ERP and Reporting – Part 1
Sometimes its quite easy to think that an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is greater than the sum of its parts. I tend to disagree. I think (and again, this is something I personally believe) an ERP is only as good as its reporting functionality.
Wikipedia somehow helps solidify my point of view by reporting:
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) integrates internal and external management information across an entire organization…
Management information usually falls into the realm of reports and reporting tools.
SAP Business One comes with (you should be sitting down for this!) not one but 6 (SIX!) Reporting tools, 7 if you include SAP Crystal Solutions Dashboard (formerly known as Xcelsius).
These reporting tools are:
- SQL Queries (within SAP Business One)
- Drag and Relate
- XL Reporter (XLR)
- Crystal Reports (CR)
- SAP Crystal Solutions Dashboard / Xcelsius *
- MS SQL Analysis Services
- 3rd Party Reporting tools – Excel etc
* SAP Crystal Solutions Dashboard / Xcelsius requires an additional license purchase
In the next few blog posts I’ll detail out the above tools and how they help in day to day operations as well as administration of SAP Business One.
What Should You Look for In a CRM Demo?
A good CRM demonstration is critical to getting a starting idea of what CRM can do and how it will benefit your business.
Articles by Charles.Knapp posted on February 8, 2011 12:28 PM (www.blogs.oracle.com/crm)
I have helped firms evaluate software demos and delivered demos in diverse industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, life sciences, and travel (to name just a few). Here are a few suggestions.
First, which vendor has the best fit for your industry? Make sure that the vendor demo staff tell you clearly throughout the demo (not just in a passing comment), what portion of each business process and screen is standard, what has been configured, what has been custom coded, and what has been provided by a partner. If you don’t keep asking, what you buy may be less useful than what you saw. This will lead to added (and unbudgeted) costs and time.
Second, what are the roles of the primary users? What are their top-most needs, such as exception-oriented dashboards or rapid data entry? Can you get a demo for each key role, showing how the software fits a typical workday? Have the vendor repeatedly tell you what is standard, configured, custom coded, or provided by a partner to avoid costly surprises.
Third, how well does the demo balance ease of use with completeness of business processes? One common demo approach is to hide needed fields or steps that are of low visual value. Another approach is to focus heavily on a visually appealing capability, while downplaying overall fit with your key business processes. Results: despite their business acumen, demo attendees may miss significant gaps in business fit or form an unrealistic impression about ease of use.
Oracle Cloud Computing: Thinking Out Cloud, Break Through the Haze!
What is Cloud Computing?
What is Cloud Computing, if you search for deifination on Wiki, this is what you get:
Cloud computing refers to the provision of computational resources on demand via a computer network, such as applications, databases, file services, email, etc. In the traditional model of computing, both data and software are fully contained on the user’s computer; in cloud computing, the user’s computer may contain almost no software or data (perhaps a minimal operating system and web browser only), serving as little more than a display terminal for processes occurring on a network of computers far away. A common shorthand for a provided cloud computing service (or even an aggregation of all existing cloud services) is “The Cloud”.
The most common analogy to explain cloud computing is that of public utilities such as electricity, gas, and water. Just as centralized and standardized utilities free individuals from the difficulties of generating electricity or pumping water, cloud omputing frees users from certain hardware and software installation and maintenance tasks through the use of simpler ardware that accesses a vast network of computing resources (processors, hard drives, etc.). The sharing of resources reduces the cost to individuals.
Cloud Computing is often characterized by:
• Virtualized computing resources
• Seemingly limitless capacity/scalability
• Dynamic provisioning
• Multi-tenancy
• Self-service
• Pay-for-use pricing
Why Cloud Computing?
Increase speed. Improve efficiencies. Reduce costs. For years, those have been the big promises of most new IT nitiatives. They’re also the big benefits of cloud computing. In pursuit of those benefits, organizations are choosing both public and private cloud strategies. Because cloud computing is based on pooled and elastic computing resources to rovide high efficiency, scalability, and availability—at the lowest-possible cost—choosing the right cloud technology to support cloud-based applications is a critically important element of any cloud computing strategy.
In summary, these are the answers to WHY CLOUD COMPUTING?
• Easy / Fast to deploy
• Less in-house IT Staff
• On demand basis
(Pay only for what you use)
• Low montly payments
• Offers the latest functionality
(no upgrade cost)
• Sharing systems / information simpler
(access from anywhere, anytime)
Oracle Cloud Computing Objectives:
• Ensure that cloud computing is fully
enterprise grade
• Support both public and private cloud
computing – give customers choice
The technology behind a cloud deployment may be a collection of best-of-breed components from different vendors, ntegrated by a cloud service provider or an organization’s own IT staff. But a cloud technology platform that is engineered to work together, preintegrated and preconfigured by one vendor, can be optimized for much higher levels of performance, scalability, availability, efficiency, and manageability compared to heterogeneous solutions.
“In terms of economies of scale in an on-demand world, it’s about having a unified technology stack that enables tandardization and provides for operational efficiency and much lower operating costs,” says Gene Eun, director of product management, Oracle On Demand. “The fact that Oracle’s on-demand cloud offering is an integrated solution that’s designed to work together means that it’s all built for scale and stability, ensuring that the solution is optimized for performance and is
always going to be available.”
