By Dror Orbach

 

Can you remember a time when you didn’t rely on your mobile device to help you with your work? Many people can’t, even though this evolution is still fairly new. The fact is, a significant number of us now use mobile devices not only to communicate, but also to interpret data, interact with business applications and share a variety of information through wireless media. A report called “Key Considerations for Successful Adoption of a Mobile Platform?” by Jorge García, analyst with TEC Research, explores this new generation of employees and consumers and discusses their impact on traditional business models.

 

In the report (http://goo.gl/w5MEK) García says that organizations all over the world have come to rely on mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, netbooks and laptops to conduct their daily business activities. He quotes findings from a recent survey of business decision makers conducted by the Yankee Group:

• 23% manage a workforce of which 10% uses mobile devices extensively

• 20% manage a workforce of which 18% uses mobile extensively, and

• 30% manage a workforce of which 30% uses mobile extensively

 

García is the first to point out that these figures may not seem impressive at first glance. However, what is significant is how quickly the reliance on mobile devices is increasing in the workplace, for everything from answering email to accessing VPNs and CRM systems.

 

In fact, just last month Gartner produced a report that predicted by 2017, 25 percent of enterprises will have an enterprise app store for managing corporate-sanctioned apps on PCs and mobile devices.  (http://goo.gl/FCeU6)

 

With this increased usage and complexity, users are demanding that their employers look beyond providing “baseline” mobile applications, and many are currently falling short of realizing the potential of mobile applications have, and their ability to transform a business.

 

While he admits there’s no silver bullet for creating mobile applications, he says at the very least that most organizations should start developing tools to facilitate heterogeneity across devices, platforms, technology, standards and data sources.

 

Does your organization have a comprehensive mobile strategy in place?

 

 

By Dror Orbach

In a recent blog post, I discussed the many benefits self-service models can have within your ERP systems – including faster response times and reduced infrastructure needs.  But why are so many companies still not taking advantage of this opportunity? Perhaps they just don’t know where to begin.

 

Where to start? There are many different considerations. First, take a look at your business and its different functions. Where are the bottlenecks? Would self service help address and resolve them? Indentify your top priorities, and focus on one or two of them to start with. What are the pain points that are preventing you from doing a better job?

 

If you are ready to try implementing a self-service model to use with your ERP system, your mobile and remote staff may be the best place to start. For one thing, there is a growing employee appetite for self-service applications that are accessible through a smart phone or other mobile device.  (Check out my recent blog for more info on this: http://goo.gl/NAugG)  And for another thing, this style of working is becoming exponentially more popular, and hence the management of such an environment will keep growing in complexity and scale.

 

Before you begin, you will need to identify what type of information or transactions you would like to offer to employees in this way. Consider starting with just one function, but one that features a lot of shared components in the architecture that could later be reused across more applications. This way, it will not need to be re-architected later if you decide to expand the platform to include more tasks. If you have some view of how that overall picture will look in the long run, you are better positioned to choose the right solution architecture while focusing on only the key functions you decided on as priority in the short run.

 

The first application you choose could be something as simple as a purchase order for supplies, or something more complex and project based, such as time-coding. You then need to investigate ways in which you would actually get that information or series of transactions through to users. Would it be through a form? How will it look on a mobile device? Will the employee need to type in data, or make selections from a given set of choices? And finally how will you maintain the security, now that this information is accessible through all these mobile devices? Would employees need to login using a password, or go to a specialized hosted environment?

 

Once your mobile workers are set up and using self-service applications successfully, the next area you may want to consider is your extended enterprise. This means going beyond your employees, to your customers and suppliers. If done correctly and strategically, a self-service model in this capacity can be a real time saver. There is often a great deal of manual activity maintaining those relationships – suppliers need a lot of ongoing communication so they can plan what is needed, and it can be a demanding task to keep that information flowing back and forth.

 

A self-service system could allow them to login and see for themselves what the demand forecast is for the things that are coming from your company and when they are likely to be required and approved. This could result in better planned processes, client satisfaction and cost savings – and you will both save time by reducing the need for as many update calls and meetings.

 

Service level agreements (SLAs) are often a good place to implement self-service applications. Typically service manager hold regular meeting go over reports. But what if the customer were able to go into service level online and see the SLAs? That would save a lot of work for the service manager, the customer would have a better feel for where the project stands, and you are giving them better service just by having this information available to them at any time, increasing their confidence in the success of the project.

