In the news, and in a few publications, the Detroit (US) car makers have been blamed for “bad management.” I would like to clarify that definition and ask your opinion. But first, my thoughts… Read the rest of this entry »

Every company and almost every individual holds fixed assets. Over time, these assets change in value. For example, real estate tends to increase in value, while vehicle values decrease. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week my peer, Russell Cooper and I completed a successful certification of Oco Software’s business intelligence (BI) solution. Oco was represented by Jacques Hebert, the senior technical business analyst and marketing representative.

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Visiting the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) web site, I came across this 143-page PDF file, which deals with XBRL. As a gung-ho proponent of automation, I’m calling attention to it here to show that the head of the SEC (Mr. Christopher Cox) and I are on the same wavelength when it comes to promoting cost saving automations. Here is some interesting stuff from the PDF, together with my comments. Read the rest of this entry »

IFRS is an accounting standard dealing with global financial reporting. XBRL is an electronic language describing financial data according to global standards. This article describes why IFRS will displace GAAP in the US and the link between IFRS and XBRL. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I met over the Web with TARGIT’s Ruben Knudsen and Ulrik Pedersen, along with some TEC cohorts to verify TARGIT’S BI product.  TARGIT had  completed a TEC-designed RFI containing a list of BI capabilities that every BI vendor could support  “out of the box.” The RFI is a common list of BI capabilities that we send to all BI vendors, and from the long list of TARGIT responses, we chose 172 entries for them to demonstrate. Without missing a beat, TARGIT demonstrated all the 172 selected entries from a total of 1900 criteria we chose using a “live meeting” and telephone sessions. TARGIT passed with 100 percent verification – no omissions. Read the rest of this entry »

Once upon a time around 1995, the well-known American agency, the National Security Agency (NSA), decided that there was no computer operating system that was adequately secure for their needs.  In analyzing the risks, they found that while UNIX was the most secure, they needed additional protection. They looked at the industry of anti-virus protection, at problems with Trojan software, at the problem of keeping up with virus authors, and at the requirement for government level security to prevent a corrupted module from secretly penetrating their operating or business system environment. Their conclusion was that “anti-virus blacklisting” is ineffective and isn’t worth a pinch of dung.

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My office is in the downtown core of Montreal and last week I attended a briefing session by two aerospace companies, Pratt and Whitney (PW) and Bombardier, at a hotel up the street. The subject was about a new initiative by PW and Bombardier to improve supplier performance. Read the rest of this entry »

GAAP, or Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, have long defined the standards for accounting and related practices in the US. GAAP ensures that companies can produce documents that auditors can verify according to standardized accounting practices. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the first time Alex Hankewicz and I have completed a certification for a software as a service (SaaS) ERP–designed product.

Ramco OnDemand ERP is a full-function SaaS ERP product for the small to medium business (SMB) environment. The entire product is Web-based, accessible by your web browser, and fully supported via the Web. Read the rest of this entry »

Flexi wins again.

I recently completed a certification exercise for the Flexi Software’s FlexiFinancials package, a functionally rich accounting package that is complete in every way and geared for the banking, insurance, and financial services industries. A package that has integrated business objects with drill-down searching and with full functional and reporting capabilities.

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One of the thrills of working as an analyst in ERP for TEC is that I get to evaluate many different ERP systems and business products. This time, I assisted my peer, Sherry Fox, for the certification of Ramco’s human capital management (HCM) product. Its HCM product is part of a complete suite of products that falls under Ramco’s Enterprise Series 4.1.

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We all know what security means when we think of our home. Did we lock the door when we left for the day? Is the stove turned off? Computer security for the small to medium business (SMB) must address similar concerns. Can a hacker gain access to its servers? How can a business protect its data?
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I recently sat in on a demonstration of the Bitam Artus business intelligence (BI) suite, now at generation 6.

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