BANK RECONCILIATION

In March, Great Plains Software, Inc., a leading provider of e-business solutions for the mid-market, announced financial results for the fiscal quarter ended February 29, 2000. Great Plains reported record third quarter revenues of $48.1 million, a 34% increase over the same period last fiscal year. Revenues for the nine months ended February 29, 2000 were $135.3 million, an increase of 43% over the same period last fiscal year. Net income and diluted earnings per share for the third fiscal quarter, excluding the effect of amortization of acquired intangibles, were $3.5 million and 21 cents per share, respectively. Consensus EPS reported by First Call is 20 cents. These results compare to $3.5 million and 24 cents per share for the same period last fiscal year.

"In the mid-market, business is becoming e-business. Increasingly, every mid-market customer realizes the need to become electronically interconnected with their community including their suppliers, customers, employees and prospects. Great Plains and our partners are delivering the e-business solutions today to enable these companies to thrive in this new interconnected world," said Doug Burgum, chairman and CEO of Great Plains.

The following are some of the highlights that have been announced or occurred since Great Plains' last earnings release:

* Great Plains enhanced the Sales and Marketing Series of Great Plains Siebel Front Office with the addition of Telebusiness for telemarketing campaign management. The Sales and Marketing Series is fully integrated with its core ERP products, eEnterprise and Dynamics for SQL Server.

* Great Plains' network of Application Service Provider (ASP) partnerships grew to 27. The ASP offering expands the prospect base, adds incremental distribution, and provides additional business opportunities to partners.

* Great Plains announced immediate support for the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system with its leading e-business product solutions, eEnterprise, Dynamics, and Great Plains Siebel Front Office.

* Great Plains continued its European expansion with the establishment of offices across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Through acquisitions, Great Plains added 100 team members, 80 partners, and more than 1,600 customers across this European region.

* Great Plains acquired PWA Group, Limited, a leading provider of Web-based employee-facing solutions and upper-tier mid-market human resources and payroll solutions. This acquisition provides Great Plains a strategic e-business employee-facing component and significantly expands its human resources and payroll offerings.

* Great Plains grew its community of mid-market customers and expanded its reseller partner channel through the acquisition of RealWorld Corporation, a developer of accounting and business solutions. This acquisition added 20,000 customers and 200 partners to the Great Plains community.

* Great Plains announced the acquisition of FRx Software. FRx's Web-centric analytic applications are the standard for mid-market financial reporting and have been marketed with Great Plains' solutions since 1994. FRx Software will operate as an independent, wholly owned subsidiary of Great Plains and will continue to market it solutions through existing and new distribution relationships.

* Great Plains and Scala Business Solutions N.V. formed a strategic partnership to collaborate and deliver additional e-business and enterprise solutions to global customers, including the development of a new generation of Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) products to extend the e-business desktop to a variety of devices.

* Great Plains released the Call Center application for Great Plains Siebel Front Office. The Call Center application is an integrated sales and service solution for universal call agents to address outbound sales opportunities while conducting inbound support.

* AppNet, Inc. and Great Plains partnered to design a Web-based business environment that delivers personalized, end-to-end business processes, community interactions, and buying power aggregation to any interconnected community member.

* Great Plains added e-business banking functionality through the addition of funds transfer, pay tracking and reconciliation applications. These e-bank applications electronically interconnect businesses and banks and fully integrate with eEnterprise and Dynamics.



source
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/great-plains-getting-greater-and-less-plain-15700/

In March, Great Plains Software, Inc., a leading provider of e-business solutions for the mid-market, announced financial results for the fiscal quarter ended February 29, 2000. Great Plains reported record third quarter revenues of $48.1 million, a 34% increase over the same period last fiscal year. Revenues for the nine months ended February 29, 2000 were $135.3 million, an increase of 43% over the same period last fiscal year. Net income and diluted earnings per share for the third fiscal quarter, excluding the effect of amortization of acquired intangibles, were $3.5 million and 21 cents per share, respectively. Consensus EPS reported by First Call is 20 cents. These results compare to $3.5 million and 24 cents per share for the same period last fiscal year.

"In the mid-market, business is becoming e-business. Increasingly, every mid-market customer realizes the need to become electronically interconnected with their community including their suppliers, customers, employees and prospects. Great Plains and our partners are delivering the e-business solutions today to enable these companies to thrive in this new interconnected world," said Doug Burgum, chairman and CEO of Great Plains.

The following are some of the highlights that have been announced or occurred since Great Plains' last earnings release:

* Great Plains enhanced the Sales and Marketing Series of Great Plains Siebel Front Office with the addition of Telebusiness for telemarketing campaign management. The Sales and Marketing Series is fully integrated with its core ERP products, eEnterprise and Dynamics for SQL Server.

* Great Plains' network of Application Service Provider (ASP) partnerships grew to 27. The ASP offering expands the prospect base, adds incremental distribution, and provides additional business opportunities to partners.

* Great Plains announced immediate support for the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system with its leading e-business product solutions, eEnterprise, Dynamics, and Great Plains Siebel Front Office.

* Great Plains continued its European expansion with the establishment of offices across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Through acquisitions, Great Plains added 100 team members, 80 partners, and more than 1,600 customers across this European region.

* Great Plains acquired PWA Group, Limited, a leading provider of Web-based employee-facing solutions and upper-tier mid-market human resources and payroll solutions. This acquisition provides Great Plains a strategic e-business employee-facing component and significantly expands its human resources and payroll offerings.