 

Finally, no matter what route you choose to go with self service, it’s important to remember that is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Different users (employees, clients, suppliers) will have different characteristics, environments and needs. In order for a self-service solution to work seamlessly, it has to be able to support a variety of people in all the different ways in which they need to interact with you.

 

By Dror Orbach

 

Does it seem like people are busier than they used to be? Though the concept of “business hours” still applies, it’s quickly becoming obsolete. Real-time business communication across all times zones is the new normal, thanks to the interconnectedness that ubiquitous mobile technology and social media adoption has brought. Communications no longer stop when the traditional workday ends.

 

A recent whitepaper, “Real Time Business,” produced by Oxford Economics, (http://goo.gl/GnXrr)

explores this new interconnectedness of global markets and cultures, how it has created an explosion of accessible information, and how this dramatic increase in the pace of our lives is likely to affect our businesses, our customer service models and our work-life balance.

 

The whitepaper points out how this new communications model is even changing the way news is reported and shared, highlighting how news stories are often now “broken” by average people on Twitter before any media has had the chance to report on it. For example, when a plane made an emergency landing on New York’s Hudson River, it only took three minutes for a passenger to tweet about it to the rest of the world.

 

The adoption of these communication models has also dramatically increased the pace of business and client/customer expectations. People expect and demand to have their issues responded to and dealt with right away. Your company will have to keep up and be able to deliver with fast action and rapid decisions. Is your company prepared? In the whitepaper, Oxford Economics surveyed executives of different business verticals, and found that their answers were mixed.

 

While nearly all respondents agree that 24/7 communications are critical, only one-third of businesses have already implemented real-time business applications in some way (though 65% of those who have not yet implemented real-time systems expect to do so within five years).

 

Is your company ahead of the curve in adopting real-time operations?

 

By Dror Orbach

You have probably heard the term “self-service” used when exploring different ways of making your business run more efficiently.   A self-service solution enables your stakeholders to easily find information, receive instructions or perform activities on their own.    Self-service solutions have some tremendous benefits – ranging from reduced time to information,  reduced error rates for data entry, faster process turn-around times and more effective back-office operations.  Yet, despite of the obvious advantages, most mid-sized companies have yet to consider how their ERP system can help them build a self-service model.

 

Self-service is not a new concept – it has been the reality in the consumer world for many years. Think about things we now take for granted, even things as simple as buying a theatre ticket online rather than at the theatre. Through self-service you can buy your tickets then and there, right when you want them.  And in many cases, you can even select your own seats, rather than settling for whatever is given to you.  Best of all is the fact that you no longer have to leave your house to stand in line. So it takes less time, it is more convenient and the end product is more tailored to your needs.

 

The same basic advantages hold true for many businesses.  Self-service offers a company a new way of interacting with stakeholders to make their lives easier.  Self-service also reduces related administrative costs of the company, by enabling the back office to focus on exceptions rather than run-of-the-mill requests.

 

For example, one of our ERP implementations is in a global relocation management firm that helps the employees of its client companies relocate to different locations around the world.    Their extensive self-service capability supports not only the HR departments of their client companies who relocate people, but also the actual employees who are being relocated.  While relocation managers within the HR departments can initiate new relocation projects and view information about the status of current relocations in process for their company, relocating employees are able to submit documentation and expenses, receive destination information and get help from realtors and other professionals.  Through online queries, submissions and approvals performed directly by all relevant stakeholders, the system enables many tasks that are part of the overall relocation process to be performed quickly and efficiently with minimal support or intervention from central expert teams.  The result is an exceptionally high level of customer satisfaction.

 

Companies across very different industry verticals such as field services, manufacturing, warehousing & distribution and others can similarly benefit both in internal and customer-facing or supplier-facing operations.  I will provide some more examples in my upcoming blog posts.

 

When considering how to best leverage self-service capabilities, it is also important to think about some of the related implementation challenges.    One of the key factors of success for any self-service capability is that self-service is available at the time and place that users require.

 

With this in mind, a self-service environment to support a particular process might need to include several different user interaction channels and device types.  Again, to use a familiar example from the consumer world, self-service banking may include support via phone, kiosk (ATM) and web browser – all of which need to be synchronized via a common back-end system in order to reflect the most up-to-date information.  A similar challenge exists when purchase requests can be made and approved via forms; corporate ERP desktop application or mobile device.  This adds some complexity to the overall solution and may require an investment in new technologies.

 

In my upcoming blog posts, we will look at ways that self-service models can be used to improve workflows between employers and employees, between businesses and clients, and within the extended enterprise.  We will also explore the impact of mobile environments on self-service; what things to consider before moving to a self-service model; and approaches on how to get started.

