Eval - Source Blog

New Location

2010-01-14T19:09:00.000-05:00

The http://tru-evalmethod.blogspot.com has moved to the Eval-Source website. All previous posts have been moved to the blog page on our site. Continue to check for new posts.

www.eval-source.com

Would you a like beverage with that installation ?

2010-01-13T11:51:00.000-05:00

As IT costs of installation, support and the services that IT provides seem overly difficult to track with regards to a dollar value a new way is being proposed.
It seems that organizations have a difficult time measuring the cost of their IT department. There are 3 common ways that It cost is measured today. An article here that explains the 3 ways and a possible new way to "serve it up" Ways IT gets funded.
Our interpretation of this methodology is that IT must come up with a price list similar to that of a menu in which are the array of services they provide can be costed out. The implications of this are that IT must categorize its services by organization as to the most common tasks they do and support for the organization with enough dollar value granularity to make it accurate for accounting purposes.

In this scenario common support for hardware,software, upgrades, the cost of installing and configuring and administrating a new system, integration, development, testing, are all component costs that will have to be valued on this new menu. The article mentioned above recommends that all IT services be broken down into 12-24 items with actual prices. This seems manageable.

As organization consume IT services, IT would then give them a bill for the cost of that service. This can then either be charged to department, project or overall IT costs for the organization. This methodology may not be too bad as this could provide actual costs of IT's involvement in projects, which departments consume the most services, which employees, and identify anomalies that might ordinarily be missed. Overall it seems reasonable in the fact of how IT can get funding for new projects as costs will be identified accurately and incorporated into projects as a component of the overall project expense - but more accurate.

If this methodology were to catch on then the only problem organizations would have is how to categorize and actually come up with a costing method for the diverse services that IT provides. An example of this would be is an architect worth more per hour in designing the overall infrastructure of the business as opposed to the support of hardware, software and administration of environments, applications, installing patches and updates, configuration for software, development for interfaces of new systems, user testing etc.

All though this makes sense in theory will it translate to actionable and usable data to get IT projects funded. If its not one problem its another. Looking forward to feedback on this if you think this approach can work or not. I can reached at info@eval-source.com

Lesson learned from improper software evaluation

2010-01-11T13:12:00.000-05:00

There are many reasons for a failed implementation and today's blog post will highlight a few lessons learned from not doing a proper software evaluation. A methodology that is clear, concise, systematic and provides qualitative results are the starting point to avoid these mishaps during a software implementation - after all it starts with an evaluation leading towards software selection.

Lessons learned from not placing the correct importance on this step have far reaching and sometimes detrimental effects if not done properly. A few lessons learned from our past experiences on not using a methodology for selecting software and some of the consequences are listed below.

Strategic Fit: A company that had just engaged us in an evaluation. It turns out the company's CEO was coming back from a business trip and as luck would have it he was sitting next to an SAP account executive. After several hours of speaking with SAP it was decided by the CEO that this was the system that they selected and the evaluation process was subsequently scrapped. This was a mid-sized company and they were sold the Enterprise Business Suite. After implementation was completed a follow up with company revealed that the system was too large for their capacity. The external scope creep, clouding of objectives, management of the project (both internal and externally), budget over-runs, time delays and administration proved to be problematic in this installation. It turned out that SAP was too much of a resource drain on this particular company for financial resources, people and essentially paying for what was not used. The lesson here strategic vendor fit, and software fit are crucial when selecting enterprise software.

Wrong system type: We had a customer contact us about how slow their ERP system was. We had tried some database tuning techniques to speed up the system. This proved this was a slow and costly process as outside programming help was needed to tune the proprietary database. This however did speed up their ERP but that still was not the problem. After speaking with the company in more detail we discovered they were sold a discrete ERP type system and they were indeed a contract manufacturer as their core business. The ERP they had selected was not the correct fit for what they had set out to accomplish originally. The lesson here is don't let scope creep or a fancy vendor demo win you over, stick to your guns.

Unnecessary vendor disqualification: A lesson learned from doing a proper software evaluation is that do not withhold information on how you run your business to vendors. After all vendors are future business partners not just suppliers. The vendor would also like for you to be a customer who is truly happy with their software purchase and can be used a reference site. When organizations hold back information and see if the vendor can fill in the blanks within their industry and own company can disqualify a very capable vendor. A best practice here is to fully disclose what your needs are so that the vendor can guide you as well as put forth their best effort to solve what you are looking for.

Previous selection experience becomes the method for evaluation: A common mistake made by organizations is that people who have been through a software selection at previous companies become the subject matter expert for the software evaluation. Often a familiarity will introduce biases (political, organizational, technical) in the evaluation process. An evaluation procedure is a procedure that precedes the implementation. This is a certain set of skills validated with a proven method that drives consistent results to finding the right software for your company. While someone with previous experience is a valuable tool it should be added in conjunction with a proper systematic method of software selection. If also that person were to leave for another company as is now quite common you may be stuck with system that does not have full support and does not meet the original intended requirements. The lesson here is take under advisement the previous experience and add that to the methodology of software selection to create a full functional roadmap for the selection process.

As can be seen there are many reasons why companies struggle with software selection but hopefully these lessons learned can help mitigate some of your own dilemmas and make you more successful at selecting the correct enterprise software for your business.

Actual Cloud Spending - fact or fiction - you decide

2010-01-08T12:25:00.000-05:00

Gartner released their numbers for the estimates of the cloud computing market and looking at the number it seems way high to me. That could be possibly be because of what is included within their definition we do not consider part of the cloud market. The IDC numbers of predicted cloud marketshare seem very reasonable as to the breakdown they used for the estimate of their own market size for cloud products and services.

While I do not disagree that cloud is a fast growing market and looks to rapidly increase over the next few years (which we agree with) it seems that the estimate has surpassed the current ERP market. This is also in-line with Meryll Lynch estimates for market valuations of the cloud computing.

In many reports and articles posted a lot of C-level executives are expecting to investigate cloud computing options and possibly invest in such. Although that is what they are saying is the market moving that rapidly really? Are the executives actually spending that money they say they will on cloud or is it speculation to give those services and applications consideration within the evaluation process. The hype surrounding this market may be just that rather than actual spend on cloud applications and services. Is all this speculation actually translating into spend within the cloud and translation of a growing marketshare.

An informal scan of the current material available of online resources and publications of vendors posted should imply that cloud applications and services are being signed left right an center and in record numbers to surpass the current market numbers for ERP. Many companies would have to sign cloud contracts and services with multi-year SLA's totaling millions and into the billions of dollars at a fast and furious rate. I guess this will always be a point of contention between analysts.

I am looking forward to feedback from the communities on this issue at www.twitter.com/eval_source or info@eval-source.com

CRM’s new extension........Social CRM

2010-01-05T12:35:00.000-05:00

What does the term "Social CRM" mean ? As defined by some wisdom from fellow advocate Paul Greenberg Social CRM Definition

We prefer Paul Greenberg’s definition of Social CRM, which he summarizes as:

“CRM is a philosophy & a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes & social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted & transparent business environment. It’s the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.” (also read his 2009 review of this space on ZDnet)

CRM has evolved to incorporating a social aspect by adding the features and functions of most popular social networking sites. Contact management now includes customer interaction, internal and external collaboration, locating experts, soliciting feedback, extended customer service are some of the social aspects taht are evolving out of of traditional CRM with social components.

One of the problems faced by organizations is how to incorporate these benefits of SCRM and manage it accordingly. These problems stem from additional administration, storage and retrieval, meta-tagging, archiving and content management are a few additional extra pieces that are added to social CRM.

Traditional CRM vendors are trying to adapt to this new business model and this new enterprise created software. As put by fellow analyst Jeremy Owyang SCRM vendors are not cutting the mustard. There are a few categories that are mainly considered social CRM

Traditional CRM with Social integration
Community platforms offering CRM
Brand monitoring offering social CRM
Social media with Twitter capabilities
Social Customer experience
Sales 2.0 and Social graph aggregation
CRM applications and plug-ins
Social networks and others

These are considered the main categories in social CRM. As organizational usage increases and evolves to newer, integrated and collaborative sharing vendors will be playing catch-up for a little while until this market matures a little bit. Then mobility on top of this is a rapid evolution that will occur within this software arena and how they react may affect marketshare and success in this area. As any software matures newer vendors will enter and traditional vendors will be at an advantage more towards the brand recognition side of the software market.

With whatever changes occur in this space from the market and organizational usage evolves and differs from company to company it still becomes an exercise in finding the best fit for the organization and catering to the specific functions you are looking to solve. A software evaluation methodology will still need to be considered as it just keeps getting more complicated and sometimes unnecessarily so. This is a software name that is ahead of the actual software being delivered for now.

Organizations should create, review, monitor social network strategies and policies as there is no magic formula to convert buzz to ROI and money for the business. Sure there are many ways to do convert buzz but is that an included part of the strategy? This can be detrimental as well as it creates a possible time wasting scenario as perceived by C-level employees.

