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Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The Microsoft Dynamics AX Enterprise Portal Blog
Remove the ugliness
It was pointed out to me that I had made a small mistake on my previous post. There is an ugly gap between my toolba
r and the grid. There is actually some javascript code that runs when the page is rendered that will remove the gap which makes it look a lot nicer. Take a look at the before and after shots on the right. You can see that the gap is gone.
So what was the mistake? When I added the User Control Web Part to the page in Sharepoint I had added it to the Header web part zone. To make the gap disappear I had to move the web part to the Middle Column web part zone.
That’s it.
Published Wednesday, July 02, 2008 5:15 AM by jeppeoml
Filed under: UX
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Friday, July 11, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
An article for you from F A.
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AFTER BILL
Jun 26th 2008
Microsoft knows what it wants to do when Bill Gates leaves--but the
road ahead will not be easy
"DOES Microsoft still have a big, hairy audacious goal?" Not everybody
would presume to ask Bill Gates a question like that. But Mr Gates was
this week due to remove himself from the firm's day-to-day business, to
become its non-executive chairman, and Tim O'Reilly, a noted internet
guru, felt emboldened to commit LeSE MAJESTe. Putting "a computer on
every desk and in every home" had been the original mission of
Microsoft, which Mr Gates founded more than 30 years ago. But now the
job is pretty much done, at least in the West, and Microsoft is the
world's largest software company. What is its mission now, Mr O'Reilly
recently asked at a technological shindig, called "All Things
Digital"--other than just to sell as much software as it can?
Mr Gates (pictured with Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and
strategy officer, left, and Ray Ozzie, chief software architect, right)
is leaving Microsoft for the charitable foundation he set up with his
wife, Melinda, even as his firm is in some disorder. Windows,
Microsoft's all-conquering operating system, has become so complex,
some say, that it is collapsing under its own weight. Its latest
version, Vista, is not a complete flop, but it is a huge
disappointment. Many users prefer the previous one, XP, and Microsoft
is already hyping the next, Windows 7. Microsoft is also struggling to
keep up with Google, its main rival. It recently announced a product
that pays consumers money if they buy something through an
advertisement next to its search results--a gambit that smacks of
desperation. And the firm's aborted bid for Yahoo!, an online giant,
has done nothing to reassure investors. As a result, Microsoft's shares
continue to do worse than the industry average. Some observers have
started to wonder whether Microsoft should not break itself up--for
instance into a legacy business, containing Windows and Office, a
service unit, and games, where the company has recently been most
innovative.
Mr Gates's reply to Mr O'Reilly was not entirely reassuring. The firm,
he said, now has dozens of "quests"--revolutionising television,
automating data centres and creating software ten times faster. Perhaps
this fragmentation of Microsoft's ambition is only natural. In its 33
hectic years the company has swollen to nearly 90,000 employees (see
charts); revenues this year should exceed $60 billion and net income
reach almost $18 billion. Even Microsoft's own senior executives
struggle to grasp its growing empire. The firm now sells 75 different
products, many of them in lots of versions.
In fact Mr Gates could easily have given a more pointed answer. Of all
that Microsoft hopes to achieve in the post-Gates era, one goal
dominates all others--even catching Google. That is to become the
dominant force in the forthcoming era of cloud computing--or, to
refresh Microsoft's original mission: "to supply services to every
desk, to every home and to every hand". That ought to be big and hairy
enough to satisfy even Mr O'Reilly.
To understand what that means, and the difficulties it poses Microsoft,
start with the idea that computing is undergoing one of its great
periodic shifts. In its early days, most computing took place on
mainframes. Ever-falling costs led computing to shatter--first into
minicomputers, then into personal computers (PCs) and, more recently,
hand-held devices. Now communications is catching up with hardware and
software and, thanks to cheap broadband and wireless access, the
industry is witnessing a pull back to the middle. This is leading much
computing to migrate back into huge data centres. Networks of these
computing plants form "computing clouds"--vast, amorphous, delocalised
nebulae of processing power and storage.
