SOFTWARE SELECTIONS AND GO-LIVES

U.S. Army selects HP for enterprise cloud computing services
Cloud computing
“HP was selected by the U.S Army to provide the Department of Defense and other agencies with cloud computing services. This contract includes private cloud services as well as mobile and data center management. This is an important step for HP and cloud computing providers in order to boost industry confidence regarding security and the continuous operation capabilities of the cloud.”—Jorge García, TEC BI Analyst
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SOFTWARE ADOPTIONS AND UPGRADES

Peace Hills Insurance selects UNIT4’s Agresso Business World
Insurance
“UNIT4 won this faceoff against Oracle JD Edwards, MS Dynamics GP, and MS Dynamics NAV thanks to its unique capabilities to effect business change within the software. Peace Hills plans to implement three Agresso ERP modules: Financials, Planner, and Expenses from Agresso suite.”—Aleksey Osintsev, TEC Research Analyst

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Supply chain management (SCM) software is a key part of a successful global business. With it, companies can monitor transactions between suppliers, manufacturers, shippers, retailers, and a host of other partners. They can anticipate problems, eliminate bottlenecks, and avoid expensive delays. Without SCM, companies lose visibility, and control, of anything outside their four walls, and risk losing time and money to frequent supply chain disruptions.

But despite the advantages SCM offers, many companies have been slow to adopt it—particularly service providers who view SCM as being mostly for manufacturers.

That perception seems to be changing, though. At TEC, we’ve seen a surge in the popularity of our SCM Evaluation Center as companies of all sizes look for ways to be more competitive in a harsh economic climate. So to help IT decision makers navigate the SCM landscape, we’re hard at work preparing the 2012 SCM Buyer’s Guide.

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TEC’s research model of oil and gas ERP systems is now live. This means you can research and compare ERP solutions for the oil and gas industry at TEC’s Oil and Gas Evaluation Center. Solutions include ERP systems from Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP, and many other vendors coming soon. We’ll keep you posted on some second-tier vendors offering exciting products that emulate first-tier solutions, but geared and priced for upstream explorers and developers. Read the rest of this entry »

When it’s time to buy, TEC‘s granular analysis helps companies choose the right software solutions

Selecting enterprise software is complicated and time consuming, and leaves little room for error. With budgets, and sometimes jobs on the line, it’s no surprise that IT decision makers look to analyst firms to help them minimize the costs and risks of making the wrong choice. Expert advice can be the key to a successful software selection project, as long as you’re getting the right information at each stage of the process. Read the rest of this entry »

The recent acquisition of Gist by BlackBerry developer Research In Motion (RIM) prompted this TEC water cooler information session between TEC’s Managing Editor Dave Clark and CRM analyst Gabriel Gheorghiu:

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Open University PhD candidate Gabrielle Ford has a new perspective on why, despite an abundance of expert insight, so many ERP implementations continue to fail. TEC is collaborating with Ford to provide a 20-minute survey for ERP users, and is offering three-day free access to its evaluation models and vendor data to readers who complete the survey. Take the survey now. This post signals the start of several contributions from Ford regarding the relationship users have with their ERP systems.

Organizations adopt enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems because of the benefits they expect to derive from their use. The critical issue for success is not whether the system is used (because you aren’t given a choice—you will use it), but rather that benefits arise from its use. While system use necessarily precedes full benefits realization (that’s not to discount the potential benefits to be gleaned from the exercise of gathering requirements and defining processes prior to system selection and implementation), it is the quality of the use that influences the degree to which benefits are achieved. Read the rest of this entry »

With 2010 almost behind us, the Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) research analyst team takes a brief look at some of the newest software products to join its roster.

• MicroStrategy, MicroStrategy 9
• Plex Systems, Plex Online
• Sage, Sage ABRA HRMS 
• SmartOrg, Portfolio Navigator
• Vormittag Associates, Inc. (VAI), S2K Enterprise

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It’s that time of year again for TEC’s analysts to polish their crystal balls and spread their tarot cards to gaze on the future of enterprise software for 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been many years since this question of compatibility between lean practices and enterprise resource planning (ERP) was rigorously discussed and brought many controversial and opposite opinions to the table. Can these two work well together, or do they have no place in each other’s space? It seems like even after all this time—and discussion—the jury is still out the final verdict. The answer is not a simple “yes” or “no,” but rather lies somewhere between.

Advocates of lean concepts protect a lean manufacturing organization from technological invasions, propagating the principle that “simpler is better” and believing that almost any informational system is a waste (non-value adding). On the flip side of the coin, there are thousands of ERP vendors, users, and manufacturing managers that use traditional methods based on complex data and transactional systems who won’t accept any other alternative way of conducting business. Read the rest of this entry »

As 2009 comes to a close, we look forward to the New Year and everything trendy that it will bring. Today, TEC’s Research Analyst Round Table discusses the outlook in technology for 2010. We will touch on:

•    Social Networking
•    Social Product Development
•    Business Intelligence (BI) for the Masses
•    Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
•    Software Integration vs. Niche Players
•    Mobile Commerce (M-commerce)

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With 2009 behind us, Technology Evaluation Center’s (TEC’s) research analyst team takes a brief look at some of the newest vendors to join its research roster.

• Pronto
• Navigator
• SAP
• Lombardi
• Spectrum HR
• Demand Solutions

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Software-as-a-service (SaaS): friend or foe? SaaS—also known as on-demand or hosted applications—is becoming more and more popular in a number of enterprise application areas and quickly changing the minds of many a skeptic. SaaS is changing the way organizations pay for, implement, and run their software applications. Unlike traditional applications, which are paid for up front and installed on your company’s premises (on premise), SaaS applications are hosted at the vendor site and are paid for through a monthly subscription model. While it sounds like the best thing since sliced bread, there are some pros and cons of the SaaS as a model. Today’s TEC Research Analyst Round Table discusses the SaaS model—the trends, the benefits, and the pitfalls. Read the rest of this entry »

We recently had a question from one of our readers (through our Ask the Experts page) discussing QlikView’s approach to data collection.

Reader’s Question
“QlikView says its innovative way of collecting data and not needing a physical data warehouse (DW) structure is the right thing to do in DW/business intelligence (BI) solutions. Can one expect to build a sustainable / scalable corporate data warehouse through such an approach?” Read the rest of this entry »

If you search for business performance management (BPM) on Google, you’ll get around 700,000 results. Out of this huge number of results, you will presumably refer to a popular source—Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia, BPM is “a set of processes that help organizations optimize their business performance.” The same source affirms that some people see it as the next generation of business intelligence (BI). Both of these explanations—unfortunately—lack clarity.
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