If you feel we forgotten a category feel free to contact us at info@eval-source.com or for vendor briefings for your CRM product. Also see our related post platform provides foundation for growing your business - Well maybe

Two Next-gen technology approches for ERP

2009-12-29T14:33:00.000-05:00

In an effort to rid the term ERP even SAP is digressing away from the term they are credited of creating. New IDC research shows that SMB organizations do not have the agility to compensate for their quickly changing business environments a main ERP problem from the old monolithic suites.

The next-gen ERP products being created as we speak are addressing these concerns and are being adopted by customers with less vendor interaction after the sale. These next-gen platforms allows organizations quickly create new processes, reconfigure and tweak existing processes that may have changed.

By speaking with our customers lately, one of things they are looking for is the ability for the system to include agility based on business practices. This has gained more prominence in the last several months as SaaS vendors , applications and services become more available.

There are several approaches to take when evaluating agility in software applications. Mentioned below are a couple that you may find useful.

PaaS - Platform as a Service - this allows you to build your ERP by creating a common SOA platform that allows you to add applications built on that platform by either the same vendor or several different vendors. Usually integration is a little more difficult but with vendors using the preset API's provided by the platform creators makes it it a little more simple to employ. An issue that may become apparent using this approach is the different vendors that support each task or module is there a common support practices strategy ? Examples of this are Force.com, Amazon, Zoho.com etc.

SOA by vendor - this usually consists of a vendor providing the platform and configuring its software as you require. This is the more common approach now as vendors have started to deploy this methodology as well. Most vendors provide you with the modules and functionality you require and as you need more from them to enhance functionality they "turn on" the rest of what is required. This provides a little easier implementation path and allows the organization a quicker approach to utilize the new functionality when switched on.

We are also looking for feedback on what the new term that describes the entire enterprise software environment within a company moving away from the term ERP ? Any thoughts can be emailed to info@eval-source.com

Increase ERP implementation success rates - using change management

2009-12-27T16:19:00.000-05:00

So now you have decided to purchase enterprise software and have made the selection of what software you are to purchase how can you increase the chances of making your implementation a success ? You have done the basics correctly by including the staff, soliciting feedback and gone through an extensive selection procedure. What are the next steps in ensuring your organization will use the software and realize its full benefits ?

An often overlooked factor that organizations do not place enough importance on is the change management strategy within the organization. It is key for the organization to educate its employees on the impact of the new software and how it will impact the organization and then individuals. The change management strategy should reside at the top of the organization and should perpetuate downwards. As part of the change management strategy, includes executive buy-in. This will demonstrate leadership and confidence within the organization. Employees will have a better outlook and forward looking picture which provides stability and should increase productivity.

Employees at all levels should be educated as to how their job will change and the tools that will enable them to become more productive and contribute to the organization even more. Not only are individual tasks taught but transactions are completed, handed off to other departments, accessibility of real-time information, the overall flow, where in the process improvements can occur, are all things that should be included in the change management strategy.

These are points that should help you define and execute a change management strategy which will help increase your Enterprise software success. This overlooked piece of the implementation puzzle can either make or break your software project. So increase your chances and incorporate this piece within your implementation roadmap procedures.

Lessons learned from Airbus A380

2009-12-17T14:46:00.000-05:00

As we continue to live in an ever changing world and a more global economy emerges companies are now forced to examine how to global trade. As organizations continue to source from abroad inventory control and visibility has taken more precedence than ever before. Near-shore, offshore and outsourced services have caused organizations find ways to control and reduce costs.

If your procurement occurs abroad and so does the manufacturing it is imperative that the right hand know what the left hand is doing. A solution that supports your business practices of checking supplier quality standards, adherence to regulatory compliance, adherence to service level agreements, current volume of inventory in the chain, current expected quantity are all factors that require very close vendor collaboration to run smoothly. Then there is the transportation component and calculations of lead times, customs clearances to deal with, port storage and finally transportation to your warehouse or point of sale locations.

Organizations are not leveraging technology enough to simplify these processes and make the big picture easier. A simple web-enabled portal that allows for collaboration between for suppliers can easily be created and leveraged. As lessons learned from the Airbus project of the A380 the technology didn't fail, it was a people-centric process that failed. All the information was available however, non stringent standards such as different versions of supplier softwares being installed on different supplier sites(causing incompatible file types and unnecessary delays), people not checking the portal for new specification changes to materials, tolerances, sizes etc. are factors that could have been avoided if the technology was properly used. The cause and effect in this scenario was really multiplied because if one manufacturer was delayed this impacted the deadline throughout the chain causing the delay to compound throughout the supply chain and manufacturing process.

When a portal for trade management is used a central repository can be created, viewed and managed effectively. Updated specifications, new tolerances and other possible delays can be managed to control the process and adapt to the new deadline which will save time in the end. If a specification were to change, other dependent manufacturers that had to complete the previous part or add something to to complete that part can be adjusted for by possibly preparing pieces that can be made in parallel or possibly to prepare the material for production to save time when receiving the product.

In the case of Airbus the individual project managers by each part they were responsible failed to understand how the existing information can be used and how it was used caused delays. Parts suppliers that changed specs failed to report them using the design software and consequently other dependent processes were caught off guard and were forced to accommodate the changes which led to time delays and project overruns.

Organizations need to ensure at least one PM is in charge of keeping the big picture together and one that understands the local impacts that are manifested globally throughout the system. All parts of the project plan must be completed, validated and finally executed.

RFI only does not make an evaluation

2009-12-14T10:31:00.000-05:00

In our series of continuing impartial software evaluation coverage, we are pleased to introduce part four of the enterprise software selection best practices, tips and how to's about evaluating and selecting enterprise software. Our three previous posts helps establish a methodology, what to look for and what not to do and beware of the gotcha's.

Our last three posts on Monday mornings for enterprise software evaluation and selection were:

How to increase ERP success - http://tinyurl.com/yc2m2ud
Outsourced evaluation - Risks and Benefits - http://tinyurl.com/yz37toa
Beware of Sytem Integrators Doing Evaluations - http://tinyurl.com/ydak9qj

Within an evaluation process the creation of the RFI although an intricate piece of the evaluation is NOT the only part of the evaluation. An RFI is also not just a checklist on what your company needs now and future needs. This only addresses if the vendor is capable of such functionality and important parts such as maintenance, industry expertise, implementation methodology and strategic fit from vendors are often overlooked as crucial elements in the entire software evaluation process. There are several other parts that require the same amount of consideration within the evaluation process that accounts for the rest of the process. By considering the other portions are given the the same consideration can ensure software selection success.

Many organizations often fall into the trap of issuing an RFI and that becomes the entire evaluation and selection itself. The danger of this action is that your selection is based on features and functions only. Another danger for this approach is the that software evaluation is complicated enough and does not need to be further clouded by unnecessary and complimentary functionality that often exaggerates the scope of the project and does not solve the original business issue. As software vendors have come to scratch on common functionality over the years just by selecting an older vendor over a newer vendor may skew your results for evaluating enterprise software. Comparing features and functions for thousands of individual criterion only complicates the process and usually ends in disaster as the business issue is not readily solved, the reason you are looking to purchase software.

Vendors that are known for brand recognition are often selected without a formal evaluation process being executed or someone within the company has used this software elsewhere which introduces political, IT and operational biases. Executives that used the software previously, or the selection is made on IT's limited experience with one specific software and they are not aware of the entire marketplace which disrupts the evaluation process and does not necessarily solve the reason you were looking to implement the software in the first place. If IT were to leave and the selection was made based upon and RFI recommendation only the organization is left holding the bag and looking for ways to maximize its investment.

It's imperative that a formal method just for software evaluation be present, and executed not just using the RFI. Vendor demos can be skewed towards the functionality and features only and the real reasons for implementing the software maybe missed. Also check our website as to how the Smart RFI can simplify this process, save time and money.

Boeing 787 - Supply Chain ripple effect

2009-12-12T01:34:00.000-05:00

Tuesday appearing to be the maiden flight for the new Boeing super aircraft, weather permitting, how ill this change supply chains and innovate manufacturing processes ?

The new 787 is scheduled for approximately 20% to be Titanium. Will this extra demand for newer parts also drive manufacturing innovation as surely there will be alloy based parts. Will the titanium market be able to respond to the increased demand for titanium, how will this influence the titanium prices and will there be enough manufacturers that produce the finished alloys and titanium components needed. This is all considering the maiden voyage is a success, which I hope it is.

Will companies innovate with new processes and technologies that will influence the market and eventually drive down cost of these components. Will supplier quality be upheld and will other aerospace and defense vendors and suppliers work together to better the industry as this could ripple down to even consumer goods. Other vendors that make buses, trains, automobiles etc. may also benefit from these space age metal technologies and the new supplier knowledge gained from aircraft suppliers, which may cross over to the mainstream a lot quicker than previous years.

With all the hype and speculation going on about the components of the new parts will other competitors also mimic Boeing specs and continue to ripple through the supply chain with new parts, alloys and technologies will have multiplier effect on suppliers that support Boeing production for its planes. This may just be the beginning to a new wave of innovation for manufacturing, alloy creation and other benefits that can be gained from such stringently controlled specifications.

Content Management Systems - All grown up and plenty of places to go

2009-12-08T23:52:00.000-05:00

So now your organization has started social media interaction, have acquired many third party applications that interface to your ERP system, how can you manage all this extraneous data? The problem that this causes for an organization is the unstructured data that this produces. There are several implications for unstructured data being storage, indexing, tagging, ability to reuse and access data with email are problems an organization will continue to face even more so with the proliferation of social media within the organization.

