The Project Delivery Group (PDG) here at Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) works closely with our clients to assist and guide them through the process of evaluating and selecting their business software solutions. Over the years, this group has witnessed the multitude of issues and hurdles that can arise—oftentimes unexpectedly—during those selections and has become adept at helping its clients work through various scenarios. One of these issues relates to what happens when a company that is involved in a software selection process is suddenly mandated by upper management to purchase another software solution. The issue of an “imposed software decision” is the first topic in a series of reports prepared by TEC analysts in conjunction with TEC’s PDG to highlight current realities and present useful tips and practices for software selection projects.

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Before the lean enterprise paradigm swept across the manufacturing industry, I doubt many business people would have considered accounting as a serious tool for changing the mindset of decisions makers and how businesses operate. It turns out, however, that there’s more than one way to do accounting, and the accounting approach an organization uses can have a significant impact on a business’s direction. Read the rest of this entry »

Sharp-eyed visitors to our Evaluation Centers may have noticed a new addition recently: ERP for Manufacturing (SMB). Read the rest of this entry »

TEC recently completed certification of Tenrox’s project management software Project Workforce Management. Download the report now for a detailed analysis of the software’s strengths and weaknesses. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m pleased to announce that TEC recently completed certification of iVP, Solarsoft’s flagship ERP product for discrete manufacturing. Download the certification report here. Read the rest of this entry »

I attended the Lean Accounting Summit in Orlando in September, and I’m still struck by the totally different attitudes of companies that choose lean transformation versus conventional non-lean companies.

Lean thinking certainly isn’t new to the business community, but many managers and business influencers still have no clear understanding of lean. They typically pick and choose their lean manufacturing tools, and ignore other lean principles that contribute to success, if not playing an even more vital role. One example of such overlooked principles: lean accounting. Read the rest of this entry »

Although this year Judith Rothrock could not attend herself, she’s the driving force behind the annual JRocket Marketing Grape Escape^® industry analyst event, now in its 11th year. As always, this year’s Grape Escape was a well-organized event hosting some key industry players. It afforded me and my colleague Gabriel Gheorghiu another opportunity to meet the software vendors who are JRocket Marketing’s clients and obtain the latest news and updates straight from the source.

Here’s the skinny on three of the vendors that gave informal presentations. Read the rest of this entry »

We are proud to welcome Ramco ERP to our family of TEC Certified systems.

The detailed Ramco ERP certification report (strengths, weaknesses, bells and whistles) will be available soon, but here’s a sneak preview.

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TEC certification is like a software test drive; a chance to look under the hood, kick the tires, take it around the block with some scenarios. [more on TEC Certification here]

I wasn’t disappointed during our recent certification of CDC Software’s Ross ERP. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

Accounting and Business

Accounting departments have long suffered from being considered as serving a lower-priority function and playing a subsidiary role to other departments in any business—i.e., a “non-value creating” activity. Many business owners and top managers consider accounting as government mandated and a pretty much useless function. They also view accountants as boring bean counters whose only role is to prepare a few insipid reports a year, and who are known for their constant irritating interventions to “more valuable” departments with unclear (for most personnel) requirements and standards that others have to maintain for reasons unknown. And I wouldn’t be surprised if all top managers secretly dreamt of ridding themselves of those annoying accounting people and finally doing whatever they want, without looking back at the “weird” needs of the bookkeeping department. Or at least outsource them as much as possible to minimize their involvement, cut expenses to nearly nothing, and forget about them—all the more so, as information technology (IT) allows for performing such outsourcing nowadays.

However, accounting and financial activities, and the people who carry them out, definitely deserve to be better regarded by others. Read the rest of this entry »

I deal with many software professionals, technology business users, consultants, and analysts, and it is interesting to observe that everyone uses the same conventional mantras and familiar words, but often with slightly different meanings, and sometimes with totally different meanings. A good example of this is how businesses determine their size category: small, medium, or large. It appears simple, but it is not always that obvious in reality. 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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Whether we realize it or not, we all have become more or less dependent on computers, the Internet, and many different and complex computer systems.

In both our business and personal lives, we widely take advantage of the immediate availability of all types of information and data, and in our day-to-day routine often do not even wonder whether we can actually rely on the data we obtain.

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Recently, we have witnessed Infor’s aggressive advertising campaign against its bigger rivals that are conjointly called “Big ERP,” where it is blaming them for inflexibility, neglecting customers’ interests, and charging enormous amounts of money for their software and service. As an alternative, Infor and its competitors offer a variety of tier 2 systems that can supposedly satisfy rigorous business’ requirements and, at the same time, are more agile, and less costly. This also applies to the small and medium size ERP market, where Big ERP vendors have been trying to aggressively invade in the last few years. I was interested to see what the difference was, by having the opportunity to compare features and functions of not only software products but groups of them.

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