Reportedly, for some time the demand planning solution from the incumbent Demand Solutions was doing an adequate job at Wayfair, including in terms of attribute-based forecasting for retail items that come in multiple variations. But as the number of stock-keeping units (SKUs) increased and lifecycles shrank, the challenge became to forecast a wide variety of heterogeneous demand behaviors (black, white, and shades of grey inbetween), such as at different stages of the product lifecycle (i.e., new product introduction [NPI], mature product, end of life [EOL]). If the process is manually intensive, imagine how unmanageable it becomes for an Internet retailer like Wayfair, who carries more than a million items. Read the rest of this entry »

Boulder City, Nevada, home of the famous Hoover Dam, has opted for Munis, cloud-based ERP software from Tyler Technologies, to replace a number of legacy applications that no longer meets its needs. A 7-year contract has been signed to provide the municipality with financial management, human capital management,  and content management functionality, along with self-service capabilities. Because of the cloud-based nature of the deployment, the client will not be “taking care” of its own data—this is the full responsibility of the vendor. All the information will be stored in Tyler’s remote data centers, not at the customer’s location.

It is pretty interesting to see that governmental and municipal authorities are increasingly accepting the idea of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud applications, including for massive, mission-critical ERP packages. I’m curious to know how long the implementation will take and how things will be looking a year from now.

The Brewer Company, a leading manufacturer of roofing and pavement maintenance materials, opted for SYSPRO ERP to help the move the company forward. The concise press release does not give any indication how thorough the ERP selection process was here. Read the rest of this entry »

The White House invited SAP to demonstrate the capabilities of Recall Plus, a product designed to “catch a recall on kids’ products or food with undeclared allergens.” Recently, Washington officials encouraged the development of technological products that help enhance public safety. Recall Plus makes public safety information available to the public in a timely fashion, ensuring that consumers are advised about potential health hazards for their children.

It’s only last year that Epicor and Activant were merged, and now there’s more big news from the company. Today Epicor announced its acquisition of Solarsoft Business Systems, a developer of ERP and manufacturing execution system (MES) software for small and medium businesses. Solarsoft’s two major ERP products, iVP and Tropos, cater to discrete and mixed-mode manufacturers of that market segment. While iVP is mainly focused on discrete-type customers with a strong need for electronic data interchange (EDI) functionality and offers relatively easy transformation for legacy IBM-based systems, Tropos is more process manufacturing–oriented and includes many features that allow customers to comply with US FDA requirements. Read the rest of this entry »

ARINC reportedly considered several different manufacturing execution system (MES) options, including “standalone” product offerings specifically designed for maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO)-type environments. The company also considered custom solutions, as well as upgrades to its existing legacy systems. In the end, however, the company found that Deltek Costpoint MES met its needs better than any other product offering that they considered. Read the rest of this entry »

Ever hear of a company or government agency’s computer systems falling victim to some individuals’ malicious activities? In spite of the frequent news documenting these events, many organizations don’t prioritize the security of their own systems. Vendors such as Rapid7, McAfee, or Qualys offer different types of software to assess, manage, or curtail your information technology (IT) systems’ vulnerabilities. I recently saw a demonstration of Rapid7’s products and would like to highlight a bit of what they can be used to do toward efforts at hardening IT systems. Read the rest of this entry »

Innowera, maker of user-friendly SAP data management solutions, has added SharePoint/SAP integration to its Web server. The new features enable easy and efficient SharePoint, InfoPath, and Workflow interaction with SAP, adding to the list of innovative and easy-to-use software offerings from Innowera focused on the SAP environment. The free Process Runner LITE made Innowera a favorite in 2011; adding SharePoint integration will keep it on many IT shops’ favorites list.

In a recent post on 3 trends in data visualization, we addressed the increasing importance of geolocation capabilities in data analysis. We also looked at how the incorporation of mapping and geolocation capabilities into the feature set of a comprehensive business intelligence (BI) application has brought a new understanding to the BI process. Read the rest of this entry »

Retalix’ acquisition of Cornell Mayo Associates is symptomatic of the current trend of acquisition and consolidation in the retail marketplace (just look at RedPrairie’s four recent acquisitions in this area). This is a fast-changing marketplace, with retailers looking for broader solutions and less interested in multiple point solutions. Predicting how this merger will go is tricky, but in general I think it has to be a good move for Retalix. Retalix continues to execute on its strategy to expand into adjacent retail segments.

Cornell Mayo enhances the company’s position in the department store retail segment, and complements Retalix’s strongholds in the high-volume, high-complexity retail market (e.g., convenience stores, fast food restaurants, gas stations, and supermarkets). It will be interesting to watch for any cross-sales opportunities between Cornell Mayo’s point-of-sale (POS) and back-office apps and Retalix’ software tools for pricing, cashier balancing, sales trend reporting, labor scheduling, inventory management, accounting, and loyalty program management. As far as I know, the combination still lacks retail store task management and e-commerce solutions.

Profile: Retalix
Compare Retalix with other point-of-sale systems!

SAP has just announced the availability of SAP EPM OnDemand, SAP’s Business Performance offering in the cloud. Launched during the ASUG SAP BusinessObjects User Conference, this new solution will deliver specific enterprise functionality for capital and project planning, real-time profit and loss analysis, as well as expense analysis.

SAP will keep expanding EPM OnDemand by adding more specific functionality and is designed to complement other SAP solutions, such as SAP Business Planning and Consolidation. EPM OnDemand counts on mobile-ready features powered by SAP HANA and has features to offer mobile and on-demand users an improved user experience.

It will be interesting to see how SAP can compete with strong players in the cloud EPM market, such as Adaptive Planning and Host Analytics.

The agreement between Mahindra Satyam and IFS reportedly covers all territories, so it is truly a global alliance. The solution focus will be on both product/project and asset lifecycle support, so it will cover a broad range of solutions, supporting processes from design/engineering, via build/make, install/construct, and through operations and maintenance, which is a differentiator for IFS since the vendor can support the full lifecycle with one integrated solution. Read the rest of this entry »

A new acquisition that might interest HR organizations was announced yesterday. Jobmagic, a provider of advanced social media applications was acquired by the talent acquisition software vendor iCIMS. As a result, iCIMS Talent Platform will offer its users the option to promote job openings on well-known social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter,  and LinkedIn.

Epicor’s offering of a true multi-tenant cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) system isn’t that new. As a matter of fact, the entry level Epicor ERP Express Edition for the lower end of the market has been generally available (GA) since 2010. The edition has thus far won about 200 customers—job shops and small manufacturers and distributors. Still, the “cloud ERP” and “software-as-a-service (SaaS) ERP” monikers have more often been associated with NetSuite, Plex Online, and SAP Business ByDesign.

In early September 2012, Epicor further expanded its cloud reach, announcing that now midmarket manufacturers, distributors, and service organizations have Epicor ERP available in a multi-tenant SaaS deployment model as well. The newly announced Epicor ERP Standard Edition has the same code base as the Express edition (and all other Epicor ERP editions for that matter). Read the rest of this entry »

Unicorn HRO unveiled that it will be providing businesses with the capability to prevent employee identity theft. The service is now available thanks to the collaboration between Unicorn HRO and LifeLock Inc. Unicorn HRO is well known for its HR/Payroll and Benefits solution, while LifeLock is a company that specializes in identity theft protection.