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

Let’s Integrate this, that & that too....!!

By S.Suren

Well everyone have been talking about the term “Globalization” and how everyone and everything in this world is beginning to make sense of the benefits that arise out of integration of global networks. This is a good thing, because people and systems are accepting the ideas and learning to sync in with this and not be left behind in the growth potential it has to offer.

Given that, it’s no big surprise that over a period of time, these systems become just too big and complicated, are implemented across various geographical location linked via other systems, be it banking interfaces, EDIs, B2B, B2Eco, cloud networking systems etc,...... and after a point of time, no one has any clue as to what’s worth integrating with this system and whats actually bringing in some kind of value addition to the business’s strategic goal, though the truth is everyone would like to think they know the exact business drivers that require this change and the exact ROI the integration is going to bring, but they wouldn’t have thought of a measurement by which to gauge how effective the integration has actually been.

In my opinion, I would state that the best way to gauge the value addition of the integrated system is to simply identify those areas of the system that have a direct interaction point to the customers / clients. It is true there are many back office operations that need to be in place in order to cater to the requirement of those working on the frontend but remember the key element is that the front end operation is only as efficient as the back end operations.

In a previous article I had mentioned that based on research it was identified that an ERP system tends to give back true definable ROI only after 18 Months (this is after taking into consideration user acceptance, systems functional ability, learning curves etc), if this is true then as new systems are being integrated and the system developed further it means it’s just going to prolong the ROI time frame, however there is always a very visible benefit from the 1 month onwards, that cannot be denied.

Integration brings along its business benefits for sure, but unless you have a clear measurement laid down to gauge the effectiveness of the integration and a scope of work set as a base for the basic initial integration points, it’s going to be a long and winding path ahead before you reach your destination.

These are just my opinion, I am sure everyone out there have their own which I’ll love to hear. Your suggestions, feedback and comments are all welcomed at ssurenlk@msn.com.

Staying on your toes !!

By Suren

Sometime back I had posted an article “The Business Model that worked“, in which I explained how SAP’s business model reaches out to clients far and wide from their backyard Germany.
With the increase in SAP Consulting partners and the lucrative market for senior level SAP Consultants, everyone wants a piece of the pie and hence SAP Vendors kept popping up all over the place.

I am sure SAP has a tough screening process where vendors need to submit a business plan before they are accredited as a SAP Channel Partner, however with the latest developments you just begin to think maybe SAP needs to keep a close eye on the resources deployed on large projects of their SAP Channel Partners.

Only recently Deloitte was being sued by the California's Marin County with a $30M lawsuit over an ERP project with them, which they state was substantially worse than legacy system it was meant to replace and accuses Deloitte of misrepresenting its skills and capabilities when originally pitching for the project in 2004.

Not so long ago we saw one of the largest ERP lawsuits which was for $61M. This was in December, when an Alabama jury awarded pet food manufacturer Sunshine Mills $61 million in connection with a suit it had filed against ERP vendor Ross Systems, a subsidiary of CDC Software.

On another note, if you have been following my article updates, very recently SAP itself was successfully sued by ORACLE over the TomorrowNow saga. The final verdict was that SAP was ordered to pay 1.3 billion dollars in damages in a record-setting copyright infringement award, and now ORACLE wants SAP to pay a further $211M for interest. Oh Larry!!

However it’s important we don’t get carried away by these, since given the number of ERP projects out there, there is always a chance that some could topple over also keep in mind that there are over 1000’s of successful ERP projects rolling out every month.

All this makes you wonder, is it the channel partners or is it the business model, since there are ERP Companies out there who setup their own local offices in every region and market that they enter. This way the top tier management of the actual ERP Company have a direct influence over the large projects, well we can’t expect these from all ERPs since some of them are just too big to maintain control at a project level.

Being aware of these developments in the industry helps you stay on your toes in whatever you do !!

Hope you enjoyed this post.

Have a nice day!!

ssurenlk@msn.com

Thank you readers for your support during 2010.
Wish you a fabulous New Year ahead !!