CRM Software: What Is It, Do I Need It, and Is It Worth the Investment?
Software Dilemma
Many of us have heard of the term “CRM”, however, some of you may still have questions about what exactly it is.
What is CRM?
CRM, an abbreviation of Customer relationship management software is a tool used to manage all of your contacts’ and customers’ information in one place and tracks all activities related to them. It’s also used to manage partner and vendor relationships. It stores critical data for sales, marketing, and customer service purposes and is used for managing marketing campaigns and generating meaningful reports. With CRM software like Microsoft Dynamics CRM, it’s easy to share customer information, monitor sales activities and retrieve purchase history, identify revenue opportunities, deliver consistent customer service, and track your progress against your goals.
Do I Need It?
It’s important to analyze your needs before selecting a CRM software. Here are some indicators that your company may be ready to take the plunge:
- You use multiple methods to communicate with your customers (e-mail, phone, face-to-face, direct mail, etc.)
- You want to be able to target specific customers and prospects and personalize communications
- Your customers’ demographics vary
- You want greater visibility into your sales pipeline
- You’re duplicating efforts within the company (i.e. two salespeople call the same prospect)
- It’s time-consuming and difficult to generate reports
- You want to be able to track marketing and sales trends and identify opportunities
- Any customer or prospect data you currently have is spread across different software
Is It Worth the Investment?
It´s a fair question; many business leaders still question the value of implementing CRM software in a business. It is an elusive answer because there is a wealth of inconclusive information in the marketplace. Fear no more as we would like to share you some insights from the experts. There are several tangible and intangible benefits to CRM including increased revenue, reduced costs, and greater efficiency. Of course, these results vary depending on the company and type of CRM software you choose. However, it’s easier to prove the worth of a CRM software investment compared to many other software systems since some benefits can be realized almost immediately. Some benefits include:
- Integration with existing databases and technology systems
- Consolidated information in a centralized system
- Improved visibility into company data and processes for more predictable and manageable business operations
- Ability to create custom reports efficiently and modify rules of the system
- Improved customer service and efficiency due to increased responsiveness and non-duplication of data
- Improved information sharing and synchronization resulting in increased productivity and sales performance
- Better targeted and more efficient marketing
Here’s a video of Top 10 Reasons to Choose Microsoft Dynamics CRM:
Microsoft Dynamics AX2012 : POWERFULLY SIMPLE
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 empowers people to anticipate and embrace change, enabling businesses to thrive. Specifically, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 helps customers simplify decisions by delivering the following:
Powerful
A powerful foundation that is purpose-built for five industries: manufacturing, distribution, retail, services, and public sector, along with comprehensive, core ERP functionality for financial, human resources and operations management. All packaged in a single global solution thus giving customers a rapid time to value.
Agile
Agility through a set of unified natural models that serve as a library of business processes reflecting real-world situations. This enables customers to easily modify their organizations and processes to meet their changing business needs.
Simple
Simplicity through an easy-to-use solution offering access to information that is relevant to the work at hand. The familiar Microsoft Office user interface drives adoption and the enhanced business intelligence (BI) capabilities help customers uncover fresh insights that can lead to faster and more informed decision making.
Article abstracted from :
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/products/ax-2012-launch.aspx
Watch the pre-release demo here :
Make way! New release coming through, the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012!
Microsoft is committed to continually deliver powerful, agile, easy-to-use solutions that add value across your organization, today and tomorrow. The coming release of Microsoft Dynamics® AX 2012 is a delivery on this commitment. With more than 1,000 new features and enhancements across core enterprise resource planning (ERP) and industry capabilities, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 will help provide more business value faster, enable agility and insight in your organization, and help drive faster adoption, broader usage, and easier maintenance and upgrade through a continued emphasis on simplicity.
Couple this with a constant focus on pervasive interoperability—the natural interaction of ERP systems with Microsoft® business productivity applications and IT infrastructure technology—and the coming release will help sharpen your competitive edge and empower your people to anticipate and embrace change.
Contact us for more details :
Making printing as mobile as business users
With the launch of the HP ePrint service App, iPhone users can now print emails, presentations, reports, travel documents and more to any networked enterprise printer. To help mitigate security risks, all print jobs are managed by HP ePrint Enterprise Administrative Server software, ensuring that data is kept within the company’s own network.
iPhone users can easily search a directory of available print locations and use their smartphone’s GPS functionality to navigate to HP ePrint Mobile Print Locations that include print and copy retail stores as well as hotels and airport lounges.
FedEx Office implemented the HP ePrint solution across its network of more than 1,800 locations nationwide last year, giving users of BlackBerry® smartphones – and now iPhone – access to ePrint through the world’s largest retail printing network.
“With these ePrint enhancements, iPhone users can now print documents directly from their devices to our stores using our FedEx Office Print & Go service,” said Brian Philips, president and chief executive officer, FedEx Office. “We are the only national print retailer to offer smartphone printing – making us the clear leader in the marketplace with our extensive portfolio of products and services.”
Many HP ePrint Mobile Print Locations, including Hilton Worldwide, are powered by the PrinterOn® network of public printers.
The HP ePrint service App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.
Detailed information on HP ePrint Enterprise and HP ePrint Mobile Print Locations is available here.
Article abstracted from http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2011/110411a.html