SERVICE WITH A SIMILE
Marc Benioff, a cloud-computing pioneer and the boss of
Salesforce.com[1], which helps firms manage their customers on the web
thinks this will spell the "death of software". Rather than being a big
chunk of code sitting on a hard disk on your desk, software will come
"as a service" over the internet through a browser. This idea is also
espoused by Google. Although the online giant is best known as the
world's biggest online search and advertising firm, it now also offers
many other services--plenty of which compete with Microsoft's PC
programs.
Not so fast, says Mr Ozzie. He has been Microsoft's chief software
architect since 2006 and will steer its technology after Mr Gates goes,
while Mr Mundie will take over as the company's long-term thinker and
public face. "Whenever these things happen, people think that it is
going to be a complete extreme shift," Mr Ozzie says. "But in reality
customers are very pragmatic and figure out the right mix of old and
new stuff." This mix, he argues, will depend on where people are, which
device they use and what they want to do. Instead of the death of
software, Mr Ozzie speaks of "software plus services"--the title of
Microsoft's new strategy.
He thinks of cloud computing differently. Fewer people will put the PC
at the centre of their computing universe; it will be one of many
devices connected through the web, which Mr Ozzie calls the "hub". But
what sounds like bad news for a firm making PC software is in fact a
huge opportunity, he says--because this new set-up sits well with
Microsoft's DNA. The heart of its business has always contained a
simple, powerful idea: find a market that is global in scale--one that
is split between lots of vendors and so dysfunctional; then integrate
the various parts into a "platform" and develop its chief applications;
and finally, build an "ecosystem" of developers writing programs for it.
This has been Microsoft's approach to its largest products--with
Windows as the most successful. Versions of this operating system run
on over 90% of the 1 billion PCs in use, because Microsoft has excelled
at building an ecosystem around its platform, in particular by giving
developers the tools for their job. This supercharged what economists
call "network effects": the more applications run on Windows, the more
attractive it becomes for users; that, in turn, attracts more
developers, and so it goes on. Although Mr Ozzie hesitates to put it in
such terms, his goal is to create a kind of Windows in the cloud. "If
you were to build an operating system today," he explains, "it would
not be a single piece of software that operates a single computer."
He is first tackling device integration. In a recent internal memo,
which Microsoft made public, Mr Ozzie talks of "a personal mesh of
devices--a means by which all of your devices are brought together,
managed through the web as a seamless whole." This mesh will make sure,
for instance, that devices automatically synchronise important files,
such as an address book, and that one device can control the others.
Windows has other similarities with the platform Microsoft wants to
build in the cloud. The firm plans to provide developers with tools to
weave services together into new offerings. And it will give them
ready-made routines, such as checking a user's identity, tracking his
location and processing payments.
THE CLUB IN THE CLOUD
As with all big ideas emanating from Redmond, Mr Ozzie's vision has
provoked strong reactions. Here we go again, says one side, who think
they have spotted a monopolist's latest plan for world domination.
Welcome to the club, comes the retort from the other. Google, Facebook,
Salesforce.com and others are already building similar
platforms--Microsoft is just a Johnny-come-lately hedging its bets.
Needless to say, things are a bit more complicated. Mr Ozzie's plans
amount to more than a dominant software company trying to protect its
franchise. Building a platform for the cloud does not seem such a bad
idea, since it is precisely what many in the industry are trying to do.
Yet the cloud will be based more on open standards than on proprietary
technology. It is too big and too diverse to be dominated by one
provider. And governments would be unlikely to allow one firm to
control such an important infrastructure.
As Mr Ozzie rightly points out, it is the very essence of the shift
towards services, that computing now allows for applications and data
to sit where it is technically most appropriate--or, just as important,
where users prefer. And people are not about to throw out their
powerful PCs or other "client" devices anytime soon, not least because
they will sometimes be offline. Even Google is now offering software
that allows its applications to be used off the internet.