Organizations have always had a difficult time to capture the unstructured data contained within email and other forms of informal office communications. Often valuable information, links, ideas, thought leadership, proprietary company information is shared with no real way to leverage this goldmine of information that is created. This problem also extends throughout the organization stemming from product design to all the way through the supply chain. The lack of internal data capture extends to outside the enterprise when social media is invoked.

Systems that capture data such as PLM systems have started to evolve as the backbone to organizational storage. The link of storing data and the ability to reuse it has caused some PLM vendors to incorporate content management and PLM functionality. This provides a basis for meta data tagging, indexing, storage, ability to leverage existing intellectual property and reusing company data that should be reusable.

Enter one evolution of content management system. These systems can not only store data effectively but store it as usable chunks that can be indexed and readily accessible for many purposes. These content management systems can be thought of as another weapon to harness business performance. As these applications spread and start to merge with other applications we are seeing a new evolution of PLM and CMS to start to include social media. By including this functionality here it may alleviate some concerns about capturing data, customer feedback etc. It is pretty easy to see as more of these applications evolve and include greater features and functions they are encroaching on the ERP itself. Ideally, this would be integrated into your ERP and the SOA that acts as the platform would allow the applications to speak freely without interruption. By providing platform consistency should also allow the UI to be more user friendly and more readily accessible to allow use of all information stored within the system.

Be cautious of system integrators doing software evaluation.

2009-12-07T11:09:00.000-05:00

In our continuing series of software evaluation best practices, tips and tricks, today in week three we explore the pitfalls of having a systems integrator doing your software evaluation.

So now that you have decided to evaluate an enterprise software application what now, where to start, what are the steps, what time frame should this take, what is the budget to an evaluation are all questions that should be examined. When acquiring a potential system that can cost upto 8 figures it only makes sense to make the best decision possible by bringing in experts. A best practice approach for selecting enterprise software is about the 10% range of the overall implementation cost to be budgeted for the evaluation portion itself. A small price to pay on something that will shape your company’s competitive nature and affect the way you do business.

System integrators are great as the name suggest for integrating systems and the professional services around implementation. Consumers should ask themselves, what is their (the systems integrator's) business model, how do these integrators make money, who are they partnered with and are they truly impartial. Large SI’s are often affiliated with larger software companies and often suggest the packages they are associated with.

Although many Si’s have very bright SME’s specific to one line of business they are usually lacking a big picture knowledge for the overall business strategy and how an ERM can solve what the company is looking for. To that end, big software packages are recommended and are not necessarily the correct fit both strategically and organizationally. If a company cannot align itself with a proper sized vendor that can accommodate, understand and provide value for the application usually it is not a good fit for the software selected and what was trying to be accomplished. This often results in too big of a solution for the company. The company is held victim by not realizing the scope, cost and resource strain that will unduly be put upon the organization if this scenario is carried out.

By reselling certain software especially the larger tier 1 applications the evaluation tends to favor a certain bias towards aspects of validity and functionality and value towards the software being resold. Usually a fully documented, tested, structured approach with actual tangible results is often not present as they are not properly quantified.

Software evaluation is an actual skillset that provides the big picture overview with the intent, to find what best suits the client needs. An evaluator should not sell software nor implement software, that way no biases can exist within the evaluation process. This best practices approach dramatically increases the customer’s chance of selecting the correct software to solve their business issues. A company where its core business is enterprise software evaluation will usually be a better choice as the consultants doing the evaluation will have the best interest of the customer at heart when assisting in finding the correct software. Normally, companies that evaluate enterprise software only are often more familiar with the market and can offer many more viable options to the customer without other compensatory factors that may affect the outcome of the evaluation. Because of the their market knowledge impartial software evaluators can help you architect your ERM and business platform strategy as they might also be familiar with complimentary software that extends functionality and that are tightly integrated to what you currently will select or that you may already have.

Remember that software companies don’t want you to be unhappy as they are also looking for happy customers that fit them and can become reference sites for future prospects. If a software is selected that is not the best fit the horror stories may prove more costly to their reputation as a vendor as word spreads about another unsuccessful implementation.

Outsourced software evaluation - risks and benefits

2009-11-30T09:45:00.000-05:00

In our new series for ongoing software evaluation we present part two. Last week was Increasing ERP success rates, this week we examine the advantages on if you should outsource your company's evaluation process.

Now that you have decided evaluate enterprise software for your organization, what now, how do you go about this and what steps are involved, how long should it take, what do I need to do internally to get buy-in, to get ready to make the correct choice, what sources of information should I trust, which vendors should I trust, how much budget is allocated to the evaluation process are all questions that should be asked from the onset.

Many organizations decide that they need to evaluate enterprise software but do not know where to start. Outside of generic steps, there are hardly any properly documented processes that focus specifically on software evaluation . It's hard for organizations to understand the full scope, importance, procedure, risks and implementation implications of choosing the wrong software for the organization. A wrong, incomplete, rushed evaluation method and bias introduction within the organization can be detrimental to the outcome for software evaluation success.

A best practice approach that many organizations have adopted is to outsource the software selection process. The expertise that software evaluation requires is a specific documented procedure that achieves the proper ROI, lowers implementation risk by identifying potential issues early on in the evaluation process, a documented method that has actionable measureable steps with actual outcomes that can be quantified.

Organizations that specialize in software evaluations that do not sell, implement software or partner with vendors will provide the most effective sources for a proper software evaluation. Benefits from an unbiased software selection process will enable the organization to focus on its core business during the evaluation, not having to worry about valuable personnel resources doing two jobs and not pay the proper attention to detail that is required, reduce time spent on selection which results in savings and eliminates company biases. A structured approach to follow will maximize the effort in software evaluation. A methodology that combines sound evaluation procedures coupled with the technology will assist your organization success in the evaluation process.

Platform provides foundation for growing business - Well maybe

2009-11-26T23:07:00.000-05:00

We have been covering Cloud computing and SaaS in our last few blog post lately due to the increased interest we see from our customers. To that end, check out our previous posts on cloud computing.

As cloud computing grows along with services available newer options are now available for IT intensive shops. Organizations with a large IT staff may look to build their software to a customized version of what specifically is needed for that organization. This may be especially true if they are already using a component of software from Force.com, Zoho, Netsuite, Amazon etc. These vendors all offer platforms in which have open API's for you to build your own application on.

Before jumping in and building your own ERM to suit your specific needs consider these issues that should be overcome in order to proceed. If these can figured out then go ahead and let us know how you have overcome these issues. "Build it and they will come" and hopefully follow.

What if the sme (subject matter expert) builds the application and then leaves, is there a strategy to continue use of the application and how?
Will software applications developments and ITIL methodologies be implemented and followed, is there any reference to source code or documentation?
How does a network administrator manage multiple applications that reside in the cloud and in-house?
How is data manged if enterprise search is an initiative?
How intricate is the integration between applications?
Does this help or destroy the content management initiative or create silos and disparate systems?
Who handles the support for multiple applications, what type of resources are required?
Will you need an sme for each application that you build?
How are the upgrades handled for each application and how often, does that include interfaces?

While we think building on a platform is a good idea that provides flexibility and provides an SOA environment all aspects should be considered when undertaking this strategy.

A related blog that sheds another perspective on this topic is Vinnie's over at Deal Architect The deal architect The end of packaged software as we know it ?

Will private media deals fragment web capabilitiies ?

2009-11-24T12:26:00.000-05:00

With all of the posturing going on for additional revenue from search engines between mainly Google and Bing and the fight for SEO supremacy mean the consumer will be out of luck? I understand the drive for increasing revenue but to segment and withhold content from another search engine may cause a consumer backlash to occur.

As a consumer of web search using multiple engines and the capabilities of individual browsers is a nice option to have. A few questions that I have that may possibly change search as we know it are:

Will this segmentation make it harder to find what you are looking for and where to look ?
How about from a social media or marketing strategy standpoint will you specifically have to submit your press ?releases and product updates to individual engines and the like ?
Will search capabilities be diminished or enhanced,
Will consumers need to pick a search provider
How could this affect your enterprise search strategy with integration or lack there of ?
How will this affect mobile search engine capabilities ?
Will different search engines "spin" their own version of the news ?
Will mobile providers have to pick a provider to offer search to its client base and will that be at a premium ?
Will consumers have to have to pay for the use of additional search engines if content is split up?
Will Google Docs and Azure continue to have open document standards if the browsers cannot play together ? How will that affect other software that offer open standards for browser capabilities ?
Will you have to register with each provider and have another password ?

My take on the upcoming fragmentation is that it will make it harder to find what you are looking for. Maybe that could be one possible initiative to keep you on the web longer so that you see all the pretty new advertising. As can seen, there are more questions than answers at this point but are they missing what the consumer really wants, easily accessible, free, real-time data. I just hope I can be offered the same convenience now without more hassle.

