Lawson Software, a global enterprise resource planning (ERP) software vendor, announced on December 20 that it will acquire Enwisen; a privately owned software-as-as-service (SaaS)-based human capital management (HCM) software vendor based in Navato, California and currently with around 260 customers. Read the rest of this entry »

The backstory: a lawsuit filed in 2008 by Alabama pet food maker Sunshine Mills over a Ross Systems ERP implementation.

Fast-forward to December 3, 2010, when an Alabama jury awarded Sunshine Mills $61 million (USD) in damages ($45 million of which were punitive).
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Part 1 of this blog series started with a discussion of the fact that the ability to sense demand and become a demand-driven (responsive) business is more than just the catch phrase du jour: it has become a recipe for survival. For the past few decades, the providers of a multiplicity of by-and-large integrated manufacturing software solutions have been offering help for embattled manufacturers. From fully integrated business management systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) down to more focused modular plant-level solutions, including Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) systems, manufacturers have been perplexed by how to best combine and deploy these options and islands of information.

My posting concluded that ERP systems are good for long-term planning and transactional accounting, but not necessarily appropriate for scheduling and execution on the shop floor. Only those companies that have infinite (or lots to spare) capacity, low product mix, high customer tolerance for long order lead times, and low inventory holding costs could get by using ERP for scheduling.

In other words, not many manufacturers can be fully satisfied by ERP. The next logical question was whether Lean Manufacturing practices could alleviate the abovementioned ERP shortfalls. Part 2 then acknowledged that lean ERP capabilities are well suited for producing parts with level demand (so-called “runners” in Preactor’s apt lingo) but not necessarily for parts with variable demands and make-to-order (MTO) traits (so-called “repeaters” and “strangers”).

This realization has created a coming-of-age environment for APS systems, whose first generation of products a decade ago has had their share of mixed results. The final part of this series will analyze how APS, as a manufacturing glue of sorts, relates to ERP, lean manufacturing, and MES. Is there a value proposition for integrating all these disparate systems? 

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Part 1 of this series introduced SuccessFactors, a public provider of software as a service (SaaS) talent management solutions. My post first analyzed the vendor’s evolution from its traditional People Performance realm to the seemingly more opportune Business Execution (BizX) province.

Then, I talked about SuccessFactors’ multiple product editions to satisfy companies of all size and detailed the two core modules of the SuccessFactors BizX suite of applications: Performance Management and Goal Management. These core modules serve as the foundation for the BizX application suite, as visibility into employee performance and organizational goals are the necessary basis for other activities, such as recruiting, learning & development, compensation, and succession planning. 

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I recently had the opportunity to meet with Centric Software and get to know more about Centric 8 Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Sourcing Solutions for the fashion industry. Among the interesting topics discussed, a recently launched product called Collection Book for Fashion iPad app was most impressive. In my view, this iPad app is a great product, as it takes advantage of the user interface (UI) feature of the iPad. However, even more important is the mechanism behind this popular mobile device—the enhanced connectivity between fashion designers and customers who purchase products from fashion manufacturers for wholesale or retail purposes. Read the rest of this entry »

With 2010 almost behind us, the Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) research analyst team takes a brief look at some of the newest software products to join its roster.

• MicroStrategy, MicroStrategy 9
• Plex Systems, Plex Online
• Sage, Sage ABRA HRMS 
• SmartOrg, Portfolio Navigator
• Vormittag Associates, Inc. (VAI), S2K Enterprise

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It’s that time of year again for TEC’s analysts to polish their crystal balls and spread their tarot cards to gaze on the future of enterprise software for 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

My recent exhaustive series of articles on sales & operations planning (S&OP) entitled “APICS 2009 From the Expo Floor: Is S&OP Coming of Age?” and the related blog post entitled “Linking S&OP and CPFR (For Retailers and Manufacturers Sake): An Executive Panel Discussion” have drawn solid interest and valuable feedback. But even more, this prolonged exposure on the S&OP topic has resulted with an offer from Kinaxis to join the guest interview series on the Kinaxis blog on the same topic.

Prior to my participation, Kinaxis had published nearly a dozen blog posts from a series of expert guests (i.e., “a who’s who in S&OP”) including Lora Cecere of Altimeter Group, Coco Crum of Oliver Wight, Tom Wallace of TF Wallace & Co., Simon Ellis of IDC, Nari Viswanathan of Aberdeen, Steve Puricelli of Accenture, Bob Ferrari of the Supply Chain Matters blog, and Atul Pandey of Infosys, to name only a few.  You can see all the posts here.  

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Epicor, a global leader dedicated to providing integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), and professional service automation (PSA) software solutions to midmarket companies and divisions of the Global 1000, announced yesterday that it would be acquiring Spectrum Human Resource Systems Corporation. Read the rest of this entry »

Although information analysis continues to be vital for insights into a company’s health and future, the traditional data warehouse structure may already be past its best-before date, due to major and radical transformations in the market.

It may just be a matter of “Evolve or Die”. . . Read the rest of this entry »

In addition to the Giants’ Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series 2010 victory, San Francisco has been even more famous for its software powerhouses, spearheaded by mighty and ever-acquisitive Oracle and the cloud computing trailblazer salesforce.com. Another company from the same metro area that has lately had admiration and accolades lavished upon it is SuccessFactors, a player in the software as a service (SaaS) talent management market.

In fact, a number of SuccessFactors employees are former Oracle and salesforce.com alumni, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some trickles of employees going in other direction too. In any case, SuccessFactors was founded in 2001 by Lars Dalgaard, who previously held various general management positions at Unilever, a global packaged consumer and industrial goods company, in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. In November 2007, the company went public on the NASDAQ Global Market under the stock symbol SFSF. 

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Web directories are great resources for people looking for a consolidated listing of companies, products, services, and other items. Organized in series of categories and menus, directories can be quite broad, such as the well-known Yahoo! Directory, or more specialized to cater to particular niche audiences like arts & crafts fanatics. Some directories are free, while others are based on a paid subscription-only access. Regardless, the goal of all Web directories is to help users find the source of information they seek. Read the rest of this entry »

This year, product lifecycle management (PLM) vendors have put many interesting initiatives on display to PLM buyers. These initiatives include the possibility of generating more synergies between enterprise search and PLM, more intuitive decision support in design and engineering, connectivity between direct modeling and history-based modeling in computer-aided design (CAD), social product development in the cloud, etc.

Although most of these initiatives need more time before we can really testify to their value—i.e., the execution of these visions is the challenge that vendors are facing—I believe the PLM industry is shifting from functionality-driven to vision-driven. Read the rest of this entry »

A note last week from Bradenton.com announced the availability of SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance (HANA), as well as it’s the release of SAP BusinessObjects Strategic Workforce Planning Application as the first application to take advantage of SAP HANA. Read the rest of this entry »

I attended Judith Rothrock’s 2010 Analyst Roadshow event in Boston last week, and was startled by a few news items from ERP vendors UNIT4 and SYSPRO. Here’s my take:

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