By Dror Orbach

 

Can you remember a time when you didn’t rely on your mobile device to help you with your work? Many people can’t, even though this evolution is still fairly new. The fact is, a significant number of us now use mobile devices not only to communicate, but also to interpret data, interact with business applications and share a variety of information through wireless media. A new report called “Key Considerations for Successful Adoption of a Mobile Platform” (http://goo.gl/uBjp2) by Jorge García, analyst with TEC Research, explores this new generation of employees and consumers and discusses their impact on traditional business models.

 

In the report, García says that organizations all over the world have come to rely on mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, netbooks and laptops to conduct their daily business activities. He quotes findings from a recent survey of business decision makers conducted by the Yankee Group:

• 23% manage a workforce of which 10% uses mobile devices extensively

• 20% manage a workforce of which 18% uses mobile extensively, and

• 30% manage a workforce of which 30% uses mobile extensively

 

García is the first to point out that these figures may not seem impressive at first glance. However, what is significant is how quickly the reliance on mobile devices is increasing in the workplace, for everything from answering email to accessing VPNs and CRM systems.

 

With this increased usage and complexity, users are demanding that their employers look beyond providing “baseline” mobile applications, and many are currently falling short of realizing the potential of mobile applications have, and their ability to transform a business.

 

While he admits there’s no silver bullet for creating mobile applications, he says at the very least that most organizations should start developing tools to facilitate heterogeneity across devices, platforms, technology, standards and data sources.

 

Does your organization have a comprehensive mobile strategy in place?

When making any major shift in technology it’s important to know the answer to “Why” first

By Larry Perlov, Illumiti

Why is it that despite the millions of dollars invested each year in ERP projects, so few companies can show direct causality between this investment and material financial results? In almost 18 years of ERP experience, both as a customer and a consultant in dozens of companies, I have seen but a few who have set ambitious and specific improvement targets upfront, and proceeded to ensure that the implementation of ERP (and associated organizational change) directly helped achieve those ambitious targets. I'm not suggesting that most companies do not attain any value from their ERP investments.  Most companies do see inherent value of ERP based on automation, integration and efficiency gained.  What I am suggesting, is that notwithstanding the inherent benefits, few companies come close to actually realizing the true potential of this powerful technology.

Answering ‘why change’
According to Dr Eli Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints, there are 3 key questions that need to be answered before embarking on any significant transformation projects, including technology improvement endeavors:

1. Why change?
2. What to change?
   
3. How to cause the change?

Each of these questions is important, but the first one is the most important:  "Why change?" It seems like a simple enough question, but the reality is that most companies don’t have a good answer.

Given the preponderance of companies that have undertaken ERP implementations, replacements, upgrades and improvements, it can safely be assumed that many corporate executives have determined that what to change is the “Tool” – i.e. the ERP.  How to cause the change also appears to be fairly well answered – there are a finite number of options.  There are thousands of system integration consulting firms who each have a unique spin on implementation methodology – but the crux of how is fairly straightforward – Design, Build, Test, Train, Cutover and Support (this is the essence of SAP’s ASAP methodology but is very similar across ERP platforms).

With so much attention to what and how - most companies nonetheless do not have a good answer to “Why Change”?

Why this is such an important question?

Setting your ‘true north’

In addition to aligning all impacted stakeholders around a unified view of why they are doing something, “Why Change” is also important because it provides the organization a ‘true north’ to help navigate the inevitable turbulence inherent in change and ensures that when facing dilemmas along the way, the best decisions¹ are taken.  In order to be a good “true north”, the answer to “why change” needs to be SMART = Specific, Measurable, Ambitious yet Realistic and with a Timeframe. Many stakeholders will say that a new technology implementation is necessary because their current software is old and outdated and needs to be replaced.  In other words, the answer to “Why Change” is directly linked to “What to change” –  its anchored in system replacement. Another common response that departs slightly from system replacement is one of my personal favorites:  “Improved visibility”.

What’s wrong with these answers?   These are not SMART and therefore not a good true north. They are almost impossible to measure and almost impossible to guide organizations through common dilemmas.  One of the most common dilemmas during ERP projects is rooted in scope creep.  This is a big topic that I will cover in a separate paper – but suffice to say focus is critical when implementing an ERP and less, often is, more.  When faced with the “scope creep” dilemma without a true north, the only real constraint on determining additional scope during a project is resource availability (time, budget, people) and it inevitably forces a compromise.  Unfortunately in many cases adding too many unnecessary, nice-to-have items to scope, serves to defocus the implementation and the results are further diluted.