Emerging Technologies !!!

By Suren

With so many new technologies popping up within the already complicated business technology landscape, it is easy to miss out on the new developments emerging in our industry that have an implication on how we do things.

I’ve listed down some good reads about the latest technology to hit the business landscape in consideration to ERP systems:

• SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance (HANA) - SAP HANA promises near real-time analysis of dynamic data within SAP applications as well as external systems to deliver time-sensitive insight
• Adaptation of Cloud Computing & virtualization (as always) by ERPs
• Consumerization of IT (Link to my previous article)
• Parallel Computing
• B2? – This is something I’ve coined up; I’ll be putting out an article on this soon. It’s just my way of communicating that no longer would businesses always depend on B2B or B2C solutions; instead the new trend is to identify what serves them best in terms of cost and efficiency. So then what is it going to be, B2?? Read about how B2B and B2C work and how they could be aligned together.

Would recommend that you take some time to read about the above, since after all, knowing what is out there is always a good thing.

Have a nice day!!

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

Modifiying the Drill Down Reports !!

By Suren

This post is to simply list down some basic steps on how to modify the drill down reports that are built in SAP to reflect the Vendor and Customer balances. The report shows balances in a vertical format, but most often the clients want them in a horizontal format with the balances shown separately under each day range.

For this you simply need to do the following, however I would recommend that you first do this in a sandbox client and then try this in the production client, remember however that once the form is changed, all users would see the new horizontal form.

- Go to FKI2 if you want to change the report parameters. This is how the form would initially look like:

- Go to FKI5 to change the form. These changes can be done in the path in SPRO, under Info System under the AP/AR main node.

- Go to the “Define Form” and choose to “Change. If the client don’t want to see the Not Due and Total OI column in every time intervals then select the “Not Due” column and the “Total OI” column and go to extras “Drill down Display -> Undo Selection”. Then delete these columns from the form.

- After this just rename the date ranges to calculate the balance different for the day ranges that the clients wants to see. Finally the form would look like this:

And voila the report when generated would look like this :

That's about it. Just a few simple steps to change the form in SAP to a more readable format, and in case you want to bring back the old report format then you can overwrite this report by selecting the Environment -> Import Report, option in FKI5.

All the best !!

Oracle and SAP – Show me the MONEY!!

By Suren

Well if you've been a regular reader of this site, you would know that Oracle and SAP have been going at each other now for close to 2 years, with their law suit on the TomorrowNow scandal.

This is where; Oracle said a SAP subsidiary, TomorrowNow, created bogus accounts to get access to walled-off Oracle websites. Once inside, Oracle said, TomorrowNow deployed computer programs that powered through page after page of support documents, "scraping" and saving the contents of those pages as they went (excerpts from ZDNET).

Oracle claims that this corporate espionage has led to ORACLE losing out close to $4 billion in lost sales and support agreement. Well that’s what Larry Ellison claims anyway; however SAP suggests that this would probably just run into a few 100 millions.

This case has been going on for so long now, however the recent developments suggests that a settlement could happen quite soon. Just a few days back the court cut $500M off Oracle's potential damages, so now the figure as per ORACLE would stand at $3.5 billion.

Well, given the recent developments, executives & lawyers suggests that this could end before the end of this year, which means...someone’s going to pay (most probably SAP) and someone’s going to gain whatever the amount (ORACLE and the lawyers on both sides offcourse, who can forget them).

Given all this, the share prices have been reflecting the court drama just a little up to now, however as we get closer to the final decision, it’s likely to fluctuate.

Anyway as far as SAP Consultants are concerned, just continue to code ABAP and configure using SPRO, cause its very unlikely that this could have a major catastrophic effect on the companies already running SAP or the ones who are to implement it, SAP has spun its web too big now, that certain consulting companies themselves can support SAP in the future, maybe they might even come together to form an alliance....you never know!!

I’m open for comments & insights on ssurenlk@msn.com.

Have a nice day!!