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Plus de 500 000 professionnels en technologies de l'information (TI) s'abonnent au bulletin d'information de TEC pour ses recherches et analyses pointues. Publiée 5 jours par semaine, cette lettre d'information présente les dernières nouvelles, des recherches d'analystes, des livres blancs, des études de cas, ainsi qu'une liste de webinaires et d'événements ponctuels. Les articles couvrent de nombreux sujets, incluant les tendances et nouvelles du marché, la gestion de l'information, les produits et l'actualité des éditeurs de logiciels et autres fournisseurs de services.

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November 2008
November 17, 2008 Should North Americans Send More Software Development Work to China? This article discusses the risks and opportunities related to outsourcing software development to China. It concludes that China, as an outsourcing destination, has different risk exposures in comparison with India. However, going to China may also bring opportunities considering the pressure of further cost reduction that North Americans are facing and the booming domestic demands of the Chinese market.
November 17, 2008 Distinctions and Benefits of Strategic Sourcing Strategic sourcing involves ongoing relationships, which creates the opportunity for mutually beneficial collaboration between the buyer and the suppliers. This can result in improved profitability throughout the entire supply chain and add value to the final product or service.
November 7, 2008 From Manufacturing to Distribution: The Evolution of ERP in Our New Global Economy Because manufacturers are now competing globally, they have shifted production to developing countries where cost of labor and resources is low. Software vendors have combined supply chain management functionality with enterprise resource planning software to stay globally competitive.
November 5, 2008 Electronic Medical Records: An Introduction Electronic medical records (EMR) serves a niche market. This software caters specifically to health care professionals working in clinics, private practices, and hospitals. EMR software came about to increase overall patient care and communication between health care staff and departments.

 
October 2008
October 31, 2008 Throw Away Your Financial Statements: Managing by Metrics Analyzing static, detailed financial statements has been the modus operandi for hundreds of years. Because many business management systems can isolate and create graphics of key performance indicators (KPI), businesses should now concentrate on KPIs, which influence profitability.
October 29, 2008 How Project Portfolio Management Can Deal a Winning Hand to the SMB Project Manager Project portfolio management (PPM), once a solution only larger organizations could afford, enables companies to analyze, recommend, authorize, activate, expedite, and monitor projects. In recent years, however, small to medium businesses have been able to benefit from PPM too, through software-as-a-service models of this tool.
October 29, 2008 A ''Gentler'' Giant's Success in Reaching Out to the ''Little Guys'' Until recently, the few leaders in the lower end of the technology and platform market have hardly had any viable competition. However, Oracle is determined to give these players—especially archrival Microsoft—a run for their money, starting with offerings attractive to small to medium businesses and partners alike.
October 24, 2008 Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About LMS But Were Afraid to Ask-Well Maybe Not Everything! Today, if a company wants to retain its employees, it must take great strides to make their jobs more rewarding. To give their employees the learning experience they’re looking for, many organizations are now implementing learning management systems (LMSes).
October 20, 2008 Distilling Data: The Importance of Data Quality in Business Intelligence As an enterprise’s data grows in volume and complexity, a comprehensive data quality strategy is imperative to providing a reliable business intelligence environment. This article looks at issues in data quality and how they can be addressed.
October 20, 2008 Why Manufacturers Should Cash In on the Promise of Business Intelligence Through this interview with RCG Information Technology’s Robert Abate, manufacturers can gain an understanding of what it takes to add value to their current business intelligence (BI) use, or what they can gain from BI and how to get started.
October 17, 2008 Global Product Development Seen as a Boon for Product Lifecycle Management Vendors An enterprise that wants to shift to a global product development strategy must invest in modern product lifecycle management (PLM) technology. Therefore, the PLM software market could be on the edge of a significant growth cycle.
October 13, 2008 War Looms in the On-demand CRM Market (and Beyond)-But Will You Profit from It? Salesforce.com is now an almost unstoppable force in the world of on-demand customer relationship management. However, it may be the architect of its own downfall—and Microsoft is poised to take advantage. But will you profit from the Salesforce.com-versus-Microsoft war?
