BITSoftware participated few days ago at „Solutions for SME development" Regional Conferences, helded in Sibiu and Brașov. Those conferences are tehnology and finance roadshow that promotes solutions to reduce costs and streamline businesses, addressed to top management and IT professionals or executives of SME.
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I've all written about the importance and the necessity of implementing an integrated management system to optimize workflow within a company for increasing the profitability. I don`t know if many of those who read those materials, have taken seriously or have considered plain Advertising. But this is there problem, not mine. Finally, everybody does with his/her own business what he/she wants. In times of crisis, few are those who think about investing in IT systems, that`s true. And up to a point, perhaps this is understandable. What seems absurd to me is the calm and the resignation of some of Romanian entrepreneurs. Beyond the fact that they are not aware of what means an ERP system and how such a solution can get them out from the crisis, they do not make the slightest effort to discover and understand these solutions.
In this context, an information published recently on most of news feeds, made ask myself about how romanians managers understands their own businesses. Obviously, I am referring to the managers of small and medium companies, with turnovers of no more than 4-5 million euros.
The news that I am referring announce that the temples and religious institutions in India will implement the ERP solutions to manage donations and daily activity. In other words, Indians priests follows the technological trend, starting using sophisticated business solutions, in an effort to provide fast religious services. Thus, once ERP is implemented, the believers will be able to make online bookings for Darshan (visit the goddess), for Bhakta Nivas (hotel stay), will be able to buy Prasad (blessed food) or various objects that will be handed over during their visit to the temple. „After the installation of ERP, all branches will be linked.Management will know the amount of donations received and the materials used and can instantly decide on the allocation of resources for each activity”, said an official responsible for IT and ERP systems.
In other words, even the religious institutions in India have realized that to make profitable business they need to know at any time the inputs and the outputs of raw materials, finished products or services provided, the level and type of inventories and, the most important thing, how to relate and to interact with customers and suppliers.
Implementing a Business Intelligence solution is a stumbling block for many software companies. And this because any BI software is customized depending on customer requirements. In other words, the implementation requires an analyze of client business, a correct insight of customer needs and an adapting to the real situation existing at the client business level.
The sixth edition of BITSoftware`s Conference for customers and partners, held on February 4th, has become an important event for the software market, bringing together national and multinational companies from distribution, food industry, logistics, manufacturing, auto dealers, retail, telecommunications, construction, services professional. The event is organized each year and has been specifically designed to bring together the customers of Socrate+ and SocrateOpen applications.
Yesterday, at Intercontinental Hotel in Bucharest, we launched our partnership with MicroStrategy, which means the development and distribution of the most complex and comprehensive Enterprise Business Intelligence solutions on Romanian market.
MicroStrategy is the main platform based on which Enterprise BI solutions are developed, the unique Data Warehouse architecture being the core of these solutions. Our BI expertise covers all styles of reporting: advanced web reporting, ad-hoc OLAP analysis, alert systems, predictive analysis, web and mobile dashboards. The MicroStrategy platform can be used together with our Socrate ERP systems, integrated or using the OLAP engines from Microsoft or Oracle.
In the press conference organized on this occasion, attended by both journalists and representatives of some of the largest companies operating in Romania, Remus Cazacu (right), General Manager of BITSoftware, and Juergen Loeffelsender (left), Sales Director MicroStrategy Europe asserted that „MicroStrategy works with companies that use or produce leading technology and provide products that complement their BI Platform”. „In addition, in order to become partner of MicroStrategy, a company must demonstrate it’s ability to provide high quality products and services and truly fulfill the requirements of each client. Over 10 years of experience in business intelligence implementation projects in different verticals, from FMCG manufacturing and distribution, to retail and telco, demonstrated our reliability and ability to provide professional services”, said also Remus Cazacu.
Microstrategy is a global leader in business intelligence technology, who provides integrated reporting, analysis and monitoring solutions, which allows companies to analyze all available data business in order to make better business decisions. Microstrategy customers are global leaders in their industries, like: Yahoo, Facebook, LinkedIn, Hallmark Cards, Metro Group, Carrefour, Starbucks, The Royal Bank of Scotland, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank AG, Raiffeisen Bank, Société Générale, Amway, Levi Strauss & Co, Giorgio Armani Corporation, Danone, Roche Farma, GlaxoSmithKline Pharma GmbH, Pfizer, Sanofi Pasteur, US Postal Service, ebay, Alitalia, Scandinavian Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Lexmark, Hyundai Motors, Visa International, Deutsche Telekom AG, France Télécom, British Telecom, Telefonica, Vodafone, etc.
