To ERP or Not to ERP: That is the Question

Source: Panorama Consulting Solutions

Before jumping into an ERP implementation, organizations should develop a strong business case that justifies its potential investment in ERP software. If your organization has great difficulty doing this then it may be safe to assume that your organization does not actually need ERP software – at least for the time being.

While developing a business case requires time and effort, it shouldn’t feel forced. If the primary reason your organization wants ERP software is because “everyone else has it,” then that subconscious motive will come to the surface when other reasons for ERP prove difficult to justify.

Many organizations implement ERP software to improve and streamline their business processes but the truth of the matter is that some organizations benefit more from redesigning business processes without implementing ERP software. Even if your organization does decide to implement an ERP system, don’t assume that the software will replace the need for business process management. The project team still needs to document then improve, optimize or reengineer broken and inefficient processes. If your organization is not prepared to do this, then it is better off not implementing ERP software. More than likely, ERP software will only bring measurable improvements to your organization when the software does not dictate business processes in areas of competitive advantage.

If your organization understands the importance of business process management, and the role it plays in an implementation, then ERP software may be a worthwhile investment. Organizations that identify competitive advantages from the beginning of the initiative are much better positioned to receive benefits from ERP software because these organizations do not allow their competitive differentiators to be standardized by software “best practices.” Standardizing all of your organization’s business processes to fit software functionality turns a potentially beneficial ERP implementation into an expensive undertaking that just might move your organization five steps backward from where it stood initially.

Another important consideration when deciding whether or not to implement ERP software is the amount of risk involved. If your organization is prepared to accept the potential risks inherent to ERP implementations, then it will have a more accurate idea of whether the benefits truly outweigh the costs. Potential risks include budget overruns and organizational difficulties associated with process changes and role changes. Your organization should only implement ERP software if you are prepared to combat change difficulties with an extensive organizational change management plan.

Put simply, when organizations understand the risks, recognize the need for process improvement and reengineer processes before implementation, ERP software is a worthwhile investment. To learn more about how to ensure that your organization’s ERP investment is worthwhile, be sure to register for our free webinar this Thursday, ERP Project Planning.

 

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5 Negotiation Tips From Steve Jobs

7 JUNE 2013

An old e-mail exchange between Steve Jobs and James Murdoch illustrates how savvy negotiation works.

A series of emails about ebook prices between Apple and HarperCollins, including ones written by Steve Jobs, were recently released as part of the Department of Justice price-fixing suit against Apple and a number of major publishers. As the site Quartz pointed out, these offer some great insight into how Jobs negotiated.

However, Zachary Seward at Quartz called it an example of “hard-nosed” negotiation at which Jobs excelled. I’d take a different view. This is not hard-nosed. The emails show how an excellent negotiator used a series of principles to create the best conditions for winning. Let’s look in greater detail at the exchange between Steve Jobs and James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch and the ultimate decision maker, and see how Jobs ultimately got his way.

First, set the stage. Apple and HarperCollins had been discussing bringing the latter’s ebooks into the iTunes store for the launch of the iPad. Apple had presented its standard contract. HarperCollins wanted to address the following issues:

• flexibility to price on a title-by-title basis outside Apple’s pricing tiers
• no so-called most favored nation status, so Harper would not have to give Apple as good a deal as any other retailers in case the two companies disagreed on prices and HarperCollins wanted to make titles available through other outlets at higher prices and, potentially, higher income for those retailers
• a lower than 30 percent commission on new works
• six month windows on using an agency model (publisher sets the price and retailer gets a commission) instead of the 12-month window that Apple wanted
• concern that Apple wanted to set prices too high, meaning that competition with Amazon would be difficult

And yet, Jobs ultimately prevailed. Here is how.

1. Understand the importance of the negotiation.

According to one of the emails, Steve Jobs got on the phone with Murdoch right away. Jobs was a busy man, but he knew that some deals are critical. To have a credible showing of ebooks, he needed all the major publishers, including HarperCollins. However, there was another aspect of importance that didn’t pass him by. If he caved on what he thought he really needed with one publisher, others would eventually find out and push back. Not only was the deal important in and of itself, but also in terms of the effect it could have on other deals.

2. Show that you understand the context and why your proposition is better.

Jobs knew, as did everyone in the publishing industry, that Amazon was driving much of the ebook business. Murdoch verified that Amazon paid $13 wholesale for an ebook title and sold it for $9.99–a lost, but Amazon wanted market share. However, buying high and selling low wouldn’t last forever, as Jobs pointed out:

The current business model of companies like Amazon distributing ebooks below cost or without making a reasonable profit isn’t sustainable for long. As ebooks become a larger business, distributors will need to make at least a small profit, and you will want this too so that they invest in the future of the business with infrastructure, marketing, etc.

