ERPs in the cloud !!

By Suren

Cloud computing is the talk of the town with everything from social media websites where you have you have your entire life’s details laid down,  to a  simple comment you leave on the some website in some corner of the world wide web.

Given the popularity that cloud computing is gaining, you could ask why haven’t those large ERP vendors yet to break into this as you would have expected them to?

Well some of the basic challenges that would crop up would be:

• Transitioning from onsite revenue streams to in-house ones. Business models need to be revamped at the source to make this transition smooth, and with more than million clients it’s not an easy task.
• Confused  clients when it comes to clear vision laid out by a vendor in terms of support and maintenance on how the infrastructure would be setup.
• Difficulty for the vendors in being able to pin point which existing systems will be brought in house, due to integrational aspects and 3rd party’s existing cloudless computing solutions in the overall landscape.
• Another challenge is to be able to distinguish between cloud services for core applications and those on the peripheries. This will always be a point of discussion to consider.  
• Being able to align the cloud and SaaS applications together on a common platform  in a client organization is always a time consuming and painstaking task.

These are just some of the basic challenges that come to mind when considering a shif to a cloud service from the regular on-site service setup, from a vendors perspective. However, the large ERP vendors have already taken irreversible steps in this direction, but it’s likely that the these changes will take time to stabilize and yield tangible results.

Just some points to ponder. Have a nice day !!

Reading outside the lines...for a Consultant!!

By Suren

Well, I’m sure this is the first time you’ve heard of this term “Reading outside the lines”!! .

This is what I’ll like to term doing something different in a different way, phrases such as “Thinking out of the box” have been used too often that it has actually distorted what people make of it, some think doing something new is thinking out of the box, but in fact in today’s world it’s a matter of how you do that new thing different to the way others might have done it, that could be the success factor!!

This article focuses on some of the important areas; I feel could help a consultant read outside the lines...!!

1. Be on the lookout to take on result oriented tasks, what I mean by this is, take on tasks that once completed will clearly reflect the positive results generated by the high quality of the completed task and in a tangible manner. At the end of the day, immediate results are what counts, and that’s what clients are after as well.

2. Non-routine work – Everything that can be automated will be done eventually, update and enhance your skill on those tasks which cannot be automated, in short, it’s your soft skills and your ability to identify process improvements, in order to do this, study and analyse the best in class practices deployed out there.

3. Begin to work together with teams more often – As time goes, individualistic work is going to be redundant, it’s all going to be teams. Sure you could think of yourself as someone who can perform on your own, but systems are going to be so much integrated at one point of time, where it’s just going to be impossible to do a process on your own. Just like anything else, it’s a cycle, initially systems are developed to be able to function on its own, then they are integrated for a complete process to be completed on its own, then it just keeps growing until it gets to that point, where you need some amount of manual intervention to make sure everything is working as it should be. If this doesn’t take place from time to time, it could be the case as with a large telecom where the system kept billing clients for data they didn’t use, and I’m sure the system there was too big,.

4. Think like a systems auditor, this is going to be a key factor in determining the validity of your solutions, have a record of the things you performed during the project and rationale behind those. You can’t be a good systems auditor if you don’t know how the whole process works, and the best way to get to that is to work as a team and learn all the connecting cogs.

5. Don’t always assume more information is good information: Loading the clients table with heaps of report makes up for nothing but confusion.  Facts and figures are only useful if you can do something about it; understand that facts and figures work differently at different levels of an organisation.

6. Do your job: As a consultant, you are often looked upon to provide your expert opinion, given your experience you should be selling ideas of best practises from your experience of dealing with clients from various different industries and domains. Sell ideas, but ask for opinions and implement the best mix for the company.

That’s it folks, hope this serves as food for thought. Have a nice day !!

Ahhh ... The Package deal!!

By Suren

No matter what you had in mind to buy, whenever you come across a package deal it’s always something that makes us stop and think.

Package deals are found practically everywhere these days from hair cut salons to ERP solutions. Of course decisions made on buying a packaged ERP Solution is subject to a much more long-term drive and vision than a haircut, and given that, that’s going to be my main focus today!!

Given the benefits that come from an packaged deal such as, low cost, quicker turnaround time, easier buying process, lower risk in terms of process coverage and better governance, it’s easy to get too excited about these deals and jump to conclusions.

