spectacular. I only wanted to know, as quickly as possible, what each company does, whom they do it for, and what, if anything, sets them apart. Here’s what I found:
The Top 3: Flexi, Oco, and Saba

Of the ten pages I looked at, Flexi, Oco, and Saba provided the best examples of what an About Us page should be.

Flexi’s About Us page was almost exactly what I wanted to see. In a mere 136 words, I learned that Flexi develops two accounting products for the banking, insurance, and financial services industries. Further I learned that Flexi focuses exclusively on accounting, which supports their claim of deep industry expertise. Additional information was available from a clear set of links at the top of the page, so if I had approached the site as a reporter, investor, or job-seeker, I’d have known where to go.

Bonus points for linking from the About Us page to the overview pages for each of their products.

Oco also provides a concise description of their company. 211 words in, I learned that Oco provides on-demand reporting and analytics for any kind of business data; that the industries they serve include retail, manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, and private equity firms; and that Oco’s solutions are fixed-time and fixed-cost.

While Oco gets bonus points for differentiating their solution in clear language, I did find it odd that the term “business intelligence” only appears at the end of the description. Still, it’s a solid overview, and I wanted to learn more.

Saba was originally destined for the middle of the pack, but a second look convinced me otherwise. It turns out that their About Us page tells me what they do—provide human capital management (HCM)—software, lists key customers, and lets me know that their software is available “both on-premise and on demand,” which is a pretty good start. Again, the description is short enough to be readable, and informative enough that I can decide whether I want to follow the links to more information. The only downside is that the main description begins only after a huge plug for their corporate brochure, which I wasn’t interested enough to download. Oh well.
The Middle of the Road: Global, IFS, PTC, Targit

The companies I thought provided fair to middling About Us pages all tended to have the same problem. While most of the information was there, it usually wasn’t presented as well as it could have been.

For example, Global Shop Solutions starts off well, making it clear that they are the “largest privately held ERP software company in the United States.” Unfortunately, you have to read quite a bit more before you find out about the size and industry of the typical Global customer. Generally speaking, I found the information I was looking for, but I had to hunt around for it since nothing on the page indicated what was important.

IFS is another example of good information with lackluster presentation. Oddly, the IFS About Us page has two short descriptions of the company, but only one (the less visible one) actually tells you what kind of software they make (ERP and MRO). To their credit, they do immediately differentiate themselves, citing a commitment to using open standards. Good to know. The frustrating thing here was that The About Us page links to a page titled “IFS in Brief,” which actually has more and better information, and would have made a better About Us page to begin with.

PTC’s About Us page isn’t exactly packed with information, and most of the links to additional information are only available from the site’s main menu. However PTC gets big points for doing two things. First, the description is very concise, letting you know that the company makes product lifecycle management (PLM) and enterprise content management (ECM) software. Second, and most important, each of those terms is linked to a page that describes exactly what PLM and ECM are. In an industry drowning in three-letter acronyms (TLAs), it’s refreshing to see a company stop and offer some helpful information for newbies like me. Thanks, PTC.

Lastly, there’s Target Business Intelligence. On the plus side, it’s immediately clear that the company makes BI software. Unfortunately, their About Us page doesn’t do much to expand on that. Instead, it talks about the company’s size, number of customers, partnership agreements, philosophy, and corporate culture. This is all good information, but it’s not as useful as it could be if I had a clear picture of the company’s products and target markets to begin with. On the other hand, one very nice thing about Targit’s About Us page is that it links directly to an online product demo and some videos, which are always useful.
The Bottom 3: Callidus, Ramco, and Visibility

Let’s start with Callidus. Their About Us pages actually do provide the type of information I was looking for. They made the bottom three because their presentation makes that information so difficult to find, that the overall experience is frustrating. To get a comprehensive one-pager about the company, you have to go the main About Us page, then follow the “Why Callidus Software?” link. Then you have to find and click the “Corporate Backgrounder” link, which takes you, finally, to a useful page (which, IMO should be the main about us page).

The real bummer is that Callidus does some nice things on this page. For example, like PTC, Callidus links to definitions of the types of software they make—sales performance management (SPM) and enterprise incentive management (EIM). They also provide concise descriptions of all of their products, provide some details about the underlying technology, and list some of the business problems that their software helps solve. Shame that it takes them so long to get there.

Then there’s Ramco and Visibility. Both of these companies have apparently decided to let visitors guess what they do. Neither About Us page provides a clear or concise description of the company or its products, opting instead for vague marketing-speak.

For example, the Visibility About Us page begins “Visibility Corporation provides business and technical solutions that help organizations achieve optimal results from their business information systems.” OK, but what is a “business and technical solution?” Do any companies make similar solutions that help organizations achieve sub-optimal results?

Visibility also assures us that “Optimizing productivity and recognizing an immediate return on investment are common business drivers for the organizations we serve.” Again, do any of their competitors serve companies who want to reduce productivity, or see ROI later, rather than sooner?

About the only useful piece of information on this page is that “Visibility provides solutions that range from easy-to-deploy, high impact reporting and analytic solutions to comprehensive integrated enterprise applications, to applications built to address your specific business needs,” which I guess means that they offer solutions ranging from small and off-the-shelf to large and custom.

To be fair, the Visibility home page makes it immediately clear that the company makes enterprise resource planning (ERP) and business intelligence (BI) solutions. Why they don’t reiterate it in their company profile is a bit of a mystery.

Ramco is in pretty much the same boat, claiming to provide, “flexible enterprise applications that can be delivered quickly and cost-effectively into complex environments.” But what vendor would claim the opposite?

The description goes on to say that Ramco “…also gives companies the agility they need to stay competitive by enabling fast, flexible deployment and change on demand of business applications. Ramco VirtualWorks ensures maximum flexibility to execute a business process strategy - so when business needs change systems change automatically.”

Sounds challenging. Um… what is VirtualWorks again?

You won’t find out on this page. Nor will you find out on their home page, which at least lists their target markets. So if you want any real information, it’s off to their network of drop-down menus in the hopes that you can identify what you want to know.
So Why is This Important, Anyway?

The reason I’m going on about this is that a company’s About Us page is important. And while it needs to address myriad audiences—journalists, investors, students, job-seekers—its most important purpose is to provide clear information (like what the company actually does) to potential customers.

Put another way, if I’m tasked with purchasing a new software system, I need to evaluate many competing software solutions. Chances are, I don’t have as much time as I need, so when I visit a company’s website, I’m going to make some immediate decisions based on

* Whether the company provides the kind of software I’m looking for
* Whether the company serves other customers in my industry
* Whether the company serves businesses of the same size as mine
* Whether the company does one or more of these things in a way that’s demonstrably better than its competitors

That’s the information I need right away, and if I don’t get it, or don’t understand it, I’ll probably look elsewhere.

I’m not saying that all companies can be as concise as Digg (who does one thing, does it well, and does it for free), but there’s no reason that every company can’t tell me, in 50 words or less, enough about what they do to keep me interested.

Clear information, well presented, makes me feel like the company behind it values my time and respects my intelligence, and that engenders the kind of goodwill that’s very much to the company’s benefit when I get serious about making my selection.

Of course none of this speaks to the quality of software offered by any of these companies. All of them were singled out by TEC analysts as deserving some special mention, and no doubt they can all be proud of their products. My point is that in many cases, the blog post that praised these companies offered better descriptions of their products and services than the companies’ own websites. Go figure.

Oracle Claims The Worst Is Over And Turns To KISS For A Boost 0 comments

In June Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL), the largest database provider and one of the largest providers of software applications for e-business, unveiled a new suite of online services aimed at capturing the small business market. It also announced changes to appeal to its larger customers, as well as its quarterly financial results.

The question is "where can any one gain the competitive advantage and differentiation if all the peers are using the same business processes?" Therefore, as other established players will have made every effort to deliver integrated hybrid bundles of best-of-breed point solutions, it is unlikely that the high-end market is going to buy Oracle's integrated solution mantra - flexibility and differentiation are still the words more valued in this environment. The fact remains that most of Oracle's potential large customers already possess heterogeneous solutions for their overall business requirement; most of them also have significant man-hours invested in legacy code are not willing to throw away. Even in the unlikely scenario of these customers deciding to replace existing components with Oracle's, Oracle would face a challenge of integrating with other vendors' software.

Oracle, however, has been a pragmatic company, and it will likely modify its strategy and try another tack, although not necessarily publicly acknowledging it. Departing from the controversial processor power unit pricing or from its initial insistence on hosting servers for its customers are good examples of the company listening to the market buzz. It would not be a surprise to see Oracle modify its adamant stance of 'no modifications', at least in the high end of the market. Just do not expect Oracle to port its applications to other database platforms.