Furthermore, Jobs argued that the $9 HarperCollins would get per title was actually sustainable and that the only way to pay more, given that in retail a 30 percent margin is relatively modest, would be to raise prices, angering consumers.

To continue reading, click here.

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10 Essential Online Tools You Should Be Using

APRIL 16, 2013

Check out a slew of apps to streamline a range of functions, including project management, customer service, social media, and email.

Is your workflow stuck in the past? Check out the following tools to make your business more efficient:

1. Manage and collaborate more easily: Blossom

Blossom lets you drag to-do items from one list to another in an intuitive way, using an interface that feels like rearranging Post-it notes on a whiteboard.

Blossom is an easy way to track the progress of personal projects, bigger projects, and really anything that comes to mind.

2. Streamline social media: Buffer

Trying to remember what you want to post–or, worse, flooding your social-media stream with updates–can be the bane of your (and your followers’) social-media existence. Buffer lets you add links, photos, videos, etc. to a queue and automatically schedule them for publishing on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. You can publish time-critical updates right on time and space out less time-sensitive updates.

Plus, you can use Buffer’s analytics to make smarter scheduling decisions. There are iPhone and Android apps as well as a great browser extension.

3. Take awesome notes: Evernote

Unless you’re this guy, you probably need a note-taking app. Evernote is arguably the best, with apps for almost every platform and the ability to sync seamlessly across almost all devices.

And it has great search functionality to let you find what you’ve written.

4. Replace forms and tickets: Help Scout

It may be easier for you, but your customers don’t like opening tickets or filling out forms to get the help they need. Help Scout lets customers send emails that you receive as easy-to-handle tickets in a separate, shared inbox. Responding is still easy for you, and you can organize and analyze queries, complaints, etc.

5. Test and improve calls to action: Hello Bar

Hello Bar is a well-designed tool that lets you place a bar at the top of your website that directs visitors anywhere you want.

Sounds simple, right? The power of Hello Bar is its built-in analytics and A/B testing tool. Test which messages resonate best with your customers and let Hello Bar do the hard work.

To continue reading, click here.

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Sergey Brin: Why Google Glass?

It’s not a demo, more of a philosophical argument: Why did Sergey Brin and his team at Google want to build an eye-mounted camera/computer, codenamed Glass? Onstage at TED2013, Brin calls for a new way of seeing our relationship with our mobile computers — not hunched over a screen but meeting the world heads-up.

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2 Sentences That Engage Customers

JUNE 3, 2013

To get customers interested in what you’re selling, make your sales message about your customers.

You’re excited about your company, right? You’re proud of your products, right? Therefore, your best strategy, when talking to a customer, is to tell the story of your company and its products with excitement and enthusiasm, right?

Wrong.

Customers don’t care about your company. They don’t care about its products. And they certainly don’t care about your personal feelings towards your company and its products.

What customers care about is… themselves.

The failure to realize this simple fact about human nature is why most companies have sales and marketing messages that make customers shrug.

Over the past few years, I have reviewed hundreds of sales messages. In almost every case, these messages are all about the seller and the products being sold. They leave it up the customer’s imagination to figure out “what does all of this mean to ME?”

Which leads us to the two sentences that are the most important to your customers and prospective customers:

1. “Our clients hire us to provide [benefit(s) to the client.]“
2. “They hire us, rather than somebody else, because [something unique that the competition doesn't have but the customer values.]“

Notice that both of these sentences position you, the seller, as a catalyst that helps the customer achieve the customer’s goals, and then positions your firm as only catalyst that can do the job right. Here are some examples:

Example 1:

Wrong:

“Acme specializes in consumer-validated 360 degree product development via our patented sequential market research process, which has been successfully applied to the fast moving consumer goods industry. In the past 24 months we have created $2.9 billion in innovative business opportunities for our clients.

Right:

“Consumer goods companies hire Acme to create new products for them, and market both those new products and their existing products. Because we base our efforts on meticulous research into target markets, we’ve generated over $2.9 billion in new revenue for our clients over the past two years.”

To continue reading, click here.

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Deploy JD Edwards-Integrated Mobile Apps to iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile

Tue, Jun 18, 2013 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT

Deploy JD Edwards-Integrated Mobile Apps to iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile Is your business a template cookie cutter of every other business? Probably not.

Most businesses have unique business problems and requirements and mobile apps need to deliver your unique enterprise experience to your employees, customers and partners.