October 13, 2008 The Customer Relationship Management Vision: It Starts with Relationships An alarming number of companies get on the wrong track when creating a customer relationship management (CRM) vision. Outlined here are four steps that take the mystery out of what makes an effective CRM vision. The secret? It’s all about people and relationships.
October 10, 2008 A Semi-open Source Vendor Discusses Market Trends A response to trends in the open source software market comes this time from relative newcomer provider xTuple. This vendor’s footprint isn’t entirely in the open source door, however, with OpenMFG, its commercially licensed solution with an open source infrastructure.
October 8, 2008 Is Your Enterprise Application on a Road to Nowhere? Consolidation is a well-documented trend and is to be expected in the market for enterprise applications. This article outlines the evolution of the enterprise software market. Specifically, it focuses on the revolutionary technology known as service-oriented architecture (SOA).
October 3, 2008 Your Reference Guide to SMB Accounting Software Features This reference guide provides insight into the accounting features and functions currently available on today’s market for small to medium businesses (SMBs). It will help you determine which features your organization needs—and doesn’t need.

 
September 2008
September 29, 2008 A Lexicon for Customer Relationship Management Success Despite technological advances, users are dissatisfied with customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Ambiguous terms do not provide the vocabulary for concrete action and measurable expectations. Thus, CRM is perceived to be about intangibles, and is approached with a let's-hope–for-the-best mentality.
September 29, 2008 Customer Relationship Management Showdown: Microsoft Dynamics CRM vs. Oncontact CRM vs. SageCRM For this Showdown, we looked at all three of the main CRM modules: sales force automation, marketing automation, and customer service and support. To eliminate any chance of bias and to ensure a level playing field, all the criteria that make up these three modules in our CRM Evaluation Center were given equal weight and priority. In other words, no area of functionality was treated as being more important than any other.
September 26, 2008 ERP: When Transparency Becomes Tunnel Vision The face of manufacturing is constantly changing. As enterprise resource planning (ERP) software evolves and more organizations continue to use ERP solutions, they must find a way to avoid ERP’s “tunnel vision” syndrome as manufacturing continues to grow globally.
September 24, 2008 Accounting for SMB Showdown I'm Larry Blitz, editor of TEC's Vendor Showdown series. Today's Showdown pits two major enterprise resource planning (ERP) and accounting for small to midsized business (SMB) vendors against each other, head-to-head: Exact Software North America (a division of Exact Software) and Infor.
September 24, 2008 Project-oriented versus Generic GL-oriented ERP/Accounting Systems Caught between big-vendor ERP offerings requiring heavy customization, and off-the-shelf project management solutions that are easily outgrown, project-oriented organizations have special accounting needs. Find out more about those needs, along with recommendations for what solutions you should be taking a closer look at.
September 22, 2008 Contemporary Business Intelligence and Its Main Components Business intelligence (BI) represents the tools and systems that play a key role in the strategic planning process by allowing a company to manipulate corporate data for decision-making. But what exactly are the primary components of BI?
September 22, 2008 Business Performance Management Basics: An Overview of Business Performance Management and Its Benefits to the Organization Business performance management (BPM) includes setting key performance indicators, using data mining to discover data patterns and using software to help drive business decisions and develop corporate strategy. For an organization, there are many benefits to implementing a BPM solution.
September 17, 2008 Attribute-based Demand Planning: A Powerful Tool for Process Manufacturers As manufacturing becomes a global process, advances in demand management software have given rise to attribute-based demand management software. In the process manufacturing environment, this software can help manufacturers deal with complex manufacturing processes and increase overall customer satisfaction.
September 15, 2008 The Web-based Sales Portal-A Catalyst for Business Transformation A sales portal is one of many tools that can be used to help transform a business, especially a consumer packaged goods company. In this article, key structural and functional elements, as well as the advantages of implementing and effectively using a sales portal, are discussed.
September 15, 2008 Using Demand to Modulate Consumer Packaged Goods Supply Networks Traditionally, the consumer packaged goods supply has been driven to market mostly by upstream manufacturers. But progressive companies are realizing the enduring value of being driven by the market, and they are starting to use demand as a guiding light.
