While conducting “research” for another project, I stumbled across Max Weber’s notion of classification of authority, which was news to me, as is most serious Western thought.

According to Weber, there are three types of authority: Read the rest of this entry »

(Scroll down for my list of Top 10 ERP White Paper Buzzwords!)

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After attending the iWay seminar on Enterprise Information Management (EIM) yesterday, I was thinking that a CIO who implemented their system might sing the following after the implementation: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s always good to remember that science and technology follow general laws, and that those laws are inviolable. This is especially true when it comes to Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”
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There are multiple answers for how a bad product is developed; many of them are rooted in myopia in the development process.

This morning, when I was leaving a subway station through a tunnel, a billboard caught my eye. Actually, at first glance, I was kind of scared by the weird eye of one of the women in the picture. A second look revealed that the weird eye was a bolt (on top of a washer) located very close to her right eye. Read the rest of this entry »

As a research analyst for TEC and a contributor to its Blog, I sometimes get the opportunity to mix business-related issues with common everyday pleasures. This past weekend (that incidentally turned out to be a complete write-off weather-wise), and being the movie buff that I am, I decided to sit back and watch a few classic films. After having done so, I was curious about what some of the past Oscar winners were for Best Picture. So I sauntered over to my computer and printed out the list. Reading through it, I just had to laugh, because many of the titles struck a chord with me in terms of some of my experiences with software implementation projects. Read the rest of this entry »

… or songs you should listen to while working with an ERP system: Read the rest of this entry »

When Nietzsche declared in 1882 that “God is dead,” I’ll bet he had no idea that ERP system vendors were already queuing up to fill the gap.

He just wasn’t the practical, forward-thinking kind, that was his problem (Nietzsche, I mean, not God).

Now, in heaven, they take the long view. So when they started casting around for a replacement to their legacy system, they took the time to conduct a thorough software evaluation process. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series revisited Agresso’s post-implementation agility capabilities as a major tenet for the vendor’s continued growth in a hostile and depressed environment. The continued organic growth has been complemented by in-house developments, acquisitions, and/or partnerships.

More important, however, is the issue of whether Agresso has become a legitimate force to replace larger (and better known) competitors’ installations. Read the rest of this entry »

A week before this past Thanksgiving holiday (US), I was invited by a long-term analyst relationship contact at SAP to listen to (via multimedia streaming) a panel discussion on a late Friday afternoon. The expert panel explored reasons for companies to maintain IT investment even (if not especially) during difficult economic times.

Bruce Richardson, the Chief Research Officer of AMR Research, moderated the event. The star-studded and well-rounded panel also included:

• Leo Apotheker, co-chief executive officer (CEO) of SAP;
• A secretary of administration for a large public sector SAP customer;
• A chief information officer (CIO) of a healthcare SAP customer representing the small-to-medium business (SMB) market; and
• Andrew McAfee, the Harvard Business School (HBS) professor who reportedly coined the moniker “Enterprise 2.0″ and who has been a proponent of good use of IT for boosting competitive position.

The Harvard Business Review (HBR) article by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson entitled “Investing in the IT That Makes a Competitive Difference” was the main supplement and starting point of the discussion. In a nutshell, the panel logically (and not surprisingly) argued that enterprises should use IT solutions to innovate and create differentiation, especially during a difficult economy.

Moreover, the aforementioned SAP contact privately solicited my opinion on the extent to which these esteemed academics understand our industry. According to the “you asked for it” motto, here are my thoughts (albeit parlayed into a blog post to be shared with our readers too). Read the rest of this entry »

Heh heh. The Global Language Monitor (GLM) has released its Top 10 Most Confusing High-tech Buzzwords of 2008.

Meh. You won’t find any buzzwords on the TEC site, I thought to myself. We run a clean shop here. But then I thought I’d match GLM’s list to actual buzzword occurrences on the TEC site. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series introduced and analyzed some mixed feelings and doubts that we might still have about the noble concepts of talent management and human capital management (HCM), while Part 2 provided some definitions of these two software categories’ respective scopes.

No Laughing Matter, Indeed

The discussion so far has ascertained that talent management, as a strategy, requires both appropriate systems and an organizational commitment to attract, acquire, manage, and measure the talent needed to achieve a company’s business objectives. Without the alignment of business and talent management systems and processes, and without closing the gap between workforce strategy and execution, companies will sub-optimize their benefits and put their goals at risk.

Going hand in hand with strategic alignment is another significant trend in recent years, which is the recognition that automating transactions in silos (within only, e.g., recruitment, performance, compensation, succession) is not helping the human resources (HR) department. It is indeed difficult to expect any strategic alignment between business and the talent roster with fragmented data, applications, and talent pools, where data is often lost, and there is consequently no single view (or single version of truth). Read the rest of this entry »

Disclaimer: The idea behind this post is strictly based on an assumption that has no scientific proof—and an approach that is very simplified. Thus, the results and conclusions should not be used for any serious purpose.

Recently, as a member of the TEC Green Team, I went through over 20 enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors to examine elements within their offerings that help companies tackle environmental issues. During the research process, I got the impression that there seems to be a relationship between vendor size and the greenness of their offerings. Read the rest of this entry »

Are you having trouble finding concrete information about how enterprise software actually works? I know I am.

I’m not talking about feature lists—you can find those easily enough—and I’m not talking about promises to streamline processes, increase efficiency, or deliver value—which I don’t read. What I’m talking about is this:

Let’s say my company is considering upgrading one of its enterprise software packages, and, as an end user, I’m going to be spending most of every day using said package. What’s my day going to look like?
Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog post introduced some mixed feelings and doubts that we might still have about the noble concepts of talent management and human capital management (HCM). This skepticism lingers in spite of the many indicators of the usefulness of these concepts in mitigating some imminent global workforce challenges, which were outlined in Part 1.

Accommodating “Generation Y”

Let us not forget about the looming demographic shifts, given that the baby boomers are on their way out. One group that has been receiving a lot of attention is the so-called Generation Y: the group mostly in their 20s that has recently entered or is about to enter the workforce. These dudes and dudettes haven’t just adopted the use of the Internet – they have grown up with it, and they rely (live and breathe) on it.

A key characteristic of basically all Gen Y candidates today (which might belong to earlier generations, like the Gen X) is that they are keen consumers of Internet technology. They are accustomed to using websites such as Amazon.com, Google, Facebook, Ask, LinkedIn, Twitter, Travelocity, and eBay (to name but a few), often on a daily basis, to buy what they want, go where they want, stay in touch with their friends and family, get their work done, and do it all and more with ease. Read the rest of this entry »