Welcome to Week 8 of TurtleSpice ERP! We’re following one company’s software selection process, from beginning to end—with a twist: It’s up to you to make sure comptroller Mike Chelonia stays on track and selects the right ERP system for the company. Cast your vote at the bottom of this post, and next week I’ll move the scenario forward based on the winning answer. Read the rest of this entry »

Part I of this blog series expanded on some of TEC’s earlier articles about companies’ need for better commission and incentives calculations and best sales performance management (SPM) practices. It also introduced the latest entry in TEC’s I&CM (Incentive & Compensation Management) Evaluation Center, Varicent Software’s flagship product, Varicent SPM [evaluate this product]. Read the rest of this entry »

Not long ago, I wrote about the pricing management and optimization software market, and in particular depth about two bullish vendors and fierce competitors in the business-to-business (B2B) manufacturing and distribution segments: Zilliant and Vendavo. Look for similar write-ups down the track on DemandTec, Symphony Metreo, and on the Servigistics pricing solution (whereby the last will focus solely on spare parts pricing and planning).

While I do not plan to cover the esoteric pricing solutions used by airlines or hospitality companies (e.g., Rapt or PROS), there is also a vibrant pricing market in the retail sector, as seen with SAP’s acquisition of former KhiMetrics and Oracle’s similar acquisition of ProfitLogic. In addition to TEC’s article entitled “The Retail Battleground for Pricing Management”, you can find more information about SAP’s perspective on the pricing market here, and Oracle’s pricing offering here.

But, the dates of all these articles will indicate that they were done during a still-solid economic milieu worldwide. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that we are now in quite a down economy. Given the dreaded “R” world hovering over us, are there any trends (or hunches) on how manufacturing, distribution and retail organizations use pricing solutions? Namely, do the enterprises have different pricing approaches in good vs. bad economic times? Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps you may have not heard the term engineer-to-order (ETO) before, but perhaps your business is one of thousands that designs and builds custom equipment that is very precise, adheres to very specific tolerances, is highly technical, and produces low volume and, generally speaking, expensive products. Some examples of such products include ships, aircraft, production machinery, etc.

The typical ETO organization Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to Week 7 of TurtleSpice ERP! We’re following one company’s software selection process, from beginning to end—with a twist: It’s up to you to make sure comptroller Mike Chelonia stays on track and selects the right ERP system for the company. Cast your vote at the bottom of this post, and next week I’ll move the scenario forward based on the winning answer. Read the rest of this entry »

Part II of this blog series continued the introduction of the concepts of workflow automation and business process management (BPM). It also zoomed in on similarities and subtle differences between the two related software categories. Finally, the idea of on-demand workflow and/or BPM solutions was introduced.

To that end, Webcom Inc. has leveraged its vast expertise earned while addressing many complex sales quote-to-order (Q2O) process issues (i.e., channel quote approvals, special pricing approvals, special non-standard product feature request approvals, etc.) and has created a brand new workflow engine, which can be (and is already) used for many generic business processes. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to TurtleSpice ERP! We’re following one company’s software selection process, from beginning to end—with a twist: It’s up to you to make sure comptroller Mike Chelonia stays on track and selects the right ERP system Read the rest of this entry »

So, I was looking over this article, and it suddenly occurred to me that there are uncanny similarities between AA’s 12-step program and the ERP selection process.

Is your business on the road to recovery? Find out!

Read the rest of this entry »

A number of earlier TEC articles and blog entries have analyzed the nascent sales performance management (SPM) or enterprise incentives management (EIM) software market, which has also been one of those areas with a significant uptake of on-demand deployments.

Indeed, companies of all size increasingly use software packages for sales compensation and other incentives management, to more accurately and strategically model and forecast commissions and other incentive-based costs and benefits, calculate commissions and bonus earnings, and gain more real-time visibility into employees’ performance metrics. Read the rest of this entry »

As a TEC research analyst, I get to see a lot of really interesting (and some not so interesting) stuff when it comes to enterprise software and the like. With technology changing at the speed of light, there’s always something new that I haven’t seen before, that grabs my attention and makes me say “Wow, that’s cool”!

Like this past week for instance. I had a product briefing with a company called Saba to get an overview of their learning management solution (LMS). I was fortunate enough to have Kenyatta Berry (Saba’s Director of Product Marketing) speak with my colleagues (TEC’s team of analysts) and I to show us Saba’s suite of enterprise software offerings. Along with that we received an overview of the company and its unique strategies for training its clients on how to use its software.   

This leads me back to my opening remark about ”something I haven’t seen before”; that something is called Saba University.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to Episode 5 of TurtleSpice ERP, our virtual ERP selection simulator!

We’re following one company’s software selection process, from beginning to end—with a twist: Read the rest of this entry »

Ramco OnDemand ERP is a full-function SaaS ERP product for the small to medium business (SMB) environment. The entire product is Web-based, accessible by your web browser, and fully supported via the Web. Read the rest of this entry »

Part I of this blog series introduced the notions of workflow automation and business process management (BPM). It also tackled the similarities and subtle differences between the two related software categories.

Microsoft, for example, informally demarcates the Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) focus on “internal processes” from Microsoft BizTalk Server’s “external BPM” use. Namely, the first tool (somewhat of a BizTalk spin-off) is used for automating processes within an enterprise (and its enterprise resource planning [ERP] system), whereas the latter is intended for inter-enterprise process orchestrations across several disparate enterprise applications. Read the rest of this entry »

According to a recent NYT article, the hotel industry saw record revenue last year reaching $138 billion, growing $28 billion from the previous year. In response, hotels increased rates and major chains like Hyatt and Marriott began planning new hotels. While the recent subprime crisis, low US dollar, and high gas prices have caused these chains to scale back new developments, they have not trimmed them down by much. Over 6,000 new hotels have been built, with a third of those still under construction. Read the rest of this entry »

Part I of this blog series introduced the notion of long tails in modern supply chains. That blog post also introduced the vendor ToolsGroup and its solution for planning and optimizing finished goods in distribution environments.

So, How Does ToolsGroup Solve the Distribution Puzzle?

Most of the benefits are driven here by the distinctive Stock Mix Optimization capability that has delivered higher service levels with much less inventory for ToolsGroup customers. As its name suggests, the feature is used to define and manage the right mix at each location in the supply network to deliver the targeted customer service level. Read the rest of this entry »