Food production and distribution is a serious and strategic business, and I am not aware of anyone in my surroundings that takes it lightly; food can not only delight us, but can also make us quite sick and indisposed. While my inner circles (pets included) have luckily not been casualties of recent salmonella, E.coli, and whatnot outbreaks from tainted chilly peppers, tomatoes, spinach, pet food, or most recently peanut butter, the 2008 year-end holidays were not much fun for my family.

Namely, the “G.I. bug” that our 18-month-old likely got in her playgroup spread so quickly and violently to anyone who was in contact with her (including the broader family members that stopped by to just traditionally exchange holiday gifts). Sure, viral gastroenteritis might likely have had nothing to do with what we ate at the time, but the feeling of being listless and other unpleasant (and unspeakable) G.I. bug symptoms were quite similar to those that food poisoning outbreaks can “treat” us to.

Food processing and distribution are not be the only market with burning product safety issues, since similar issues can also apply to the drug and pharmaceuticals sector or consumer packaged goods (CPGs); remember lead-tainted toys or antifreeze-laced toothpaste coming from China? Still, we all seem to be the most sensitive about food-related breaking news, possibly due to the likelihood of those hitting home (perhaps even in a willful way by bio-terrorists).

Thus, some food processing market experts have lately been frustrated by companies’ focus on location and lot control, serial number tracking, and traceability as the panaceas to solve product safety issues. Read the rest of this entry »

Lawson Software has hardly ever been associated with flamboyance and ostentatious behavior, let alone in these murky economic times. Still, its chief executive officer’s (CEO’s) recent dismissal of the software as a service (SaaS) market’s prospects will have drawn some consternation in the vendors’ and analysts’ community. However, a somewhat amended and clarified stance on SaaS recently came from Lawson’s senior vice president (SVP) of product development and strategy, Dean Hager.

Like the vast majority of enterprise applications vendors, Lawson concedes the tough economic milieu, which was recognized in its sloppy fiscal Q109 performance. Prospective customers are simply slowing down the “looking and decision-making” process, and also the negotiations are admittedly much more involved. The enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors’ competition is getting dirtier, with everyone fighting very hard over what looks like fewer deals.

Still (at least not yet), Lawson has not given the impression of despair or panic, despite recent cost-cutting (read: layoffs) measures. Such measures appear to be in line with the economic climate and the measures of other peer companies. Read the rest of this entry »

Part I of this blog post introduced the burning issues of food safety and the ensuing need for traceability. To the end of providing entire food supply chain traceability and information visibility, mid-March, during its CUE 2008 annual user conference, Lawson Software announced the availability of Lawson M3 Trace Engine 3.0, the first version offered within the US market.

The application is designed to help companies in the food and beverage (F&B) industries improve product quality and help prevent and manage potential food safety and quality risks. It specifically helps companies strengthen and simplify the process of tracking ingredients and finished products through complex global food supply chains. Read the rest of this entry »

Besides the ongoing (seemingly never-ending) presidential campaign and celebrity scandals/gossip, food safety is very much in the news. Indeed, incidents of outbreaks, contamination, product recalls and whatnot flood TV channels as breaking news every now and then. Consumers, governments and the various members of the food supply chain are rightly concerned about food safety, and there has been increasing pressure for food and consumer product goods (CPG) supply chain traceability, in a pervasive manner.

Consumers and governments (both becoming ever-more educated and informed on one side, but still confused on the other side) are concerned about the safety of the food supply and protecting the public. While demanding more product choice and delivery speed, consumers have been voicing fears over food safety in the wake of recent salmonella outbreaks (remember the contaminated spinach or major chocolate recall cases?), cases of pet deaths due to poisonous imported pet food, lead-tainted imported children’s toys, anti-freeze tainted imported toothpaste, and so on…

The ever-longer and global food supply chain (often called “from farm to fork”) includes crop farmers/growers (utilizing fertilizers and pesticides), feed processors, livestock farmers (that might feed and treat animals accordingly [or not]), manufacturers (primary and value-add food processors), packaging and labeling sites, distributors, retailers, and food service companies (restaurants and cafeterias).

These supply chain member companies have to be concerned about the consumer safety issues, plus the potential negative and even fatal impact on their brands and businesses. For instance, high-and-mighty retailers customarily want ever higher service levels from suppliers (without any negative publicity), while the overall industry itself wants to protect “brand” value and reduce recall costs. Read the rest of this entry »

Lawson Software (NASDAQ: LWSN), headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, the United States (US), and with offices around the world, provides software and service solutions to about 4,000 customers in manufacturing, distribution, maintenance and service sector industries across 40 countries. Its solutions include Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and industry-tailored applications.

Lawson has not lately been accused of being too exciting, glitzy or so, at least not compared to a decade ago, when its erstwhile slick marketing machine was crafting catchphrases like “self-evident applications (SEA)”, “drill-around”, “web-addressable applications” and so on.  Some recent attempts in touting corporate social responsibility (CSR) and a witty marketing spot on YouTube have been noted (even acknowledged by the competition), albeit with mixed reviews/reception.

Nevertheless, according the “still water runs deep” adage, Lawson’s relative quietness certainly does not mean that the vendor has not been active in the field and in its research and development (R&D) labs. I’ve been made aware of many recent moves to execute on the roadmap that was outlined at the vendor’s CUE 2007 conference. Read the rest of this entry »

Reading in-flight magazines and running through airports today, we can see advertising for enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, but it is always a serious stuff (albeit well done and to the point), such as “Best run businesses run on SAP” (or so). Nowadays, however, if we go to the virtual online, social-networking world (with viral marketing and advertising at its core), we can even find attempts at humor in marketing ERP. To see what I mean, please go to YouTube and see a humorous take on ERP systems and ERP vendors.

With the “cat in the tree” theme, Lawson Software (evaluate some of its products) is attempting to use viral marketing, with cartoonish humor, to gain a small corner in the otherwise big budget advertising fight between SAP and Oracle (if not Microsoft and IBM too). Lawson is a relatively large vendor, with revenues nearing the US$1 billion mark, but is quite far from the financial muscle of SAP (evaluate some of its products) and Oracle (evaluate some of its products). Therefore, can creativity and viral marketing make a dent in this big budget world or is this just “budget envy” on the part of Lawson? Read the rest of this entry »