As an enterprise buyer there are few important criteria’s you need to tick off if you would want to make sure you are getting the most out of a packaged deal, like:

Segmentalise:

You always got to segmentalise the different components and analysis them for their individual CBA (Cost benefit analysis) separately. This would give you a good base to start drawing up your objective you would want to achieve from each of these components in reaching your business goals. Also assess the trade offs, risks, pros and cons of making an investment in the packaged solution.

Integration Maturity


Identify how long this package solution has been in existence, try and get a list of some companies that have implemented these and how they have done. Understand how mature the solution is in terms of integration within its own modules and how much open they are to allow for external interfaces to interact with. Most often than not, packaged solution tend to be more rigid than individual components, due to the so called “system architecture” that is sold along with it, that allows it to talk to each other modules internally but not much so externally.

Domain specifics


Most packaged solution are advertised as a “One fit All” solution, something that I don’t quite find fascinating because if you are ever going to buy a one fit all solution you are not differentiating yourself from the others and in essence losing out a possible competitive edge you could have had. Check with vendor how best in class practises for your domain have been built into the solution and how flexible it is in terms of catering to changing business needs. As a buyer, f you don’t already have a road map of your organisations informational needs for the next couple of year, its important you draw up one before asking this question.

Packaged deals seem to be the new trend in ERP Solutions and with large ERP vendors moving to the cloud and SaaS architecture, it makes for a perfect solution for companies looking out for low TCO, TCI (total cost of implementation) and low risks in project implementation, so keep an eye out on packaged deals and keep you checklist handy !!

All the best and have a nice day, cheers !!

Keeping a close eye on an ERP’s Eco-system !!

By Suren

An ecosystem is generally the biotic components around your immediate surrounding that make up for the atmosphere around you, this could be both living and non-living.

Just as it is with us human beings, it’s the same with systems. A systems ecosystem is everything that links to it, either directly or indirectly. This could be from an integrated link with another system or be a maintenance service on the system hardware. Most often than not, in large scale implementations you would come across the term “Planning the Ecosystem”, this basically is making sure everything around the implementation is working in such a way as to provide either directly or indirectly a beneficial impact on the EPP implementation.

I would say it’s a good thing to always list down the components in an ERP’s Ecosystem to be able to provide to the stakeholders of an ERP Implementation a snap shot of what constitutes the ecosystem and the measures in place to make sure they are administered to act in a positive way around the implementation itself.

Some example of components in an ERP’s Ecosystem:

• Hardware Infrastructure – servers, printers, networks
• Services – maintenance agreements, consulting, process improvements, implementation partners
• Products – software versions, integrating tools & equipment
• Vendors – direct (i.e. consulting partners, hardware vendors) and non-direct (i.e. organisation wide vendors for utilities, other services)
• Training & Support departments
• ERP enhancement  & sustainability development plans (this would more often than not be a part of the PMO’s responsibility itself)
• Competitor
• Customers – end users, management teams and external customer as well.

Generally, the above list will be broken down into an impact matrix with key variables identified in them in terms of impact and controllability, to assess how much of a significant impact it can have on the ERP Implementation, which  need to be addressed and should form part of the risk register. This process could be a lengthy one but if done properly will help minimise risks.

Hope you found this post informative. I can be contact on ssurenlk@msn.com.

Have a nice day!!

A “Complete Consultant” is a “Conversant Consultant” and vice versa!!

By: Suren

As ERP Consultants we need to be aware on whats going around us in our ERP World. A clued-up/knowledgeable consultant always stands out from the rest, remember like I mentioned earlier, its not just technical/ consulting skills that makes a complete consultants but its the ability to know whats going on around them , being able to adapt to these changes and stay on top of the new tools of trade !!

My primary goals is to be able to share whatever up-to-date information I have on the latest happenings in the ERP industry with all interested consultants worldwide via www.erparena.com , however there are other sites that have some specific research articles prepared by specialist in their relevant fields as well, going through these would come in very handy as well !!

Here is a list of sites I would recommend:

http://www.cio.com/

http://www.gartner.com

http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/

http://www.contrarianconsulting.com/

http://www.computerworld.com/

http://www.informationweek.com/

Happy reading!!

Click on the article labels “Consulting Tips” or “ERP Arena Updates” for my own articles on various ERP & Consulting subject matters.

Have a nice day!!