September 12, 2008 Three Ways ERP Can Help Manage Risk and Prevent Fraud If enterprise resource planning (ERP) isn't properly implemented to manage risk, your organization may face loss due to fraud or other hazards. Take advantage of ERP's capacities for role-based security, on both the business and the IT sides of your processes.
September 12, 2008 A Veteran Mid-market ERP Vendor with a Pragmatic Vision Chimes In Joining our growing list of vendors willing to provide their opinions and commentary on our thought-provoking questions on market trends, SYSPRO takes part in our ongoing question-and-answer series, where the vendor responds from the viewpoint of a mid-market veteran.
September 10, 2008 Manufacturing Software for an Integrated Steel Plant An integrated steel plant’s manufacturing processes typically encompass three distinct types of manufacturing—flow manufacturing, process manufacturing, and mill manufacturing—making such a plant a mixed-mode manufacturer. Software systems that address the diverse needs these manufacturers have cannot be emphasized more.
September 5, 2008 Can ERP Speak PLM? Because product lifecycle management (PLM) offers a host of benefits to manufacturers, it has become one of the fastest growing categories of enterprise applications. But a PLM system needs to work hand-in-hand with an enterprise resource planning system, so how can an organization integrate these two enterprise applications, which "speak" in different languages?
September 1, 2008 Service Level Agreements for Manufacturers and Software Vendors in the Supply Chain Supply chains are very complex, as is discrete manufacturing and the software that addresses its needs. To ease the complexities, service level agreements are developed so that all parties involved remain on the same page and product delivery is facilitated.
September 1, 2008 How to Measure Customer Satisfaction Organizations often rely on surveys and questionnaires to determine customer satisfaction ratings, but such methods merely offer a perceived customer rating. Obtaining a realistic measure of customer satisfaction involves computing a metric based on a composite customer satisfaction rating system.
September 1, 2008 Human Resources for Small to Medium Businesses When small to medium businesses shop around for a human resources (HR) solution, their main considerations are whether to go for a hosted or non-hosted solution, or to simply outsource HR functions altogether. It’s important to know the advantages and disadvantages of each before making a selection.
September 1, 2008 Audit Your Message Strategy by Answering Three Questions Most companies create a new marketing plan every 12 months. At the same time, they should audit their message strategy to stay on top of competitors’ marketing and to have confidence that they are delivering the right message to their market.
September 1, 2008 Getting It Right: ERP Solutions for Mixed-mode Manufacturers Falling somewhere between discrete and process manufacturing, mixed-mode manufacturers haven’t always been well served by traditional discrete or process enterprise resource planning solutions. But that’s changing now, as mixed-mode manufacturers finally have access to solutions that truly address their needs.

 
August 2008
August 29, 2008 Preparing for Product Development in Process Manufacturing Combining process industry–oriented product lifecycle management capabilities with process manufacturing–oriented enterprise resource planning ones can help alleviate many of the challenges particular to the process manufacturers, especially in the areas of product development and regulatory compliance.
August 27, 2008 Segregation of Duties and Its Role in Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Issues The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) requires publicly traded firms to demonstrate that their accounting and reporting practices are in compliance with regulatory standards. Section 404 of SOX addresses the concept and practice of segregation of duties—a key aspect of this legislation, and the focus of this article.
August 27, 2008 Thou Shalt Comply (and More), or Else: Looking at Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance with the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (and a slew of other regulations) is crucial for all businesses, as failure to comply with the law’s strict standards and policies can spell disaster for executives and upper management of any enterprise.
August 25, 2008 Innovations in Business Intelligence Business intelligence (BI) is in the midst of a new wave of innovations. Ideas in the search space, software as a service, and real-time analytics are extending the reach of BI across the complete size spectrum of organizations. This article looks at these technologies and their impact on businesses.
August 25, 2008 Five Steps to Business Intelligence Project Success Many business intelligence (BI) projects fall short of expectations. Unless organizations implement a methodology and benchmark the success other organizations have experienced, BI implementations may fail to provide the desired results. This article identifies five steps organizations should take when implementing BI solutions.