One of the challenges that an ERP system should respond positively is related to the transfer of accounting department specific operational activities from the operating field to the analysis of financial indicators and workflow control. Thus, in order to ensure a high quality of accounting information generated by those responsible for inputting data into the system, it is absolutely imperative that the initial configuration parameters to be extremely flexible, combined, of course, with the specific restrictions for each operational role and the existence of some powerful tools for analysis and testing.
When it comes to flexibility of initial setup parameters, we refer to both, defining accounting plan and specific accounting items (articles, partners, banks, cash registers, VAT, customs duties, assets, personnel, etc.) and defining formulas to automatically generating specific accounting notes for each operation. And because most of the operators who enter data into the system does not have specialized concepts, ERP system must provide very simple and clear definitions of the connection points between the operational and accounting.
For any business that wants to grow, a healthy and steady growth, real-time insight into financial and accounting situation is vital. And a well-configured ERP system can ensure the analysis of partial results at any time, so that corrective transactions can be carried out when necessary.
In terms of accounting personnel, the biggest problem is the accounting month closing checks which are performed on the types of operations and workstations. Often it is found an error, after completion of verification and closure period, and most of the questions that arise in such situations are related to the possibility or impossibility of recurrences in one month off. The answer to these questions is yes, meaning that a complete ERP system allow the reopening of a closed period, but it should be noted that this is not recommended, since it is possibile that a user enter accidentally an operational document into the system, that will unwanted reflected into accounts balance. What is important to know about an ERP is that much of the month closing specific checks are automated, with the possibility of adding new checks when they are needed or requested by the client. A certificate account may be grouped at the type of transaction, document or detailed document, the balance may be issued on each workstation, and accounting transactions in foreign currency is disclosed in reports.
An important component of the finance department is pursuing a cash-flow accounting, for this reason any ERP system containing a treasury module. This module verifies any specific operation, from banking and household operations to endorsement checks.
For those reasons, the implementation of an ERP solutions in companies who really want to perform is a necessity and, at the same time, a means to streamline and control of one of the key departments: financial department.
Users of Enterprise Resource Planing systems (ERP) know that the contract of purchase and completing the implementation of the solution does not mean breaking ties with IT solution provider, only passing to a new stage: entry into operation of the ERP solution and establish a relationship with the technical support from the supplier. In other words, maintenance.
I think there are many classifications of consultancy/advice. One of them refers to client relationship with the truth. From this perspective, the consultancy would divide into two types: one where the client has access to truth (to informations), but this does not involve the participation of self manager, and another in which access to truth and its use implies an unconditional change in self-manager, spoke in terms of the ancients, that means that only who can self-govern, can govern.
A recent study by Gartner pointed to the fact that the growing availability of services like social networking, combined with changing working styles, will make that in 2014 about 20% of employees use social networks as the main way communication for business purposes. How microblogging redefines the way organizations communicate, business communication is evolving. New employees enter into employment with a predisposition to communicate via a social network. The distinction between e mail and social networking as a means of communication will fade. The collaboration between the organization and the necessary infrastructure will change too. Gartner provides its transfer to the cloud, leading to an increase in sales to service providers either internalized or externalized in the cloud.
Just recently I came, incidentally, in possession of a study conducted in August 2010 by IFS North America and Affinity Research Solutions, Boston, on a sample of 325 executives at large/middle-market manufacturers and focus on a possible marriage between ERP / CRM and social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN). According to the study, social media has begun to influence, more powerful, the ERP market.
As a result, vendors are experimenting with integration between enterprise software, typically involving customer relationship management (CRM) with social media tools like Twitter or Facebook. In some cases, software vendors are already offering functionality to deliver benefits of enterprise 2.0, enterprise functionality with integrated, built-in Web 2.0 technologies.
The conclusion that emerged was that ability to integrate with external social media tools on the public internet does not weigh heavily on the selection process for ERP. However, the adoption of social media functions to include collaborative and communication capabilities is viewed with importance but is not seen as a major influencer. Also, manufacturing executives are optimistic about the potential benefits of social functionally embedded in ERP and realize that there could be great value if their ERP application includes features that mirror the functionality of online social networking tools.
