Spinnaker Support, a a provider of third-party maintenance for JD Edwards and SAP products, announced D+M Group as its latest customer. This win has multiple meanings for Spinnaker. Read the rest of this entry »

Apparently, Prince Minerals’ short list came down to IFS, Microsoft Dynamics AX, and Oracle JD Edwards. Some of the primary reasons IFS was selected were for the same as those I mentioned in my recent alert about IFS and Saab. While Saab is already a global company, Prince has aspirations to continue to grow a global footprint and saw IFS as the partner best able to help accomplish its goals. Read the rest of this entry »

Recent years have seen the Siemens Industry Automation Division extend its leading position in the industrial software market with the acquisition of UGS in the United States in 2007, innotec in Germany in 2008, Elan Software Systems in France in 2009, the Brazilian company Active Tecnologia em Sistemas de Automação, Vistagy in the US in 2011, and the German IBS AG in 2012. All of these companies were leading industrial software suppliers in their respective fields. Read the rest of this entry »

The company is called Feruni Ceramiche and it’s in the business of manufacturing and distributing ceramic and porcelain tiles across the globe. Although it started as an outsourcing facility 11 years ago, it is now a leading supplier of ceramic products in many of the world’s markets and a participant in multiple construction projects around the world.

The company has demonstrated double-digit growth year over year, and currently operates six manufacturing and distribution sites. No wonder that this quickly evolving business required a modern and adequate ERP software package to support the company’s existing and future needs.

What grabbed my attention is how seriously and carefully the company’s management attacked the software selection problem. Read the rest of this entry »

Follett School and Library Group today released three applications that will improve the reading experience of Follett eBooks. Destiny 10.5, FollettShelf, and Follett Digital Reader will allow Follett clients to easily access Follett eBooks via computer, laptops, notebooks, tablets, and smartphones. According to the press release, Follett’s intention is to encourage readers to engage with digital books as well as to transition toward digital learning. FollettShelf integrates with Follett’s Destiny platform (which includes Destiny Library Manager, Destiny Textbook Manager, and Destiny Asset Manager). 

Also launched in time for Dreamforce 2012, the sibling of FinancialForce Accounting, PSA Summer  ’12, continues FinancialForce.com’s mission to help professional services companies gain visibility into their operations to increase revenue and profits, building on the professional services automation product FinancialForce.com acquired from Appirio in 2010. PSA Summer ’12, provides visibility into the factors affecting utilization performance, allowing users to compare target, scheduled, and actual utilization back through time, including the ability to analyze the root causes impacting performance.

PSA Summer ’12 also includes new functionality to let service teams be more productive, including timecard entry improvements, context sensitive help, and revenue recognition automation enhancements. Like its accounting sibling, PSA Summer ’12 also includes access to FinancialForce Community, an online portal and social platform for FinancialForce.com’s growing user and partner community. Tenrox, Deltek Maconomy, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, and other strong PSA players should watch out for FinancialForce.com PSA.

TEC article (May 2012): Assessing FinancialForce.com’s Early Years

Meet another cloud human capital management (HCM) alternative. Vana Workforce was founded in 2008 by a seasoned human resources (HR) expert and consultant David Vanheukelom, who had previously spent several years at PeopleSoft, Oracle, and former SSA Global (now Infor). At first, he developed a comprehensive HR suite on another cloud platform, but soon after, he switched to Salesforce.com’s Force.com platform for its inherent social platform Chatter, mobility platform Touch, and other out-of-the-box development services. Read the rest of this entry »

It is hard to think of any ERP vendor that has as much cred in the automotive industry as QAD does, owing to its longstanding involvement in the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) and its standards and guidelines development. Read the rest of this entry »

Dürr Dental AG, a Germany-based family-owned manufacturer of a wide range of dental equipment, tools, and hygiene products, has conducted an ERP selection project that resulted in opting for the latest version 8 of IFS Applications ERP software. Read the rest of this entry »

Sage North America today announced the results of a snapshot survey of small to medium business (SMB) manufacturers on the general health of their businesses and use of their enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Check out Sage’s infographic.

In sum, SMB manufacturers

• have added jobs,
• are more optimistic than not about the economy, and
• believe that their ERP system has helped serve their customers’ needs while contributing to the success of their own businesses.

Read the rest of this entry »

Autodesk continues its foray into the cloud product lifecycle management (PLM) game after its recent launch of Autodesk PLM 360 and acquisition of Inforbix. Read the rest of this entry »

Apparently, retailers are now aggressively adopting demand-based science and optimization technology to personalize and localize pricing, promotions, assortments, and space. Revionics seems to be benefiting from this trend. This is a greenfield opportunity as most retailers today are still using pesky spreadsheets or basic planning tools. With that being said, there is always competition, such as IBM DemandTec, SAS, or KSS. Pricing optimization is transformational technology, so retailers look at multiple vendors before making a selection. Revionics claims to be very happy with its win rate.

TEC blog post (Jan 2010): The Art, Science & Software Behind (Optimal) Retail Pricing – Part 5 

SAS will consolidate and house data from school districts under The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) in order to modernize their systems, protect their data, and deliver savings.

The North Carolina Education Cloud (NCEdCloud), a Race to the Top initiative, will use SAS hosting services to support the critical business functions of local education agencies (LEAs).

Details apart, this is another important move by the public sector into the cloud.

Also today at Dreamforce, Salesforce announced Work.com, “a social performance management platform that helps companies align, motivate, and drive performance.” Salesforce partners with Workday, an important player in the HCM market, to offer functionalities meant to support and motivate sales and service teams. The system facilitates the communication and instant feedback between employees that work toward achieving common goals. In addition, employee performance can be easily assessed and rewarded. Perhaps the next development from Salesforce will be the integration of a social recruiting tool.

Edgewater Fullscope and Sable Systems have entered into a strategic partnership to integrate and market their products. Both companies feature Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP. This would be a prime example of Microsoft Dynamics partners bolstering their global reach and vertical focus. Microsoft has recently espoused a partner program that progressively rewards and provides incentives for partners that pick their battles and state clearly which industries and regions they plan to tackle (specialize in) and with which Microsoft Dynamics products. (In some cases, partners have developed their own add-on solutions.) While this program might appear as unfair and tough on partners with lesser wherewithal, it helps define partner specialization and avoid detrimental intra-ecosystem competition for the same deals. Edgewater and Sable are complementing each other well, both functionally and regionally.

TEC blog post (Aug 2010): Microsoft Dynamics AX: The Chosen One Among Microsoft Dynamics ERP Equals? – Part 2 
TEC overview: Microsoft Dynamics AX