The Best-Run Businesses Run SAP

Enterprise Resource Planning – or ERP systems – are well known for their ability to help growing manufacturing and distribution companies manage sales, inventory, and finance.  But what about project based businesses like professional services companies?  Can those SMBs benefit from an ERP system as well? (more…)

Small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) use software of all kinds to run their operations, communicate with one another, improve customer service and sales, and analyze their business profits and performance. Software is everywhere, and the software jargon we use for software that runs the business is called “enterprise resource planning” or “ERP” software. (more…)

 By improving the metrics in the entire order-to-cash cycle across the subsidiaries, organizations can free up valuable cash that can be used to fund growth.

Large enterprises need to increase the velocity and efficiency of their order-to-cash cycle within their subsidiary network, which can each reach a count in excess of 1,000 subsidiaries for Fortune 500 companies. (more…)

For a lot of fast growing small businesses and midsize companies the procurement processes that once worked well when the company was small may now seem slow, error prone, and inefficient. Most operations managers would love to streamline these processes to cut costs, gain purchasing power, and collaborate with suppliers. (more…)

When you think of Greeley, Colorado you might think of the noted author James Michener who studied and lived here for several years in the 1930s. While not as tropical as the South Pacific, Greeley is certainly a hot spot for agri-business and the animal health industry since that is home base for Animal Health International (AHI), formerly Lextron, a premier producer and distributor of animal health and feed products. (more…)

Reporting live from TechEd/Sapphire Beijing: Jennifer Schulze

 As a first time visitor to China, I had no idea what to expect from SAP SAPPHIRE/TechEd Beijing. I arrived and quickly became part of the crowd wave at the China National Convention Center – at least 10,000 strong — all ready to hear about what SAP is doing and eager to learn.  Everything here is big, the show venue, the crowd and the level of energy.  Even if I was lost in translation much of the time, my time here confirmed this audience is serious, has done their research and is ready to talk real business. (more…)

Recently I had the opportunity to speak with SAP’s Senior VP of Mobile Strategies, Nick Brown to get a preview of the “mobility” announcements planned for SAPPHIRENOW + SAPTechEd, co-located in Madrid this week. As anyone that follows SAP knows, mobility is one of its three hottest topics, the other two being cloud and in-memory computing. Since May 2010 when SAP announced its intended acquisition of Sybase, the mobility buzz has been about an integrated platform and application story. (more…)

A lot has been written lately about moving from transactional systems to engagement systems, including one of my own blog posts. There is something to be said for better engagement with customers, but I don’t see this as a “from-to” transition. Recording transactions isn’t optional. Whatever tool you use to create your system of record (whether it is ERP or accounting applications or something else) is a necessary foundational tool and some Small to Midsize Enterprises (SMEs) struggle to provide that solid foundation. (more…)

When: 3:00-3:30pm EST, but may go longer – Thursday November 10^th, 2011

Guests: Sanjeev Aggarwal and Laurie McCabe , SMB Group ? http://www.smb-gr.com/

Description: Small and midsize companies that find themselves drowning in data need a lifeline to bring them – as well as valuable information and insights – to the surface. Getting a handle on dispersed, inconsistent and aging data isn’t a trivial task, but the benefits SMEs can realize by doing so far (more…)

HANA is effectively bringing companies into the 21^st century, where business is conducted in real-time.  Small and midsized businesses are turning to HANA to free themselves from their archaic 20^th century business processes, which are no longer capable of maintaining a competitive advantage in today’s market. They are also leveraging HANA to put information into the hands of the business users, giving them the freedom from having to rely on IT.  Given that most  (more…)