How do we get from typical responses to SMART goals?  By using a variation the “Toyota 5-Why’s²”

Here is an example:
Q: Why do we need to implement ERP?

A: Because our current system is too old.

Q: Why is that an issue / so what?

A: Because we don’t have good visibility to actionable information.

Q: Why is that an issue / so what?

A: We don’t know which of our products and services are most and least profitable in which customer segments and under which conditions.
[Now we are getting somewhere]

Q: Why is this a priority now?

A: We need to increase sales by 17% next year and we need to have better actionable information to enable that!

Bingo! It only took four Why’s, and we got to the root of the matter – we need to change in order to allow us to have better actionable information to facilitate an increase in sales of 17% next year (specific, measurable, ambitious yet realistic with a stated timeframe).  The viability of this is not the thesis of this paper – but my point is  that getting to the root, enables us to have a true north.  In this example, if a stakeholder requests to increase scope to include a fancy new procurement process, we need to ask:

Q: Why are we doing this project?
A: Ahhh – to help increase sales.  
Q: Does adding a fancy new procurement process help achieve more goal units in less time…. A: No?  
Q: Are there any major risks or negative ramifications of deferring this?  
A: No?  Great! Propose we defer this to phase 2.

Although this may appear as a simple dilemma, there are many dilemmas that having a clear and meaningful goal helps to cut through. There are many companies investing significant time and money in new technology projects these days – many without a clear, business oriented goal in mind. It’s a well-known fact that ERP implementations are particularly time consuming, costly and complex, but it is possible to stay ahead of the game and have a real competitive advantage by ensuring one always has a focused answer to the “why change?” question.

Whatever answer you come up with should be clearly aligned to your company’s overall strategy and goals prior to embarking on a new ERP implementation. If your answer to “why change?” is not founded in a strong business case, then in our humble opinion, it is not a good enough answer. A good rule of thumb is that the reasons for change should always be things that help remove barriers to accomplishing key strategic goals for the company. The scope of the ERP project, therefore, needs to be set by determining its direct linkage to achieving or removing the barriers to achieving these strategic and measurable goals. Remember, if you don’t know “why” you are trying to accomplish a difficult endeavor, you will have great difficulty accomplishing it.  It is easy to get distracted and start going down the wrong path when one sees all the impressive things an ERP system can do, but having a clear focus will keep the costs down and allow a project to stay on course by addressing the company’s most important issues first. A poor answer to “why change?” usually results in a failed start and “scope creep” later on, but a good answer can help keep you on track throughout the process. When you have a problem during the project and you’re not sure which way to turn, you can always guide and test your decision by going back to your answer to “why change”?  For example, if you become tempted to add a new function that was not part of the original plan, simply ask yourself, “How is this going to help us accomplish our stated goal?” If you can’t answer that question honestly, you probably should not do it.

In summary, 5 key steps to keep in mind:

1.  Include your overall objectives and “why change?” statement in a clear and concise way in your project charter
2.  Clearly communicate to the implementation and business team why you are planning the change
3.  Re-visit the project charter on a regular basis to remind the team of what you are trying to accomplish as you go through the implementation
4.  Test proposed scope additions  throughout the project to ensure all suggested changes and additions link closely to achieving overall project and business objectives
5.  Report on your attainment of outcomes against your overall goals

_________________________________________

¹What makes a “best decision” better than other possible options?  The simple answer is: it will get the organization to yield more goal units faster with the least risk and other negative ramifications.
²The 5 Why’s is a question-asking technique, developed by Sakichi Toyoda, and is used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem

By Dror Orbach

 

Has your company fully embraced mobile computing yet? Don’t feel too bad if you are not sure exactly what that even means. Hopefully, this is the year it will all start to make more sense.

In fact, many feel that 2012 will be remembered as the year companies reached a tipping point in the adoption of mobility as a critical tool for the enterprise. But so far, most of us are only on the cusp of understanding the vast extent to which enterprises will use mobility.

Mobility presents businesses with opportunities to completely rethink their existing processes and create new business models, and SAP is just one company delivering the tools that customers will need to make the most of these burgeoning opportunities, according to Usman Sheikh in this recent SAP Insider article. (http://goo.gl/VOvec)

According to the article, early indicators suggest that the scope of enterprise mobility will be widespread and create incremental value, leading up to an unprecedented business impact. And that it is no longer a choice.