Increase ERP implementation success rates

2009-11-23T13:39:00.000-05:00

We are initiating a series of blog posts for successful evaluation for enterprise software. Over the next several weeks we will post a blog entry (approximately one a week) specifically on how to evaluate enterprise software identify obstacles and best practice approaches on software selection.
As ERP systems advance by becoming more agile in nature many vendors are fulfilling this new trend as consumers demand it. Since ERP is looked at by many to be too difficult to understand, to implement, achieve roi, consolidate disparate systems and automate menial labor intensive tasks how come there are so many horror stories about failed implementations ?

One familiar statistic is that over 70% of ERP implementations fail. Why ? There are many reasons why an implementation may fail however, they are usually categorized into Project scope, time, cost and expectations.

A lack of an appropriate evaluation method can cause your ERP or enterprise software solution to fail. A complete software evaluation method specifically designed for enterprise software selection can aid organizations in identifying key problem areas to any failure points that may occur in the future. The complexity of the software may cloud the original intent of the software purchase by not identifying the true scale and functions required. Having a methodology for software selection assists in the clarification and differentiation between solutions.

Problems that can be identified by having a proper selection method are:

Alignment of Business, IT organizational requirements. Vendors are evaluated by similar alignment of values, fit, scope, implementation expertise, industry expertise, time frames that are in expectations with your own, training and usability.

Cost overruns due to miscommunicated time expectations and consultant costs from the organization and vendor as to what actually is to be installed and what level of user acceptability is acceptable for the organization. In the organizations case - cost regulation and constraints, on the vendor side, implementation times, methods and sometimes failure to disclose full pricing on what is included and what is extra.

Scope creep - not understanding the actual business reason of why you are implementing the software, what it is actually solving or allowing your business to do. Many times complimentary or not necessary for now modules get "thrown in" as part of the evaluation which changes the complexion of the evaluation process and possibly the vendors in which are now being evaluated.

Organizations often underestimate the complexities of enterprise software by being too aggressive by not fully understanding the scope of the solution, what is actually solved, how it does so, features/functions, scalability complexities that may be required to for integration and parallel testing scenarios.

Overall a one key component for ERP implementation success is how well you evaluate the enterprise solution. Examined are some of the obstacles that can be identified when using a proper software selection method. Over the next few weeks several topics will discussed in enterprise software evaluation. Stay tuned......

Is cloud computing causing siloed information again ?

2009-11-19T22:53:00.000-05:00

This blog posts addresses how proliferation of cloud apps, platforms, databases and the other plethora of services available as cloud models can interact with an in-house system. Offered are some points to consider before taking the cloud plunge. Is it as easy as the vendors make it sound to consolidate multiple systems and does it cause multiple siloes of information which is what BRM (business resource management) systems have solved.

As organizations adopt the plethora cloud applications available is the consolidated view and convenience of a standard ERP system gone? Organizations continue to adopt many cloud applications, virtualizations, application development, cloud storage, content management, social networks, CRM, mobility platforms and apps etc. how are all these systems interacting ?

The stability, convenience, depth of detail, consolidated and real-time information that a single system ERP can offer is that still available if multiple cloud applications, platforms, databases, content management, storage, social media, search, CRM to name a few of the outsourced services and applications exist. How are they managed, administered, supported, what skills are needed to support disparate multiple platforms and applications and by whom, how many people are needed to do so and at what cost to the organization ? .

Although cloud vendors have opened their API's, platforms for other applications to work in tandem will that be enough ? The many applications that will need to be run to replace the functionality of an ERM system; integration will have to be seriously considered and examined in detail. This could also be that the cloud vendors are new to this to some degree so this process may not be totally seamless yet. Companies that offer platforms to build upon - can their business performance management perform real-time data aggregation,dashboard reporting, ETL functions and provide a consolidated accurate view of the data from all the now siloed information that multiple systems and platforms mixed with in-house applications and the spread of the diversified views of data. ?

I would be interested in finding out vendors with real-world experience in deploying cloud applications, platforms including virtualization, cloud services, administration of diversified applications how effective was the data consolidation, integration, validity and timeliness from the distributed systems and how the data was consumed , by whom and by how many employees. If there are business performance management vendors that offer dashboards with consolidated views I would be interested in speaking with them.

Gain strategic advantage over the competition using your supply chain

2009-11-16T16:29:00.000-05:00

Organizations that manufacture products have traditionally needed supply chains to distribute, move and eventually sell its products to the end consumer. This was originally part of the cost of doing business as this is what was required to sell your products and get them in the hands of consumers.

As time moved forwards and companies grew larger and now with extensive variable changing conditions the distribution side of the enterprise is evolving. Companies that have reorganized its supply chain to be more effective in moving product, reducing costs, decreasing lead time, increase quality standards etc. are starting to see that a well oiled supply chain pays big dividends.

The boardroom prominence that this has gained over the last decade has organizations wondering how to use its supply chain as a competitive tool. Companies like Walmart, Amazon and Sobeys, Metro, Dell, HP that have realigned their supply chains are showing greater profit margins due to the cost reduction from their supply chain.

An industry that has gained substantially doing this supply chain realignment is the 3PL industry. Since distribution is a main component of their business companies are using these avenues as extensions of their own companies.

Organizations that have realigned supply chain systems and processes are now in advantageous position of being able to make money off of their supply chain. For companies that OEM or whitelabel by charging other companies a premium to use their supply chain and infrastructure can actually become a profit center for your company. This leverages an existing resource why not make money from it ?

ERM on the go - Build your Own software system in days - No programming

2009-11-12T16:29:00.000-05:00

Hello All:

The advent of the Iphone and its over 90 000 apps available is making it the ideal tool to link front and back office systems. The plethora of applications available make it easier to do business period. I have often said I need a personal assistant just to do regular stuff and errands especially administrative tasks.

For SMB's that need mobility while on the go there are apps that handle timesheets, billing, excel spreadsheet updates etc. By downloading these apps you can efficiently build a usable platform and applications to run your business. Although not totally integrated but its a great way to keep costs down for new startups. I have identified several apps that are highly usable and productive that can establish a basis for a consulting or services type company.

LinkedIn offers a free app that gives you desktop functionality while on the go
Timewerks - This is a time tracking and invoicing app that tracks billable hours time and materials spent on various projects and can send invoices directly from your phone
Jott - This app converts voice into SMS, email or online notes
Expense2go - tracks business expenses on your iphone, you can also photograph the expense receipts and attach them to the expense reports
Personal Assistant - Can automatically update and track everything form bank accounts to credit cards to frequent flyer miles in one place
Quicksheet - create edit and save Excel spreadsheets and supports over 125 spreadsheet functions
Flight status - an app that lets you stay upto date on flights and airports from around the world
Air Sharing Pro - Turn you iphone into a wireless storage device - by dragging and dropping files between your computer and phone including Office, iWorks, PDF's and more
HotelPal - A free app that updates rates from major chains and boutique hotels, compares prices and allows booking straight from your phone
Salesforce.com - mobility app, part of the monthly subscription package

These are simple apps that can keep you connected if you travel extensively. In the case of a small business, these apps may be sufficient to start with to not having to invest in major software to manage your business. These apps are just being reported on based on information available. Eval-Source has not tested any of them or have integrated and tested scalability of any of the mentioned applications nor is endorsing these apps we just found them interseting for SMB users as they enable you to carry on business. Who knows with functionality this cheap and available it could possibly reduce a barrier of entry for SMB's

Top 10 Toyota Misconceptions

2009-11-12T14:29:00.000-05:00

I thought this was a good article to share as it clears some misconceptions of Toyota and their management philosophies and technology. This article was written by Stewart Anderson who is president of http://www.kaizenimprovement.ca a Toronto-based consulting and advisory firm in the areas of continuous improvement and business strategy.

The tools and techniques of what is commonly called "lean manufacturing" have their origin in the Toyota Production System (TPS). While the lean movement deserves much credit for popularizing these tools and techniques, a number of misconceptions appear to have developed about how Toyota itself actually practices continuous improvement. This article looks at some of these misconceptions. Readers should note that this article is not meant to be a definitive study of Toyota, nor is it meant to supplant the excellently detailed analyses of Toyota published by Jeffrey K. Liker (The Toyota Way, McGraw-Hill, 2003), Steven J. Spear (Chasing the Rabbit, McGraw-Hill, 2008), and others. Rather, it offers the author’s own personal perspective and insights on Toyota, drawing from observation and study of Toyota production and distribution operations, supplemented by interviews with Toyota employees, managers, and suppliers held over the years. Some of the thoughts expressed below also find deeper expression and treatment in Mike Rother' excellent new book, Toyota Kata (McGraw-Hill, 2009), and readers are referred to that book for a full exposition of Toyota's thinking and behaviors.

First, let it be said at the outset that the word “lean” is not one that is often seen or heard at Toyota. Rather than applying lean tools and techniques, Toyota focuses instead on establishing and propagating a basic pattern of thinking and behavior which makes the tools of TPS effective. Toyota’s basic pattern for improving a process is based on a simple three-part model:

1. Understanding the current condition.
2. Developing and defining a target condition.
3. Understanding and tackling problems which need to be overcome to move from the current condition to the target condition.

This model has learning at its heart. Within the context of this model, at Toyota the tools and techniques of lean only find life and expression as countermeasures or actions that need to be taken to solve problems in the current condition. This approach is in contradistinction to those companies who are applying lean tools first and solving problems second.