The fact that Oracle's database still maintains the lion share amongst the SAP or Siebel customer base despite these vendors announcing IBM DB2 as their primary database may indicate the strength of the product. It is not completely inconceivable to see some Oracle-technology 'religious' users opting for going for Oracle Applications due to their seamless integration to the database and due to a strong development environment, on condition that Oracle commits to delivering the needed product enhancements within a reasonable period of time. Some components of the Oracle 11i suite may already provide a good fit for some industries without the need for any modifications, as illustrated in the above customer case studies. However, Oracle will have to maintain much closer ties with its customers and to listen to their voices, which has not been the case yet despite encouraging steps to bridge the gap with the independent Oracle Applications User Group (OAUG) (for more information, see Oracle (Finally) Learning and Applying Its Own CRM).

On the other hand, Oracle's 'one-stop' shop mantra should be a compelling message for the lower-end of the market. We were made aware of Oracle's success within the mid-market with its Fast Forward Flows programs. The fact that first-time Oracle users experienced smooth 11i implementations may be encouraging for other prospects, too. Smaller and fledgling enterprises often have undeveloped or sub-optimally developed processes and, therefore, they might benefit from leveraging Oracle's experiences in refining these and might find the Oracle Small Business Suite attractive. One should expect more fine-tuning iterations of this strategy in the future though, since the magic formula of the applications hosting success (in terms of pricing, service level agreements (SLA), etc.) has not yet been discovered. But, the move is strategically wise - it is better to fight Microsoft's bCentral offering on its ground before it comes to the enterprise market with its recent acquisition of Great Plains (see Microsoft And Great Plains - A Friendship That Turned Into A Marriage). The move is also a counteractive measure to SAP's and PeopleSoft's apparent onslaught on the lower-end of the market (see SAP Claims Big Gains In The Low-End Battleground and PeopleSoft Joins The Hunt For SMEs).

As a summary, increased competitive pressure on many fronts, and lingering mixed perceptions about the 11i Applications suite, leaves Oracle at a crossroads for sustaining the momentum it had the last year. Should 11i.4 demonstrate maturity and should Oracle start orchestrating its product releases in smaller, more manageable chunks and improve relationships with OAUG, system integrators and consulting partners, Oracle's prospects will continue to be rosy, although probably less glowing than a year ago. Oracle product strategy, marketing and execution will have to be clear and spot on though. To that end, look for Oracle's more aggressive 'the turnkey e-business' message (and a tacit soul-searching continuation) for some time to come.

AT&T WorldNet Attempts a Unified "Buddy-List" But the Chance for Success is Slim 0 comments

AT&T WorldNet Attempts a Unified "Buddy-List" But the Chance for Success is Slim

Two weeks ago Microsoft withdrew from the concept of an integrated Instant Messaging (IM) system due to roadblocks from AOL/Netscape's Instant Messenger. Simply put, as soon as Microsoft enhanced the MSN IM system to enable communications with AOL's IM system, AOL's code was changed repeatedly to prevent communication between the two systems. The IM market is known for being predatory in nature, as each system attempts to cannibalize the market as a whole.

The proprietary IM systems draw attention to the vendors website for the purposes of direct e-commerce sales, which are particularly hot during the holiday season. AT&T has partnered with Tribal Voice, a leader in IM innovation, to create a unified IM system. The product is freely downloadable today but will be blocked by both MSN and AOL within the course of the next 7 days (probability 90%), rendering the IM system useless for the purposes of communication with either AOL or MSN. AT&T's IM system will continue to function normally with AT&T WorldNet subscribers.

Xchange Adds To The List Of CRM Point Solutions' Casualties 0 comments

According to many recent reports in the press, it appears that Xchange, Inc. , once one of the leading marketing automation and analytics providers, has very recently closed down its operations. Xchange was founded by Andy Frawley in 1994 as Exchange Applications Inc. The news possibly comes as not a big surprise to informed market observers and/or to many of the company's customers, as it had at least for over a year been in a very difficult financial situation, and, consequently, it had frantically explored possible survival options like finding a buyer after a major restructuring in 2002 and/or seeking a deal to return to a privately-held status. However, having not succeeded at either, and when the cash was completely burned up, the vendor had no choice but to abruptly seize its operations after the bank foreclosure.

The company had hemorrhaged money for several years, and its stock was de-listed from NASDAQ last year. During the past two months, it has further shed 75 employees, albeit at its prime, it employed 450. Its assets, including a notable customer base in Financial Services and Insurance (e.g., Citigroup, Citibank, Allstate, JP Morgan Chase, Fidelity, etc.), Retail (e.g., Bose, Gateway, Circuit City, Staples, etc.), and Telecommunications sectors (e.g., Sprint, Verizon, etc.), were auctioned off on March 11. The auction was reportedly held at the law offices of Reimer and Braunstein LLP in Boston and included everything from customer contracts and patents to computers, equipment, and office furniture, according to reports.

Initially, allegedly over 20 companies expressed interest in buying Xchange's assets, and in maintaining its products and supporting its customers, including direct competitors Chordiant Software, DoubleClick, SAS and Unica. While marketing management software vendor Unica was initially marked as a very likely buyer of the company, the vendor, however, announced on March 10 that it had elected not to make a bid for the Xchange's assets. Rather, Unica has announced a migration plan from Xchange's solutions to its Affinium platform. The vendor has reportedly decided not to participate in the auction, because Xchange's main assets — the software developers — were likely no longer with it. Also, Unica has already migrated approximately 15% of Xchange's customer base to Affinium, and the vendor touts that regardless of which company takes ultimate ownership of Xchange's remaining assets, converting to Affinium will be the most attractive solution for Xchange customers.

Consequently, given Unica's and DoubleClick's absence from the bidding, the winning bidder was Amdocs (NASDAQ: DOX), a provider of billing systems, customer care and support for the communications industry. Amdocs, which was not initially expected to be a strong bidder, reportedly outbid SAS to win the Xchange's remains for slightly more than $5 million. Although not a stranger to CRM products acquisitions given its earlier acquisition of the former leading CRM product Clarify in 2001 for $200 million (see Clarity of Vision: Clarify Sold to Amdocs by Nortel ), its latest acquisition of Xchange has raised many eyebrows. Amdocs does not have a blissful track record with the former purchase so far. To be fair, Amdocs has not exactly left the ClarifyCRM product in the dust, given the release of ClarifyCRM 11 in September 2002, which featured thin client support, a process manager module, and an XML-based integration gateway.

On the other hand, even during 2002, while battling to secure new finances, Xchange surprisingly managed to build a strong real-time engine to deliver targeted promotions based capability to detect important customer events and behaviors from transactional data throughout multiple marketing channels within an enterprise. Even as late as January 9, 2003 the company announced the release of its Xchange 9 browser-based suite that enables marketers to automatically trigger an appropriate communication to the customer immediately after they exhibit a behavior representing a cross-sell, up-sell, or retention opportunity, and that thereby answers the question when' to initiate a marketing interaction. Further, the Xchange 9 EDM (Event Driven Marketing) Option allows users the ability to observe data from multiple sources within the enterprise, look for changes to the state' of the customer, and action the direct marketing via the Xchange 9 platform, which is in contrast to leveraging historical information using traditional data mining tools or writing complex SQL-based queries to produce new predictive models long after the marketing opportunity has past.

In addition to full integration with EDM, Xchange 9 included the following new capabilities compared to Xchange 8:

* Single Sign-On

* Request Runner Utility the ability to run campaigns on demand using a simple command line utility

* Browser-based Format Viewer

* Support for Web Services Standards (i.e., SOAP and WDSL), and

* Offer Disposition Tracking the ability to better gauge effectiveness of real time campaigns

One may sound too wise after the event, but the writing on the wall had long been visible for Xchange, and for many like marketing campaign management specialists. The CRM market remains both the land of opportunity but with many treacherous patches of quicksand for those that are not certain about their footprint breadth in the field. It has been a no brainer' the fact that the 2000s have been adverse years in the entire enterprise applications market. Following the whopping growth rates of the late 1990s, and the spending surge on sexy e-Business-related technology in 2000, hard times worldwide and in almost all sectors have since subsequently morphed into harrowing times for all enterprise systems providers alike. While the biggest and/or the richest have been able to hang onto flat new sales, possibly modest declines, or in other cases possibly modest growth, only a lucky and/or the most apt few with a true differentiation in a selected number of markets (e.g., supply chain execution (SCE)) have even bucked the trend and have shown some enviable growth.

