Oracle and Salesforce.com: The Great Detente
Salesforce.com and Oracle this week announced a “new strategic partnership.” For their mutual customers, the announcement represents a welcome thawing of relations between the two companies. But it...
View ArticleMicrosoft Reorg: What Does It Mean for Dynamics?
CEO Steve Ballmer recently announced corporate-wide organizational changes at Microsoft. Although the reorg includes changes across many Microsoft functions, what does it mean specifically for the...
View ArticleWith SaaS, Software Not Only Service Needed
Software-as-a-service simplifies much of the complexity involved in implementing and using enterprise software. However, some SaaS providers may be neglecting key elements of success for buyers. This...
View ArticleEnterprise Software Suites Don’t Always Win
The major enterprise software providers promote their pre-built integration as a selling point in capturing new business from existing clients. But do suites always win? Based on recent deals observed...
View ArticleMicrosoft Broadens Dynamics CRM, Moves Up-Market
With three strategic acquisitions, Microsoft Dynamics CRM can now be considered a complete offering for sales, marketing and customer service. In addition, Microsoft’s CRM offering is showing its...
View ArticleWhat Fiori Means to SAP and Its Customers
Over the past several months, a debate has been raging about whether SAP should offer its new user apps, collectively called Fiori, at no charge to customers under its maintenance program. This post...
View ArticleERP Customers Tilt Toward Subscription Pricing
What do ERP customers choose when they can freely choose between traditional on-premises deployment under a perpetual license and cloud deployment under a subscription agreement? How are these...
View ArticleThe Problem with ERP Requirements Templates
Although a requirements template may appear to be a time-saving way to get to a requirements specification, this approach can actually make the project longer and cost more than it should. Moreover,...
View ArticleMicrosoft Unbundles Its Dynamics Business Unit
In a letter to Microsoft employees today, CEO Satya Nadella announced a major restructuring of its business, including the unbundling of Microsoft Business Solutions, the group responsible for the...
View ArticleBeyond Deployment Options: SaaS as a Business Model
Software as a service is more than just another deployment option, another way to consume software. SaaS is a business model. It not only affects the product: it should drive the nature of how the...
View ArticleWhich Comes First, New Business Processes or New Systems?
When implementing new enterprise systems, business process improvement should be done in parallel. Doing all of one before the other—whether process improvement first, or system implementation...
View ArticleOracle Acquisition of NetSuite Is a Mixed Bag
Oracle took another step in its strategy of growth by acquisition by announcing a bid for NetSuite. But apart from helping Oracle in its race with Salesforce.com to get to $10 billion in cloud...
View ArticleThe Growing Circle of Cloud ERP
Traditional providers of ERP systems typically sought to expand their functional footprint to include complementary applications outside of core ERP. Now cloud ERP vendors are adopting a similar...
View ArticleNew Customer-Facing Systems Extend the Reach of Small, Midsize Businesses
Small business doesn’t always mean simple business. Like larger companies, small and midsize businesses (SMBs) need to reach new markets, develop new products, satisfy customers, and control costs. The...
View ArticleIn Vendor Evaluation, Don’t Shortcut the RFI Process
In some enterprise software selection projects, clients are tempted to skip the Request for Information (RFI) stage and go straight to a Request for Proposal (RFP). This is a mistake and often the...
View ArticleNetSuite on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: What It Means for Customers
Oracle currently lags behind Amazon and Microsoft as a cloud infrastructure service provider. But Oracle is about to get a big boost as its NetSuite unit begins a three-phase transition from its own...
View ArticleNext-Generation CRM: Who Gets There First?
With so much having changed since CRM systems were introduced in the 1990s, is it time to rethink CRM? This post outlines six ways in which CRM systems must change to meet the needs of today's...
View ArticleThe Benefits of Business Process Framing
In selecting and implementing a new enterprise system, business leaders have learned the importance of evaluating business processes. However, they often think that this means they should begin with...
View ArticleThe Use and Misuse of Platform as a Service
One of the key advantages of modern cloud systems is that they often come with rapid development platforms (Platform as a Service, or PaaS) that allow the vendor, partners, and even customers to build...
View ArticleBeyond Deployment Options: SaaS as a Business Model
Software as a service is more than just another deployment option, another way to consume software. SaaS is a business model. It not only affects the product: it should drive the nature of how the...
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