So, without further ado, let’s look at some well-held misconceptions about Toyota and how the company operates and improves its processes.

Misconception #1: Toyota hunts for waste in all its processes.

While the concept of “The Seven Wastes” is still well understood and practiced at Toyota, searching for waste is not the primary means by which the company improves its processes. Rather, as I noted in the introduction to this article, Toyota uses a basic paradigm of first understanding the current condition of any process it wishes to improve, and then develops a target condition for the process—a description of how the process should operate. With the current and target conditions understood and defined, problems and obstacles that prevent the target condition from being achieved are identified and then moved into problem solving. During the problem solving effort, waste is identified and then addressed through appropriate countermeasures. The key focus is on moving from the current condition toward the target condition by understanding and eliminating problems and obstacles, not necessarily by trying to identify waste as the first step: a subtle difference that is not often highlighted in the lean press. In addition, while the lean press has devoted much attention to the waste of non-value-adding activity, or muda as it is known in Japanese, Toyota also places equal emphasis on identifying and eliminating the other two forms of waste that may be present in a current condition: mura (unevenness) and muri (strain or overburden).

Misconception #2: Toyota operates a just-in-time system.

This misconception probably had its origins back in the 1960s when Japanese manufacturing was associated with just-in-time (JIT) inventories. In fact, Toyota is not so much focused on JIT production as they are on creating a continuous and uninterrupted flow in operations. Thus, for many of their processes, they are continually striving toward a target condition of single or one-piece flow, sometimes known as “make one, move one.” Where this can be achieved, work-in-process inventories are naturally reduced and velocity is drastically increased as a result of the single-piece transfer batch size. Where continuous flow cannot be achieved, pull systems are used, with work being pulled forward by downstream resources at a pace synchronized with their rate of production The use of continuous flow and pull principles may give the appearance of JIT, but this is an outcome, not a desired state.

In all operations, Toyota uses an approach to production where it strives to supply each process with the required items, in the required quantity, at the required time. Thus, for Toyota, timeliness alone is not enough, and the company strives for just-on-time as opposed to just-in-time.

Misconception #3: 5S is the basis of Toyota’s world-class processes.

Perhaps no TPS tool or technique has been so promoted as a standalone tool as much as 5S (sort, shine, set in order, standardize, and sustain). For Toyota, 5S—and other lean tools such as single minute exchange of dies (SMED), total productive maintenance (TPM), and so forth—is a countermeasure, not a target condition to be pursued in its own right. Pursuing 5S as anything other than a countermeasure to remove problems in a current process condition, and move towards an improved future state, represents a profound confusion between target conditions and countermeasures. As noted in Misconception #1, a target condition is a description of how a process should operate in its ideal state. Toyota manages all processes by first understanding their current condition, developing a target condition, and then identifying the problems and obstacles that need to be overcome to move from the current condition to the target condition. Countermeasures are the actions that need to be taken to reduce and eliminate problems in the current state. For some processes, this may mean that 5S needs to be implemented to address problems in workplace layout, organization, safety and cleanliness. But Toyota never pursues 5S as a standalone tool to be used apart from its focused use as an appropriate countermeasure.

Misconception #4: Toyota processes are fully standardized and never degrade.

While Toyota does believe in and practice creating standardized processes, they also realize that even a standardized process will degrade over time. This happens for a variety of reasons—people forget to follow standardized work, standard operating conditions deteriorate over time, etc. Thus, Toyota takes the view that if a process is not improving, then it is degrading; there is no in-between state that can be indefinitely maintained, even with standardization in place. Because all processes will degrade, Toyota always insists on moving toward the next target condition once a previously-set target condition has been achieved and the new condition stabilized. Toyota managers will always restandardize a process after every improvement, but they will not be content to rest there, since they know the new condition will deteriorate unless daily improvements are made.

Misconception #5: Toyota’s shop floor is linked to and controlled by a powerful IT system. Toyota does not connect its shop floor to an IT system for direct control and feedback purposes. Toyota uses IT systems with discretion to support its operations, primarily using such systems in the areas of supplier interface and control, and outbound distribution logistics. For example, Toyota may use material requirements planning (MRP) logic in some facilities, but it may only use this technology to schedule raw material from suppliers onto the factory floor, not to schedule or control shop-floor execution routines or operations. Similarly, within its core plant operations, Toyota factory managers do not rely on accounting, financial, or operational data supplied from an IT system to make their decisions. Rather, Toyota personnel rely on first-hand knowledge gleaned from “going and seeing” the actual conditions in a process. Improvements are driven from being directly in touch with a process, not from data provided from computers.

Misconception #6: Toyota uses one-piece flow in all processes.

While one-piece flow represents an ideal target condition for Toyota, it remains practical about it and never tries to force it where it cannot currently be done. For example, Toyota would like to flow, one piece at a time, out of stamping and onto the line, but presently it is not able to achieve a one-by-one flow in stamping, so small batch production with a buffer remains the rule there. However, despite not being able to operate some processes in a continuous flow, Toyota still moves aggressively and constantly to reduce the batch sizes and buffers in these processes and move closer to its ideal of continuous flow.

Misconception #7: Empowered operators are the source of most improvements at Toyota.

While Toyota does encourage all production associates to become involved in kaizen thinking and practice, probably less than 20 percent of Toyota’s total improvement effort is carried out by production associates. This makes sense when you consider that a major focus for Toyota is to operate any process at the planned cycle time and with the correct number of operators. Thus, in most Toyota processes, operators are fully utilized through work balancing and have little headroom for conducting process improvements since, were they to do so, their process would stop. This does not mean that Toyota production associates have no responsibility for process improvement. All production associates are encouraged to bring forward ideas for improvement, and many production associates volunteer for quality circle activities held off-shift to make improvements. These type of activities, however, only account for a relatively small portion of Toyota’s overall process improvement effort.

To support widespread problem solving and continuous improvement, Toyota structures its resources differently than most other companies. Toyota does not use autonomous, self-directed work teams. Rather, small teams of production associates work under the guidance of a team leader. Unlike production associates, the team leader does not perform much production work and his or her primary responsibility is to monitor the process, ensure that standard work is being followed, and coach and mentor the work team in improving the process.

Team leaders receive special training in process improvement and problem solving, and are the first line of defense when abnormal conditions arise. Team leaders and their teams, in turn, report to a group leader, and it is team leaders and group leaders, supported by specialist personnel such as manufacturing and process engineers, who carry out the majority of process improvements as part of their job function. Thus, the team leader serves to orchestrate problem solving by bringing appropriate resources to bear on abnormal conditions and support the work team in its ongoing efforts to improve the process. This structure for response and intervention to abnormal conditions enables fast cycles of improvement to be undertaken, with minimal adverse impact on normal production operations. For Toyota, form (or structure) never drives function; rather, it is the reverse. That is, the company never lets its organizational structure and form constrain the ongoing problem solving and learning that is needed to enable and support the key function of quality. So, as if to underscore the continuous in continuous improvement, Toyota organizes and structures its resources appropriately to build quality into processes by making fast and numerous cycles of improvement.

Misconception #8: Toyota does kaizen better than anyone else.

Contrary to popular opinion, Toyota does not “practice” or “do” kaizen. Rather, kaizen at Toyota is an outcome—the result of a culture and context created by the company’s leadership, which stresses continual problem solving and learning. This culture of continuous problem solving and learning is how Toyota develops people, perhaps its greatest source of organizational strength.In this respect, kaizen is not so much about what you do, it’s about what you don’t do. Working around problems and assigning blame for abnormal conditions are common behaviors that do not establish the proper context for kaizen. Toyota leadership takes great care to ensure that the fundamental conditions which are necessary for kaizen to flourish are established and sustained. This is different than doing kaizen blitzes and the like. While these types of events can yield results, and even Toyota itself has formal kaizen activities, the company places more stress on creating the conditions for kaizen rather than the events themselves. As former Toyota executive Teruyuki Minoura was wont to say, “An environment where people have to think brings with it wisdom, and this wisdom brings with it kaizen.”[1]

In this sense, kaizen as understood and practiced by Toyota, addresses the critical issue of how contribution and cooperation is elicited from all members of an organization—not just specialists or project teams tasked with solving problems or improving processes. This is the embodiment of what Chester I. Barnard held to be the key element for assuring the life and vitality of an organization: “The life of an organization depends on its ability to secure and maintain the personal contributions of energy… necessary to maintain its purpose.”[2]

Misconception #9: A3 reports are the secret of Toyota’s superior problem solving

The Toyota A3 report mirrors the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle and is used to document the PDCA improvement cycle applied to a process. It is called A3, because it fits on single size sheet of A3 size (11 in. x 17 in.) paper. In effect, the A3 document is a problem-solving storyboard and captures the thinking used in the various stages of a problem-solving activity as it moves through the PDCA cycle. Due to its limited space and brevity, the A3 document forces those performing the improvement to distill and present their thinking and learning with the utmost clarity and precision. Toyota is less concerned with how an A3 document looks than with the thinking that lies behind it. Toyota mentors want to see that the basic improvement pattern of current-condition problems/obstacles vs. target condition has been truly understood and applied by those making the improvements. This is in contrast to some companies that have copied the A3 process and have turned it into a bureaucratic exercise whose main aim is to produce reams of A3 reports. At Toyota, the emphasis is never on completing an A3 report—rather, the objective is to go through the iterative, step-by-step thinking process that is necessary to solve the problem at hand.