The problem is that, so far, Microsoft does not have much to show for
its plans, says Brent Thill, director of software research at Citi
Investment Research. Take Windows Live, a collection of online services
that in 2006 Mr Ozzie called the "hub to bring it all together". Many
of Windows Live's services are derivative and few have a lot of users.
Recently, Microsoft said that it will shut down some services,
including Windows Live Expo, a listing service for classified
advertisements.
Worse, Microsoft has not got much to show for its huge investments in
online search, the killer application in Google's cloud. The firm's
market share in search is only 8.5% in America, compared with Google's
share of more than 60%. As a result, Microsoft's online-advertisement
platform has not succeeded either. That matters, because even if
companies pay for their cloud services, most consumer services will be
funded by advertising. This explains why Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's
boss, was prepared to pay $47.5 billion for Yahoo! The online giant
would have been an "accelerator" in its quest to catch up with Google
in search and advertising.
But those setbacks should not obscure that Microsoft has a plan--and is
willing to put a lot of money behind it. It is spending billions to
build a network of data centres, a huge infrastructure to cope with the
expected demand for all its software-plus-services business. The
company does not disclose how many computers now populate its server
farms. It says only that it is adding 10,000 servers a month, which is
roughly the total number used by a company like Facebook.
What is more, Microsoft has already spent the past couple of years
writing software for its new platform. In April Mr Ozzie presented a
first chunk, called "Live Mesh"--in his words, the "connective tissue
that brings together devices in the cloud." It will enable users to
synchronise files on lots of computers as well as to a web desktop in
the cloud, for instance. More will come in the autumn, when Microsoft
is likely to publish some new tools for developers.
Microsoft is further along with its new services than most think.
Health Vault, launched in October, is not just a place where people can
store their medical details online, but a service that can connect to
all sorts of monitoring devices, as well as software used by hospitals
and doctors. Microsoft is likely to come up with combinations of
consumer and institutional data in other areas, such as education. It
hopes they will become the killer aps of the new platform, rather as
Word and Excel were for Windows.
Microsoft's familiar products are also being recast for the cloud.
Sometimes the change is modest. The latest versions of Office, the
software package that includes Word and Excel, enable users to share
files and collaborate. Mr Ozzie argues there is no demand for a fully
featured web-based version, (though, it has to be said, the old
desktop-bound Office is one of Microsoft's biggest money-makers and one
of the main reasons for people to use Windows). Other overhauls are
more ambitious. Customers will soon have the choice of running
Microsoft's business programs, such as its mail-server software,
Exchange, on their own computers or in the cloud. Chris Capossela, who
oversees this shift at Microsoft, expects half of the mailboxes managed
by Exchange to be online.
This flurry of activity in Redmond does not guarantee Microsoft success
in the cloud. Top of the list of Redmond watchers' worries is the
firm's culture and management. Mary Jo Foley, a long-time Microsoft
correspondent, thinks it will lose something vital when Mr Gates walks
out of the door. She concludes in her recently published book
"Microsoft 2.0" that if "Microsoft were still the company it was ten or
20 years ago, with the simultaneously ruthless and cautious Gates at
the helm," she would have "no qualms" about predicting its success.
The firm has become bloated, insiders say. "It's a huge problem.
Microsoft has so much raw potential, but it needs extreme leadership to
break out of the bureaucratic morass it encumbered itself with," says
the book's foreword, written by "Mini-Microsoft[2]", an anonymous
blogger-cum-employee who is required reading for Microsoft watchers.
If Microsoft has made one excellent hire in recent years, it is Mr
Ozzie. Although he is unlikely to become a public figure in the mould
of Mr Gates, he is more in tune with a style of computing in which
everything is connected. He understands that a take-no-prisoners
attitude will get you only so far. Mr Ozzie is also level-headed,
hands-on and a brilliant technologist. He himself wrote much of Lotus
Notes, an early collaborative program, and came to Microsoft when it
bought his latest start-up, Groove Networks, in 2005.
