The Best-Run Businesses Run SAP

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (July 28, 2011; page B5) had an article by Joe Mullich entitled “5 questions SMBs should ask when going mobile.” The article identifies 5 questions:

• How can you ensure your information always stays safe?
• Can your device match your workforce’s stamina?
• Can the device accommodate changing needs? (more…)

As SaaS vendors proliferate and most enterprises end up with some part of their company running a SaaS application, the issue of vendor selection becomes more important. When the technology was new/emerging, it was an easy choice (i.e. there may have been only a couple of vendors to choose from). But now, as SaaS becomes more mainstream, there are a whole host of vendors available and selecting the right one can be a bit daunting. So what is a potential customer to do?

While the list of things to think about while considering a SaaS vendor can be fairly long, top of my list are these 4. If any one of them is missing, you may want to look some more.

(more…)

Though the Nation Bureau of Economic Research declared the recession over in 2009, many SMEs would beg to differ. Since the crash of 2007, SMEs have been struggling to recover due to their inability to obtain bank financiing and their typical lack of pricing power in the markets in which they compete prevent them from passing their costs on to customers.

An article in today’s Wall Street Journal titled “For Small Businesses, Recession Isn’t Over” drives home that point. In the US, SMEs are treading water: they’re not hiring, few are making capital investments and their business sentiment has been “flat lined” for the 4^th year in a row. In spite of official pronouncements, many believe we’re still in a recession—regardless of what government statistics say about positive GDP.  The data presented in the article underscores the point, the only industries that are in expansion mode are Educational Services and Health Care. This isn’t just confined to the US. In Germany, the  Mittelstand (the small business sector that dominates their economy) enjoys fairly decent economic conditions but a recent reading of the Euro Zone manufacturing index is flashing caution signs.

(more…)

With nearly 80,000 small-to-midsize customers worldwide, SAP relies on our partners around the globe to service this fast-growing and important segment of our market. With cloud-based solutions like SAP Business ByDesign, that reliance is even greater.

So I reached out to Hans-Peter Holz from SAP partner Steeb to get their view of what SMEs most need in today’s dynamic business climate.

(more…)

Most companies start managing their financial lives using an off-the-shelf accounting application like QuickBooks or Peachtree in the US (or similar applications in other parts of the world). That works well initially but there comes a point when it is time to move beyond packaged accounting applications and find the right business management solution that will position your company for long-term growth.

Taking that next step, however, can be daunting. Sometimes it can be hard to tell when to take the next step. And when you do, it will require a significant investment of both time and money to ensure that you find the right product and partners to help you meet the business challenges that lie ahead. I wrote this blog to help small and midsize businesses take that next step so that they can find the solution that is best suited to their business needs.

There are literally hundreds of software vendors out there offering thousands of ERP solutions and/or business management solutions. Truth be told, picking the one that is right for you is not likely to come easy. That is why knowing precisely what you want the software to do is as important as knowing what you can live without, or which may be something you add later on. Choosing the right business management system for your company can be a daunting task, but it should be thought of as an investment in the future and with careful planning and attention to detail, this investment can pay huge dividends for your business.

(more…)

This blog is part of my series on streamlining finance processes. I previously wrote about the procure-to-pay process (see link), specifically the supplier invoicing component, how it consumes a great deal of the accounting staff’s time and what companies can do about it. On the other side of the cash conversion cycle, the order-to-cash process, namely its more accounting ? focused component customer billing, is equally fraught with paper-based processes, time-consuming information checking and manual re-keying of data. However, the accounts receivable cycle is arguably more critical because of its impact on days sales outstanding (DSO), cash flow and liquidity. The reason is one of control. In the AP cycle, we have more control in that we can always delay vendor payments to stretch our cash. But since one company’s payable is another’s receivable, if a customer were to do that to us, we could experience a cash crunch. (more…)

Last weekend, I went up to Chateau Montelena in the Napa Valley to pick up a case of Cabernet Sauvignon that I had purchased two years ago through their wine futures program.  Selling wine futures is something that we have seen in Europe for many years, but very few California wineries do it, so I felt pretty good about getting an outstanding red for two thirds of what I would pay at retail.  An added benefit of being in their futures club is that you get to taste wine out of the barrel two years before it is released, and before you need to make the next commitment to buy.  Effectively, you can look into the future, determine if you like what you taste, and then decide.

(more…)

Michael Morel is a Manufacturing Evangelist with over 30 years of experience in Manufacturing.

I went to a Larkmead Winery winemaker event last weekend.  The opportunity was to compare the 2006 release to the 2008 and understand the winemaker’s strategy when he made and blended each of these unique vintages.  The wine is great, pick some up if you can find it. But the discussion about French oak barrels versus American barrels, what country the yeast came from, how to ensure that the grape vines take full advantage of the local soil and environment, what steps in the process were outsourced and which were kept in house, and how this wine compares to wine from other parts of the world really got me thinking about how globalized this very small manufacturer of fine wine is.

(more…)