Your comments, suggestions and feedback are welcomed at : ssurenlk@msn.com

Too basic, it can almost be ignored... but shouldn’t !!

By Suren

There have been many articles, research papers and books written around the success and failure of ERP projects, and they explain in details on what to do, how to do it, what not to do and so on. However the reality is that it is only human tendency to overlook some basic ground rules which everyone knows and accepts, but somehow has been overlooked.

To keep it simple, I’ll like to breakdown the key areas by their importance in the Initiation & execution project phases, since these areas take up the biggest chunk on a project life cycle.

Initiation & Planning

• Scope verification – Freeze the base, with a wobbly base you are not going to get anywhere. Check if a document has been laid out with what are the key requirements of the business, try and define this in tangible terms and how much of it is to be covered in each phase of the project.
• Cost / Benefit Analysis – The PMO has got to do this analysis to avoid going over budget.
• Stakeholder support –Draw up a stakeholder matrix and pass it onto PMO & all key project members (Leads etc) so they are all on the same page with stakeholder’s roles, responsibilities and power.
• Supplier Responsibility Documentation – A document detailing out what the vendor is responsible for and what the client is for.
• Draw up initiatives & communicate to project members. It’s always nice to know the rewards of good work before starting on it than after.

Execution

• Supplier deliverable checks – Cross check the execution steps with the Supplier responsibility documentation.
• Resources - Always a key. Plan for contingencies and move them around. Name and list down those individuals who can fit into multiple roles and keep them happy. A few good guys can take you a long way.
• Focus on good sound business decisions / solutions – Don’t let people get carried away with developing and designing solutions that don’t make business sense but is fancy and nice to show to the higher management. 
• Communicate Deadlines – Keep project members aware of their key milestone, keep it transparent to everyone.

If you’ve been involved in project implementations for a long time the above list almost feels like second nature, but having them actually laid down on the table in a project environment is the key but in most cases a “RARITY”.

Almost there, but not quite!! (Also known as “Time to Market” syndrome)

By S. Suren

Many companies brand themselves as innovative and want to build a learning and innovative culture within the organisation, whether these are small or large enterprises, all of them tend to strive for the same thing, but what happens eventually is both of them have their own resource problems when it comes to launching the product into the market (time to market).

It is a known fact that any innovative product needs to have the shortest time to market, which means everything else surrounding that product needs to be expedited including its product & project life cycle phases. Examples of some companies who churn out new products on the go are apple, salesforce.com & Virgin.

Most experts would agree that smaller company tend to be more innovative than large ones and typically their time to market would be faster, however this might not necessarily be the case, a few factors, like those listed below tend to show otherwise :

• Shop floor to Shelf time
• Final product’s ecosystem
• Continuity

Shop floor to shelf is the ability to move through the product lifecycle to come out with a base version. Generally smaller companies don’t procrastinate, i.e. they don’t wait until everything is perfect and gone through the various different level of a product life cycle, and they most often have the instinct to go when you feel you are 80% ready. However this could be in their favour or against them.

Final Product’s ecosystem is how best to use the existing business model to sell the new product. Trying to do anything very different if what you are doing presently and which works takes time, because re-inventing the wheel takes time. Large companies tend to try to do something different to satisfy their need to create a new channel to build a business division, a new office block, new designations and what not!! Smaller companies don’t have a choice and go with what they’ve got.

Continuity is the ability to have the resources and systems in place to work on the next version immediately once the first version is out. This is where I feel large companies have the better hand, since they can afford to do this; smaller companies on the other hand generally experience a lag during this time.

Just like as mentioned in growth models (e.g. Greiner’s) in management books, innovativeness tends to die out as companies become larger this is mainly due to red tape, however if the companies can treat each sub unit as business entities with their own entrepreneurs, innovative ideas would come about, most often than not this is practised in only the marketing or development unit of the business, but I feel this can be practised in other areas of the business too.

Most large companies like to believe they have an internal culture to accommodate this innovativeness but deep down they all know that if the simplest of things like a leave approvals takes time it sure is going to take time to launch a new product into the market !!

Hope you found this post informative. Feel free to mail your comments to ssurenlk@msn.com

Picking the right Consultants

By Suren

Generally there are many ERP Implementations which tend to show resemblance of an implementation of a similar company elsewhere, why is this, the reason can be identified by taking a look at the consultants prior experience, most of them would have implemented what they already had done successfully in a previous project.

