Today at Dreamforce Salesforce introduced the Marketing Cloud. The platform offers several capabilities that appear to be handy for marketers. Social listening enables users to gain real-time insight into more than 400 million social sources. Social content facilitates the publishing of content on venues that are close to customers (social networks, mobile apps, or Web sites). Social engagement allows for multichannel communication with customers. Social advertising enables marketing teams to organize and deliver social ad campaigns. Social workflow and automation uses analytics to filter and organize the large mass of conversations occurring simultaneously. Track campaign ROI displays real-time feedback regarding the profitability of campaigns.

UNIT4 is known for providing its software applications to a wide range of not-for-profit and non-governmental organizations, and a signed contract with one of the largest US-based environmental organization is another step in this direction. Read the rest of this entry »

In the first two parts of this series (part I, part II), Jim, director of IT at MegaResistCap, learned that the company’s recently rolled out enterprise resource planning (ERP) system would have to support global trade management (GTM) functionality more quickly than expected. He had sent an e-mail off to his chief information officer (CIO), Mike, suggesting a new project be set up and managed by the project management office, MegaPMO. Now, with some trepidation, he awaited the response from the CIO.

The week following Jim’s e-mail passed without a reply to his message. Was the CIO trying to distance himself from Jim’s message? Was the executive operational committee upset by the suggestion of another software project after they just got through the high-cost ERP rollout? Or did they agree with the suggested approach? Read the rest of this entry »

Dell is partnering with India-headquartered Ramco Systems to deliver Ramco’s well-rounded ERP solution on cloud to help businesses, particularly from the midmarket, achieve operational efficiencies and generate greater revenue. The solution offers functionalities spanning corporate functions, including production planning, finance, procurement, HR, and analytics. The cloud ERP offering includes productized services designed to achieve quick time-to-market.

Given that the who’s who of cloud ERP vendors are typically centered in North America and Europe, the high profile of Dell’s alliances is a nice boost for Ramco. Also, it is not likely that, say, NetSuite, Plex Online, or SAP Business ByDesign could provide Dell with as strong an infrastructure in India and the Middle East as Ramco can

TEC profile: Ramco Systems

Today, at Dreamforce, Infor announced the launch of Inforce Marketing, a marketing automation system developed on the Salesforce Platform. Some of the new functionality includes an improved visibility over leads, costs, results, and revenues; multi-channel support for campaigns that can include e-mail, direct mail, social media, and telemarketing; lead validation and assessment; and reporting and analysis tools that plan, manage, and monitor revenue objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) across each stage of the revenue cycle. I would be interested to know how Infor plans to manage Inforce and Epiphany (its other CRM solution) in parallel.

FinancialForce Accounting Summer ’12 is launched just in time for the Dreamforce 2012 conference. FinancialForce Accounting has been extended to work with Salesforce Service Cloud (previously it worked with Salesforce Sales Cloud only). This integration is expected to eliminate the proverbial gap between customer service and finance functions and to turn the customer service center (call center) from a cost center to a profit center. Why? Because customer service departments are absorbing ever-more customer interactions, creating the need for a broader, deeper view of customers. Read the rest of this entry »

10Gen and Microsoft have signed an agreement that will enable MongoDB users on Windows Azure to access MongoDB’s latest features and ensure the best possible user experience. For example, newly available is the MongoDB Installer for Windows Azure to automate the deployment process.

MongoDB users will be able to take advantage of features such as triple data replication and tutorials—for example, how to deploy a single standalone MongoDB server to Windows Azure Virtual Machines for Windows 2008 R2 Server and CentOS, which opens the door for Linux users to work within Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure.

Oracle announced the acquisition of SelectMinds, a company that developed a cloud-based social referral engine. SelectMinds’ tool was “designed to leverage the social connections of current and former employees to generate referral applications.” The addition of  SelectMinds to Oracle’s recruitment and talent management solutions aims to ensure high-quality referrals to organizations interested in benefiting from the social intelligence of their employees. This acquisition confirms, once more, that the social component is no longer optional for major software solutions. It remains to be seen how Oracle will integrate this new solution into its already complicated HCM offer.

Dassault Systèmes touts Perfect Shelf as a game-changing industry solution experience for consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers and retail companies. It seems to be a rebranding of the 3DVIA Store offering. Read the rest of this entry »

TEC is preparing a new Financial Packages Buyer’s Guide, and we’d like to hear your thoughts on cloud-based finance and accounting software. Your responses to the questions below will help us keep the guide focused on the needs of real-world accountants, financial managers, IT specialists, and other professionals. Read the rest of this entry »

It would be an understatement to say that Deltek, the leading global provider of enterprise software and information solutions for professional services firms and government contractors, has had an interesting journey since it was founded in 1983 by the deLaski duo of father and son. In 2005, the original founders sold their majority ownership and gave up day-to-day involvement in the company, and Deltek was recapitalized by a private equity organization called New Mountain Capital based in New York, NY. The software company went public again in November 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

The IFS agreement with Saab demonstrates that IFS isn’t just a midmarket vendor. IFS has promoted its ability to support the midmarket so well that many enterprise level companies overlook IFS Applications when replacing their legacy systems. That said, the vendor has made a number of enhancements over the past few releases that improve its capabilities to support large, global companies, which is also why we are seeing more IFS press releases referring to multibillion dollar IFS customers (e.g., Technip, Saab, Brightpoint, Babcock, Linamar, etc.).

I think a lot of it has to do with companies today demanding faster time to value.  Read the rest of this entry »

The point of The Millennial Report is not so much to compare Gen Y to Gen X or other groups as it is to help retailers understand the mindset and shopping patterns of a hot consumer age-group. Read the rest of this entry »

BigMachines announces that BigMachines Express is now available on the Salesforce.com AppExchange. This solution targets small and medium-sized businesses that want to create product profiles, assign desired prices, and further generate proposals in Salesforce CRM. The solution is built on the Force.com platform, which allows for easy installation and configuration for Salesforce CRM users. The solution will be showcased at Dreamforce, September 18-21.

Zuora announces the launch of Z-Finance for subscription businesses. Zuora’s solution is built on a unique framework to address the shortcomings of traditional accounting methods. The solution complements popular accounting and ERP solutions such as FinancialForce, NetSuite, Oracle, Sage, SAP, and Quickbooks. Z-Finance is built on a framework containing multidimensional ledgers and a data model that inherently calculate subscription metrics like annual percentage rate (APR) and true cash value (TCV)—can your financial package can do this for you?