Yet some think Microsoft needs more fresh blood in its upper echelons.
Although some veterans have recently left and some new executives have
been hired, many senior positions are still filled by people who have
been with the company for more than a decade, says Michael Cusumano, a
professor at the MIT's Sloan School of Management and the author of a
book on the inner workings of Microsoft. Can a veteran leadership team,
he asks, foresee how the software business will change? And can it
attract a new generation of employees to the company?
BILLET DOUX
Microsoft is no longer the chosen workplace for many young geeks.
Second-generation internet firms, such as Google and Facebook, have
more "mind share". The same is true for investors and users, which is
partly why Microsoft will launch a $300m rebranding campaign later this
year. To make Microsoft hip again, the firm has hired one of America's
coolest advertising agencies, Crispin Porter+Bogusky.
Microsoft's image is still tarnished by the antitrust saga of a decade
ago, when it was judged to have abused its Windows monopoly. That would
prove a more serious stain if it stops consumers from trusting the firm
with their personal data, a necessary part of many cloud services.
After similar antitrust woes, IBM took decades to shed its reputation
for being overbearing and arrogant. It managed partly by becoming a
champion of industry standards and open-source software.
Microsoft is treading a similar path. The firm has already
changed--whether the American and the European antitrust actions have
tamed it, or customers want different behaviour, or Microsoft has just
grown up. It has become more open--it no longer wants to lock the world
into its own proprietary technology. "We have matured a lot," says Mr
Mundie, who spearheaded this opening-up.
Microsoft has indeed done many things that would not have seemed
possible a few years ago. It has embraced industry standards, published
"interoperability principles" that guide its developers, and released
thousands of pages describing how its programs work together, so that
rival products can join in. To boot, Microsoft has accepted that
open-source software is here to stay. It has adopted some of the
techniques of volunteer developers, given them code and even put some
open-source code in its programs.
Still, many do not believe in the new Microsoft. When INFORMATION WEEK,
an American computing magazine, surveyed some 500 technology
professionals, more than half said they thought that Microsoft's
openness was mostly a publicity campaign. In a recent speech that was
widely interpreted as taking a swipe at Microsoft, Neelie Kroes, the
European Union's competition commissioner, said that governments and
businesses would do well to use software based on open standards. And
Matt Asay, a blogger and executive of Alfresco, an open-source software
company, speaks for many in the open-source movement when he says that
Microsoft "is the only major software company other than SAP that has
not fully engaged with the open-source community."
Microsoft's approach to open source hints that the firm has not yet
made up its mind what it wants to be. Even as the company seemed to
have made peace with the other camp, signing licensing deals with
open-source companies, it accused open-source software fans of
violating 235 of its patents and threatened legal action.
The defining test of Microsoft's openness will be whether it tries to
use its monopoly on the desktop to gain an unfair advantage in the
cloud by tightly integrating--or "bundling"--software and services.
Critics say the firm has already tried to favour its online search
service in its Windows Vista operating system, but backed off when
Google complained. Mr Mundie, however, is eager to offer reassurance:
although Microsoft will make its software and services work well
together, it will do nothing unlawful, he says: "The company has been
quite clear how we are thinking about interoperability."
Microsoft is in transition. "The Road Ahead" will not be as straight or
as smooth as it was on the cover of Mr Gates's bestseller, written in
1995. Yet Microsoft is unlikely to hit a wall, as IBM did after Mr
Gates steered his own big shift in computing all those years ago--if
only because Microsoft has a clearer view of the future. And if the
worst happens, watch out for Mr Gates returning to put his creation
back in the fast lane.
-----
[1] http://www.salesforce.com
[2] http://minimsft.blogspot.com/
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Thursday, June 19, 2008
AX central development book
The following page from the "Axapta Central/Dynamics AX Pro" website has been sent to you by F A ( farhan.ahmad.cheema@gmail.com ).