It might be interesting to analyze the recent years of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) markets to discern how fortunes may often fluctuate and go in different directions. The term ERP, if not necessarily coming back into fashion, certainly is no longer a bad, pass' term of a few years ago, when almost all vendors were distancing themselves from the association (like from a plague) because ERP was then perceived as off-putting (i.e., intra-enterprise vs. entire supply chain and collaboration focus). At the same time, anything associated with customer or front-office interaction was all the rage, attracting both venture capitalists to pour their capital into new startup companies with brave ideas, while the customers were (over)buying these applications owing to then buoyant economy and the apparent need to better manage seemingly mushrooming customer bases.

The appeal of marketing automation has come from its ability to tailor marketing campaigns and to track their effectiveness and control marketing costs and to perform better targeted, finer-grained, multi-stage campaigns. Having also gathered a number of high-profile early adopter customers worldwide, and enticed by then large market capitalizations, Xchange had followed suit and had gone public (NASDAQ: EXAP), and little did it know then about the upcoming dot-com implosion and economic downturn.

Recently however, while not exactly in its prime, ERP bears its ripe middle age well, while CRM vendors are largely finding other creative ways to describe their purpose (e.g., "a leading extended e-Business solutions provider"). Having experienced a rude awakening from an extreme and often unjustifiable enamor with dot-com's non-viable business models, and owing to a backpedaled growth of yesterday's hot items like CRM, supply chain management (SCM) or e-procurement, many experts have suddenly again had an epiphany about the importance of solid back office transactional systems. Namely, there is a renewed recognition that ERP is imperative to managing and controlling internal materials movements and processes, and it forms the foundation for collaboration, e-Business, CRM, SCM and so forth.

Some pundits have even reverted to predicting moderate growth for the ERP market despite unfavorable economic conditions. Therefore, while the traditional introspective mind-set of ERP becomes history, its functionality remains critical. The 'new economy' will not have caused the obsolescence of general ledger and accounts payable & receivable for example. Quite the contrary, it will have only emphasized their importance.

Destiny or not, the near-death experiences of many ERP players, which will almost all have meanwhile found another proprietor, had marked the end of an era when robust, inward-oriented enterprise transaction-crunching product suites were a guarantee of success. Today's enterprise applications are required as a matter of course to address more than the processes taking place within the walls of an enterprise.

While Web-enablement and collaborative e-business will continue to be a major direction, easier enterprise applications integration/interconnectivity, more flexible pricing, embracement of plug-and-play' applications that support commonly accepted standards (reflecting a reduced need to heavily customize multi-vendor solutions), and embedding analytical applications, knowledge management (KM), and business process management (BPM) are some of the best prospects among the ongoing wave of enterprise applications hot-buttons. It is needless to say that almost all traditional ERP vendors (small and big alike) had to experience a wake up call' and have long been trying to expand their product offering in tune with the ever-changing trends and requirements of the new collaborative economy.

Xchange Adds To The List Of CRM Point Solutions' Casualties Part Two: Market Impact & User Recommendations 0 comments

According to many recent reports in the press, it appears that Xchange, Inc., once one of the leading marketing automation and analytics providers, has very recently closed down its operations. Part One of this note discussed the specifics of the Xchange demise and related it to the changing nature of the ERP market. It also noted that almost all traditional ERP vendors (small and big alike) had to experience a wake up call' and have long been trying to expand their product offering in tune with the ever-changing trends and requirements of the new collaborative economy.

To that end, over the last few years, all significant enterprise applications players have been actively partnering or finding other ways to provide solutions that allow businesses to collaborate more effectively. Consequently, the boundaries between ERP, CRM, e-commerce and SCM have meanwhile blurred so much that any attempt to functionally separate them becomes ever more pointless. If the ultimate objective is to win and retain customers, one must consider the entire chain, which includes traditional ERP and SCM functions as well as the once considered more remarkable and supposedly more relevant CRM and e-commerce activity

The cycle begins with the attraction of the customer through sales and marketing. This hopefully results in an order management and fulfillment process and ends with a customer service, which can involve anything from field installations through to enquiry and complaint management. All of these steps have to be executed well without exception. Otherwise, the customer will end up on a competitor's list of customers. Therefore, the relative importance of CRM vs. ERP, ERP vs. SCM or of any other match-up is irrelevant. All of these functional areas are critical, except for some esoteric or autistic businesses that can go by with implementing islands of information. The 64,000-dollar question is how all business processes work together. In the electronic world, the degree of flexibility and efficiency of collaborative processes relating to the customer lifecycle, product lifecycle, and so on, to name but a few, will be a big determinant of losers and winners.

Incidentally, Applix, with its recent exit from the CRM market (see Will A Big Fish's Splash Cause Minnows' Flush Out Of The CRM Pond?), may exemplify the other side of the CRM medal nowadays, as droves of smaller pure CRM vendors have been hard pressed to survive owing to the combined effect of CRM users' disenchantment with the products' hardly ever materialized benefits, after a hasty infatuation with its touted silver bullet' mantra (which once also happened to its older sibling ERP's users), compounded with the tight IT budgets due to the worldwide economic recovery delay and with Microsoft's entry into already crowded place. Although many mid-market pure-CRM solutions have been maturing and improving, they must continue to facilitate integration with back-end systems, given the increasing awareness of this need for full-fledged benefits of CRM. Further, they must also provide the differentiation through verifiable return on investment (ROI) metrics, and indispensable features and functions germane to selected industry verticals.

Despite these niche CRM vendors' attempts to overcome these challenges, many will continue to struggle to avoid insolvency, while the luckier ones that have some attractive point solutions (e.g., partner relationship management (PRM) or portal solutions) that large enterprise vendors would still gladly incorporate will become acquisition targets. Although Xchange might have held out longer than most of its peers after the dot-com bust, it is a crumb of comfort to its stranded customer base now. Its predicament has been only aggravated and expedited by the company's public nature, given that some of its privately-held competitors have not had to come out with an array of dismal results and thereby further feed investors' bad sentiment and pessimism.

Larger CRM vendors have, on their hand, been weathering the storm by relying on cross-selling broader CRM application suites to their existing and potential customers, involving also components such as Sales Force Automation (SFA), employee relationship management (ERM) or call centers. Marketing automation point solution providers have particularly fallen prey to pessimistic investors and diminishing global corporations' appetites for technology. They have taken the impact of the slowdown because of a more budding market yet to create the market awareness of its true value proposition, and because of the slower adoption of information technology in marketing departments. These applications will have also often been perceived either as luxury (a nice to have' but not show-stopping) applications in these days of anyone hardly having any customers at all, or, in cases of customers valuing the proposition, they might be much more inclined to obtain it as a part of a broader CRM suite (if not even from an ERP provider) rather than as a point solution. Thus, the need for providing a full, comprehensive CRM suite rather than an individual solution or a bundle of point solutions for each distinct CRM area remains firm, and will urge further CRM (and overall enterprise applications for that matter) market consolidation.

The seriousness of these narrow product footprint vendors' predicament might be well illustrated by the Applix' departure, given the vendor had a solid CRM product breadth and technology foundation, a good implementation track record with nearly 1,000 satisfied customers, and some notable endorsements from ERP vendors that have been remiss in delivering their own CRM (i.e., SSA GT and Geac Computers Corporation). Many pure-CRM players that cannot even come close to the above traits should do their own math and analyze the justification of their independent existence within the CRM battleground. Not surprisingly, marketing automation-only providers have long been falling away to the extent of only a few possibly also endangered remaining providers like Unica, Aprimo, MarketSwitch, and MarketSoft. PeopleSoft's acquisition of Annuncio (see PeopleSoft Annuncio-es Continuation Of Its Shopping Spree ), Kana and Broadbase merger (see The Mid-Market Is Consolidating, Lo And Behold ), Pivotal's recent acquisition of MarketFirst, DoubleClick's acquisition of Protagona, S1 Corporation's acquisition of Point Information Systems, Vignette Corporation's acquisition of DataSage, and Chordiant's acquisition of Prime Response all should indicate diminishing life expectancy of independent CRM point solutions providers.

Why has it been so difficult for CRM point solution providers to even find a white knight, which has not generally been the case with even ancient ERP products? With several generations of some ERP products being available over a long period of time, the product development costs have been spread among a large population of users. These annual service & maintenance fees thus represent a substantial portion of revenue for most ERP vendors, and even if the product has not been actively marketed any longer, that revenue stream is going to be attractive to someone, if not to the original developer. This large installed base also allows for a greater aggregated vendors' experience, resulting thereby in higher-quality tried-and-true products.