August 22, 2008 Quote-to-order: One Big, Lean Machine Adds High Tech to Its Mix BigMachines differentiates itself in the quote-to-order (Q2O) sphere due to its solutions’ lean end-to-end, inquiry-to-order focus. Although there are other vendors offering Q2O as a service, BigMachines product is arguably more flexible, as high tech manufacturers may be noting.
August 20, 2008 Quote-to-order: A Newcomer Causes a Stir in the Market A crop of next-generation, Web-based, on-demand, startup quote-to-order systems providers has lately flourished, spearheaded by BigMachines, whereas some traditional vendors that once defined the product configuration space in the 1990s have since left the market.
August 18, 2008 Quote-to-order: New Ingredients in the Recipe for Success Quote-to-order (Q2O) systems can address the increasing demand for personalized and customized products. Complex product specification, quoting, and ordering processes—as well as the software applications catering to those processes—can benefit from the use of the Web, collaboration tools, and lean thinking.
August 18, 2008 The Basics of Quote-to-order Systems Global competition means more choice for consumers and increasing customer demands. Manufacturers and distributors must develop a better understanding of what customers want so that they can configure, produce, and deliver products and services faster and more cost-effectively.
August 13, 2008 Cash Management 101 Cash management is an essential business process all organizations must perform to survive. Though cash management uses automation for much of the “grunt” work, it is human intelligence in the financial decision making that does the rest.
August 13, 2008 Your Reference Guide to SMB Accounting Software Features This reference guide provides insight into the accounting features and functions currently available on today’s market for small to medium businesses (SMBs). It will help you determine which features your organization needs—and doesn’t need.
August 11, 2008 Product Lifecycle Management: Expediting Product Innovation The highly competitive product manufacturing market makes true product lifecycle management (PLM) inevitable. PLM helps companies map product requirements to features, obtain control over product data, preserve product knowledge assets, and enter into the new paradigm of modular product development.
August 6, 2008 Use a Computerized Maintenance Management System to Improve Predictive Maintenance Performance Companies that have moved from a highly reactive environment to a more planned one notice significant improvement. A computer maintenance management or enterprise asset management system is useful tool to create a planned environment, help build accurate equipment history, and develop comprehensive analysis capability.
August 4, 2008 Tightening the Chain-Supply Chain Cost-cutting Strategies As companies struggle to control costs, the supply chain and management of supply resources have come under scrutiny. The supply chain is one area where a company can achieve quick gains and receive a fast return on investment.
August 4, 2008 Most Misunderstood Link in Supply Chain Management Business practices have changed dramatically through the years, but credit and collections is still handled like it was back in the 1950s. Fact is, it’s way past due to re-think this vital business function given today’s business realities.
August 1, 2008 Blast Past Manufacturing Bottlenecks with Constraint-based Scheduling Managing constraints in any manufacturing or service environment can be difficult. But with the right tools, accurate data, and a skilled user, a management team can manage the throughput of its constraints to support the goals of its company.

 
July 2008
July 30, 2008 The ITIL Version 3 Prescription for Transitioning Services IT service transition is difficult to manage. But with the updated guidance found in ITIL Version 3, IT organizations can plan for a more successful transition, with a new perspective on all transition phases, including planning, configuration, and change management.
July 25, 2008 The Business Model for the 21st Century Is Project-centric Cost, time, resources, cash, and risk have always been the basics of project management. But as business as a whole becomes more project- rather than process-oriented, management technologies must in turn become more project-centric.
July 25, 2008 Who to Blame for Project Failure? Look Up-Not Down, Not Left, Not Right Project failure is not a nice topic. None of us wants to be involved in a failure. But when a failure occurs, we feel compelled to assign blame. But who really is to blame, and how can a company avoid the same problems in the future?
July 23, 2008 Process-based Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance The right balance of automated processes with paper records and manual, human interaction is necessary to keep costs under control with a flexible yet controlled set of procedures. The strategic software category, governance, risk management, and compliance, is poised to help.
July 20, 2008 Paul Greenberg's Experience on the EDGE CRM News, trends and interviews brought to you exclusively by TEC and myCRMcareer.com Paul Greenberg is one of the most influential authors, analysts, and thought leaders in the customer relationship management (CRM) industry today. Programs focus on news, trends, recommendations, and interviews with CRM luminaries.
