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I recently followed a discussion on LinkedIn about what is important for an ERP: the brand or the flexibility and the functionality? The discussion had started from a simple question: „X or Y - which is best?” (where X and Y are some of the biggest global ERP suppliers). The conclusion that emerged form that discussion was both and neither. Why? Because it depends on what your business requirements are and on how each vendor met your business needs. Most of the comments made ​​reference to the best way to pick an ERP package. Which is to identify how you need the business to run and then find a package that best fits your business processes. Those involved in the discussion noted that too many people are picking one of the top 5 ERP suppliers without understanding how their business plans to function or if the ERP solution is a good fit for their business processes. They just picking a name, a brand, not a product.
The idea is that the brand should count, but did not override. There are many others factors to be considered, such as to define what is the goal in use, which benefits do the business you want, what are the challenges, what is the main area that needs supported, what will be the need in 2 years time and, last but not least, focus on how the license policy and payment is after „go live”. And so you will find that there are other alternatives that probably fits better your business needs. Maybe the top 5 ERP suppliers have the brand, but others have the flexibility and the functionality. Which are more important for an ERP than the brand.

In a discussion started on Business Intelligence Professionals Group on LinkedIn, 276 BI specialists have tried to answer to a simple question: why does a BI implementations fail and how can specialists prevent this from happening again and again and again and ...

BITSoftware participates on April 21, in Bucharest, at „Cloud Computing, SaaS, IaaS", a tehnology conference dedicated to cloud computing and that promotes some of the most reliable solutions available on Romanian market. The event will be held at Intercontinental Hotel.

Few years ago, only large companies needed ERP software. Now, it can benefit form this technology even the small and mid-size businesses. In a recent article published on erpsoftwareblog, Jeff Pyden stated that the cloud computing technology is faster adopted by businesses with no more than 50 employees. In his opinion, „the emergence of the cloud is yet another step toward making this powerful technology available to those who otherwise may not be able to afford it.”

He indicated five reasons why small and mid-size businesses prefer a cloud ERP solution rather than a traditional one: limited budgets, faster deployment, security and data management, businesses continuity, growth and scale.

The first indicated reason - limited budgets - refers to the total costs of implementing and maintaining an on-premise ERP solution, which „is often not feasible for small businesses”. „It’s difficult for many small and mid-sized businesses to afford the up-front costs of an on-premise ERP solution”, Jeff said. But what is the option? An open source ERP, of course. For example, the total cost of implementation and use of our open source solution, SocrateOpen, is less than the on-premise version.

The faster deployment refers to the fact that „a cloud-hosted ERP solution can be deployed quickly, allowing businesses to start reaping the benefits of the solution sooner”. By streamlining and connecting internal processes, such as finance, sales, marketing, invoicing and others, „organizations can work more efficiently and gain a competitive edge from the beginning”.

In terms of business continuity, with an ERP system in the cloud, „it’s easier to get back up and running after unforeseen interruptions”, said Pyden. In other words, it’s important to consider a solution that is accessible via the cloud, because you will be able to recover data more quickly than from a physical database.

Finally, the „growth and scale” reason refers to changes that occur in a business lifetime, which can becomes larger or fluctuate in size, and in this case the „cloud-based applications can easily scale to accommodate growth”. This means that users can quickly be added or removed as needed.

The conclusion is that the ERP in the cloud is good for small and mid-size organizations, cause „cloud-based applications can provide fundamental business services to young companies at a fraction of the cost”.

I wrote earlier on December 2010 an article about what should I know when I want to implement an ERP system. I said than that are 7 steps you should not skip and 5 factors that you should not be omitted. I come now and fill in what I said in December. Besides the steps not to skip and the factors not to omitted, for a successful implementation you must follow another four guidelines:
1. Take small steps to implementation
2. Focus on the long term benefits of the implementation
3. Don’t make the new software feel like the old software (if it si the case!)
4. Be flexible with the implementation plan
You must keep in mind that every company and every implementation is a little different. Your software implementation project will take time, hard work from everyone involved, and the dedication of your project team. And be prepared for the small deviations that will inevitably occur. But, if you and provider`s implementation team will work together, the ERP Implementation projects will be a success.

David Linthicum said recently, in his article published on InfoWorld.com, that „those who follow the world of business intelligence (BI) have probably noticed both an increase in new cloud BI providers and the movement of existing providers to the cloud”. BI in the clouds means that the information is copied to a cloud data warehouse and then is structured, typically around the important parts of a business: sales, inventory, manufactoring, payments. „Once the data is in the cloud, you can run reports, create dashboards, and perform analytical operations that support core business decisions from a Web app”, said Linthicum. He belives that the use of Business Intelligence in the cloud is „a game-changer”, being „affordable and available” to those who need access to this information.

But what is the benefit? Why should I choose a cloud BI solution instead of a traditional BI solution?

According to Linthicum and other specialists in cloud computing, the traditional data warehousing and BI „have always been too expensive” and moreover, the users who needed these BI systems to make critical business decisions „typically had no access, with IT citing cost and complexity of deploying and managing the front-end BI tools”. Instead, with a cloud-based BI, the cost drops dramatically and managers „can use the information to improve business operations when it counts”. Plus, cloud-based BI provides better support for smartphones and tablets and makes it available to those who actually need them.

So, there are enough benefits for you?

The most common question on almost every manager lips is „Why do I need an ERP system?”. And the answers provided by the ERP suppliers are: to reducing costs and to increase your profit,

I've discovered, on erpsoftwareblog.com, an excellent article about the needs of companies in the process of implementing an ERP solution, signed by Steve Kane, from Broadpoint Technologies.

Timo Elliott wrote, earlier this month, a post about the differences between Business Intelligence & Business Analytics. Post which I think is interesting.

As is announced on their blog, the MicroStrategy BI software platform will be available as a service in the cloud. With MicroStrategy Cloud Intelligence, MicroStrategy will host and maintain the entire BI environment, including servers, operating system, MicroStrategy 9 software and network. As they said on official MicroStrategy website, „MicroStrategy Cloud Intelligence is expected to offer elastic capacity to meet the availability and performance requirements necessary for critical BI reporting and analysis, supporting both small usage patterns for departmental BI applications, as well as the high-scale usage patterns for extranet applications”. With MicroStrategy Cloud Intelligence, which is currently in beta testing, subscribers will have full access to MicroStrategy Technical Support for assistance. Cloud Intelligence can be a means of providing the best configuration, support, and maintenance straight from MicroStrategy by offering it through the cloud. If you need more informations about it, take a look to http://blog.microstrategy.com/2011/02/wrap-up-of-microstrategy-world-2011/#more-657