The untapped ERP market segments will have also benefited by vicariously learning from mistakes and failed ERP implementations in many commercial companies in the past. Additionally, many ERP systems are now componentized, which provides phased implementations in more manageable chunks (instead of a traditional 'big bang' approach) in addition to vendors' developed implementation methodologies that are based on bypassing the usual traps of past failures. Many ERP systems have meanwhile also been Internet-enabled, which also allows for a quicker and simpler implementation, because client machines do not have to be configured time and again. Consequently, a prospective customer also has a choice of either installing software on its own intranet or renting it via an application service provider (ASP). Further, the leading ERP vendors have incorporated CRM, SCM, e-procurement and business intelligence (analytic) modules by developing them in-house, by acquisition or through strategic partnerships with the best-of-breed vendors.

Both large customer base (i.e., recurring revenue) and incremental products enhancements will have favored ERP vendors' longevity in the market, which has not been the benefit of CRM weaklings. Many of them will not have gathered large enough client base to find an interested suitor to try to recuperate an immense investment given these products had to be developed on cutting-edge technologies from scratch, as seen in Xchange's case above. Still, the most likely benefactors from Xchange's sellout should be direct competitors like Unica, Chordiant, E.piphany, DoubleClick, SAS, and NCR Teradata. These vendors either have enough resources and/or they have open solutions that can either supplant or can be grafted onto Xchange customers' instances. Some of them have apparently even already migrated some chunks of customer base and will be going after the remaining installed base with much zeal, while most of them have a more attuned product, more relevant customer references, and more dedication to marketing automation than large CRM/ERP suite vendors. Still, the large suite providers like SAP, Siebel, Oracle or PeopleSoft will indirectly benefit by citing Xchange's case to point out the need for a single-source, viable provider.

Descartes Systems Group Makes D&T Growth List 0 comments

Deloitte & Touche ranked Toronto-based Descartes Systems Group, Inc. number 21 on their list of 50 fastest growing Canadian technology companies. Descartes obtained their position on the list because of their 1247% increase in revenues since 1994.

Descartes' growth has rocketed over the last five years, fueled largely by a buying spree that has resulted in five major acquisitions since 1997. At an average price of over $10 million USD, these purchases have enabled Descartes to expand its Supply Chain Execution (SCE) product suite, increase its overseas presence, and broaden its vertical product market focus.

Company Name	Acquisition Cost	Date	Business
Michael Mead & Associates, Inc.	$13.2 million	2/97	Distribution software for bakery and other food industries
Roadshow International, Inc.	$29.9 million	11/97	Vehicle routing and scheduling software
Lightstone Group Inc.	$11.4 million	6/98	Software for delivery of goods and services
Calixon BV	$7.4 million	6/98	Trading partner collaboration, order tracking software
NRM	$1.4 million	7/98	Warehouse optimization software and consulting

For instance, the acquisition of Dutch software maker Calixon helped quadruple Descartes' revenue in Europe from 1998 to 1999. Its largest acquisition, Virginia-based Roadshow International, in addition to bolstering Descartes' logistics scheduling capabilities, brought a large customer base (over 600) into the fold. The MMA and Lightstone Group acquisitions gave the company added expertise in two additional verticals: baked goods distribution and delivery of goods and services. Managed effectively, these acquisitions can propel Descartes into the lead position among SCE vendors, displacing larger players Industri-Matematik, Manhattan Associates, and EXE Technologies. However, rapid growth can place a significant strain on a company's management and operations. Evidence of this can be seen in Descartes' negative profits for the last ten quarters, a timeframe that coincides with the acquisitions. While it is not uncommon for company balance sheets to dip into the red during periods of growth, continued losses can erode Descartes' financial foundation, impairing its ability to serve its customers.

Marketing Automation: Advancing of Age Slowly 0 comments

The agitation about the approaching of the business automation and administration market, as a stand-alone sub articulation of the absolute chump accord administration (CRM) market, continues, partly attributable to alloyed signals advancing from accordant point solutions providers. On one hand, contempo demise, and buyout of Xchange by Amdocs (see Xchange Adds To The Account Of CRM Point Solutions' Casualties) was the endure in the arrangement of less-fortunate point players. At the time above-mentioned to Xchange's assets auction, allegedly over twenty companies bidding absorption in affairs Xchange's assets, and in advancement its articles and acknowledging its customers, including abundant better-performing absolute competitors Chordiant Software, DoubleClick, SAS, and abnormally Unica Corporation. While the upbeat business administration software bell-ringer Unica (www.unicacorp.com) was initially credible as a actual acceptable client of Xchange, the vendor, however, hardly decidedly adopted not to accomplish a bid for the Xchange's assets. Rather, Unica has back appear a clearing plan from Xchange's solutions to its Affinium platform, accustomed it has already migrated about 15 percent of Xchange's chump abject to Affinium, and the bell-ringer touts that behindhand of which aggregation has taken ultimate affairs of Xchange's actual assets, converting to Affinium will be the a lot of adorable band-aid for Xchange customers.

The CRM bazaar as able-bodied as its business automation sub-segment charcoal both the acreage of befalling admitting with abounding adverse patches of quicksand accessories for those with baby brand beyond in the field. While the better or the richest packaged apartment CRM or action adeptness planning (ERP) providers accept been able to adhere assimilate collapsed new sales, possibly bashful declines, or in added attenuate cases possibly bashful growth, alone a advantageous and added allegedly the a lot of apt few with a accurate adverse in a called amount of markets accept even airy the trend and accept credible some enviable growth.

Every business aeon begins with the allure of the chump through sales and marketing. This hopefully after-effects in an adjustment administration and accomplishment action and ends with a chump service, which can absorb annihilation from acreage installations through to enquiry and complaint management. All of these accomplish accept to be accomplished able-bodied after exception, back otherwise, the chump will end up on a competitor's account of customers. The "64,000-dollar" catechism is how all business processes plan together. In the cyberbanking world, the amount of adaptability and adeptness of collaborative processes apropos to the chump action cycle, artefact action cycle, and account action cycle, to name but a few, will be a big account of losers and winners. To that end, there seems to be a dichotomy amidst the business automation affiance of allowances enterprise-wide and the way it has generally been misused.

Appeal of Business Automation

The accent of award and befitting barter has alone added afresh amidst abbreviating new sales opportunities. The address of business automation has appear from its adeptness to clothier business campaigns and to clue their capability and ascendancy business costs and to accomplish better-targeted, finer-grained, multi-stage and multi-channel campaigns. These applications appropriately aim at allowance organizations articulation their chump bases, assay specific chump needs that are not that accessible to a naked eye, and body promotions and alone campaigns advised to accommodated those needs and thereby actualize added revenue.

This is all done by allegory ample volumes of broadcast data, and again by anecdotic patterns or trends that would not contrarily be credible (particularly if one is to apprehension an befalling from a non-event, such as a chump has not acclimated the ATM in the endure month). With this advice in hand, enterprises can actualize custom campaigns and clue their effectiveness, and they can aswell advantage it to drive added processes, such as absolute time, chump account interactions or cross-sell opportunities (for example, chump account agents acclaim articles ad hoc aloft chump needs over the phone, or absolute time offers and promotions alone to barter abyssal a web site).

In a nutshell, business automation software should be able to capture, blend, mine, and assay ample amounts of chump abstracts from assorted sources, including online registries or directories, chump databases, collapsed files, announcement systems, and alien chump lists. That abstracts is again acclimated to ambition a constant bulletin beyond assorted channels to specific anecdotal (profiled) chump sets. Theoretically, these applications may absolve the ROI account through

* A added able chump acquisition, attributable to acutely focused campaigns that are alone and tailored to specific chump segments

* Added chump retention, attributable to bigger amount for absolute barter by always presenting alone artefact and account business letters to added assisting customers, and through able cross-selling opportunities that leverages purchasing histories and increases the likelihood of echo business

* Bigger business strategies in about absolute time, via the adeptness to appraise abounding indicators such as chump acknowledgment rates, about-face rates, web website metrics, carelessness ante and accepted demographic abstracts to always fine-tune chump segments and profiles, and abandon business approaches that are abortive if not even counterproductive

* Cost reduction, via the adeptness to appraise the capability of campaigns and to assay acknowledged strategies, to readdress abortive campaigns and to administer the costs of all campaigns aural the organization

Analysis of the Business Automation Market

The business automation bazaar has been burst back its advent, and one could anticipate three above sub-categories of solutions:

1) business operations,

2) business analytics, and

3) attack administration solutions. Business operations software aims at managing and tracking the costs, assets and goals of assorted business programs, and campaigns beyond assorted curve of business (LOBs). Business analytics solutions, as the name suggests, were advised to abduction chump abstracts from assorted channels and abstracts sources, and to assay (i.e., "slice and dice") that abstracts in altered angles for chump segmentation, profiling and personalization purposes. Finally, attack administration software attempts to design, schedule, execute,and admeasurement the capability of multichannel (including absolute mail, telemarketing, chump account centers, computer-telephony-interaction (CTI), the web pages, e-mail, etc.) business campaigns that advantage the ascribe from business analytics.