July 18, 2008 How Supply Chain Management Helps Today's Engineer-to-order Companies In today's competitive engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturing environment, procuring components on time and within budget is crucial. With rising fuel costs and increased international trade, supply chain management software can help ETO organizations get—and stay—ahead of the competition.
July 14, 2008 How the Mining Industry Benefits from ERP Systems Integrated enterprise resource planning software normalizes the reporting requirements for a mining company’s various departments. This article loosely shows the parallels between the operations in a mining company and those of a manufacturer whose product is sold on store shelves.
July 11, 2008 Drug Pedigree Guidelines and How Software Can Help Drug manufacturers and retailers are tightening their data collection and reporting processes to meet new US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) guidelines. But which software offerings are best placed to help drug manufacturers comply with the new guidelines?
July 9, 2008 Welcome to ERP Showdown: Infor ERP LN 6.1 vs. Epicor Vantage vs. Lawson M3 Discrete Manufacturing Solutions I'm Larry Blitz, editor of TEC’s Vendor Showdown series. With enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems being the information backbone of the organization, we decided to take a closer look at three of the more popular discrete ERP solutions for the mid-market. Using TEC's ERP Evaluation Center, we compared Infor ERP LN 6.1, Epicor Vantage, and Lawson M3 Discrete Manufacturing Solutions head-to-head, based on the most recent data supplied to us by the three vendors.
July 7, 2008 Ambitious Plans and Promises: How Will the Market Respond to One Enterprise Software Provider's Offerings? The market should commend Infor’s attempt to combine business-specific solutions from a partner like IBM. If nothing else, the fact that Infor can provide integrated and best-in-class offerings poises the vendor to become serious competition for such giants as SAP and Oracle.
July 4, 2008 Your Reference Guide to SMB Accounting Software Features This reference guide provides insight into the accounting features and functions currently available on today’s market for small to medium businesses (SMBs). It will help you determine which features your organization needs—and doesn’t need.
July 2, 2008 Ambitious Plans and Promises: An Enterprise Software Vendor's Open Course of Action Infor has met several of its objectives with Infor Open SOA. The vendor has managed to resolve inherited customer retention issues, move forward with “green” and corporate social responsibility initiatives, and even has a viable new product version to offer Baan users.
July 2, 2008 The Marriage of Virtual Machines, Software as a Service, and Cloud Computing New technology, such as virtual machines and high-speed internet communication, is leading to wider remote application hosting. Here is a tutorial-level technical explanation of how it’s being driven

 
June 2008
June 30, 2008 Ambitious Plans and Promises: An Enterprise Software Provider Keeps Its Word With its numerous new software license sales, new product deliveries, and its dedication to complicated technological rejuvenation (namely, an ambitious open service-oriented architecture strategy), Infor's position and image in the market these days are at an all-time high.
June 25, 2008 Yet Another Branding Debacle (This Time, It's ERP for Services) Organizations providing billable services to their clients can benefit from an enterprise resource planning solution. But what makes ERP for services different from solutions known as product portfolio management for professional services automation? And which is best for your organization?
June 23, 2008 Six Misconceptions about Data Migration A truly successful data migration project involves not only an understanding of how to migrate the data from a technical standpoint, but an understanding of how that data will be used and its importance to the operation of the enterprise.
June 23, 2008 Welcome to ERP Showdown! Infor SyteLine vs. Exact Software Macola ES vs. QAD Enterprise Application Today's ERP Showdown pits Infor SyteLine vs. Exact Software Macola ES vs. QAD Enterprise Application, all aimed at medium-sized businesses in the $250 million (USD)–plus range. Once again, we used TEC's ERP Evaluation Center to look at all eight standard ERP modules…
June 20, 2008 EAM versus CMMS: What's Right for Your Company This article looks at where computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) end and enterprise asset management (EAM) takes over, focusing on features and functionality of EAM software. It also compares CMMS and EAM software and explores the two key differentiators.
June 16, 2008 Warehouse Management for Manufacturers: Why Extended ERP Might Be the Right Choice As a provider of enterprise resource planning (ERP) integrated workforce productivity solutions, we have seen many approaches to distribution automation. Adding a warehouse management system is a logical option for many manufacturers, but this article provides insight into another option: extending ERP distribution capabilities to take advantage of a single receiving, inventory, shipping database.