You can access it at the following url:
http://www.axaptacentral.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=210&Itemid=0
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
The ultimate integration of Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Office
The ultimate integration of Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Office
Use Microsoft Dynamics and the 2007 Microsoft Office system together for best results
Better together: Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Office make a powerful pair
Seamless integration between Microsoft Dynamics business applications and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity tools is now within reach.
In summary:
•Tight integration between Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Office gives users a familiar interface
•Other Dynamics features, such as SmartList and Snap, bring deeper functionality
•Standard programming technology makes custom integration even easier
Every IT staffer with any amount of experience knows the ramifications of deploying applications from multiple vendors that must exchange critical business data. It means more time spent integrating or customizing the applications within IT, more training for workers, and more technical support calls. Such issues are especially prevalent when one of the applications involved serves the entire company, such as an ERP or other core business application. Because these applications tightly integrate multiple modules relating to various departments such as finance and human resources, individual workers might not have the perspective to understand why the process for accessing information seems complicated or non-intuitive.
Having seamless integration is a huge advantage. Other systems may say they integrate with Outlook, but they may only synchronize the data once a day. 
Jim Veraldi
MicroStrategies
One way of solving the challenge is to give workers a familiar interface in which to work. That's why Microsoft endeavors to integrate its Microsoft Dynamics business management applications (which include Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and its ERP line consisting of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics GP, and Microsoft Dynamics SL, and) so closely with its Microsoft Office applications (including Microsoft Office Outlook, Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Excel, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server). Such integration keeps workers productive and minimizes calls to IT. For instance, employees can export Dynamics data into Microsoft Office Excel to for easier analysis and sharing.
There are three key ways Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Office applications work together. Besides their basic integration in terms of interface and workflow, Microsoft Dynamics also offers SmartLists and Snap applications, which simplify the task of exchanging information between the applications.
Built-in integration between Dynamics and Office
The Microsoft Dynamics application most closely integrated with Office is probably Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which handles customer relationship management including sales, marketing, and customer service. "This is a very advanced back-end integration, where employees or administrators simply need to define the data that need to be exchanged or integrated," says Dr. Michael Pachlatko, CEO of smartpoint IT consulting GmbH, a Microsoft Certified Partner in Linz, Austria. "All this happens without any programming, because it's just configuration of standard features."
In fact, to many employees, the interface to Microsoft Dynamics CRM is exclusively Microsoft Office Outlook. They can look up customer information through the Contacts feature, contact customers by e-mail, schedule meetings through the Calendar feature, and capture customer discussions through the Notes feature. In addition, by adding a Microsoft Dynamics CRM toolbar within Office Outlook, workers can access other folders within the Microsoft Dynamics CRM system.
"No one wants to maintain separate contacts and calendars," says Jim Veraldi, executive vice president at MicroStrategies, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in Denville, N.J., that focuses on Microsoft Dynamics and infrastructure. He cites transparent, real-time synchronization as an enormous advantage. "Other systems may say they integrate with Outlook, but they may only synchronize the data once a day."
Another part of the Office family where Microsoft is improving integration: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, which handles collaboration and workflow. Employees working in Microsoft Dynamics CRM can create custom reports to automatically post on an appropriate SharePoint site for immediate access by everyone in the organization.
Tools and applications to get to the next level
SmartList for Microsoft Dynamics GP
Beyond the basic integration, another option is the SmartList feature within Microsoft Dynamics GP. SmartLists encompass several dozen reports that employees can click on from the toolbar, such as that day's purchases, back-ordered items, or inactive customers. They can then export the reports into either Microsoft Excel spreadsheets or Microsoft Word documents. "The finance people love this," says Mike Gifford, professional services director at Stanley Stuart Yoffee & Hendrix, Inc., a Maitland, Fla.-based Microsoft Gold Certified Partner specializing in Microsoft Dynamics deployments. "They can dump data into Excel and then play with it."