The added way to articulation these applications would be to anticipate whether they are advised to primarily advance the use of business assets or to advance the amount hypothesis to customers, or both. The focus of the aboriginal is on designing and creating a business strategy, free the best allocation of business budgets, managing business agents skills, and finer tracking and acknowledging business processes. On the added hand, the closing applications ascertain and acquaint the amount hypothesis of the alignment to the customer, ensuring the assisting creation, development and aliment of the chump relationship. All three ahead articular categories of applications would accord to both purposes, decidedly business analytics, although business operations will acutely be added associated with the use of business resources, and attack administration would against be accumbent with chump accord optimization.

However, admitting cited allowances of the applications, abounding business automation specialists have, for assorted reasons, been a far cry from success or, at least, not had an simple time. A lot of of pure-play providers accept been either acquired or gone apprehension during the accomplished few years including Xchange, Prime Response, BroadBase, Protagona, and MarketFirst, and those that abide absolute (such as Aprimo, SAS, NCR Teradata, Blue Martini Software, DoubleClick, and Unica) are allegedly creating broader business suites to awning all the above-mentioned bases.

One acumen for this is the adeptness of ample packaged ERP or CRM apartment providers to apathetic or even arrest action applications affairs decisions even able-bodied afore their austere bazaar entry. As a result, the alcove vendors accept to action to advance their bazaar ascendancy admitting able solutions. Meanwhile the ample vendors are still developing adroit solutions and bazaar credibility, and attempting to advertise these based primarily on the affiliation of their bound functionality with the blow of their suites and a affiance of added and complete functionality some time in the future. This class would cover the brand Siebel Systems, Chordiant Software, Pivotal, E.piphany, Kana, Onyx, Amdocs, PeopleSoft, SAP, and Oracle.

Incidentally, Applix, with its contempo avenue from the CRM bazaar (see Will A Big Fish's Splash Cause Minnows' Flush Out Of The CRM Pond?), may body the aphotic ancillary of the CRM badge nowadays, as droves of abate pure-play CRM vendors accept been harder apprenticed to survive attributable to the accumulated aftereffect of CRM users' disenchantment with the products' hardly anytime embodied benefits, circuitous with the bound IT budgets due to the adjournment of the common bread-and-butter accretion and with Microsoft's access into already awash place. Although abounding mid-market pure-CRM solutions accept been crumbling and improving, they accept to abide to facilitate affiliation with back-end systems, accustomed the accretion acquaintance of this charge for full-fledged allowances of CRM. Further, they accept to aswell accommodate the adverse through absolute ROI metrics, and basal appearance and functions germane to called industry verticals.

Larger CRM vendors have, on their side, been weathering the storm by relying on cross-selling broader CRM appliance suites to their absolute and abeyant customers, involving aswell apparatus such as sales force automation (SFA), agent accord administration (ERM) or alarm centers. Business automation point band-aid providers accept aswell collapsed casualty to bleak investors and abbreviating all-around corporations' appetites for technology. They accept taken the appulse of the arrest because of a added beginning bazaar yet to actualize the bazaar acquaintance of its accurate amount proposition, and because of the slower acceptance of advice technology (IT) in business departments (such as a cultural attrition to software automation, which is perceived as akin to the art of marketing, with an blank that automation ability in actuality annihilate the low-value action to absolution added time for accurate artistic work).

The actuality is that a lot of CRM deployments so far accept focused on operational aspects like automating tasks in processing interactions with customers, whether that is registering a complaint in alarm center, closing a sale, or responding to a chump or prospect's query. The irony is that these affairs are generally larboard to languish in assorted database islands broadcast about the organization, and not acclimated to clarify business campaigns or to advance chump service. Business is possibly the alone actual above business action yet to alter its amount processes so it can yield advantage of IT that can cut time, costs, and advance the superior of its operations.

Moreover, clashing SFA or chump service, business has an aftereffect on barter throughout the absolute accord tenure, since, for archetype focus groups, business campaigns, sales collaterals, and even aftermarket activities (such as assurance allotment and account calls) present opportunities for companies to ascertain and ascendancy how their articles are perceived in the market. With advice getting broadcast and aggregate from abounding assorted sources, a unified business belvedere could be an active to advance enterprises' appeal and acquirement administration strategies.

Adonix' Barn Administration Arrangement Response 0 comments

Modern warehouses accept circuitous requirements. Fast artefact cycles, the charge to abatement account and access the breeze of appurtenances through the accumulation alternation agency that warehouses cannot abide static. Virtual absolute time abstracts accept to bout the accumulation to demand. Furthermore, abounding ablaze accomplishment operations, such as final assembly, customized packing, labeling, and engraving, accept been confused from boutique floors to warehouses and administration centers (DC). As a result, accumulation alternation beheading (SCE) software has been created and adapted to handle these circuitous requirements. Barn administration systems (WMS) play a key role in a company's cessation action to adjournment the customization of articles until afterwards the articles or customized apparatus leave the accomplishment plant.

Part Three of the Adonix' Mid-Market FORMULA--Adopting Best of Both "Organic Growers" and "Aggressive Consolidators" Worlds series.

To abode SCE for users of its detached and action accomplishment suites, Adonix (www.adonix.com), France's largest, abreast endemic action solutions provider for average manufacturers, provides three audible offerings for automating barn activities, based on key factors such as transaction volumes and complication of processing requirements. WMS and SCE ability be the best examples of Adonix' charge to accouterment its barter with the architecture blocks for accumulation alternation administration (SCM). Its analysis and development action has complex analytical and prioritizing bazaar trends to advice barter abound and new articles and casework are again alien through both centralized development and acquisition.

Adonix has provided barn solutions in North America back the 1980s, which has accustomed it to advantage absolute acquaintance and skills. It aswell has a adequately able actual chump abject starting with Navistar and VWR Scientific, and is a avant-garde in the radio abundance (RF) technology, assembly LXE LDS accessory drivers. Absolute and -to-be user companies can use the warehousing capabilities aural the Adonix' alms set that bout the composure of their facilities:

1. Adonix Geode GX is a full-function WMS advised aural the Adonix X3 development framework to accommodated the needs of mid-sized companies with ample transaction volumes and adult barn practices. It is an enterprise-level configurable, multisite, multi-company, multilingual, multi-database/multi-operating system, and multi-workflow band-aid with rules-based account accumulator and retrieval and automation capabilities.

Adonix' account abaft Geode GX has been to action "tier one functionality at a bank three cost-of-ownership" to average companies that do not necessarily wish to accommodation on functionality and cost. As the flagship X3 ERP product, the WMS addendum is aswell configurable for the alteration needs via a 4GL personalization and agreement toolset. Adonix afresh redeveloped Geode aural the X3 technology and affairs to advertise it both as a bore of Adonix X3 and as a best-of-breed WMS band-aid in its acceptable market, abnormally the customer packaged appurtenances (CPG) vertical.

2. The Adonix Advanced Warehousing and Adonix Abstracts Collection modules accommodate RF directed abutment for primary barn activities including receiving, put-away, palletized adjustment picking, aces planning, and shipping.

3. The Adonix X3 Account bore provides amount area and banal administration functionality as an chip basic aural Adonix X3. It can plan either as a paper-based band-aid or with ADC abutment for a lot of account transactions.

Epicor 9: Delivering What Oracle and Others Are Yet to Achieve? “ Allotment 2 1 comments

Epicor Softwares next-generation converged artefact suite. A agnate accomplishment has yet to be able even by boss Oracle aural Oracle Fusion Applications.

The commodity aswell discussed Epicors accompanying њProtect, Extend, and Convergeќ action for accouterment barter with a clearing aisle best on their own calendar and convenience. The commodity afresh connected on by digging added and answer a amount of enabling technologies and concepts aural Epicor 9, starting with Epicor BPM (Business Process Management).

Part 2 of this blog alternation analyzes the above enabling concepts and technologies aural the product, such as Epicor ICE 2.0, which is based on Epicor True SOAв„ў, and includes the Epicor Everywhere Frameworkв„ў. The commodity aswell address added into the suites congenital business intelligence (BI) and action achievement administration (EPM) capabilities.

ICE, ICE, Baby¦

Let me footfall aback actuality a bit, and alpha from the account that Epicor ICE (Internet Component Environment) is the vendors all-embracing active and collaborative technology architectonics blueprint. As said in Allotment 1, the framework leverages C#.NET- and Progress OpenEdge-based business logic.

