Rootstock Software is an up-and-coming manufacturing cloud ERP provider, built on the Salesforce.com platform. This post provides an update on Rootstock’s progress over the past year in building out its capabilities, including a new initiative for its own native financial applications. We conclude with recommendations for buyers considering Rootstock.
Salesforce.com is proving to be a popular platform for developing ERP systems. In this post, we review the latest developments with Kenandy, one of five ERP providers building on the Salesforce platform. Kenandy stands out as taking a different strategy for selling into large companies, while continuing to target the SMB market as a complete ERP solution. We also provide recommendations for where Kenandy is a good fit for ERP buyers.
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 provider does business, from how the product is developed and maintained to how it is sold, implemented, and supported. It should permeate the very culture of the provider’s organization.
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 Dynamics line of business systems. This post outlines why this is a positive move for Dynamics and the greater Microsoft.
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, they can actually lead to the wrong ERP system being selected. In this post, we identify the problems with the the use ERP requirements templates and outline a better way for specifying requirements for new ERP systems.
Oracle was hit by a customer lawsuit earlier this month in conjunction with its MICROS Systems business, which Oracle acquired in 2014. Although we do not yet know all of the facts, there is a lesson in this case for companies seeking to become digital businesses.
Infor is doing interesting work in its CloudSuite initiative to offer industry-specific solutions deployed on the cloud. But it faces two challenges. First, it must convince a greater share of its 70,000 customers to upgrade to its latest versions. Then, if it does convince them, Infor will need to have the implementation resources trained and available to support those customer migrations. This post sums up the status of these initiatives with recommendations for Infor customers.
With all the talk about smart devices as a new trend, there is one industry where smart devices are very old news: manufacturing. Production machinery has been computerized, not for months, not for years, but for decades. Yet, for the most part, today’s ERP systems do not leverage those smart devices on the factory floor. This post traces the history of connected factory machinery and how they offer a solution to untimely and incorrect transaction data entry in manufacturing systems.
Over the past several years, we’ve been seeing a subtle shift in our consulting work at Strativa. Years ago, clients would ask us to facilitate an ERP or CRM vendor selection, a business process improvement project, or various types of IT assessments. Our consultants still do those types of projects. But today, increasingly, clients are asking us to help them in a more holistic way.
When an organization decides to look for a new ERP system, consultants and vendors often refer to that effort as an “ERP selection project.” But after many such projects, we have come to the conclusion that the whole process is misnamed. This post describes how ERP selection projects must encompass much more than picking the right vendor.