As for exporting data into Word, employees can craft templates for thank-you notes, updates, or even collection letters. Using contact information from the SmartList report and a pre-defined template, they can create personalized letters for e-mail distribution soon after an order is received or an account deemed past due.
Microsoft Dynamics Snap
For the Microsoft Dynamics AX and the Microsoft Dynamics CRM applications, Microsoft Dynamics Snap applications allow for better integration with Office applications (Snap applications are packaged as part of the Microsoft Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office). These applications allow workers to interact with Microsoft Dynamics business information from within Office. Currently, six "snap-ins," as they're called, are available:
•Business Data Search Snap-in (search data across SharePoint, Dynamics AX, and Dynamics CRM)
•Business Data Lookup Snap-in (insert business data into Word, Excel, or e-mail)
•Custom Report Generator Snap-in (create custom reports in Excel)
•Timesheet Management Snap-in (use Calendar appointments to create timesheets)
•Vacation Management Snap-in (use Outlook to submit vacation requests)
•Expense Management Snap-in (submit and approve expense reports in SharePoint)
•Customer Journal Snap-in (capture open orders and credit history in one document)
Employees can use these applications without IT assistance, however, the IT department will need to install and manage the applications. Even so, they go a long way toward improving productivity for IT by eliminating time spent doing specialized programming, according to Pachlatko.
Custom integration
Naturally, there are times when the IT department still needs to develop custom integration between applications. These can relate to specialized needs based on customer or partner requests, compliance or regulatory issues. Manufacturers, for instance, may need to report what they imported through certain international ports over specific time periods. Gifford notes that Integration Tools for Dynamics GP or the Developer Toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 allows you to build Microsoft .NET-based solutions, customizations, and extensions. These tools give the IT department familiar programming interfaces to ease the process.
Each of the [Dynamics] products has integration capabilities, according to Gifford. "You can take other applications, such as a medical billing application, and pull that data into the accounting module of Dynamics," says Gifford. "You can pull data from many sources, but still use the same code to request the data." This lets you automate processes more quickly and easily.
The result for IT staffers is the ability to do more in less time. Because Dynamics applications use industry-standard development tools such as Component Object Model standards, ActiveX, and C++, it creates a wealth of possibilities for integration and functionality," according to Gifford: "There's almost no limit to what you can do in terms of either creating new modules or setting up new interfaces."
Silicon Valley-based freelancer Howard Baldwin writes regularly for the Microsoft Midsize Business Center. His work has also appeared on AllBusiness.com and in CIO.
The ultimate integration of Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Office
Friday, June 6, 2008
Selecting ERP System
This is an article Mr. Andy Pratico wrote for APICS on selecting ERP systems. I hope you pull out a few nuggets.
Andy Pratico
Infor
C: 801-602-9246
An ERP Selection Process that Guarantees Results!
There are over 1,000 manufacturing systems in North America and yet The Wall Street Journal has stated that 73 % of all manufacturers are dissatisfied with their current ERP systems.
Why?
There are a number of theories why implementations have problems:
- Poor planning or no planning at all
- Top Management not involved or did not commit to the project- Unreliable data
- Lack of training or implementation assistance
- Poor selection process
- Lost project momentum- Business processes are not corrected
But the main reason that implementations fail is the legacy selection process commonly used is flawed.
The Budget Approval Dance
The first step in any selection process is expenditure approval. Middle managers spend days defining their selection process plan. The more detailed the budget approval request is, the more detailed the selection plan is, the more due diligence is assumed and therefore perceived risk is lessened. The legacy selection plan usually contains:
- A multiple page, detailed system requirements definition (sent to a short list of vendors for confirmation), and submitted as a Request for Proposal (RFP)
- Multiple, onerous sales demos with various systems
- Telephone reference calls on the selected vendor
The middle manager can get so obsessed with budget approval; and, the upper manager can get so consumed in confirming the selection process is sound, that the most important objective in selecting a new system can be overlooked. The most important goal should be to ensure your company is successful with the new system! Any other consideration should be secondary.
