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Enterprise applications software licensing and pricing, Q4 2007: Oracle (Jun 08)
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Forrester conducted licensing policy evaluations of leading enterprise applications vendors from June 2007 to August 2007.
Interviews were conducted with 51 vendor and user companies including Agresso, Deltek, Epicor Software, IFS, Infor, Lawson,
Microsoft, Oracle, QAD, Sage Software, SAP and Sterling Commerce.
Oracle and Agresso were found to have established early leadership among large enterprises thanks to their ability to
accommodate complexity and choice in licensing metrics and support for the enterprise software licensee bill of rights
(LBoR).
Microsoft, QAD, Sterling Commerce, Epicor Software, Lawson and Infor are Strong Performers but lack breadth in usagebased
metrics. SAP provides strong usage-based metrics but could improve on provisions in the LBoR. Microsoft, Oracle,
QAD, Agresso and Epicor Software lead in delivering on small and medium-sized business (SMB) requirements like choice in
user-based metrics and support for the LBoR.
Sterling Commerce, Lawson, Sage Software, SAP, Infor and Deltek are Strong Performers that offer competitive options but
could improve support for SMB requirements in the LBoR. IFS’s licensing and pricing models leave SMB customers with
limited choices but offer a simplified, easy-to-understand approach.
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Breaking down the barriers to business: Sage (April 2008)
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It’s a given that information is the lifeblood of the 21st century organisation. Companies that seek the elusive goal of a
single view of the customer need first to instil an information-sharing culture throughout the organisation, not simply
attempt to apply a quick technology fix.
But too many companies find themselves locked into a situation where information is held in zealously-guarded silos by
departments who are not incentivised to share it. Office politics and jostling for position on the corporate hierarchy, as
well as a desire to protect your own back, mean that the organisational culture acts as an impediment to the free flow of
information that could assist the bottom line.
All departments need to be able to put information into and get information out of a single system rather than hoarding
their own slice of it in departmental subsystems.
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Lean manufacturing: Lawson Software (April 2008)
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The pressure on manufacturing organisations has increased dramatically over the last 15 years. This has been driven by
globalisation in the aftermath of the Cold War, the liberalisation of markets, and the emergence and growth of economies such
as Brazil, Russia, India and China. Organisations that continue to manufacture in high-cost countries must eliminate any ‘fat’
from their manufacturing if they are to remain competitive.
Lean manufacturing is now widely adopted as a strategy for focusing on customer value-adding activities through eliminating
waste and striving towards continuous improvement.
In today’s complex, dynamic and global manufacturing supply chains, software solutions play an increasingly important role in
supporting lean manufacturing. The Lawson M3 enterprise management system provides functionality to support ‘make, move
and maintain’ processes. Within manufacturing, Lawson M3 includes support for lean manufacturing.
In addition to the customary lean manufacturing applications, Lawson also offers total productive maintenance (TPM) and the
theory of constraints (TOC).
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Do more with less: Infor (March 2008)
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A common issue facing small and medium-sized business (SMB) manufacturers today is how to increase revenue and grow
their business without significantly adding staff. With larger firms able to compete by drawing upon greater financial resources,
and often able to simply apply more resources – including employees, equipment, contractors and vendors – to new initiatives,
it leaves the SMB manufacturer at a distinct disadvantage.
Most entrepreneurial or start-up manufacturers seek to grow within their means, avoiding the temptation of leveraging venture
funding at the risk of losing control of their business. However, to successfully remain independent and grow organically,
manufacturers must institute a lean business model for their industry that can maximise utilisation and minimise overhead
costs.
Understandably, the impetus for starting a manufacturing business is typically focused on the delivery of a specific solution
(combined products and services), that fills a gap in a targeted marketplace. In addition to a ‘great idea’, manufacturers must
have a vision beyond the products and services they deliver that encompasses how they will design, produce and deliver their
products to the market.