Epicor ICE provides an adjustable foundation that can change as customers businesses change. The abstraction is to advice adjust action software with the business, accomplish affiliation straightforward, and bear ever-more business productivity. Epicor ICE was aswell devised with the abstraction of abbreviation the amount and complication of technology acceptance by getting accessible for business users from the chat go.

For its part, Epicor True SOAв„ў is the architectural admission that Epicor ICE 2.0 offers; it is allotment of Epicor ICE and the abstruse archetypal for Epicor 9. In added words, Epicor ICE is based on what the bell-ringer refers to as њtrue SOA,ќ and applies the moniker for the afterward two capital reasons:

1. The applications themselves are congenital with diminutive business casework (or apparatus and entities) that collaborate with one accession and are afresh apparent appliance adaptable markup accent (XML) and Web services. Apparatus can be calmly configured and orchestrated appliance the Epicor BPM accoutrement mentioned in Allotment 1, after acute IT agents or coding, in a way that survives upgrades and avoids artefact adaptation lock.

2. Epicor ICE is not just about service-oriented architectonics (SOA) on the server side, but is aswell SOA for the client-side user acquaintance (UX) design. The absolute user interface (UI) is captured in XML metadata and the ICE accoutrement acquiesce users to calmly adapt and personalize the UI and run both a acute (rich) applicant and a browser-agnostic Web applicant from the aforementioned metadata (including users customizations and personalizations, which are stored in њlayersќ in the metadata).

Much Added than an Affiliation Tool

It is important to point out afresh that Epicor True SOA considers both server business argumentation and applicant business argumentation as absent њbusiness services.ќ Few added ERP systems are accounting appliance SOA concepts that accede both applicant and server business logic. In fact, abounding added systems tend to use SOA or Web casework for check action appliance affiliation (EAI) purposes only.

While Epicor ICE is the encompassing name for Epicors technology framework, Epicor True SOAв„ў, which is a subset of ICE, is Epicors way of anecdotic its admission to SOA. Namely, SOA should not just be a agency to easier integration, but aswell an admission to action business software development (just as client-server accretion was an admission per se).

Epicor calls its SOA admission True SOA, and the bell-ringer referred to њ100% SOAќ in the Epicor Vantage 8 absolution a few years ago. What is the difference? Epicor Vantage offered a C# acute applicant and afresh a services-based middle-tier business logic. There were over 600 business services, and anniversary was afresh delivered as Web casework with annihilation from 5 to 40 methods anniversary for simple discovery, integration, and re-use.

Epicor 9 builds on the admission acclimated in Vantage but extends service-orientation to the client-side, and converts all of the C# cipher to XML metadata services. From this individual antecedent of metadata, Epicor 9 is able to accomplish assorted client-side adventures for users.

True SOA for Epicor Everywhere

Furthermore, the technology that allows this assorted UX architectonics is alleged the Epicor Everywhereв„ў Framework. The Framework is a abstraction that is enabled by Epicor ICE and encompasses the capabilities to admission the appliance from a Microsoft Windows client, a Web client, or a adaptable Web client.

The Epicor Everywhere Framework is a byproduct of the True SOA technology that epitomizes what Epicor agency by SOA on the applicant ancillary (by ensuring that all client-side cipher is stored as tagged XML metadata). Web forms are afresh generated from XML metadata that describes the applicant business logic.

The framework provides a individual antecedent of applicant cipher to be acclimated to accomplish assorted yet agnate user experiences. In contrast, a lot of action systems charge to actualize and advance altered cipher curve for Windows desktop, Web, and adaptable forms.

With Epicor Everywhere, users can use Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint, AJAX, Windows Internet Explorer, Apple Safari or Mozilla Firefox browsers, Web abundance foreground applications, and you-name-a-technology-or-gadget. The framework supports about all bartering adaptable accessories (Symbian OS, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone, etc.) appliance the Web as against to a accurate adaptable operating arrangement (OS).

The Epicor Everywhere Framework aswell refers to the basal appliance architectonics that allows for localization layers to accede with regulations and best practices in countries about the world. To that end, accession accompanying technology, Epicor Layered Applicant Stack, separates and food applicant attributes for the purposes of personalization, customization, localization, verticalization, etc.

The applicant assemblage provides a agency of extracting UI elements into altered independent layers to baby to the charge of differing user roles, sizes of business, types of industry, and even country requirements effectively, after differing cipher lines. With Epicor Layered Applicant Stack, one alone sees what and if one needs, by user and by role. It is absolutely simple for users to personalize their acquaintance and adapt their UI after recourse to antecedent code.

In added words, with these two technologies (Epicor Everywhere Framework and Epicor Layered Applicant Stack) users can accompany ERP abstracts to whatever roles they charge and in whatever architecture they want. Ray Wangs contempo blog column provides a amount of awning shots, to accommodate some of the acidity of Epicor 9.

Nothing After Intelligence and Achievement Management

Epicor Action Achievement Administration (EPM) is Epicors end-user-driven, search-enabled, and role-based supply of in-context business insight. The new real-time and contextual BI belvedere includes an operational abstracts abundance (ODS) for autumn abbreviated data, a abstracts barn for autumn analytic data, and an online analytic processing (OLAP) cube architect alleged Epicor Cube Connect.

Epicor 9 moves online transaction processing (OLTP) abstracts over to an ODS appliance Microsoft SQL Server Advice Casework (SSIS), which in about-face abide a abstracts barn aural Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Casework (SSAS). Epicor EPM Server afresh pre-populates OLAP cubes based on Epicor 9s anatomic suites.

Epicor Cube Connect is afresh acclimated to let end users (as against to IT staff) use a astrologer to footfall admitting and actualize their own angle and key achievement indicators (KPIs) based on barefaced business entities. Users can afresh arrange these KPIs and OLAP cubes wherever they wish (on Microsoft SharePoint pages, on a adaptable device, and, added importantly, aural the ERP application).

Epicor Cube Connect ships with about 500 predefined KPIs to advice users mange their business, after the claim of any ability of abstracts warehousing or OLAP architectonics techniques. The graphical decision of these KPIs is based on whatever apparatus the user wants, such as Microsoft Excel Pivot Tables.

In addition, Epicor offers Epicor Achievement Canvas. The Canvas is a Web 2.0-based (includes seek capabilities and offers publish/subscribe casework for conception of in-context business insights) OLAP decision apparatus for creating and examination KPIs and accumulating role-based scorecards (i.e., heads-up graphics).

Epicor Achievement Canvas is an automatic and easy-to-use ambiance for building, deploying and arresting analytic insights action wide. The ambiance enables seamless deployment to Windows desktops, Web, and adaptable accessories (via Epicor Adaptable EPM).

Dashboards and Trackers

Epicor Dashboards is a aggregate of assorted altered capabilities such as inquiries, ad hoc reports, workbenches, graphical analyses, trackers, alerts, and business action ecology (BAM), all in a individual view. Dashboards are role-based and pre-packaged (there are about 100 provided), yet personalizable and extensible. They accommodate alternate drill-around defended admission to all locations of the application, appropriately befitting users bigger abreast and added productive.

All of Epicors basic and adaptable role-based dashboards can run as acute clients, broken clients, or Web clients, and are active in real-time appliance the abovementioned Epicor Everywhere Framework. The Epicor Dashboards affection comes as allotment of the appliance after any added cost, which is altered from a lot of competitors offerings.

Another carefully accompanying nice-to-have affection is Epicor Trackers, which are system-wide alternate inquiries. Trackers accommodate a snapshot appearance of aggregate users may charge to apperceive about customers, orders, etc., and accommodate admission to abstracts and application-specific abstracts as required.

Mashing Up Transactions and Analytics

One accurate affair about the in-application BI adequacy is that a user can accept an Order Access anatomy that includes transactional and analytic abstracts ancillary by side, for bigger advice and decision-making. In added words, such a anatomy would be a affectionate of mashup or blended appliance (see amount below).

epicor_bi.png

[Click to enlarge thumbnail]

To that end, Epicor Blended Applications (Mashups) accredit a publish/subscribe adequacy amid functions and applications. This adequacy reduces the charge for proprietary band of business (LOB) development by acceptance accumulation of new applications by bond calm assorted abate functions. Because of the Epicor Everywhere Framework, Web forms can subscribe to added forms or canyon advice to them to actualize a individual solution.

In accession to ODS, abstracts warehouse, and Epicor Cube Connect, the above-mentioned Epicor EPM Server, which is the foundation of Epicor EPM, includes Epicor EPM Administration Console. The animate manages Epicor EPM updates via a Microsoft Administration Animate (MMC) snap-in.

