Newsletter Archives

If you’re a software vendor dazzled by visions of penetrating the huge Chinese market—but are wary of the well-publicized risks and challenges—you might want to know how heavyweight SAP managed to pull it off. But don’t be put off by SAP’s size, even small to midsized vendors can adopt the same strategy for success, as you’ll discover in today’s feature blog post.

IT outsourcing is smart business, but be careful, in many ways it can be like a marriage. In today’s feature white paper, you’ll learn about the most important thing you can do to ensure your IT outsourcing relationship lives happily ever after, instead of ending up in conflict and divorce.

Read New Software Options for SMBs, Outsourcing, and More ...

With so much riding on your company selecting the right accounting software, and with so many solutions to choose from, what should you base your decision on? Today’s feature white paper recommends you start with an understanding of both the strengths and weaknesses of your company’s financial information capabilities.

Did you know that digital dashboards, browser-based accounting, and .NET technology allow you to get away from traditional reporting systems that produce endless pages on financial and business conditions after-the-fact? In today’s feature article, learn how you can get the financial information you need on the fly, without having to rely on static, often dated financial statements.

Read Top 10 Ways Switching from GAAP to IFRS will Impact Your ERP System

But today you have an advantage you didn’t have before—you have access to software solutions that, until recently, were beyond the reach of SMBs. To help you weather these difficult economic times, and emerge from them even stronger, here are five IT articles and white papers that show you the way to a more efficient, more competitive, and more profitable business operation.

Read Building a More Efficient, Profitable, and Competitive Operation

It isn’t only big companies that can benefit from ERP finance and accounting solutions. Small to midsized businesses (SMBs) can also see their revenues increase, productivity go up, and costs go down with the right ERP solution. Here’s a handy, common-sense guide to understanding ERP from the SMB point of view: the ERP market, the benefits, the features, the costs, the vendors, and more.

Creating one company out of two through merger or acquisition almost always requires you to migrate the two businesses into a common enterprise application. In these cases there’s a real need for speed—but can the implementation be done quickly? The answer is yes, sometimes in as little as nine weeks, as you’ll discover in today's feature white paper/case study.

Read Taking a Lesson from Big-box Retailers: The World’s Distribution Pros

If you want your learning management program to succeed, you must understand that your company’s corporate culture can make all the difference. That’s the message of today’s feature article, which not only shows you how to factor corporate culture into the e-learning experience, but also informs you about e-learning programs from all the important angles.

Your employees may know their stuff, but if your partners and suppliers don’t deliver a consistent message about your products, brand-identity, marketing, and quality practices, your overall business effort will be weakened. To get your ‘”extended enterprise” speaking with one powerful voice, you need an LMS for partner and supplier training. Here's a 10 step program to help you justify it.

Read Retaining Your Good Employees with Learning Management

One of our readers wanted to know: So, this ERP thing… how does it work? Since a good question deserves a good answer, here then, is ERP in a nutshell giving you a look at it’s history, the functions of a modern ERP system, one of the secrets of a successful ERP selection process, and the ways you can get around the high costs associated with a full-blown, on-premise ERP system.

Electronic data interchange (EDI) can give your small to midsized business a better chance of weathering difficult economic times by helping you to respond more quickly to change, and by enabling you to fulfill demand in a more timely way. But before you commit to anything, you need to know the five worst mistakes to avoid when embarking on an EDI integration project. You’ll find them here.

Read How Your Company''s Office Jerks can Destroy an IT Project

With business seemingly operating at the speed of light these days, you need to be able to rapidly interpret your company’s data in order to drive peak performance, while monitoring and reacting to your competitors and the constantly changing dynamics of the marketplace. In today’s feature white paper, find out how business analytics, the next generation of performance software, can help you achieve it—making your company agile, responsive, and competitive in a tough, fast-paced business environment.

If you’re a manufacturer still running without a BI solution, today’s feature podcast is one you shouldn't miss. In a conversation between BI analyst Lindsay Wise and Robert Abate, a leading expert in BI solutions for manufacturers, you’ll find out how a BI solution can bring you substantial return on investment (ROI) by boosting efficiencies, while enabling you to make better, faster business decisions. You’ll also find out how to optimize a BI implementation.

Read How Poor Data Quality Can Sabotage Your BI Effort

ERP is good. But ERP plus PLM is better if you want to reduce data duplication, speed up product development cycles, and improve product turnaround time. In today’s feature white paper, you’ll learn how the combination of ERP and PLM can enhance your overall process of getting new products to market, and help give you a competitive edge in difficult economic times.

While the ability to leverage globalization, outsourcing, and Web-based collaboration technologies has created tremendous growth opportunities for manufacturers, it has also created a whole host of logistical problems and competitive pressures. For a look at the history of global product development, and the role PLM plays in helping manufacturers meet the challenges of the new global marketplace, check out today’s feature article.

Read PLM to the Rescue for Global Manufacturers

The success or failure of your ERP selection process can depend on how you define an ERP system, which in turn depends on how you define your business needs. To help it all work out for you, today's second feature blog post offers you a working list of ERP definitions, as well as a link to a practical guide to defining your business requirements. You can also win $100 off the RFP template of your choice just by telling us what you think the best definition of an ERP system is.

In times of recession, many manufacturers look for ways to streamline their operations. That’s why lean manufacturing is one of the hottest topics in manufacturing circles today. In today’s feature white paper, you’ll find out how lean manufacturing can help you work both smarter and more efficiently, at just the time when you need to the most.

Read IT Spending in a Recession

Given the bad economic news of late, here is a timely white paper on using CRM to recession-proof your business. You'll learn about the three different CRM strategies you can employ to build a competitive advantage in tough times.

Roughly seven out of ten CRM programs involve a great solution but a bad implementation plan, resulting in an all-around negative CRM experience. The culprit turns out to be vision—or more precisely, the lack of an appropriate one. To help you improve your odds of CRM success, here are the four steps to developing an effective and attainable CRM vision.

Read Can You Profit from the CRM Vendor Wars?