Systems Today Are Function-Rich
The more you evaluate systems, the more you recognize that all have an abundance of functionality. The reason they fail is not a lack of information, it is the exact opposite. They are too cumbersome and too difficult to learn.
Then why do we devote our entire search to evaluating which system has the best and/or most functionality? Is it because new systems are purchased only every ten years, therefore, no one individual has the experience to learn from their mistakes?
Let™s review the legacy selection approach described above.
1 - Issue a detailed multi-page novel called the system requirements list to all software vendors to fill out (honestly) thereby confirming which match. However software companies want to remain in consideration, and are motivated to answer each question with a carefully worded, yes we do that!
2 - The selection team then shoulders the arduous task of reviewing sales demos in an attempt to decipher the differences. Sales demos are designed to look good. If the sales demo did not look good, the software company would go out of business. Software companies hire professional presenters who know precisely which keystrokes will present their software in the best light.
Remember the first day you looked at the system you use now? How difficult did it seem then versus today? How many months did it take before the haze lifted and the system became second nature? Is it possible to recognize the pros and cons of a system you are reviewing for the first time in an 8 hour, sales demo?
3 - You now call references to confirm that companies are happy with their systems. Where did you get the references from? Did the software vendor carefully select bullet-proof customers that swear the software turns water into wine?
4 - And voila ¦ you have selected the very best system for your company. Or have you?
A Fresh Approach To Selecting ERP Systems
If time is money, then speed is profit. How can we speed up the ERP selection process, yet not fall into the same traps as the majority do, which fail?
The most important factor in selecting a new system is: to make sure your company is successful with the new system. If 73% of manufacturers are not satisfied with their current ERP system and used the same selection process as you, why will yours be different? Maybe a different process should be investigated.
Not to mention that the step-by-step, due diligence process historically used, costs $10,000s of internal resource time.
This 3-Step Plan is only common sense. But best of all, it will take far less time to complete and your results will be guaranteed!
Step 1 " Define the critical requirements that are unique to your company and match to the vendors on your short list. Please note: Critical requirements only. You have to assume that all systems will have an Aged Trial Balance. This list should not be longer than two pages. Only continue to step 2 with those that sufficiently match.
Step 2 " Visit a company using the system, preferably one you can drive to, in a similar industry and size as your own. You may not get all criteria matched, but ask. With these demands, it is more difficult for the vendor to select who you visit.I once heard of a manufacturer who was paid to be a positive reference for a software firm, yet they did not even use the software.A visit is so much better than a phone call that in fact, it can take the place of the sales demo entirely.
Step 3 " After the first 2 steps, you should have a favorite system. If you are still not comfortable enough to take the plunge, this final step eliminates any further risk. Ask this vendor to bring in the trainer you will work with after the sale is complete, not the professional presenter. Trainers have to live with their promises after the sale, and will be quite forward about what the system can, or cannot do.
Have the trainer set up the software around your requirements and enter a sub-set of your data. The intention will be to present the system as if it were live at your facility. Offer to pay for this service. Trainers are not offered to prospective clients because existing customers are paying them to implement their projects. This proof of concept pilot may cost a few thousand dollars, but will be far less expensive than the time-consuming step-by-step method.
The most important factor in selecting a system is to make sure your company is successful with the new system. This 3-step process will guarantee results. Why would you use any other method?
Remember, if you fail to implement, why do you care what the software does?
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Key Success Factors for ERP Implementation:
Key Users Time |
Users Adaptability |
Dedicated Project Team |
Effective Communication |
Steering Committee Involvement |
Direct involvement of Stake Holders |
Balance Resources/Time/Cost Triangle |
Users Willingness |
Healthy Data Collection |
Less Customization |
Acceptance of Change Management |
Wish/Must list agreement |
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