Optionally, users can advantage Epicor Replication Server that replicates assembly databases to one or added added servers (including ODS) or billow account environments in abreast absolute time. The server provides cogent scalability options for amount acclimation of tasks and user communities, which increases operational performance. Replication can be an bargain way to optimize a assembly ambiance for transaction entry, by offloading trackers, reports, etc., to added servers.

In summary, Epicor EPM is an easy-to-administer Microsoft SQL Server-based band-aid that delivers plug-and-play business insights after the accepted IT overhead. Epicor hopes to assuredly accomplish BI accessories affordable, simple to implement, and advantageous for all business users, and not just for IT agents and analysts.

As for absolute EPM applications for banking and operational reporting, budgeting, planning, consolidation, etc., Epicor offers both Microsoft FRx and Microsoft PPS Administration Reporter (as able-bodied as its own anchored banking address writer) for banking and operational advertisement capabilities, and both are chip with Epicor 9. The Reporter was developed with cogent investment by the Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server (PPS) aggregation and maintains Microsoft FRxs intuitiveness and capacity for banking professionals.

As a caveat, though, I appear on a contempo notable change in Microsofts BI artefact strategy, whereby the aggregation is breaking afar the EPM ancestors of products. To that end, Microsoft has included the ecology and analytic functionality aural Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, while actively backpedaling on (if not absolutely unplugging) the development of its beginning banking planning and alliance appliance in PPS.

This accident could be acceptable account for Epicor, as Epicor Portal and Epicor Action Content Administration (ECN) accomplish abounding use of MOSS. Thus, the bell-ringer could now accommodate the ecology and analytic elements of PPS to its barter added seamlessly.

Who should appraise and baddest a CMMS system? 0 comments

Selecting a CMMS arrangement is no simple task, so allotment the actual being or bodies to do the appraisal becomes crucial. It's all-important to absorb humans who are added accustomed with the aliment action than the arrangement and who can address this advice to the software developers.

One key catechism if searching for a arrangement is "In what areas do we allegation advice from the system?" Currently, CMMS systems for aerodynamics can be composed of several modules that can be acclimated as stand-alone applications, consitute a fractional solution, or are acclimated as a complete band-aid if all the modules in the arrangement are selected.

It can be confusing if a called arrangement includes several modules, because decision-makers may focus on aggravating to apparatus a band-aid that has added modules than the alignment requires. It can aswell actualize ambiguity a part of the advisers who are in allegation of evaluating the system, abnormally in the aerodynamics industry back an aircraft's aliment action involves several specialty areas. There is the accident that the being who is knoweledgable and best able to acknowledgment questions apropos that specific area ability be absent during a key moment in the appraisal or accomplishing process.

That is why it is acute to acutely ascertain the areas area a arrangement ability be helpful, because the capacity that abstracted maintenance-related and operational needs. From that point, the agents best ill-fitted to backpack out the appraisal and alternative action can be engaged. This is decidedly the case for airlines, third affair aeriform shops, or aircraft account centers. Based on these issues, in my experience, it is best to accept a aggregation that doesn't absorb systems staff, at atomic in the alpha of the process, for affidavit which I will explain after in this article.

Adjusting the action to the arrangement or the arrangement to the process 0 comments

This catechism ability alpha a agitation and aftermath altered reactions a part of the bodies amenable for defining or convalescent a CMMS system. Certainly, implementing a arrangement can analyze some of the accomplish of a process, but about systems are created based on a "general" aesthetics to try to awning a lot of of the situations that could appear in the industry. It is accessible to architectonics "One admeasurement fits all" systems, but they normally—although not always—represent top costs that can adjournment the acknowledgment on investment (ROI).

An airline's needs accept to be authentic through its processes, and these needs should advice authorize an cold that will advance a bigger band-aid and ultimately advance to the alternative of the best system. The alternative action incorporates issues including the operating platform, accepted advantages and processes, users, and airlines to the system's affluence of use, size, and cost. As a systems administrator already said, it is not a amount of adapting the action to the system, back this access ability could cause problems and actualize a attrition to change a part of users.

Selecting a CMMS or MRO arrangement for aliment has to be fabricated by the agent or advisers who are a lot of accustomed with the aliment process, because they will accept to do a abundant appraisal of the system's features. A complete solution—a individual system—is benign for an airline and the system's users; however, this doesn't beggarly that accepting assorted systems or software modules that are added about the capital arrangement is a bad solution.

Whatever band-aid is chosen, CMMS or MRO systems developers for the aerodynamics industry accept to face the claiming of amalgam locations about aircraft maintenance. Whether the band-aid comes in the anatomy of modules or is based on functionality, it should acquiesce users to ascendancy aliment jobs, accomplish forecasts, and accommodate managers with advantageous advice that is simple to apprehend and interpret, and is aggressive to achievement indicators.

The capital allowances that a CMMS arrangement should accompany to an airline cover standardizing action time and administration advice that is accepted to every bore in the system. It should aswell save costs, as able-bodied as optimize man-hours, aliment job management, and amplitude in the aliment base.

Before analyzing, selecting, and application the best system, it is acute to apperceive the absolute aliment action or processes, including new plan alternatives, such as adaptable computing, to aggrandize the ambit of the system.

There are several CMMS systems for the aerodynamics industry in the market, and the addiction is to actualize an chip band-aid by abacus ERP appearance to accommodate advantageous advice in altered levels and automatic and convenient environments. Furthermore, such systems accept an accessible architecture, which makes them added adjustable and allows them to allotment advice with added systems and accomplish in the a lot of accepted environments in the industry. However, the best arrangement will consistently be the one that satisfies the needs accompanying to the aliment action and brings allowances to the airline.

Which is the best system? 0 comments

There are abounding CMMS and MRO systems in the market, anniversary one with specific appearance that can accompany allowances to airlines or adjustment shops. Moreover, back anniversary airline accept to accede the band-aid that best matches its needs, it is harder to accomplish a accepted statement. Some systems abode aliment jobs, and their ascendancy and forecasting directly. They accept angry out to be actual able and accord to the success and abundance of some airlines. On the added hand, some systems accept been developed in such a way that they can represent a actual able-bodied and complete solution. However, the best arrangement is the one that absolutely satisfies an airline's needs.

SAP has a actual accepted arrangement that has been implemented in several airlines, either as a standalone band-aid or with added systems that abode maintenance-related processes. Certainly, this arrangement has some pros, and conceivably the two a lot of important allowances it brings are acclimation and authoritative authentic processes; and accouterment afterimage to what happens to administration positions. However, it lacks some acute appearance that are specific to airline aliment processes. Even admitting this absence has led to the development of interfaces, they are cher and accept to be justified by the allowances that the arrangement will accompany to the airline.

Thus, selecting the best software starts by defining the airline's problems or areas that charge to be improved. It is followed by allegory the solutions that best fit the airline's bearings and the goals it wants to accomplish over time. Given all of these factors, the alternative action depends on the acquaintance and ability of the aliment processes that are capital to the airline.

Mobile computing: an advantage for a CMMS or MRO arrangement in the aerodynamics industry 0 comments

Currently, systems focus added on how adaptable accretion can account an airline. For example, if I was alive with the aggregation amenable for the accomplishing of an automated abstracts accumulating arrangement for the hangar, we advised authoritative the arrangement accessible for the technicians so they would accept the advice they bare abutting to the aeroplane they were alive on. This focus brought important benefits, such as accepting aliment abstracts the aforementioned day it was generated. Of course, this action complex analysis on the best accessible equipment, such as admission points, types of antennae, cabinets, computers, etc. that would acquiesce us to install a wireless arrangement central the aerodrome and abode computers about the airplane. We were able to accomplish arrays and casework from the airplane, alienated traveling and bifold abstracts capture, while the administrator took addendum and again captured the advice in his PC, which was affiliated to the system. Again we were able to use a laptop and a alone agenda abettor (PDA) to prove that our plan was achievable and didn't accommodation the server's or system's operation.

As a aftereffect of this accomplishing which leveraged the ability of centralized processes, we acquired applicable solutions, such as actual and basic concern and appeal through the system, bearing of abstracts for non-routine jobs, agents registry, etc., while technicians and admiral could break abutting to the aircraft. Technicians could abide alive while the actual cadre beatific them the actual or documents. This was addition account of registering the plan cards that were getting issued, and it accepted to be actual advantageous for the aliment agents alive on-line. The next footfall was accretion the allowances of adaptable accretion to the aircraft platforms and the positions anchored by the airports, which is alone accessible in some airports.

This accomplishing was the aftereffect of the actuality that CMMS or MRO systems for the aerodynamics industry should accept or should advance the adaptability to board adaptable computing. In general, these solutions are actual affordable and can be implemented in baby or ample airlines or in absolute adjustment shops, because their costs are lower than CMMS itself. This allows the amplification of the system's ambit so it can accomplish both central and alfresco the airline.