Three key trends converging to drive the adoption of mobility in the business world:

• Widespread availability of broadband networks and mobile devices
• Growth of, and easy access to, rich media content
• Emergence of a new breed of mobile apps that serves business content in an easy-to-use, consumer-app-like experience

Sheikh points out that these trends are already having an impact on how we work. He even mentions how it changed how he was writing the article, while riding a train between two major cities, using Wi-Fi network offered by the train, and Skype to video conference with colleagues across the pond.

How has mobility had an impact on your business? How will you use it in the near future?

 

By Dror Orbach

 

You may have heard the importance of using technology to “transform your business” and may even agree that this is needed, but do you know how to go about it, how much to invest, what to expect and where to start? If your answer is “no” to one or more of these questions, you are certainly not alone.

In fact, a recent survey conducted by McKinsey & Company and cited in the New York Times tech blog “Bits” shows that many C-level executives are struggling with the ins and outs of where and how to go about investing in new technology to grow and change their business. The report cited opinions gleaned from almost 1,500 CEOs, CFOs and CIOs about top-of-mind technologies such as cloud computing, mobility, analytics and digital media (see article at http://goo.gl/5cKKy.)

First, the good news for technology providers: about one-quarter of the respondents surveyed actually expect their companies to spend at least 3 percent of their total cost base on such digital initiatives, and two-thirds see digital business practices increasing their operating income within the next three years. Twelve percent of them thought it would raise operating income by 30 percent or more.

Now the bad news: Half of respondents don’t think their organizations are properly structured to take advantage of new technologies. Forty-five percent see a lack of internal leadership in fostering use of the technologies. The survey also uncovered a large disconnect between how many CEOs think they will invest three percent of their total corporate costs on digital initiatives (40 percent) and how many CIOs believe this is true (12 percent).

Another key finding was that data and analytics are expected to generate more value than digital marketing or social media. The three major areas where people expect to see results from analytics are customer insights and targeting, budgeting and forecasting, and operations and supply chain management.

How does this information translate for your company?  If you were able to access all of your corporate information in real time, analyze it in virtually no time and make decisions faster wherever you happen to be – what would you do first to make your business tick better?

Every two years, IBM releases an impressive, massive study on emerging trends. According to SAP’s Michael Brenner, the data for this report is actually based on face-to-face interviews with more than 1,700 CEOs from 64 countries and 18 industries. Check out the original IBM report and the SAP commentary by Michael Brenner. ( http://goo.gl/hngc7)

By Dror Orbach

In current economic conditions, most businesses are expected to operate more efficiently, run tighter ships and do more with less. That is just the new reality.  So a decision to implement something as large as an ERP system is not an easy one to make, and needs to be justified by the substantial business benefits that will be achieved in doing so.

 

What business issues are you looking to solve?

That is the most critical question that executives need to answer when deciding whether or not to proceed with a new ERP system.  More specifically, what are the business problems or pain points that are either hurting the company right now, or have the potential to hurt it in the future? In some cases the need stems not from a problem, but rather from the set of new automation / IT system capabilities that will become crucial enablers of the business’ growth and its future competitive position. One or more of these major change drivers needs to be clearly demonstrated before a top executive should consider approving the purchase and implementation of a new ERP system.

 

Executive Participation important from start to finish

Executive involvement shouldn’t end there.  In fact,  approving the system is only the beginning. It is also very important that top executives actively participate throughout the ERP implementation process.  The executive plays a key role in ensuring that the implementation stays on track and never strays from the overall objectives.

Why? Only the executive level offers the necessary high-level perspective that is needed to juggle competing priorities.  Most project teams are made up of a variety of people from different departments – all with their own view of what’s truly important. The executive represents the overall best interests of the company as a whole, and has the overarching perspective to make sure the team chooses priorities that serve the best interest of the company as a whole: the ones that actually address the core objectives that were intended in the first place.

 

Executives keep project focused on things that matter most

The executive also plays a key role in maintaining focus for the ERP implementation team.  As the team moves through the implementation, it’s easy to get distracted.  Challenges can range from trying to include too many things in the first phase of the implementation, to losing sight of important objectives when paring project scope down to fit previously approved budgets.  ERP systems are very broad in their capability, so project teams can feel a bit like kids in a candy store – there is so much to choose from.  Without the executive rigorously controlling scope,  it is tempting for the project team to add functionality that is desirable and value-adding, but not really necessary for attaining the stated objectives. The executive can keep the project on track by reminding the team of what they are trying to achieve and what the priority areas are – thus ensuring necessary capabilities are delivered while minimizing possible scope creep.