June 13, 2008 ''Star Search''-Talent Management Made Simple One of the biggest challenges businesses face today in the area of human resources is the recruitment and retention of skilled talent. Combining a talent management strategy with an integrated talent management system can help ensure you have the right people in place to meet your organization’s needs.
June 6, 2008 Security Risk Assessment and Management in Web Application Security Corporations are at risk because Web applications and servers make them susceptible to hackers and cyber crooks. However, companies can perform security risk assessments that mitigate risk by applying security risk management policies designed to protect a company’s data.
June 4, 2008 Open Platform Provider Answers Questions about the State of the Market Rather than offering the customary opinions and analysis of major market trends beforehand and then giving the involved vendors a chance for a factual review and feedback, this time Technology Evaluation Centers has attempted to solicit vendors’ proactive views.
June 4, 2008 How Can Business Intelligence Benefit Small to Medium Businesses? Research shows that the number one software solution that small to medium businesses plan to purchase in the coming year is business intelligence (BI). Download TEC’s latest podcast to find out why BI is so hot right now.
June 2, 2008 A Partner-friendly Platform Provider Discusses Market Trends A background of Progress Software notes the vendor’s product line-up, and some of the benefits companies find by using Progress platforms and infrastructure products. The vendor’s recent growth is also detailed, as well as its relationships with partners.

 
May 2008
May 30, 2008 Transportation Management Systems: The Glue of the Supply Chain With manufacturing now a global industry, moving product throughout complex supply chains remains a challenge for most organizations. But transportation management systems are spearheading the way to help solve the dilemmas of today’s manufacturers, offering functionality that eases the transfer of goods from place to place.
May 28, 2008 A Road Map to Electronic Medical Record System Implementation It’s crucial to define the scope of an electronic medical system implementation, as well as to outline each stage of the project and the resources that will be needed. A failed implementation will paralyze the operational capabilities of a health care organization, but the right methodology will help ensure a successful implementation.
May 26, 2008 Four Ways to Botch Your ERP Implementation Process Here are four worst practices that can contribute to the failure of an enterprise resource planning implementation—or the implementation of any other enterprise software, for that matter. Protect your investment and prevent disaster by steering clear of these major mistakes.
May 23, 2008 The "Gentler" Giant's Value Proposition to Overcome the "Little Guys'" Perception Since its launch less than a year ago, Oracle’s VAD Remarketer Program has been quite successful in recruiting new value-added distributors worldwide. But the real challenges that remain for this software giant have more to do with its image within the market than with its products.
May 23, 2008 Welcome to ERP - Distribution Showdown! Epicor Enterprise vs. JDA Supply Chain Planning & Optimization Suite vs. Pronto Xi I'm Larry Blitz, editor of Technology Evaluation Centers’ (TEC) Vendor Showdown series. Welcome to our latest: ERP - Distribution Showdown. You’ll notice this one has a broader focus than Showdowns we’ve done in the past. Again we’ll be comparing three vendor solutions head-to-head, but not just on functionality. This time we’ll also look at the industries these solutions support, how well they cover different portions of the mid-market segment, and how their installed bases break out geographically. Of course, functionality is again a key component of this Showdown, broken down into four main distribution areas and 13 subareas. We hope you find today’s Showdown helpful and informative, and invite your comments and questions at showdown@technologyevaluation.com.
May 9, 2008 Today's Discrete ERP Landscape: Trends, Challenges, and Solutions With web-enabled technology, business intelligence, and supply chain management becoming integral parts of the manufacturing environment, discrete enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications today are not as they once were. Learn about the current trends and how to select a discrete ERP system for your needs.
May 7, 2008 Current Trends in Supply Chain Analytics Systems Supply chain analytics is gaining popularity with organizations, as it is an effective mechanism to monitor and track supply chain performance. And with new technological innovations promising to enhance these tools, businesses can look forward to benefiting more fully from this area of supply chain management.