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Seven keys to world-class manufacturing: Infor (March 2008)
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What does it mean to be a world-class competitor? It means being successful in your chosen market against any competition –
regardless of size, country of origin or resources. It means matching or exceeding any competitor on quality, lead time,
flexibility, cost/price, customer service and innovation. It means picking your battles – competing where and when you choose
and on terms that you dictate. It means you are in control and your competitors struggle to emulate your success.
What does it take to be world-class? Richard Schonberger, a leading manufacturing consultant, created the term ‘world-class
manufacturing’. According to Schonberger: “Manufacturing is gained by marshalling the resources for continual rapid
improvement.”
To achieve world-class status, companies must change procedures and concepts, which in turn leads to transforming relations
among suppliers, purchasers, producers and customers. Enterprise automation is indispensable to manufacturing innovators
who aim to gain market share, operate at peak efficiency and exceed customer expectations so they can be world-class in
their industry.
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Manifesto for a perfect lean market: QAD (February 2008)
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Efficiency is crucial to the success of every enterprise. For manufacturing companies, the need to continuously improve
efficiency – to be ‘lean’ by reducing or eliminating waste in terms of time and materials – has never been more important than
it is today.
Over the last 25 years, successful manufacturers have made dramatic improvements in the speed and efficiency of production.
But in a world of increasing global competition, shrinking margins and accelerating time-to-market requirements, the neverending
quest to be lean represents new and daunting challenges for manufacturing companies.
Add to this the rapidly changing landscape in the global enterprise software industry, and it’s no wonder manufacturing
companies are clamouring for more IT innovation, reduced applications complexity, better visionary leadership and far less
swashbuckling from industry titans SAP and Oracle.
The enterprise software arena, once a super-high growth industry, continues consolidating. Yet as the leading enterprise
software vendors just get larger, some industry observers fear that true innovation is being sacrificed, putting customers’
businesses in peril.
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ERP technology audit – OneOffice: Butler Group/Strategix (January 2008)
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Strategix OneOffice is a comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that covers rather more than basic ERP –
it extends out to the supply chain on one side, and over to managing customer relationships on the other, providing
comprehensive alerting capability about events that need to be flagged up on the way.
Integrated applications have had some problems but are still popular with many organisations because they have the ability to
provide a single application interface to the user. This application is differentiated by its component basis together with the
concept of Active Intelligence that provides users with the right information in the right context.
The vendor is relatively unknown, which could put off some prospective customers, but it is financially sound and highly
referenceable. Medium-sized organisations, particularly in the distribution or services sectors, that are seeking to
implement an integrated solution, are likely to benefit from OneOffice. Evaluation is best undertaken via an application
demonstration.
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The benefits of a business management software suite for SMBs: NetSuite (Oct 07)
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Small and middle-market companies are the lifeblood of the economy – in all regions of the world. But many of these
companies today feel the need for a transfusion – the operational boost that can move them to a customer-focused business
with the ability to grow even larger. These small and mid-sized businesses (called SMBs) have many of the same business
requirements as large corporations; they may be smaller or employ fewer people but they can have equally complex business
processes.
Big businesses moved from home-grown legacy systems to a plethora of standalone applications (sometimes referred to in the
past as ‘best of breed’) but by the end of the 1990s these big guys had consolidated on running the majority of their core
business on one integrated platform, such as SAP’s R/3, PeopleSoft or Oracle applications. These integrated business
applications proved invaluable in improved productivity and better business management, but at the same time they were also
expensive, complex, difficult to implement, manage and support, with protracted deployments (sometimes years) that delayed
a recognisable return on investment.
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Delivering supply chain excellence: IBS (August 2007)
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The proliferation of IT systems has transformed the face of business. There is very little in terms of the operational processes
within an enterprise that is not affected by IT, and taking full advantage of the benefits they can offer invariably involves
significant cultural change. For virtually any scenario, if there is a definable process, there is an IT solution that can automate
it. But where does this automation take a company? And is it to a good place?