Misconception #10: Toyota assembles vehicles on its production line in the order in which customers buy them.

This misconception represents a profound misunderstanding of the concept of production leveling, or heijunka, as Toyota calls it. Toyota runs its assembly operations by leveling the mix and quantity of vehicles that need to be built. When customers purchase, or pull, Toyota cars from dealers’ finished goods inventories, a kanban signal to replenish the inventory is not sent directly to the assembly line. Rather, the kanban are routed into a sorting process which rearranges customer orders into a predefined sequence that specifies the type and quantity of vehicles to be built. The production pattern developed by the heijunka process represents a target condition for Toyota—a level production schedule to be achieved that allows the company to better serve a variety of customers within a short lead time, and to eliminate any unevenness in assembly line operations.

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3 Cost cutting strategies for your supply chain

2009-11-09T14:26:00.000-05:00

Here are three ways you can reduce some supply chain costs.

The use of a 3PL has become a cost-effective way for small to medium businesses (SMBs) to compete against larger organizations. A 3PL charges for storage, labor, technology, and integration, or a combination of these services. This type of model enables a company to operate a virtual warehouse cycle without the physical entity (however, a company that uses a 3PL always owns the inventory being stored). There are several service options that can be incorporated within a 3PL arrangement. The most common business model within this structure is to house, pick, pack, and ship the items through a third party supplier.

Often, 3PLs receive the information from the original vendor, process the order, and drop-ship the products directly to the customer with the original company's packaging and shipping labels. This enables the original company to better compete with larger or more efficient companies within the industry. An SMB can now offer a wide range of products at reasonably lower prices than the large retailers, since a potential advantage is the ability to use an existing infrastructure. Services like storage (especially for controlled food items, pharmaceutical materials, and hazmat, which may all require specific conditions), picking of the products, and integration of the 3PL system into the vendor's own system (for efficient order processing, consolidation, and shipping) are already in place, and can handle the additional services required.

An example of this model is Amazon.com. Its Canadian operations are totally handled by a 3PL (Progistix), yet it competes with Indigo Books & Music. Indigo operates a full warehouse operation and has many brick and mortar stores. This illustrates the success and gains that an efficiently executed 3PL model can bring.

However, an obstacle to consider for the 3PL model is lack of inventory control. The company to whom the inventory belongs has no visibility into the management and execution of fulfillment of product to its customers. The originating company cannot easily track the data generated from the purchase transaction, as this information does not belong to the primary company—which means that it has difficulty in tracking total units sold at a particular time. This causes further planning and procurement headaches, since information is not up to date. Demand planning, sales forecasting, and inventory replenishment are compromised as a result. This disadvantage is usually a determining factor that motivates many companies to keep their supply chains within the organization.

RFID Outsourcing

A volatile and constantly changing RFID market is opening the door to flexibility for SMB manufacturers and retailers. There are several concerns that are addressed through this model: a full RFID implementation may be too cost-prohibitive; the organization may not have the resources to complete a forced mandate pushed down from key suppliers; or suppliers might require compliance in a short time span that means the organization cannot commit to a full RFID implementation. From the resource, cost, and expertise standpoint, this model is useful.

RFID rental companies have gained popularity in the market, as they can offer a whole or partial RFID solution. Companies in the RFID space offer the rentals of tags, interrogators, encoders, and even middleware. Most companies within this market offer consulting on RFID implementations, and can rapidly comply with mandates. Some even offer supplier integration to external trading partners for full supply chain collaboration. The expertise gained through knowledgeable partners can prove very valuable in avoiding common mistakes relating to the implementation. Issues with tag placement, inconsistent reads, and data interpretation can be avoided because of the experience the partner will have acquired from past projects. The data integration and aggregation from the RFID system can be interpreted by the partner for corporate consumption, and be formatted correctly for input to the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The partner will advise the customer on how to manage and further understand the power of the new information.

This model can assist in planning, testing, and invoking a pilot program for the organization. With this option, an organization can also lease equipment and upgrade when new technology becomes available without going through significant capital expenses. The difficulties with this model must be weighed effectively to achieve maximum gain. There are a few drawbacks to consider if this model is pursued. When selecting an RFID outsourcing solution, always ensure there is an exit strategy built into the contract. If, for whatever reason, the company needs to change strategy or to find a more cost effective solution, there should be a way out of the current agreement. This has to be addressed by the vendor receiving the outsourced product or services. It is not usual practice for RFID outsourcers to issue an opt-out clause, so the vendor must specify that there is an equitable way out of the contract should conditions change.

Also, if supply strategy should change, there are many logistics and financial issues to deal with if the RFID component is outsourced. The organization possibly may not have planned for the implications of having these services returned to an in-house process. Implications the organization will have to consider include the acquisition cost of new infrastructure, hardware, and software; integration; compatibility with current systems; and functional and technical resources. Further to this, physical acquisition of warehouse space and labor, and the resources to execute the handling component if products are involved, need to be considered. With each of these tasks, there are several steps involved to execute each procedure, which can consume additional time, resources, and budget if not planned for accordingly.

Attribute-based Demand Planning

The goal of a supply chain is to operate at the least possible dollar amount invested in inventory while maximizing efficiency and adaptability to changing customer demands. An approach to reducing the size of the chain is to reduce the amount of inventory within that chain. Reducing inventory can lead to recovered monies that can be applied to the bottom line. A method of doing this is attribute-based demand planning. This is a variation of the just-in-time (JIT) methodology for inventory reduction. Attribute-based demand planning is defined as the granular differentiation of product, with additional products or services added to products in order to increase value or to minimize the total inventory carried.

Attribute-based demand planning can achieve several benefits:

Increased selling price (and gross revenue) for specialty products arises from the specific requirements that can be added to the items for specific consumption, location of manufacture, and specifications of raw materials. An example of this is a diamond company. The raw and uncut diamond is the base product that is in inventory. A customer can request a specific cut, such as a box cut. The company will then schedule the resources for this operation (for both labor and machinery) to be completed. With the value-added component of providing a polished box cut stone, the company can charge a higher selling price to the consumer.
Product differentiation is enhanced by allowing substitutes. Granularity for product differentiation can reduce inventory costs by enabling more definitive forecasting (for contract negotiations), and a finer level of detail can be used for demand planning.
Customer service is improved by having available-to-promise (ATP) and similar products available for sale. With the availability of real-time stock reporting, customer service can give the consumer an accurate picture of delivery time.
Inventories are reduced with a product pooling strategy and similar component strategy. By invoking a pooling strategy for inventory, if the finished good requires many similar base components that must be assembled to complete the final product, then the company may use similar parts for completion of the good (as long as it does not make a difference in the finished product).
Efficiencies for operation and machine scheduling are increased. By creating a clearer picture of planning, operations can schedule its resources, labor, and machines to complete the job.

There are many approaches to maximizing the efficiency and reducing the costs of a supply chain. One must consider the type of supply chain currently instituted, and closely analyze how these methods can benefit the current structure. It may be useful to follow a road map for supply chain evaluation:

Assess the current supply chain and identify all bottlenecks and anomalies.
Once identified, create a plan on how these situations can be corrected.
Evaluate the options and possible costs, and calculate the return on investment (ROI) for any solutions that may be required.
Compute a baseline for the company on key performance indicators (KPIs) that are industry standards. This information can usually be found on industry web sites for specific verticals.
Implement the strategies, software, and methodologies that would solve the constraints and bottlenecks.
Re-evaluate the supply chain with the new measures in place; re-establish the new baseline with the increased productivity gains.
Continue to assess the state of the chain, and improve performance along the entire chain.

The options of 3PL, RFID outsourcing, and attribute-based demand planning can add significant value to the company by saving money, reducing the size of the chain, and even allowing the company to compete with some of the larger players within the space.

The 3PL and the RFID outsourcing options best fit an SMB model. Attribute-based demand planning is best suited for large organizations that require constant product differentiation and that have large supply chains. The physical reduction of total parts carried within the chain will lead to significant savings over the course of the year.

Be cognizant that each step listed in the road map above requires full analysis and execution, and will lead to projects for each task. This rapidly becomes a large endeavor not to be taken lightly. If invoked, the company should plan for time, resources, and lost revenue (from shutdown time).

The death of SOA ? - How to define cloud components for data aggregation

2009-11-09T12:25:00.000-05:00

As the proliferation of cloud architecture, cloud services and applications spread throughout the enterprise should you look at revamping your infrastructure strategy ? The cloud has made it easier for organizations to access and afford new software. With the plethora of choices being offered to companies now in all aspects of software it is feasible to examine your organizational strategy to include a component of cloud whether it be as a storage facility or new application.

The cloud has allowed organizations to readily access and use information offered by an application to be consumed within the company rather easily as now they are standalone applications.

In our last post Next generation technology infrastructure strategy - What you need to know offered tips on how to look for gotchas when building your application infrastructure platform.

