Plex Systems, the enterprise resource planning (ERP) provider of the Plex Manufacturing Cloud (formerly Plex Online), has announced its collaboration with Insequence Coporation, provider of manufacturing sequencing technology. The joint capabilities should improve the process of delivering components to the manufacturing supply chain in an efficient fashion.

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One of the major themes at the recently held SuiteWorld 2013 conference was that NetSuite has been aggressively building a cloud partner ecosystem, the Autodesk alliance being one resounding example. During the conference, automated mobile workforce management (WFM) and optimization solutions provider ClickSoftware Technologies announced that it has partnered with NetSuite to build the ClickSoftware SuiteApp using NetSuite’s SuiteCloud Computing Platform.

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The “little” SAP Business One solution is an unsung hero of sorts at SAP. Indeed, more than 38,000 customers worldwide in nearly 30 languages and over 630 partners are often ignored as less newsworthy by market observers. The business management solution for small businesses (with 10–20 users, on average) can be deployed on premises or in the cloud, and is accessible via mobile devices.

During the SAPPHIRENOW 2013 conference, SAP announced the general availability of the 9.0 version of the SAP Business One running on Microsoft SQL Server (which is the product’s original database). With more than 50 new features, the latest version offers enhanced capabilities for warehouse management, infrastructure, and inventory management, as well as improved systems performance.

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NetSuite continues to round out its exacting capabilities for retailers and distributors. Having acquired the Retail Anywhere cloud point of sales (POS) system in early 2013, on the eve of the SuiteWorld 2013 conference NetSuite has acquired OrderMotion Inc., a provider of order management solutions based in Burlington, Massachusetts, for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition of OrderMotion’s cloud-based Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) Order Management capabilities adds to NetSuite’s own cloud-based order management system, furthering NetSuite’s focus on this increasingly important and complex business challenge and critical functionality—omnichannel order fulfillment.

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As part of its recent major global IT transformation, Telefónica has selected TOA Technologies as its global field service management (FSM) solution provider. This is a global contract agreement for TOA to be the standard FSM provider with its ETAdirect solution suite, covering all 24 countries in which the telecom provider does business across Europe and Latin America.

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Plex Systems Inc., provider of Plex Online, a cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) offering for manufacturers, recently announced the results of the survey entitled “2012 ERP Study: Implementation and Usage Trends for SaaS/Cloud vs. Traditional Systems.” Conducted by the Manufacturing Performance Institute (MPI) on behalf of Plex Systems, the study assessed implementations of ERP systems, satisfaction with those implementations, and the extent to which ERP systems have benefitted organizations.

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Pearson, a global education company, has selected Cameleon Software’s Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) solution as part of a business transformation initiative aimed at enhancing the customer experience. Anticipating the growing need for customized and personalized services, as well as the shift from paper to digital content, Pearson adapted its business processes to the market changes and, as part of its strategy, implemented a CPQ solution. Read the rest of this entry »

The popularity of cloud computing does not necessarily absolve cloud solutions from developing vertical industry focus. Thus, NetSuite and eWinery Solutions, a provider of direct-to-consumer (DTC) software and systems for the wine industry, have just formed a partnership to develop and offer an industry-specific cloud software solution. VinSuite will target wineries to help them compete at both the local and international levels.

The wine industry is increasingly competitive, with more than 8,000 wineries, 100,000 wine brands, and  100,000 wine retailers in the US, and new developments every week in Europe, Latin America, and Asia Pacific. It is truly a global business, but the software systems used to run these businesses are fragmented—typically a winery has to use multiple disparate legacy systems, creating inefficiency and high IT costs.

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The Plex Systems team was in town recently. TEC’s P.J. Jakovljevic and I took the opportunity to sit down with the new Plex CEO, Jason Blessing, as well as V.P. of Corporate Strategy Jim Shepherd, and V.P. of Marketing Patrick Fetterman. Read the rest of this entry »

The human capital management (HCM) space is apparently becoming attractive and important to even upper mid-market vendors that have traditionally focused on manufacturing and distribution, and have mainly partnered for HCM capabilities. After Infor’s recent acquisition of Certpoint Systems for learning management (to add to its HCM portfolio that came from the merger with Lawson Software), Epicor announced general availability of its latest Epicor HCM version 5.7.1.

Stemming from the 2010 acquisition of Spectrum Human Resource Systems Corporation, Epicor HCM is a human resource information system (HRIS) that automates HR processes and enables companies to track, manage, and analyze employee data throughout the entire employee lifecycle. Epicor HCM currently covers the realms of recruiting, onboarding, learning & development, goals & objectives, and performance management.

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Oracle Health Sciences  has announced that it will be introducing Oracle Enterprise Healthcare Analytics Cloud Service into it’s cloud version of Oracle’s platform for data management, warehousing, and analytics. With specific functionality features designed for healthcare providers, Oracle Enterprise Healthcare Analytics will enable organizations to consolidate, load, integrate, and analyze data from diverse healthcare systems such as clinical, financial, and administrative to generate a comprehensive view of the organization and support its operations and decision-making processes. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently released FinancialForce PSA Winter ’13 builds on FinancialForce.com’s commitment to making professional services teams more effective, mobile, and social (having been built on the Salesforce Platform and natively embedded with Salesforce CRM). Winter ’13 is based on enhancement ideas submitted online by the company’s growing community of users via the FinancialForce Community portal that was launched in 2012.

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Many companies today are obviously interested in using enterprise technology that they can access via the cloud. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model avails companies, as is well known, of technology without a large fixed cost, and that is device independent, and accessible by more users, without continual upgrades to worry about. While there are the oft-mentioned concerns around security (which we will not get into here), and SaaS is not the right software delivery model for every client for every deployment, there is no denying that SaaS has much to offer in the right situation.

We have been talking with clients and others about the influence of the cloud in supply chain areas such as these: Read the rest of this entry »

It is not surprising to hear that enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are not particularly beloved by their users. Indeed, companies are not exactly infatuated with their pricey enterprise system “toys” the way some consumers love their tablets or smartphones (not to mention the unconditional way my 5.5-year-old loves her teddy bear). So the recent InformationWeek piece on users being frustrated with their ERP purchases could have been just another article on that theme. But, what caught my eye here were the words “the UK” and “public sector.” Reportedly, more than 60 percent of IT decision makers in British local government feel their ERP investments haven’t delivered, according to a recent poll.

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NetSuite was seemingly on a roll at the end of January 2013. A day after its win at the Zicam maker, NetSuite announced that CallidusCloud, a leading provider of cloud-based sales performance management (SPM), training, hiring, and marketing software solutions, has transformed its global business and information technology (IT) efficiency by implementing NetSuite OneWorld. The newly deployed cloud enterprise suite has reportedly improved end-to-end cross-enterprise business visibility and performance for the fast-growing software company to replace an “IT nightmare” of 14 disparate business applications, including enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM). Read the rest of this entry »