March 19th, 2020 Los Angeles, Calif–Avasant, a leading management consulting firm today announced its acquisition of Strativa®. Founded in 2000, Strativa serves clients in the selection, price comparison, and procurement of technology solutions. The acquisition will expand Avasant’s data warehouse of IT vendor and product information, further enhancing Avasant’s consulting offerings, which include vendor selection […]
Author: Admin
Time for a Declaration of Independence from Software Vendors?
The traditional advice given to companies is that it is best to standardize on a commercial software vendor for the core of the applications portfolio. Nevertheless, we are now seeing some clients push back against this advice and developing more of their own software in-house.
In this post, we trace the history of the commercial software industry and why the buyers in some cases are rebelling. We conclude by offering new guidelines on when to choose custom development over packaged solutions.
Getting ERP Users to Upgrade—Cloud vs. Traditional Systems
One of the great challenges facing traditional ERP vendors is getting customers to keep up with the latest version. Cloud ERP systems are supposed to solve this problem, by making the vendor responsible for upgrades and keeping all customers on a single version. However, sometimes, even SaaS providers need to make changes that are so significant and potentially disruptive that customers resist the change. This post describes how one such cloud ERP provider is meeting this challenge.
What Is Digital Transformation, and How Do We Get There?
In enterprise technology, digital transformation is a hot topic. But what does it really mean? This post provides a simple definition of digital transformation, breaks down the main types of digital transformation, and recommends an approach for developing a digital transformation strategy.
Next-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 businesses. But, only time will tell if software vendors will be able to meet these needs or whether, once again, they will over-design and over-price their CRM offerings.
Microsoft Centralizes Dynamics 365 Functions into New Hub for SMBs
Microsoft is attempting an ambitious plan to converge a wide swath of business tools under one unified umbrella called Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, a platform that serves as the successor to its Dynamics NAV ERP system. According to Microsoft, it will be offered in the cloud, on-premises, and in hybrid deployments. This post provides an overview of what to expect–and not expect–with the release of Business Central in October 2018.
NetSuite 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 data centers to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) worldwide. This post outlines the benefits, not only to Oracle, but to NetSuite and ultimately to NetSuite’s customers, making it a true win-win-win.
AI Coming Soon to a Business System Near You
Just as social networking and smartphones took hold first in the consumer world and then moved into business, we can also expect artificial intelligence to begin to move into business applications in a natural way. Nearly every large, and many of the smaller, business software providers are moving in this direction. This post provides three examples of enterprise software providers embedding artificial intelligence in their products, giving organizations a way to benefit without having to invest large sums to develop their own AI systems
Change Management Doesn’t Have to Be a Game of Chance
A real change management program is not something soft or nebulous. After years of research and real-world experiences, change management professionals have developed many methods and tools that can make change management as tangible and practical as project management. This post describes one such tool.
In 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 result of not fully understanding the value of a well-written RFI. This post discusses the difference between an RFI and an RFP and the benefits of developing a simple RFI early in the vendor selection process.