May 5, 2008 Pricing Management Vendor Must Show Proven Payback from Clients Vendavo’s recent growth is due to its reseller partnership with SAP, and the segmentation and optimization functionalities of its pricing solutions. But the vendor needs to stay on its toes, at least until its role in lifting almost every client profit margins is proven.
May 2, 2008 Provider of B2B Price Management and Optimization Speaks Out In addition to growing at a breakneck pace for the last few years, Vendavo has recently rounded out its suite for price and margin management. The market should take notice, while the competition should indeed watch out.

 
April 2008
April 30, 2008 How to Measure Customer Satisfaction Organizations often rely on surveys and questionnaires to determine customer satisfaction ratings, but such methods merely offer a perceived customer rating. Obtaining a realistic measure of customer satisfaction involves computing a metric based on a composite customer satisfaction rating system.
April 28, 2008 Tactical Human Resources Evolves into Strategic Human Capital Management In contrast to traditionally investing in automation technologies for better use of tangible assets, enterprises have begun to invest in optimizing human capital. Human capital management, or talent management, is a set of human resources practices focusing on the acquisition, management, and optimization of the enterprise workforce.
April 25, 2008 From Local to Hosted: The Story of One Company's Migration to On-demand ERP Here’s the inside story on how an international manufacturer using a traditional, local enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution shifted gears to end up with an on-demand, remotely hosted ERP system. It wasn’t the change the company originally intended, but the benefits proved too overwhelming to resist.
April 23, 2008 An Analyst's View of Process Industry SMB Challenges Process manufacturing industries have distinct needs from an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Here’s an overview of what process manufacturing requires from an ERP solution, including business intelligence capabilities.
April 21, 2008 Service Level Agreements for Manufacturers and Software Vendors in the Supply Chain Supply chains are very complex, as is discrete manufacturing and the software that addresses its needs. To ease the complexities, service level agreements are developed so that all parties involved remain on the same page and product delivery is facilitated.
April 18, 2008 Acquisitive Vendor Expands Its Enterprise Asset Management Potential IFS has much to offer customers. Its IFS Applications suite now boasts an asset lifecycle management module for quick data retrieval. IFS also has a strong commitment to international standards, and with its acquisition of iSC, expertise in naval and marine operations.
April 16, 2008 ''Once Bitten" Vendor Is Not "Twice Shy" about New Acquisition IFS Defence Ltd., a joint venture between BAE Systems and IFS, recently acquired iSC, a British custom software firm. However, some product integration issues and questions about long-term benefits for IFS customers outside the defense sector should be monitored.
April 14, 2008 Choosing the Right Electronic Medical Record System for Your Health Care Organization Health care organizations have special needs to consider when deciding what type of electronic medical record (EMR) system to implement. This article examines the advantages and disadvantages of on-demand and on-premise EMR systems.
April 11, 2008 Supply Chain 101: The Basics You Need to Know Today’s manufacturers face increasing global competition and complex manufacturing networks. Supply chain management provides manufacturers with the needed visibility into their supply chain, as well as software solutions, to help give them a competitive edge.
April 4, 2008 Oracle Product Showdown! I'm Larry Blitz, editor of Technology Evaluation Centers’ (TEC) Vendor Showdown series. Today’s Vendor Showdown is an encore presentation of a Showdown that was originally published last September. It compares two popular Oracle enterprise solutions—JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and E-Business Suite—head to head.

 
March 2008
March 28, 2008 The Challenges of Integrating Enterprise Resource Planning and Manufacturing Execution Systems While enterprise applications solutions are moving closer to the plant floor, and plant-level systems are moving closer to enterprise planning application functionality, these systems will not likely converge anytime soon, because they use different technologies and have different user requirements.
March 26, 2008 The Rapid Response Solution Continues to Improve Kinaxis’s latest response management product releases deliver even more refined software system tools to help global manufacturers with capacity planning and scheduling, including monitoring and alerting, action team selection, and inventory liability reduction capabilities.
March 26, 2008 How the Mining Industry Benefits from ERP Systems Integrated enterprise resource planning software normalizes the reporting requirements for a mining company’s various departments. This article loosely shows the parallels between the operations in a mining company and those of a manufacturer whose product is sold on store shelves.