Attend this session to learn how you can collaborate with Magic Software using our integration and application platform to tailored mobile apps that connect to your back-end JD Edwards systems.

To register, click here.

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JD Edwards Upgrade Planning: Integration Best Practices

 

Tue, Jun 11, 2013 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT

Independent experts agree that planning a JD Edwards upgrade to the 9s without planning for an upgrade to your JD Edwards integration capabilities introduces unacceptable risk. Attend this webinar to learn the 4 key planning considerations for JD Edwards upgrades and integration.

Learn why concepts such as loosely coupled integration are vital to a smooth go-live for your upgrade.

Attendees will receive a free upgrade and integration best practice white paper.

Presenter: Glenn Johnson, Senior Vice President, Magic Software Enterprises Americas.

To register, click here.

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10 highly valued soft skills for IT pros

By Mary Shacklett | May 31, 2013, 12:00 AM PDT

Takeaway: Today’s IT pro needs both technical expertise and soft skills — that’s nothing new. But the scope of those in-demand soft skills just keeps growing.

Depending on which company you talk to, there are varying demands for IT technical skills. But there is one common need that most IT organizations have: soft skills. This need is nothing new. As early as three decades ago corporate IT sought out liberal arts graduates to become business and systems analysts so they could “bridge the communications gap” between programmers and end users. And if you look at the ranks of CIOs, almost half have backgrounds in liberal arts.

So what are the soft skills areas that companies want to see in IT professionals today?

1: Deal making and meeting skills

IT is a matchup of technology and people to produce products that run the company’s business. When people get involved, there are bound to be disagreements and a need to arrive at group consensus. IT’ers who can work with people, find a common ground so projects and goals can be agreed to, and swallow their own egos in the process if need be are in high demand.

2: Great communication skills

The ability to read, write, and speak clearly and effectively will never go out of style — especially in IT. IT project annals are filled with failed projects that were good ideas but poorly communicated.

3: A sixth sense about projects

There are formal project management programs that teach people PM methodology. But for most people, it takes several years of project management experience to develop an instinct for how a project is really going. Natural project managers have this sixth sense. In many cases, it is simply a talent that can’t be taught. But when an IT executive discovers a natural project manager who can “read” the project in the people and the tasks, this person is worth his/her weight in gold.

4: Ergonomic sensitivity

Because its expertise is technical, it is difficult for IT to understand the point of view of a nontechnical user or the conditions in the field that end users face. A business analyst who can empathize with end users, understand the business conditions they work in, and design graphical user interfaces that are easy to learn and use is an asset in application development.

5: Great team player

It’s easy for enclaves of IT professionals to remain isolated in their areas of expertise. Individuals who can transcend these technical silos and work for the good of the team or the project are valued for their ability to see the big picture. They are also viewed as candidates for promotions.

To continue reading, click here.

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7 steps to get beyond excuses

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8 Things Really Successful People Do

3 MAY 2013

Real success takes discipline and methodology. Here are eight things the most successful people are meticulous about getting right.

shutterstock images

Most people claim to want success. But not everyone is willing to do the hard work and the smart work to get there. Often opportunities present themselves and because people are distracted, they miss them or give up on them before things fully develop.

Truly successful people don’t leave much to chance. They are disciplined and focused.  They constantly seek new methods to achieve more, in bigger and faster ways. Listed below are eight different practices that will help you concentrate your efforts on rising above the tide.

1. Make Materialism Irrelevant

Fancy cars and houses are all well and good, but many foolishly focus on the byproducts of success, rather than concentrating on building sustainable success in the first place. Establish a bare minimum for your material needs, and then you can enjoy the benefits of success, debt and stress free.

2. Enhance Knowledge

Success comes faster to those who are open, active learners. The higher up the success ladder you climb, the more complex the systems and opportunities that are presented to you. Absorb all the information you can and if you sense a gap you can’t fill, connect with people who have the knowledge you need.

3. Manage Relationship Expectations

People in your life require time. Successful individuals attract folk and so they have to carefully regulate the time they can spend with others. It’s hard to limit the time you share and still make people feel important. Make choices about the people who matter to you and determine how you each can get value from your interactions. Then make sure they understand your limitations so they don’t take it personally when you can’t be present.

4. Practice Emotional Self-Awareness

Not all successful people are calm and nice. In fact, many can be volatile. But most are very aware of their tempers and idiosyncrasies. They know how to use their emotions to get what they want from life and work hard to make sure feelings don’t become a detriment. Know yourself and learn how to let your emotions work for you in positive ways.

To continue reading, click here.

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