This document concentrates on IT’s contribution to supply chain execution and management. Most companies, for better or
worse, have implemented software solutions to help automate their supply chain processes over the last 20 years. Invariably,
these systems have had a massive impact on how companies operate, both internally and with their suppliers and customers.
Business processes, expectation levels and system requirements are likely to have changed significantly, and in five years
time they are sure to have changed again.
All companies are different. They may sell the same products and services to the same people in the same volumes. But it is
the very culture of companies that dictates how this is done.
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Epicor iConnect technical brief: Epicor (July 2005)
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Epicor iConnect represents a revolutionary new approach to the problem of connecting application servers into an
integrated supply chain and/or internal integrated systems architecture. At the core of the iConnect product is a powerful
and flexible approach to mapping XML-based message formats to the back-office ERP applications supported by the
Epicor iSolutions division.
Until the advent of XML data standards, the predominant means of integrating application data between servers was via
sophisticated EDI solutions with message transportation via value added networks (VANs). The traditional EDI model is
expensive to implement and has ongoing transaction-based costs for the life of the partner relationship. However, the
flexibility of the XML data standard combined with the power of the internet in facilitating point-to-point messaging
between web servers now provides a cost-effective way to achieve direct integration between servers either within an
enterprise, or within a complex supply chain. Furthermore, iConnect allows you to continue using your existing EDI
solution while your implement XML transactions using iConnect.
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Eleven criteria for selecting the best ERP system replacement: Epicor (June 05)
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An ERP system is your information backbone and reaches into all areas of your business and value-chain. Replacing it
can open unlimited business opportunities. The cornerstone of this effort is finding the right partner and specialist. Your
long-term business strategy will form the basis of the criteria for your selection of an ERP system replacement. Your
ERP provider must be part of your vision. It is the duty of a software provider to help you get there by doing their part to
make sure your next system will be your last ERP system replacement. Here are the 11 criteria that allow you to identify
and select the solution that will meet these expectations.
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Lean manufacturing: going lean, step by step, with IFS Applications (May 2005)
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In the relentless pursuit of profitability and competitiveness, more and more companies are turning to lean
manufacturing to reduce or eliminate waste in their production processes. Once confined to the automotive industry,
lean principles are becoming standard operating procedure in many industries today. The reason is simple: when
implemented with a good performance management system, lean principles have a proven track record of operational
and strategic success, which ultimately translates into increased value to the end customer.
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Turbo-charge your ERP with automated invoice processing: Dean, ITESOFT (Feb 05)
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ERP projects are notorious for taking too long to implement, costing a fortune and not delivering the efficiencies they
were supposed to. Gartner estimates that 40% of ERP installs in 2004 will go over budget by 50% both in terms of cost
and time. The real problem is that companies try to speed up the deployment of ERP and keep down costs by not
installing the very modules that actually deliver the ROI. One opportunity to claw back some of the ROI benefits of ERP
is to add functionality that will not add to the overall cost of ownership and maintenance but will deliver savings when
combined with the back office system by reducing manual input and fitting seamlessly into the ERP workflow processes
– this is the compelling attraction of automated invoice processing.
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Myth of enterprise applications: Sterling Commerce (February 2005)
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Enterprise applications were meant to be the 1990’s panacea for organisations seeking to reduce cost through
automated business processes. The logic ran that by implementing packaged enterprise resource planning (ERP)
software packages, built around standardised processes, large organisations would achieve significant cost savings. In
reality, much of the recorded success can be attributed to the extensive amount of business process re-engineering that
had to accompany these projects rather than the software itself. Many ERP systems are not packages as such, but a
series of tightly integrated business processes that have to be assembled and which are frequently customised to suit
local practices or conditions. This has the advantage of allowing organisations choice about how to construct best
practices, but the resulting systems are flawed.
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