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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