March 24, 2008 Thou Shalt Motivate and Reward Workforce Better The potential of enterprise incentive management systems should not be ignored, since this software category promises a fairly rapid and tangible return on investment, outlines expensive over- and under-payment errors, and reduces administration overhead.
March 21, 2008 What Makes Process Process? The systems dealing with manufacturing, inventory, procurement, and customer order management systems are among the systems that often prove to be the hardest to acquire due to the unique issues of the process enterprise.
March 19, 2008 A Response Management Pioneer Offers Its Solution Kinaxis Inc. is answering the needs of global manufacturers by delivering an on-demand response management service. These services are designed to help manufacturers drive quick responses to ever-changing global supply chains and fulfillment networks.
March 17, 2008 A Possible Remedy for Non-responsive Supply Chains Because the supply chains of most manufacturers have become complex, global networks, managing these systems requires enterprise applications that enable collaboration, visibility, demand-sensing, and quick response to unplanned and unexpected events. But from where will such solutions come?
March 14, 2008 Multi-enterprise Responsiveness-Can It Ever Be Achieved? Most manufacturers are now operating in a multi-enterprise, multi-echelon context, and their supply chain processes and supporting IT tools need to accommodate responsive collaboration. Yet most enterprise resource planning systems currently used do not adequately serve the needs of these businesses.
March 12, 2008 Who Could Object to Faster, More Responsive Supply Chains? Today, global manufacturers have all but abandoned traditional vertical supply chain management to adopt the more flexible horizontal and virtual supply chain concepts. But in changing their business model, they have given up a fair amount of control over their supply chain processes.
March 10, 2008 Chemical Industry ERP Showdown: Infor vs. JD Edwards vs. Lawson vs. SAP vs. SSI Today’s Showdown is based on an industry-specific case study. Five enterprise resource planning vendors were selected for the evaluation. All the results were based on the latest request for information (RFI) supplied to us by the vendors, and all priorities were assigned by the client.
March 7, 2008 What Are Manufacturing Execution Systems? A manufacturing execution system (MES) can be defined as a collection of business processes providing event-by-event, real-time execution of planned production requirements. However, market ambiguity and functional overlap with enterprise resource planning systems obscure what an MES can bring to an enterprise.
March 5, 2008 Three Ways ERP Can Help Manage Risk and Prevent Fraud If enterprise resource planning (ERP) isn't properly implemented to manage risk, your organization may face loss due to fraud or other hazards. Take advantage of ERP's capacities for role-based security, on both the business and the IT sides of your processes.
March 3, 2008 Yet Another Branding Debacle (This Time, It's ERP for Services) Organizations providing billable services to their clients can benefit from an enterprise resource planning solution. But what makes ERP for services different from solutions known as product portfolio management for professional services automation? And which is best for your organization?

 
February 2008
February 29, 2008 How to Solve Your Warehouse Woes Today’s manufacturers and distributors are under immense pressure to ensure their warehouse and supply chain activities are continually operating at peak performance. But before any improvements can be made, they must first develop a warehouse management improvement strategy.
February 27, 2008 The Convergence of ERP and Field Services-One Vendor's Leadership Agresso’s experience with people-centric services organizations has led the vendor to design a solution that effectively address these businesses’ need for field services and asset maintenance management. Agresso’s melding of two solutions, and the product’s underlying architecture, support change and tightly couple solution categories.
February 25, 2008 An ERP Vendor Poised to Overtake the Services Market Companies in the services industry need both asset and field services management, but current integrated asset and field services maintenance systems often fail to meet these organization’s needs. However, enterprise resource planning vendor Agresso appears to have just the right solution.
February 15, 2008 Retail Merchandising Showdown! Lawson Software vs. Epicor vs. Aldata Solution Using our Merchandising Evaluation Center, we compared Lawson Retail Operations Management, Epicor CRS Merchandising, and Aldata G.O.L.D. head on. For the overall rankings portion, we looked at these vendor solutions in two basic configurations: with and without POS functionality. To eliminate any chance of bias, and to ensure a level playing field, all 3,072 criteria comprising all the modules and submodules in the merchandising request for information (RFI) were given equal weight and priority…