Recently, Space-Time Insight released Version 4 of what they call the Space-Time Insight Situational Intelligence Suite. For the company, this is not just a fancy name, but their very own definition of what they offer: the ability to analyze and act on scenarios or situations, not just mere isolated data. Some organizations are looking to close existing gaps within the information management cycle to give information workers, decision makers, and field workers complete views of their information and tools to act upon certain conditions.

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While it may not be surprising that IFS has lately had a streak of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and enterprise asset management (EAM) wins in its traditional asset-intensive industries, it is interesting to note that some recent wins and expanded project footprints are in the realm of field service management (FSM). IFS has tackled this attractive software category via the recent acquisitions of Metrix and 360 Scheduling (see the related article for more details).

In late 2012, IFS won an Asian telecom company. In January 2013, IFS announced that the seventh largest Pepsi-Cola franchise company in the US is expanding its footprint with the IFS Metrix Service Management Mobile solution. Read the rest of this entry »

IFS’ win streak continued with Atlas Pipeline Mid-Continent Holdings, LLC (“Atlas Pipeline”), active in gathering and processing natural gas for transportation to commercial, industrial, and residential markets, recently choosing IFS Applications as its new enterprise solution. The oil and gas industry is one of IFS’ core markets. Based on a single product line, IFS Applications delivers component-based business solutions that manage the entire lifecycle of contracts, projects, assets, and services. Read the rest of this entry »

IFS’ win streak from late 2012 seems to be flowing into 2013. On January 16, 2013, the global enterprise applications company announced that Vantaa Energy Ltd., one of Finland’s largest urban energy companies, has selected IFS Applications 8 to streamline its business processes.

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The Utilities Industry

From TEC’s perspective and based on our understanding of the industry, the utilities industry consists primarily of the following service providers: electric power generators, network operators, customer power retailers, natural gas, steam supply, water supply, and sewage removal. All of these business segments have common criteria such as a mass customer service department and billing process, remote service supply or power generation, and high cost of asset owning and maintenance. Also, a big part of the utility business is project based as well. Below are some challenges the industry faces: Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past couple of years, the electric utility industry has changed in terms of the different software solutions available. The old approach to addressing this industry’s needs was the “best-of-breed” approach, meaning that software vendors were creating solutions addressed to only one group or business unit within the company doing one specific task. Generation, Transmission, and Distribution all had their own specific software packages that were almost never fully integrated with each other. Or, the interfaces were poorly designed, thus creating a lot of data issues and discrepancies.

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