The Future of ERP

According to CGT (Consumer Goods Technology) the top ERP providers are:

SAP
Oracle
Microsoft
Infor Global Solutions (Baan)
Lawsons

When IDC Retail Insights Group Vice President Bob Parker was asked what trends he forsees in ERP requirements he highlighted amongst other things the following:
“ Some of the trends we identified last year are ongoing, including more virtualization and cloud-based ERP, as well as integrated analytics. …..Mobile access is also an increasing trend, though sometimes the interest here is more hype than reality-driven. We caution companies to be practical in their adoption of mobile devices and apps,"

I agree that cloud computing is the way of the future and those not moving in that direction are in for a shock!

He continued to add:
“Lastly, there will be a group of companies who will want to deliver ERP to their organization on top of a private cloud infrastructure so that “virtual instances” can be provisioned. For example, the Wal-Mart team at a large consumer goods company may have its own virtual instance that accommodates Wal-Mart-specific processes while staying true to corporate information standards.”

Hmm! Interesting !

A Good Reason why SaaS is GREAT!

Have you ever goy rid of a software product because it just couldn't deliver? With on-premises upgrades constantly being delayed for internal budgetary reasons, they simply never happen, leading to outdated ‘legacy’ software in production. I know all about this! And very often, it just doesn’t compare well to the latest versions of competitive products. But does it make sense to start over from scratch?
The biggest breakthroughs with SaaS is that upgrades are expected to be part of the service. This gives the vendor the opportunity to keep the very best software always at your disposal. And since you are paying your subscription frequently, there’s plenty of opportunity to remind them of any issues you may have with their service.
Just think when you called your vendor for help on a critical bug only to be told that it's already fixed in the next version? But with SasS you're always running the best and latest e and you'll most likely never hit that bug in the first place. That is real value. Upgrades become a standard feature of the software, leading to simpler and much less risky upgrade events and they have to because they are performed on the vendor’s dollar. So this is what you can expect:
- Full value from your software investment if upgrades are applied continuously.
- All software has bugs... continuous upgrades help you avoid them by having access to the most corrective content.
- With SaaS, you never have to wait for your IT staff to upgrade in fact you don’t really need technical IT staff
- All great SaaS companies include upgrades as part of your normal fee and no hidden charges.
Take hidden risks and fear out of upgrades by using SaaS solutions.

China's Hidden Risks

China is such a frequent focus of speculation and comment that it sometimes seems that many of the challenges of doing business there must be mitigated because everything is so thoroughly documented at the moment. Whether that’s true or not, a CPO based there recently made it very clear during an interview how important it is right now to look behind the hype to get an idea of what’s really going on.

He related that “Things are more dynamic here – word travels fast. Business travels fast. Suppliers are faster and more optimistic than those in Europe. People in the west often say no to opportunities because they’re not instantly feasible or they’re not as hungry. No is not a response you hear over here. A contemporary of mine said it best: ‘everything is possible, everything is negotiable.’”

“It’s so important to put the optimism aside for a short while and make sure the right processes are in place,” he argued.

Going back an article from a Procurement Leaders magazine issue from April 2009 concerning the prospects for the Chinese economy during the global downturn, the general feeling was that suppliers’ attitudes were changing as the economy saw exports reined in and some sectors begin to seize up, following on from a period of rapid growth. They were becoming more flexible, the article noted.

And much of that rings true today, especially as China is supposedly about to post its first trade deficit for several months – there are plenty of reports of suppliers in China hungry foreign business and, indeed, offering an increasingly sophisticated and well-recognised service.

Over on the Spend Matters blog Jason Busch recently posted an interview with Lisa Reisman of MetalMiner on the sourcing situation in China. Her response conveyed this note of caution that chimed with our CPOs concerns. She said: “I think what suppliers and everyone close to China are starting to see is that we're dealing with yet another bubble market. A frenzy of investment has led to a lot of buying.”

“Supplier viability could still be a very real issue in certain markets,” she warned.

It’s long been difficult to gauge quite what is happening or will happen to this dynamic economy. But one thing does become clear, there are huge risks awaiting those not prepared to look beyond this veneer of optimism among suppliers to learn more about the markets they are sourcing from.

Taken from Procurement Today

What is Your Intention?

Intention is a word that is used by many people when they are explaining their goals and plans for the future, but intention is just not a good philosophy.
Either you are going to do something or not. It is like the word TRY. This is another word we need to eliminate. You take action or you don't. There is no middle ground..

Think of some of the famous people you know: Dr. Phil, President Obama, Oprah, Bill Gates or any really successful people don’t say try or intend they just do it. They either succeed or don’t but they do it!
So what is YOUR intention?

Food for Thought

We worry about the prices of Gold and Silver yet John Clemmow of UBS made this statement a few weeks back "Rice is the new iron ore, and corn the new gold." Why?
He explained that as the global population swells to 9 billion by mid-century,  that food supply shocks IS hitting us now and while food shortages have been around as long as time immemorial never has there been such a demand for basic foods. Consider what has happened in the last few months.   We experienced the droughts in Australia that did not impact us much in North America, then the floods in Pakistan that in days destroyed staple foods; consecutively there were the heat waves around the Black Sea where Russia an exporter of grain put the breaks on exports sending prices souring.

Wheat, prices rose to some 75% since June in a matter of days,as the Black Sea region suffered through the most severe heat wave in nearly half a century. Did Gold or Silver or even oil perform at that rate?

The affected area ordinarily produces roughly one quarter of the entire global output. Consequently, experts forecast Russia's harvest well shy of the 75 million tonnes consumed domestically. Moscow has since implemented a ban on grain exports until late 2011.

Then there is Corn, that is up more than 40% since June as global stock levels, with a "stock to usage ratio" of a paltry 12%, dipped to their lowest levels in almost four decades. Unfavorable weather patterns in the US kicked the rally off, but it was the revelation that China, feeding the fastest growing middle class on the planet, imported a record 432,000 tonnes in August that really kicked it into overdrive.

Now the US diverts just a little over one third of its entire crop production to ethanol for fuel, which lead one commentator to declare the program a blatant act of "unsustainable, government-sponsored food burning."

To add to this we have heard about the rising cost of Coffee.  Prices have risen by over 40% since September, 2010.

What is all this about.  Maybe our attention should be watching the commodity markets and look for growth and potential there instead of Gold and Silver.   Remember the story of King Midas that every thing he touched turned to gold, but also remember that he could not eat  gold so where do our priorities lie?   Maybe the lesson is that we need to literally watch  our “food” supply chain more and how to better our environment through real ‘sustainable supply chain’ methodology that just giving lip service to it.