As cloud continues to grow in acceptance data consumption within the organization from different systems and applications becomes the issue. Here is a quick list that should help when defining your new SOA infrastructure platform.

How is the data is aggregated from the various systems
How do you consume this data,
How is it managed,
Where is stored,
How is it administered, ( the application, platform and use of data)
What security is in place for integration points and users
Can users aggregate their own data,
Is there maintenance and support of the platform (not the application) will that be supported
Does the platform provider offer integration and extra programming services
Can users customize their own requirements
Are there dashboards that combine various data sources into one usable data source

These are a few questions that need to be answered when building an SOA platform using the cloud. These will also help define the integration with existing enterprise systems.

Does using a platform for integration between applications such as offered by Amazon, Force.com, Zoho etc allow an organization to build an SOA platform and use all the bells and whistles that the cloud can offer these are just of few points to consider when building an enterprise resource management strategy that is part of the overall IT strategy that supports and enables your organizational efforts.

Next generation technology infrastructure strategy - What you need to know

2009-11-04T15:18:00.000-05:00

With the proliferation of SaaS and all the other applications, platforms and services available as outsourced products and services how does does an organization know where to start if it is looking to do any of these projects.

Once point solution vendors, Salesforce.com and now others such as Zoho etc. are now offering platforms (PaaS - platforms as a service and IaaS - infrastructure as a service) in which applications can be quickly built. The open API's make it easy to develop additional functionality based on already stable and competent working applications.

Since ERM's are evolving quickly to more agile methodologies and configuration options to benefit the consumer organizations need to examine how other applications will fit into their corporate ERM strategy. This includes maintenance, storage, interoperability, social networking, collaboration for external and internal partners, outsourced business processes such as procurement and all components that will combine to create your technology infrastructure.

Things to consider when creating your Technology/platform infrastructure strategy:

Consider a platform that can easily be built upon
Open API's for quick development of existing and new applications
A platform that can act as an enabler to your business by allowing interoperability between applications
A platform that is capable to create databases, applications, user friendly guis to existing apps
A platform that can unify and aggregate business intelligence from all applications, databases and unstructured content
A platform that enables workflow across multiple applications and databases
A platform that accepts your necessary hardware requirements
Allows event/alert processing and notifications across applications

As technologies and applications merge such as CRM starting to encroach social media and PLM starting to approach content management organizations should look at their IT strategy to see if all these factors do play in harmony.

A major shift especially within supply chain technology allows a full complement of products and services to be offered within the cloud that are capable of interfacing to existing systems. This new found application infrastructure allows companies to quickly adapt to changing environments and can readily compete more effectively. The above tips combined with a proper evaluation method will ensure success.

What the Toronto Malple Leafs and Microsoft have in common

2009-10-31T21:26:00.000-04:00

Why is that Microsoft insists on holding its customers (both personal home computing and business users) hostage?

With the recent release of Windows 7.0 O/S plagued with problems why can't they make something that works, efficiently. It doesn't need to incorporate all the bells and whistles but work on what it is capable of doing. Personal users and business users have roughly the same type of needs however, there are different feature sets we require.   With all the posted comments for support and most still not resolved it makes you wonder whyt corporations and users are willing to jump so quickly into unproven technology.

The security patches and updates are far too frequent and become a part-time job to manage even if automatic updates are turned on. Endless bugs and sometimes simple tasks cannot be handled efficiently or is made too complicated. As a business user the MAC strategy of desktops Powerbooks and a working secure O/S is looking very attractive.

Although MAC is far more expensive more organizations are starting to investigate this strategy and are looking for security and stability. A working O/S with fewer problems tighter security and and easier interface to use, what's not to like ?

As more SaaS models come on the market for applications, platforms and the like will users move away from MS to LINUX, Ubuntu, Mac etc. in droves. MS pushes beta quality yet consumers are still willing to accept a less than standard product. Is just extremely good marketing? As much as I am a die hard leafs fan, The Toronto Maple Leafs are terrible team. They have always had BAD scouting, sometimes better than mediocre management but cannot put the pieces. together. Smaller market teams are doing it better by winning and at least contending.

If corporate sponsorship dries up and fans refuse to support a losing product will that spur change, can the same be said for Microsoft users ?   With another hockey team in town does other options where consumers can spend their frighten them, it should.

In the computer world is this just a case of non-exposure by other competent operating system vendors are not getting their fair kick at the can by having a lack of marketing budget on products that work ?   Will lack of support from consumers actually make a difference to MS?

Would love to hear the comments on this.

C-Level guide to cloud computing

2009-10-22T13:24:00.000-04:00

Today we explore a high level overview of cloud computing and its components. This is a C-level guide to cloud computing and basic concepts of cloud computing. Enjoy and feel free to circulate this.

C –Level Guide to Cloud Computing or Cloud Computing Simplified

The concept of cloud computing has proliferated within organizations due to the great success stories circulated in the media. This guide will be a quick, high–level guide to cloud computing of what it entails, architecture, uses, benefits and how cloud computing can help your organization.

What is cloud computing ?

Cloud computing is defined as a style of computing that involves the use of products and/or services which are deliverable over the internet. This can include anything from applications, databases, infrastructure, platform, administration, storage, network capacity and all types of functions that are delivered by data centers and internal IT teams. It essentially extends resources while bringing the applicability of the web to the enterprise

Cloud Architecture

Cloud architecture can be compared to that of common internal stacks today. Cloud architecture contains: Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) , Platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (Saas). These can be compared to the network, database and application levels of common software.

IaaS – This is the lowest layer delivering basic storage and compute capabilities as standardized services over the network. Here the resources are combined to leverage the products and services that the cloud can offer.

PaaS – This is the next layer up that provides a framework for the programming environment along with services to encapsulate the flexibility and ability to build, distribute, share new content or programs throughout the organization. An example of this is the Amazon EC2 and S3 services offered or the Force.com platform that allows partners to leverage an existing platform to build out additional functionality.

SaaS – This is the top layer that can be leveraged to include any combination of services, applications or databases that end users may interface with.

Cloud Models

Within the cloud there are several models that exist. The main cloud types are: Public, Private and Hybrid.

Public - Run by third parties that control all aspects of delivery to the organization, by products and services from different customers running on multiple servers and/or platforms and end users are not aware of who else and what other services are being delivered to other customers.

Private - Private clouds are on-demand infrastructure owned by a single customer who controls which applications run, and where. They own the server, network, and disk and can decide which users are allowed to use the infrastructure.

Hybrid - A hybrid cloud is a combination of the two models. This may entail where the organization owns a part of the infrastructure or application and the cloud providers own and administer the remaining services

Cloud Benefits/Usage

There are many advantages a cloud computing model can offer an organization. Included is a brief list of common benefits gained by cloud usage. This is a partial list and there are many other opportunities that may be gained depending on the model and services your organization requires.

· Leverage existing horizontal scalable hardware and software

· Lower administrative duties for the network and applications

· Reduce capital costs by turning them into operating costs, no upfront investment – a pay as you go model

· Reduce data center costs by maximizing utilization rates, load balancing to distribute wok etc.

· Virtualize different operating systems, images, platforms and applications while using the hardware

· Combining an enterprise stack of products and services

· Availability/Reliability, Density/ Scalability, Agility/Security

· Handle extra capacity for spikes in demand

· Deployment, testing and functional offloading of applications or tasks that that require server intensive processing

· Testing, development can be executed within the cloud, the saving of provisioning the hardware and software for these tasks can rapidly decrease product development time and speed time to market

· Lower energy costs by fully utilizing all hardware capacity

· Reduce IT start up costs

· Leverage existing usage of storage networks, easily restored in case of disruption (continuity planning)

Certain vendors within the cloud arena offer a combination of services and software for enterprises to utilize. Sun is one of the few vendors that offer software, systems, and services as a stack of products which may be utilized in combination or as a holistic solution. Other vendors that offer such products and services as IBM with the collaboration suites and social networking capabilities brought to the workplace through a cloud with its Lotus Live and other lotus products.

The interoperability of platforms systems and applications is still a while away as many providers lock-in proprietary services that do not allow organizations to move clouds or systems easily. This should also change in the future as technology evolves, open standards, common protocols, and API’s prevail. Organizations should demand that obstacles be removed in limiting the way they do business which includes the customer bill of rights when dealing vendors.

By offloading these IT and data functions your organization can focus on generating new business, intensely increase customer satisfaction and focus on the core processes that you have been successful at.

Organizations should evaluate their requirements, decide what options make sense to offload to the cloud and calculate the “costs” in doing so. This will give the business an insight to the possible benefits of cloud computing. Enterprises are also including content management as part of the services issued from a cloud as these systems are usually not as easily accepted when implemented as an on-premise solution. The cloud may also control a degree of change management which may influence the success of your project.

As technology moves forward more and more services and software for nearly every type of organizational task will become available. As recently as four years back not many if any supply chain softwares were offered as SaaS now several supply chain functions such as transportation, warehouse, demand and supplier relationship management applications are now readily available for consumption. Organizations now have a wide variety of choices that they may deploy from ERM systems to specific applications such as CRM and the like. For further information check our website.