Sometime, this is good because it’s a solution that’s been tried, tested and has worked, however this need not always be the best solution for the current business requirements. That’s why I feel it’s always a good idea to have a consulting team with members from diverse implementation experiences from different companies within the same industry, this way as a company you’ll be picking out the best of the tested processes from different companies into your own.

Well, that said, this shouldn’t always have to be the consultants, look at the business users as well, if you’ve got business users in the implementation team all coming in with similar prior experiences from a previous implementation, then it’s likely you can expect the same as with a consultant.

However have no doubt, of the previous implementation experience that the consultants and the business users will bring into the company that should always be valued and rewarded. Just make sure it doesn’t get to a level where the current business requirements are overlooked and instead a solution that worked well for another business’s requirements and processes are being implemented in your business!!

All the best!!

World Economy: What goes down must go UP and down again!!

By Suren

Massive deficits, enormous debts and asset bubbles ready to pop, everyone is keeping an eye out on if there is going to be another GFC. There are telling signs that this could well in fact happen, but this time the experts predict if there are no proper actions by the countries that are experiencing these debts, we could see countries collapsing instead of companies, like what happened to Lehman brothers that sparked the financial crisis on 2008.

Thing don’t look too good for now, but then it never has, the last 3 years was the slowest move out of a dip in the markets and broadly due to the collective thinking of the general public that the worst is over, and this saw an uplift in many economies.

The stock market is controlled by human emotions and that of the mass general average investors. With the news about the credit rating in US and everything else that’s happening in Europe it’s not going to be surprising that the investors are going to pull out and save, and in effect curtail spending, increasing unemployment and most likely another GFC.

What’s more alarming this time is that the market could take longer to recover since stimulus package are going to be a rarity, international support is going to be a long shot especially since major players like China have their portfolios already tied in on US assets that are wobbly to say the least.

So then with all this what is the impact for ERP Implementations, there sure it going to be a dip but not at least until 2012, the best position for IT Consultants and IT Businesses is to make sure they setup sustainable business deals that will keep them afloat until mid 2013, current projects will continue since these have sunk costs in them and will have to be seen through, but come 2012 the budgets are going to take a beating and IT most probably is going to be the first to have the axe come down on it.

Up skill, expand into cross functional roles, build networks and be on the move would be the call of the day during this GFC period.

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, adapt to it and make it work for you.

Latest in the ERP Arena

By Suren

In this article I thought I’ll share with you all some of the latest happenings in the ERP Arena.

• SAP & IBM targeting SAGE - The big story right now is the rumours going around that SAP and IBM are looking to acquire SAGE. What this does is, makes the playing field smaller, just like it was forecasted a few years back when we saw a series of acquisitions in the ERP Arena, the number of ERP service providers core brand wise is going to reduce, however hopefully the number of ERP Products out there will continue to remain for some more time before we see any major change. My guess is a lot of products that have been acquired by larger ERP vendors could be eventually phased out in the next 5 -1 0 years, after all some of them have already been given time only until 2014.

• SAP ‘s new Business Analytics tool – SAP has been working hard on its business intelligence suits ever since it took over Business Objects, for all valid reason they don’t want to lose out on the benefits of not using the rich functionalities that BOBJ has to offer when integrated with SAP. SAP’s new applications SAP BusinessObjects Edge 4.0 and SAP Crystal Server are targeted at the small and mid-size companies.

• Sharing of SAP Support Staff: There seems to be a growing trend of companies which have SAP ERP implemented looking to share their SAP support staff with other similar companies in a way to generate some additional revenue and reduce the dependence on external expensive consultants. This trend seems to have picked up in a few companies in California, however time will tell if this approach is successful, I have personally seen one such SAP Support staff sharing model failing miserably and ended up with a company paying a very expensive price.

• A new Spanish based open source ERP is beginning to make its footprints in the US market. It’s called Openbravo.

• A state university which implemented Oracle PeopleSoft ERP suit is now suing ORACLE over Project Cost overruns. The case is in court and proceeding at its own pace as expected.

Those were just some of the news that have made headline over the past couple of weeks, I shall update the site with more as and when new events happen in the ERP Arena. Hope you found this post informative.

Feel free to drop me your comments, suggestions and feedback on ssurenlk@msn.com