Without executive involvement, the implementation will also take much longer and be more costly in the end – which may ultimately add more pain points than it takes away.   By applying some discipline, the implementation team will be able to achieve an early success and have something go live that is meaningful and has an impact right away. Conversely, by expanding the scope too much, the implementation becomes more complex, the benefits are delayed and the focus of the team gets diluted.

The dangers of losing sight of your objectives are clear: if you don’t focus on them, you won’t achieve them.  Having that active participation and direction of the executive team at every step of the implementation process ensures your team’s focus will not waver.

 

The ripple effect of unstable economic times is being felt by us all – it has changed our perspectives, our risk averseness and, in many cases, even our jobs.

But, as highlighted in a new article in the SAP Insider, possibly no group has felt the turmoil more acutely or deeply than the finance departments of companies -  and within those departments, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). This individual often acts as both the glue and the gatekeeper that helps keep a company afloat and in the black.

In these tough times, with stricter eyes upon our financial statements and reports, compliance is more important than ever before. Traditional financial concerns such as reporting regulations and requirements have become more rigorous and more complex. At the same time, the CFO likely has to contend with new concerns about cash flow and risk management, such as treasury concerns around safeguarding the company’s cash reserves.

According to the article, the new normal of the finance function within a company has revealed two distinct areas: routine functions such as accounting and reporting, vs. high-value functions like forecasting and strategic business partnering. Couple this with the fact that the balance is shifting from transactional functions to those that demand more strategic responsibilities and you have a challenging new landscape to navigate.

But if a CFO's accountability is increasing and his or her job requirements are becoming more complex as well as more strategic - while at the same time likely facing a reduction of resources - what is the solution?

According to the SAP Insider article, CFOs need a specific set of tools to be able to perform detailed financial scenario planning; identify and minimize risk; provide deeper visibility into cash management; and streamline traditional financial processes. SAP has responded to this need by both expanding its “classic” finance solutions and developing an entirely new set of solutions to address the latest challenges faced by the CFOs of today. Examples of these new & improved capabilities include workflow approval solutions; analytics solutions to enable better decision-making and forecasting; and new on-demand solutions for common tasks like travel management.

Are you a CFO? What is the most significant issue you are grappling with right now?

Are you old enough to remember the hit 1971 song "Going Mobile" by British superstar rock group “The Who”? The wistful and whimsical lyrics celebrated the joys of traveling along the open road, free from restrictions and responsibility.

But a lot has changed since then, and "going mobile" has a whole other connotation. It's usually a reference to the portability and accessibility of your content or your data: how to allow users to access and interact with it anywhere, on any device, and deliver a seamless and satisfying experience. And it is no longer optional or a nice-to-have feature. If your data is not mobile friendly, you will be left behind on that dusty highway.

The clever and colourful infographic found here by Mimi Spier, the head of SAP Solution Marketing, Mobile Analytics, shows the importance of this at a glance, with a breakdown of how different businesses are using mobile technology. According to the data, by 2015, 37.2% of the total workforce will be mobile – this translates into about 1.3 billion people.

So the question is not will your business use it, the question is how. And the answer to the “how” question depends on the nature of your business, and whether or not you are leveraging the power of mobile analytics to your advantage.

For example, according to Spier, if you are a retailer, you can be providing a better in-store shopper experience; if you are a bank you can offer customers real-time services such as mobile payments; and if healthcare is your business, you can use mobile apps to improve patient outcome. I would add to this, manufacturers, leveraging mobile to improve their purchase order process, service firms tracking time and mining companies helping improve maintenance. The list goes on and on.

Spier predicts many of these areas will make significant investments in mobile technology over the next several months. Is your business moving in the right direction?

Recently we wrote about getting the best value out of your SAP implementation by focusing on what matters most. This isn’t the only framework that we apply to that thinking - we also have Certified TOC Consultants who can help you focus on these key challenges within your business.

 

What is TOC? This is short for Theory of Constraints, a relatively new management model, usually applied to running and improving an organization. While this may sound like a complex scientific term, at its core it is actually deceptively simple. If you have ever heard the common saying “a chain is no stronger than its weakest link” then you have already grasped the basic idea behind TOC. In a nutshell, your business could be vulnerable if the weakest part is not identified. This weak part can cause a domino effect that may eventually lead to a breakdown of your core processes if it is not found and fixed early enough.

 

TOC, first developed by Israeli physicist Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt, is now being taught in hundreds of business schools and used in thousands of corporations. According to Dr. Goldratt’s philosophy, any manageable system fails to achieve some of its goals because of a very small number of limitations (constraints). The TOC process seeks to identify these constraints, and then restructure the rest of the organization around them.