Shifting revenue models for vendors

2009-10-17T13:42:00.007-04:00

The industry analysts say that we are on revolution back to thin client PC and applications. This revolution is due to the advent and quick uptake of all type of cloud applications. As applications and once non-traditional software makes its way to the cloud industries and applications that were once very closed are emerging as cloud solutions. These newly available software options are allowing a lower entry point for smaller businesses to compete and utilize world class tools. This perceived loss revenue by declining hardware sales is true only to a degree. While this will be true to an extent the forgotten part of this equation remains on the flipside of cloud computing. The vendors and companies offering cloud services and software applications must set up infrastructure and house the necessary hardware. Internet service providers, software developers, vendors, internet hardware vendors (vendors that make the internet work; servers, green energy saving companies, storage vendors, and security related companies for encryption, financing companies and like) are all investments that will have to be made for an entity to setup a cloud offering. As cloud computing becomes more popular security options become of primary importance. New companies with security software consulting of how to build private clouds, how they interlink with public clouds and the security options available and how these are considered as part of the enterprise IT strategy are emerging. Applications such as MS OFFICE have web competition. OFFICE will soon be available in the cloud while Google Docs and others are already there. Will this shift of delivery options lower the licensing of such applications ? It should as vendors are competing for market share as Google Docs for a year subscription is cheap. Cloud integration to traditional in-house applications will have to be considered as there will be be a large number of companies that still have fully functional software but need to enhance or add functionality using cloud technologies. This will in turn cause vendors to rethink its licensing structures and how to recoup this lost initial revenue. How will vendors adapt to this changing model and shift in business preference ? We will have to wait and see what unfolds.. these are exciting times.

Win a Tru-Benchmark CRM kit from Eval-Source

2009-10-15T23:03:00.007-04:00

We are holding a contest for organizations to benchmark and rate their current CRM system with our Tru-Benchmark kit. This is a chance to see where your CRM ranks towards newer systems and technologies. The winner will be determined by random. Sign-up can be done at http://www.eval-source.com form from our home page. ( Enter our Promotion ) the winner will be published announced at contest completion.

Game changers - Collaborative purchasing

2009-10-14T17:52:00.008-04:00

In the world of supply chain and enterprise software new ways of business come along that couple technology to complement business practices. In this case the game changer is collaborative purchasing. Essentially it working together with like minded companies for a common goal - to reduce costs. This is the flip side to a buying consortium where they cater more to selling of common products and not cater directly to company specific requirements. In collaborative purchasing the group members share information for the good of the entire group to lower prices for whatever they are buying to either resell or consume. New membership is a group decision, only by unanimous count. Within the supply chain technologies for procurement are emerging that are changing the way procurement transpires. The usage of portals, consortiums , collaborative purchasing and social networking groups have shifted the thinking from internal-singular to external-global and the impacts on the organization. Combining systematic, repeatable and flexible purchasing methods to technology allows an organization to streamline its processes with little disruption or without significant cost. Corporations are starting to see the values of these approaches and are starting to pay more attention to these new and innovative ideas. If technology can be used to support your business while reducing inefficiencies and reducing costs, reduced risk and increase supplier quality then aren't these new applications and techniques worth considering ?

Finally, cloud computing standards and interoperability being established

2009-10-13T10:34:00.007-04:00

With the advent of cloud computing exploding to most any type of application being available, it only makes sense for industry standards and interoperability to be established. The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) announced today the formation of the Cloud Storage Initiative (CSI) in order to establish a lexicon of cloud-computing terminology, publish use cases, white papers and technical specifications, and to create reference implementation models for grid-storage architectures. The implications of this news, should it be embraced by vendors and more importantly end-users (organizations) should drive cloud computing to a whole other level. The creation of open standards for vendors to comply will also make it easier for customers to migrate from one system to another and allow the end-user multiple choices of vendors and applications as they should all work together as this is one the goals that this cloud initiative establishes. The creation and consumption of data should be easier by making the data easily portable to other applications within the enterprise space. This is especially great news for the SME market as there are many services that an SME can utilize such as cloud storage, outsourced procurement, server virtualization, human resources and all types enterprise software systems etc. That can be made to work together. This in-turn would make the IT strategies for organizations easier as now the data portion of the will be considered as this was not often the case. The explosion of information, different sources, the content management of internal and external data can now be managed a little easier. An advantage that this may offer organizations is that they can easily switch to other applications and not have to redo the implementation as the data is now reusable and portable. Lets hope the cloud computing initiative can provides direction, allows data transformation, portability and not lose sight of why this was created. Vendors that offer this thought leadership and early adoption of the cloud initiative might be looked upon as market leaders in a step towards creating a more trusting relationship with customers.

Eval-Source introduces "Ask the Expert" on new site

2009-10-08T23:05:00.006-04:00

Eval-Source has introduced its new website with an "Ask the Expert" interaction for organizations looking to purchase enterprise software. Questions can be asked about software evaluation, benchmarking, investment evaluation, outsourced procurement and strategic consulting all the services www.Eval-Source.com provides. Our best practices approach combines IT, business and project management into a complete methodology so that commonly forgotten items are included and the necessary detail is produced to give you the best decision possible based on your organizational needs. Organizations often do not have method or a starting point on how to evaluate enterprise software other than basic generic checklists that are published. Our Tru-Eval method and Tru-Benchmark kits provide a procedure and systematic approach to software evaluation and selection. Our Tru-Eval and Tru-Benchmark kits make it easy for organizations to do it themselves with minimal training and within their own time frame.

Exciting New Products Being Introduced

2009-04-22T01:01:00.004-04:00

The Damain Group is proud to introduce their new Tru-Benchmark Comparison Kits. The Kits consists of tools for organizations to Benchmark their current systems. The kits are low cost and are designed to use internal resources, thus saving the company money. While not an entire evaluation for a new system (the Tru-Eval method) this will give companies an idea if they should stay the current course or invest in new systems based on the Tru-Benchmark equation generated by the kit. The kits are sold for major verticals and cover most industries. The kit consists of checklists, calculation sheets, and a mathematical method with instructions for easy use.

Damain Group - News

2008-12-15T01:20:00.001-05:00

The Damain Group is engaging new vendors everyday and has partnered already with major software suppliers and starting to build its media partner network. So far the vendors engaged really believe in our Tru-Eval method because of the systematic, unbiased analyst approach. The Tru-Eval method has also been used for investment purposes ask to see our case study for the investor''''s eval report. The deliverables using the Tru-Eval method is an additional piece of business intelligence used for your company to make an informed decision when ing and enterprise software. Our method was devised to assist organizations in making the most informed business decisions, while maximizing your ROI on technology, reduces the risk of failed implementation in enterprise software and shortens the time of the overall project cycle due its efficiency. Since we do not sell or implement software our focus is to ensure an unbiased software evaluation with all factors taken into consideration. The method''s impartiality allows for any type industry and type of software looking to be purchased.

See our website for further details. www.damaingroup.com

LinkedIn: Dylan Persaud

2008-12-14T22:45:00.000-05:00

LinkedIn: Dylan Persaud

Tru-Eval method saves investors big time !!

2008-12-13T14:20:00.002-05:00

Tru-Eval method saves investors big time !!

The Tru-Eval method was created using industry best practices coupled with strong IT processes and applying business methodology to create a comprehensive an unbiased procedure. The Tru-Eval method provides a process that defines your business, rates the technology, analyzes the results and allows you to make the best possible selection The Tru-Eval method allowed the investors to: • Compare competitive solutions • Add impartial analysis to their decision • Analyze the results objectively • Increase the ROI to align Business and Technology investment • Validate or disprove functionality proposed by the vendor • Respected the timeline applied by the organization for the analysis, decreased overall project time Also the Tru-Eval method is used to evaluate current technology. If your organization has just merged and don't know which system to go forward with the Tru-Eval method from the Damain Group can give them the piece of business intelligence to make a more informed decision. Please feel free to check out our website www.damaingroup.com

Enterprise Software Evaluation

2008-12-07T16:36:00.002-05:00

The Damain Group developed the Tru-Eval method to identify and match enterprise software with your organizations needs. The method allows for an apples-to-apples comparison that is used throughout the evaluation process to simplify the entire project cycle and the analysis of the results.

The Tru-Eval method was created using industry best practices coupled with strong IT processes and applying business methodology to create a comprehensive an unbiased procedure. The Tru-Eval method provides a process that defines your business, rates the technology, analyzes the results and allows you to make the best possible selection. The Damain Group is a boutique consulting firm that offers enterprise software consulting and research to the business marketplace. Our unique toolbox of products and services combines to make your life easier whether it is to acquire enterprise software through an evaluation, gather business requirements or to provide top quality collateral to your customers from impartial respected third party analysts. We have devised the only unique documented, systematic method to evaluate enterprise software deemed the Tru-Eval method. We provide a true unbiased evaluation method that aligns Business and IT. Our method was devised to assist organizations in making the most informed business decisions, while maximizing your ROI on technology, reduces the risk of failed implementation in enterprise software and shortens the time of the overall project cycle due its efficiency. Since we do not sell or implement software our focus is to ensure an unbiased software evaluation with all factors taken into consideration. The method's impartiality allows for any type industry and type of software looking to be purchased.