However, to install a wireless arrangement and radio abundance antennae, the assurance and candor of the abstracts have to be ensured—this accountable will become added important as the use of wireless networks spreads worldwide. There are several adaptable accretion providers in the bazaar as able-bodied as large, diverse, powerful, and affordable equipment, that acquiesce the architecture of a band-aid to acclimate to anniversary airline or adjustment shop, appropriately abacus adaptability to the CMMS or MRO arrangement in place.

Who's Who? Sorting Out the e-Logistics Players Part 3: New Solutions 0 comments

The fundamental promise of e-commerce is to empower the customer. In transportation, logistics and other "behind the scenes" aspects of e-commerce, new services and capabilities are beginning to fulfill this promise, not just for Fortune 500 companies but for small and medium firms and for those with specialized requirements as well. These solutions range from "e-gistics" auctions and marketplaces, through software and support tools available over the Internet, including a whole new category of Internet Logistics Operators.

This article outlines some of the latest developments in this fast-moving field, and provides background and context to help companies better understand the alternatives available to them today and identify which approaches provide them the greatest value.

Armed with just a mouse and a web browser, both businesses and consumers can now access an almost unlimited choice of products and services, compare prices and features on a real time basis, and execute transactions nearly instantaneously. In many industries, this increased competition has helped squeeze out inefficiencies, lowered prices, and in effect leveled the playing field for the "little guys" - medium and small businesses and individual consumers - who did not previously have the time or resources to manually access the full potential of the marketplace. Now they can use the Internet to more effectively "pick and choose" what best meets their needs.

Sure, you've sold it, but now you have to ship and deliver it. What services and methodologies are available to help shippers meet these e-commerce challenges?

Fortune 500 corporations have long employed a variety of approaches to help them gain a competitive advantage in managing their supply chains and satisfying customer needs. But many of the "traditional" approaches are expensive and simply out of reach for most companies. What's new is that e-commerce is bringing transportation and logistics services and capabilities that are available to everyone - big and small - and are thus helping to fulfill the real promise of e-commerce.

Transactional Approaches:

As in most other segments of the economy, in transportation and logistics numerous start-up companies have emerged to improve the process of bringing buyers and sellers together to execute individual transactions. Compared to the contractual solutions covered in Part Two, these involve no long-term commitments and are both low cost and widely available for companies of any shape and size to use.

While some of these marketplace services are owned or backed by transportation carriers, the expectation is that they do not actually transport any products themselves. Rather they are intermediaries and information sources that help improve the competitiveness of the market. Many also provide supporting services and software tools that help users better manage their transportation and logistics activities - as a substitute to some extent for the more comprehensive IT systems discussed in Part Two.

The transactional support available through "e-gistics" intermediaries falls into three primary types:

• Freight exchanges and auctions. Historically if you needed to ship product from your New Jersey location to a new customer in Oregon, you had to identify carriers that serve that market, contact them each by phone to outline your needs, wait for price and service quotations, check their references, and then select one of them to handle your shipment - a time consuming, often manual process. Many individual carriers have established their own websites, of course, but accessing them one at a time is a time consuming process and does nothing to increase the competitiveness of the overall marketplace. Using transportation.com, GoCargo.com or many others you can now enter your requirements on-line and then receive price quotations from a number of participating carriers simultaneously, make your selection, and issue the purchase order, all on a quick and easy electronic basis.
  
  
• Transportation and logistics marketplaces and aggregators. These approaches to e-commerce provide improvements in transportation and logistics by offering easy access, all in one place, for viewing and using pre-determined rates from a variety of carriers. Rather than using a real-time approach to decide which carrier will get which shipment and at which price, and all varying from day to day, services such as National Transportation Exchange and freightquote.com facilitate comparison shopping and the ongoing selection and use of carriers at pre-set prices.
  
  
• Process improvement technology providers. In some cases, versions of the e-commerce information technology systems and tools traditionally used by Fortune 500 companies are being developed for use by smaller and more specialized companies. New entrants such as Arzoon and Celarix are building "virtual shipping departments" through the Internet, with "best practices" processes and capabilities made available right on the computer desktops of customers. These new offerings can help companies with a wide range of day-to-day "best practices" activities and decision-making to improve the transportation and logistics process, and in many cases include the auctions or marketplace functions outlined above.

Given the highly fragmented nature of the transportation marketplace, these "market making" and process improvement mechanisms offer significant potential for increasing efficiency and reducing costs. By accessing a wider range of carriers and involving a broader set of customers, and then establishing pricing on a more competitive basis - they may ultimately perhaps fulfill the e-commerce promise of empowering the customer.

In order to be successful, however, they will need to attract a high volume of carriers and shippers, so that they provide a competitive marketplace that really results in lower pricing and has broad geographic coverage. In addition, since these services do not handle the actual freight or take responsibility for the shipment, separate follow ups are needed with each carrier covering the myriad of issues associated with billing, insurance, damage, shipment status visibility, proof of delivery, and others. In addition, they do not handle the other services that a shipper may need to be fully successful - such as warehousing space and inventory management, and specialized order fulfillment activities.

Internet Logistics Operators (ILOs) - a new category of services:

In contrast to the intermediaries that facilitate improvements in transportation and logistics processes, a new category is emerging that directly offers a broad range of services transportation and logistics services. These Internet Logistics Operators (ILOs), as they are beginning to be called, provide one-stop shopping for customers who want the promise of e-commerce - in a simple and comprehensive way and dealing directly with a single provider that takes responsibility for meeting their shipping, warehousing and fulfillment needs.

Internet Logistics Operators provide a unique combination: a physical network of appropriate carriers and distribution centers to move and handle shipments, personnel and expertise to optimize the process and achieve high service levels and efficient operations, and the software and other tools to handle the real-time flow of information on the status of orders and shipments - all behind the scenes and transparent to the user.

• Less-Than-truckLoad (LTL) shipments for smaller and medium sized shippers: These shippers face dual challenges of finding ways to reduce their transportation costs in order to stay competitive, and finding providers of warehousing, order fulfillment and other activities on an as-needed basis for particular situations that they may face. To meet these needs, freightPro.com has recently been launched, offering an innovative, flexible, and low-cost solution. By creating a network of carriers to move shipments across the country and a set of local providers to handle pick-up, delivery and warehousing services in each metropolitan area, freightPro.com has created a virtual "core carrier" program - available on a transaction-by-transaction basis, with no assets or long-term contracting requirements.
  
  By using software tools and industry expertise to consolidate shipments from different customers and move them efficiently from origin to destination, freightPro.com can typically obtain savings of 15-20% for its customers, while taking full responsibility at every stage in the process. When warehousing or other services are needed - for seasonal or one-time promotional situations for example - freightPro.com can use its network to seamlessly provide these added services as well.
  
  
• Time-critical fulfillment and specialized services: Increasingly, companies need to respond faster and faster to changes in their own operations, developments at their customers, and changes in the overall supply chain. When spare parts are needed to prevent a manufacturing plant from shutting down, for example, overnight air and other "regular" services simply are not adequate. To meet these needs, Sameday.com has recently been launched, offering a unique set of high value, high-speed fulfillment, and related services. Using a network of distribution centers carefully positioned to deal with the traffic congestion in metropolitan areas today, and backed by sophisticated software to monitor and manage the flow of information and inventory between suppliers and their customers, Sameday.com is providing significant value in fulfillment, inventory management, returns and repairs processing, and related functions.
  
  Companies in high tech industries such as computers, electronics, aerospace, and telecommunications, as well as major brick-and-mortar retailers of consumer products and related merchandise, stand to benefit especially from these services. With flexible warehouse configurations, high service standards, and a strong backbone of information technology, Sameday.com can address the requirements for the fast-moving, high value, or fragile component of transportation and logistics that just about every shipper faces today.

In both of these situations, the "e-gistics" companies themselves are the providers that take direct responsibility for shipping product and managing inventory, rather than acting simply as intermediaries. In addition to offering their services to Fortune 500 and other large companies, they are bringing to smaller shippers and special situations the pricing and capabilities previously available only to the big boys - and doing it in a way that is flexible and low cost for the customer.

There is a wide range of new "e-gistics" players emerging to address today's transportation and logistics challenges, and different solutions will be appropriate for different kinds of situations. Sure, you've sold it, but now you have to ship and deliver it. The new "e-gistics" services that best fulfill the promise of e-commerce will be those that both directly provide transportation and logistics services - and responsibility - and do it in a low cost, flexible, "virtual" way matched to the individual transactions that you face every day.