So what is holding back your business? What can you change to make things run smoother and more efficiently, and achieve greater success? Those constraints that are specific to your business are what you need to identify and address.

 

TOC looks at what you need to optimize within the entire throughput of the business -- not at locally optimizing each business function.  Local optimization is tempting, because it is easier, but what really makes sense for the business is removing the constraints on the overall flow.  That is where you will see the biggest impact on your business.

 

So, for example, just because you have an opportunity to improve customer service by implementing something in the CRM environment, if that’s not what your particular constraint is, you don’t have to make it optimal – you can leave it sub-optimal and optimize that piece that is actually putting limitations on your business.

 

Perhaps your constraint is around product delivery. If you focus on addressing this issue, your overall business performance will improve significantly, rather than focusing on something that will not improve your overall business throughput.

 

As a principle, we try to keep everything we can in a standard form and stick to best practices whenever possible.  An exception to this is when it’s a core process of your business, and you need to do something custom in order to differentiate.  In this case, there is a clear reason to deviate.  The problem is, a lot of companies want to do things a certain way simply because that’s the way they’ve always done them. If you don’t have a clear reason for deviating, it dilutes your management’s attention, it dilutes the capability to address the core in the best way possible, and it just costs a lot more in time, energy, money, maintenance and overall cost of ownership.

 

We believe that one key to keeping costs reasonable in your implementation is to ensure that you use those pre-packaged best practices wisely, wherever you can, and to have the discipline on the project manager and project sponsor side to be able to encourage and enforce that. By offering pre-packaging of certain intellectual property, we can help you make your implementations shorter and more effective.

 

About Dror Orbach
Dror is an international high-tech executive with more than 30 years of experience in management consulting, software development, IT architecture, marketing and product management. Dror is the Chief Operating Officer for Illumiti (www.illumiti.com) a systems integration and management consulting company with offices in Canada, the U.S. and Switzerland, serving customers globally. Illumiti is an SAP gold channel partner and SAP's Business All-in-One Partner of the Year, Canada for both 2010 and 2011.

 

By Dror Orbach, COO, Illumiti

Many people are afraid of ERP.  Businesses (especially small companies) worry about the complexity of projects eating up resources and causing disruption to their day-to-day operations. Though it’s no secret that ERP implementations are complex, if done correctly, they can also transform a company’s operations and make them much more efficient and effective.

ERP implementations can be focused, and done on time and on budget without major disruption to a business.  But in order for this to happen, you need a solid framework in place from the beginning. The key to a successful implementation is to focus your efforts on the areas that matter most.

At Illumiti, we use a number of frameworks to help hone in on your core business processes, and pinpoint where we need to focus most of our energy within your implementation.  It’s not just about understanding your overall business objectives, it’s also knowing which solutions to implement in order to make an actual, significant difference to your company.

One of the tools we use in this process is called the  “Core/Context” framework,  which was developed by Geoffrey Moore, managing director at TCG Advisors, venture partner at MDV and best-selling author of Dealing with Darwin, a book in which he examines the differences between core business  vs. context business.

 

Core/Context framework

According to Moore, the Core/Context framework asks: what is the core of your business?  These are the processes and capabilities that differentiate you from the competitors and are critical for winning and retaining customers.

Core processes are not just ticks in a box and are not things that everyone in the industry is capable of doing.  They are things that your competitors might be attempting, but that your company specifically excels in or wants to excel in in order to capture your target market.  The most successful businesses have focus in how they differentiate.

So if you’ve got the best customer service, and you sell one of the leading products, but your price is premium compared to others, how you differentiate is with your customer service.  Therefore, when you implement your ERP and CRM, you must ensure those systems can support the need to provide a very high standard of customer service.

Context is everything else – as a company you can’t differentiate on everything. “The overwhelming bulk of all work is context, not core,” Moore writes.

 

Mission critical: identifying your priorities

The other part of the core/context framework is identifying which things are mission critical vs. non-mission critical and assigning priorities to these tasks. So, if something is both core and mission critical, then clearly that’s the top priority.

If something is mission critical but not core, it will still be a high priority. That’s number two because those are the things that you need to be able to be at par with everyone that you compete with.  For example, if you are a public company, it is mission critical that you have the right level of auditing of and logging of your operations to ensure that you are Sarbanes Oxley compliant.

The third priority includes all the things that are core but not mission critical: nice-to-haves that don’t need to be differentiated.

