When it’s time to buy, TEC‘s granular analysis helps companies choose the right software solutions

Selecting enterprise software is complicated and time consuming, and leaves little room for error. With budgets, and sometimes jobs on the line, it’s no surprise that IT decision makers look to analyst firms to help them minimize the costs and risks of making the wrong choice. Expert advice can be the key to a successful software selection project, as long as you’re getting the right information at each stage of the process. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the reasons why Infor, despite its over 70,000 large customer base, hasn’t been regarded as a serious enterprise applications contender has been the company’s spotty relationship with its channel partners. Partners currently contribute only about 25 percent of Infor’s license revenue (except for Latin America, where that ratio is 50 percent).

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My recent post (Software and Human) Help Wanted in Overwhelmed Retail Stores talked about how much attention (and IT investment) retailers pay to their merchandize planning and supply chain optimization processes as compared to their store-level task execution, even though this is where “the rubber meets the road.” I concluded my post with the fact that there are dozens of retail workforce management (WFM) vendors and solutions, but not many have the required store-level task management capabilities.

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In this service economy it is not surprising to hear about smart innovative companies whose businesses have been blossoming due to the superior customer service they provide. Zappos and its “Powered by Service” tagline is a crown example.

Many vendors that offer customer service software solutions, especially those that bundle customer relationship management (CRM) with business process management (BPM) capabilities and even infuse knowledge in the service process, have been doing quite well, such as Pegasystems, SwordCiboodle, salesforce.com’s Service Cloud 3, inQuira, RightNow, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Customer Care Framework (CCF), and so on and so forth. But achieving consistently excellent customer service and satisfaction is not easy by any stretch of imagination. Research shows that over the last 15 years customer satisfaction has dropped by over 20 points (true, we as customers are becoming more fastidious, but that is our right, isn’t it?) while the cost per interaction has more than doubled, in great part due to agents’ errors and repeated service resulting in issue resolution calls.

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This just in—Tenrox has joined the ranks of TEC Certified systems providing project portfolio management (PPM) functionality.

See TEC’s Vendor Showcase for updated Tenrox profiles: Read the rest of this entry »

Seeking to expand the reach of its business intelligence (BI) solutions to small to midsize enterprises (SMEs), on June 14, 2011, SAP unveiled new releases of BusinessObjects Edge Business Intelligence suite and SAP Crystal Reports Server for SMEs, both slated for availability in the third quarter of 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series analyzed the runaway success and genesis of Microsoft SharePoint or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). The article outlined the main reasons for the collaborative product’s widespread use and then analyzed its evolution.

Part 2 talked about SharePoint’s typical proven use case scenarios as well as about the product’s shortcomings and points of concern. Due to its workflow management and document management system (DMS) capabilities companies often attempt to use SharePoint as a full-fledged business process management (BPM) platform, but how successfully?

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Over the past few months, analysts at Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) have been working on a new research space for talent management. I’m happy to announce that the Talent Management research space for talent management systems is now online and available to the public.

Talent Management: What’s In It?

TEC’s new Talent Management research space is geared toward end users looking for solutions to manage their business workforce—their most valuable asset! This research space for talent management systems includes vendor-related information such as white papers, case studies, articles, and reports, and contains a talent management model that you can use as a request for information (RFI).

This RFI can help you determine the talent management activities that you perform within your organization, and how important specific functionalities are to your selection of talent management software. The Talent Management model addresses the following software functionality:

• Recruitment and Staffing
• Personnel Management
• Career Development & Succession Planning
• Learning Management
• Performance & Compensation Management
• Workforce Planning
• Product Technology

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My recent series on Quantum Retail presented the many difficult merchandise range and assortment planning issues that retailers face, and the ensuing tough decisions that they have to continually make in that regard. But a lesser-known fact is that even though retailers spend multiple billions of dollars on planning activities and supporting tools to bring customers to their stores, they only execute at about 60 percent efficiency in their stores at best, thus leaving trillions of dollars in merchandise at risk. Read the rest of this entry »

According to a poll conducted by KDnuggets, salaries in the analytics and data mining space are up in 2011. While there is no direct proof that the data explosion is increasing the need for business intelligence (BI) or business analytics (BA) specialists, it’s only natural that the increase in BI software adoption and demand for analytics should promote the growth of BI job offerings. Read the rest of this entry »

Q: How many doomsday prophets does it take to change a light bulb?
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Part 1 of this blog series introduced Needham, Massachusetts (US)-based Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC, NASDAQ: PMTC), which is an over US$1-billion large software company that develops, markets, and supports product development software solutions and related services. My post analyzed the company’s genesis from its inception in 1985 through the mid 2000s.

Part 2 then analyzed the most recent acquisitions of the products that have meanwhile been turned into integrated modules for the idea, concept, and product design phases of the product lifecycle within PTC Windchill 10.0, which started shipping in April 2011. My post established that the product lifecycle management (PLM) arena, also referred to as “Enterprise Solutions,” and the realm of computer-aided technologies (CAx), referred to as “Desktop Solutions,” the two distinct markets that PTC serves, represent different growth opportunities for the vendor.

Part 2 concluded with an analysis of the PTC Windchill PLM suite [evaluate this product], which is one of PTC’s main product lines and growth engines. Part 3 of this blog series will analyze the current state of affairs of PTC’s desktop solutions (including the novel PTC Creo suite of applications) and the company’s competitive positioning.

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