The decision to purchase a software solutions business - ERP, CRM - is not easy to take, is quite a complicated and elaborated process. This involved also, indirectly, the inability to test the product in advance, as result of inevitable customizations required for an ERP solution to fold perfectly, or as perfect, to client's business. The existence of demo sites and other average test helps only in addition of names to the list of potential suppliers.
Therefore, in this field of integrated management systems, perhaps more than in any other field, purchases are made based on the reputation of the solution. And, in some cases, on the provider promises, which often are not sustainable by the ERP system.
With regard to the reputation of ERP, or no-name ERP, that are responsible mainly buyers. Since the solution sold to a client does not exist when signing the contract, the beneficiary needs some security. Other words, he must know whether the supplier's ERP has already completed similar projects. And guarantee that the candidate has carried out with succes previous similar implementation is given by references. What has become, lately, the
subject preferred by marketing departments of companies providing ERP solutions. In a very small market, customer reputation sells. Especially if they are "la crème de la crème" of the respective vertical.
When a potential new client has before it a wealth of customer lists and case studies on successful implementations, the first thing he needs to do is to seek common skeleton of the system. It is therefore important to distinguish between the company and product references, because it is totally unnecessary for a purchaser a reference about a Web portal or e-commerce solution developed by the supplier, which did not interest the customer. Also, make references to international products, mainly imported and distributed without specific standard adjustments for the market in Romania, are irrelevant for the local market. On the one hand, because the implementation there was made by another team, not by romanian supplier, and on the other side, because the fundamental differences between the Romanian and external business model.
Faced with an avalanche of references and ERP solutions, customer will have to read beyond the marketing messages and to start in choosing of business solution on the premise that his business is unique and, as such, he needs a product that would be reliable for him.
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Cloud computing blogger Chirag Mehta and Constellation Research Group published a list of their cloud computing predictions for 2011. According to Mehta, the public cloud adoption stalling temporarily, the spread of the app store model in the enterprise, the convergence of Development-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service and an overall simplification of the technology landscape as some of the most important trends in cloud computing in 2011.
The future is in cloud. The future is in open source. The future is great benefits and increased speed at low-costs. I've heard about it. I've read about it. But I never really understood what it was. So I started digging. I read a lot about cloud. And about open source. And I finally realized what it is. And from that moment I began to ask myself all sorts of questions. About communication, about documents, about archiving, about the possibility of sharing with others real-time information, and much more. And my universe has expanded considerably in just a split second. I understood that my fear of not being able to communicate and share documents with others because I had not installed on my notebook a version of Office from Microsoft was false. And I also understood that the future is something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago: the open source Web office.
I read, recently, a Gartner study which shows that increasing the availability of services like social network, coupled with demographics and changing work styles, will do that in 2014 approximately 20% of employees use social networks as the main means of communication for business purposes. While so far the cooperation within an organization based on the e-mail and structured applications, in the future in organizations will be held even a social component convergent with e-mail, instant-messaging and e-presence services, creating new ways of collaborating. This integration will take place and will become effective only when organizations build their platforms and will educate their internal users in the spirit of new paradigm.
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.
On the other hand, even the infrastructure for collaboration within the organization will change. Gartner foresees a transfer to the cloud, leading to an increase in sales for providers of services internalized or externalized in cloud.
Cloud's remains by far the segment of IT's most effervescent in recent years. And as the world understands what it means and, more particularly, what it provides, cloud attracts more users. A recent study in this field, developed by americans, shows that managers around the world believes that by 2015, 18% of their IT services are delivered by a public cloud solutions, and 28% by private cloud solution. According to the study, almost half of the services companies serving the business will be moved to "the cloud", a significant change compared with traditional IT infrastructures that currently exist.
According to experts, cloud computing represents an effective use of external information resources - computer servers, storage, services, applications, etc. - that can be configured in relation to the needs of each company, the beneficiary pays only what it consumes.
For me, the person in tangential relationship with management software, accounting software, human resources software, etc., SocrateOpen has brought more like philosophy than IT. And after I read and re-read about it, I realized that it is just philosophy. Pure philosophy. Of life. The principles and practices that allow you access to knowledge and sharing, implemented in a manner that does nothing but relieve you, and to facilitate access to some software whose source code is available under a license that permits users to use, change, improve and to redistribute the software.
Implementation of ERP solutions has become lately a subject "fashionable". More and more employers want such a system, as more and more software vendors „enrich" their product range with Enterprise Resource Planning solutions, more or less integrated, more or less at their own.
The avalanche of ERP / CRM have put pressure on existing users or potential beneficiaries of an ERP system, benefits listed by providers causing the companies to switch to buying an ERP software without taking into account the particularities of their business and, may be the most important thing, without prior verification of compliance of ERP software and its own particular business.
Therefore, the signing of the contract between the potential customer and supplier ERP / CRM must be preceded by an important milestone, represented by analysis of business process and real needs of the client. It is the time when the customer and software provider know and understand each other. Now is the time when provider identifies customer workflow, available resources and objectives, to see if he is able to cover all its needs. All these preliminary data allow, on the one side, configuration of ERP system to meet fully the expectations of the beneficiary, and the otherside, to the customer to utilize human and financial resources efficiently and economically.
Do you know your customers? Mostly yes, but perhaps not quite as good as you think. Ok, you ask, what must I do to improve this aspect? Nothing more simple: control the relationships with customers using CRM solutions. Or, in free translation, public relations management. This program includes a wide range of tools for understanding and serving customers and potential customers. It seemed an unnecessary expense, but the focus will increase revenue per customer, we will reduce costs, or both.
One of the promises of cloud computing is that it allows you to leverage resources more efficiently, with a cost of acquisition, deployment and use much less. For the moment, the majority of open source applications are addressed, in particular, to companies. And less or not at all to the governments. Although the local and central government area is one that should not be neglected. Why? First of all, because the local and central government is notorious in the inefficient use of technology, because each of the entities or public institutions have implemented separately and independently of each then have the other systems, more or less own.
Cloud computing has disrupted the venture capital industry in a big way. One of the changes can be observed is the reduction of capital expenditures required to start a new business. Where before you needed expensive servers and an army of people to maintain them, now you can call to Amazon Cloud and the problem resolved without fuss.