 

The implementation process

We use a phased approach to implement to Core/Context framework:

• Discovery:  We talk to the client to understand their business and what is going to make a difference to them.  We learn what is context mission critical and what is core mission critical and that will help us prioritize the requirements of what we propose.
• Blueprint:  Our project team works  closely with the project manager and sponsors on the client side to critically assess any requirements that come in to decide whether they are really needed in phase one or not, and streamline the scope of the project accordingly.

 

Hopefully this explanation into the framework process has started to relieve some uneasiness and confusion you may have been feeling about ERP implementations.  To learn more about SAP frameworks, please look for our article later this month on Theory of Constraints and find out what might be holding up your business.

 

 

About Dror Orbach
Dror is an international high-tech executive with more than 25 years of experience in management consulting, software development, IT architecture, marketing and product management. Dror is the Chief Operating Officer for Illumiti (www.illumiti.com) a systems integration and management consulting company with offices in Canada, the U.S. and Switzerland, serving customers globally. Illumiti is an SAP gold channel partner and SAP's 2010 SAP Business All-in-One Partner of the Year, Canada.

Illumiti, a leading systems integration and management consulting company, today announced it has climbed 24 spots into the 97^th position on the Branham 300 list of top Canadian technology companies and has been named one of the Branham 300 "Top 20 Movers & Shakers."

The Branham 300 is the most comprehensive listing of the top publicly traded and privately held organizations operating in the Canadian Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry, as ranked by gross revenue.

"We are very excited to be named to the Branham 300 list again this year and are particularly pleased to see such a large jump in our ranking. Our firm has experienced tremendous growth, not only this year, but over the past 5 years. We owe our success to our great team of seasoned SAP consultants and their dedication to helping our clients optimize their business operations" said Nir Orbach, Illumiti's CEO.

This is the sixth time that Illumiti has been named to the Branham 300 list, having first appeared on the list in the 2007 edition. Over the past year Ilumiti's ranking has gone from 121^st to 97^th.

"We are also very proud to be named one of the Branham 300-Top 20 Movers & Shakers. We feel that our firm is just hitting its stride. We have a strong base of loyal customers and have earned a strong reputation as one of the leading SAP firms in North America. As excited as we are today - tomorrow looks even better" added Mr. Orbach.

Illumiti has over 300 seasoned consultants working across Canada, the United States and Europe and is widely recognized as a leading SAP partner firm in North America. Earlier this year, Illumiti was named the SAP® Business All-in-One Partner of the Year, Canada, for the second consecutive year.

To view the complete list of Branham 300 companies please visit http://www.branham300.com/index.php

Join us at SAPPHIRE NOW from Orlando on May 14-15 and participate in essential collaboration and learning opportunities that can help you transform your growing business.

SAPPHIRE NOW and ASUG Annual Conference bring together unparalleled insights and opportunities from the world’s premier business technology conferences in one place. From customer-driven education and best practices to visionary technology and business strategies, the conferences offer a unique platform for attendees to see their business from all angles providing invaluable knowledge sharing and networking opportunities for SAP customers, partners, business team members, and industry experts.
There is a great line up of exciting speakers from SAP including Co-CEO’s Bill McDermott and Jim Hagermann Snabe, Prof. Dr. h.c. Hasso Plattner, Chair of the SAP Supervisory Board and Dr. Vishal Sikka, the head of SAP’s technology and innovation areas.  There are also some great ASUG speakers including Bridgette Chambers, ASUG CEO, Anthony Bosco, Senior VP and CIO for Day & Zimmerman (and Chair of the Board for ASUG) and Michael Stoko, Vice Chair of ASUG Board and CTO for DuPont IT.

SAPPHIRE NOW will feature some exciting presentations, hands-on demonstrations, five learning campuses dedicated to SME’s, a ‘Meet Our Customer’ Pavillion and an Exhibit Hall with over lots of great exhibitors.  For more information please give us a call or visit: www.sapandasug.com

We hope to see you there!

Illumiti is very excited to announce the launch of our new and improved website!   Designed with a fresh, innovative appearance, the new site features expanded functionality, a user-friendly architecture and impactful presentation of information regarding our products and partner solutions.   We are proud of our new website and hope that our customers find it helpful.  The goal of the site will be to provide our customers with access to new ideas and advice to help them choose the best solutions for their businesses and ensure a smooth, cost-effective ERP implementation.    Please check out the site and let us know what you think.  www.illumiti.com

Come and listen to Susan Reynolds, Vice President, Corporate Applications & Business Process, Lionbridge Technologies, Inc. and Larry Perlov, Managing Partner, Illumiti, as they make their presentation on “Growing Your Project-Based Business without Adding IT Resources”.