* Great Plains grew its community of mid-market customers and expanded its reseller partner channel through the acquisition of RealWorld Corporation, a developer of accounting and business solutions. This acquisition added 20,000 customers and 200 partners to the Great Plains community.

* Great Plains announced the acquisition of FRx Software. FRx's Web-centric analytic applications are the standard for mid-market financial reporting and have been marketed with Great Plains' solutions since 1994. FRx Software will operate as an independent, wholly owned subsidiary of Great Plains and will continue to market it solutions through existing and new distribution relationships.

* Great Plains and Scala Business Solutions N.V. formed a strategic partnership to collaborate and deliver additional e-business and enterprise solutions to global customers, including the development of a new generation of Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) products to extend the e-business desktop to a variety of devices.

* Great Plains released the Call Center application for Great Plains Siebel Front Office. The Call Center application is an integrated sales and service solution for universal call agents to address outbound sales opportunities while conducting inbound support.

* AppNet, Inc. and Great Plains partnered to design a Web-based business environment that delivers personalized, end-to-end business processes, community interactions, and buying power aggregation to any interconnected community member.

* Great Plains added e-business banking functionality through the addition of funds transfer, pay tracking and reconciliation applications. These e-bank applications electronically interconnect businesses and banks and fully integrate with eEnterprise and Dynamics.



source
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/great-plains-getting-greater-and-less-plain-15700/

Segregation of Duties and Its Role in Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Issues

In the aftermath of some highly publicized cases of corporate fraud, the US government announced legislation designed to implement compliance and financial-reporting standards. The most notable of these laws is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002. The primary goal of SOX is to enforce a higher level of transparency into organizations' business processes, financial transactions, and accounting methods, to ensure that known and accepted accounting principles are practiced.

In this new SOX era, the issue of compliance spans several industries, attempting to harmonize evolving standards across both public and private sector organizations. The requirement of standardized reporting of financial information now forces organizations that had once been less transparent to tighten and streamline their audit and control practices on an ongoing basis.

Traditional Audit and Compliance Standards Prior to SOX

Pre-SOX standards were designed to ensure a modicum of corporate governance by focusing on the areas outlined by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) and on an IT system process framework. This framework was provided by the Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT) IT process standard, which was developed in 1992 by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA). COBIT was to provide adequate control levels for organizational structure, ethical standards, and board and audit committee review. It was the earliest set of audit standards established to cope with IT processes and audit procedures. COBIT focused on application controls, general control of information systems, and security issues.

Reporting standards used prior to SOX remain in place today. Of these, the most notable are the EU's adopted version of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the US's Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). In 2002, an accord known in financial industry circles as the Norwalk Agreement was struck. This agreement states that US-based companies' financial-reporting procedures are to be harmonized with the European standard by the end of 2008. The implementation of SOX for firms that import into and export out of the United States is yet another layer of compliance standards recently introduced. Table 1 lists several other audit control standards, both pre- and post-SOX.

Regulation


Purpose/Target Industry

SOX


publicly traded US companies

ISO 17199


IT security standards

Canadian bills 198, 52-109, and 52-111


Canada 's SOX equivalents

Basel II Accords


G8 regulations for international banking

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)


US health and medical industries

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-123


US government agency financial standards

Solvency II


European insurance industry standards

IFRS


European accounting standards

Office for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) principles


EU agencies of internal controls

GAAP


US-based generally accepted accounting principles

Table 1. Key audit control standards.

Segregation of Duties

Within SOX is a provision entitled Section 404. This section is a comprehensive list of accepted internal controls organizations must have in place to be deemed SOX-compliant. The list targets application internal controls and highlights areas where fraudulent reporting is likely to occur, whether intentional or not. Among key provisions in this section is segregation of duties (SOD). SOD aims to close loopholes that would otherwise permit questionable accounting practices; one of its key attributes is that it allows the monitoring of processes and cross-verification of transactions processed in real time.

In simplified terms, SOD is based on the concept of having more than one person in an organization that is able and mandated to complete a task. SOD is a security principle whose main goals are the prevention of fraud and errors. These two objectives are realized through the reviewing of business processes and the dissemination of tasks and associated authorizations among several levels of hierarchy. Such actions serve as validation—in other words, they are a series of checks and balances.

One way to illustrate the key tenets of SOD is to consider an accounting department in any small to medium business (SMB). Here, some of the day-to-day activities include the receiving of checks as invoice payments, approval of employee time cards, processing of payroll checks, and reconciliation of bank statements. Within these activities a form of SOD is already in place—usually the issuing of checks requires different levels of authorization and more than one signature. In essence, more than one person validates a process or activity.




source
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/segregation-of-duties-and-its-role-in-sarbanes-oxley-compliance-issues-19369/

ore Examples of TradeBeam's GTM Solution Blueprints

To reach its aspirations of creating an end-to-end global trade management (GTM) solution, TradeBeam, a leading provider of global trade solutions, has designed several so-called "solution blueprints" for solving specific global trade issues. Solutions range from providing import shipment visibility and trade compliance to eliminating financial discrepancies while managing letters of credit (LC). TradeBeam's Solution Blueprints begin with the key pain points of global trade and identify tools and strategies available to corporations seeking the advantages of optimized GTM. They include a non-prescriptive set of GTM applications that, individually, may add significant value to a user corporation while solving specific export management problems. The idea is to align strategies with finance and logistics organizations and to establish a beachhead with a relatively quick proof of concept that starts automating a defined set of processes and provides payback in several months. Given that the GTM market is still relatively new, TradeBeam has done an impressive job establishing itself as a pioneer.

Part Four of the TradeBeam Keeps on Rounding Out Its GTM Set series.

To broaden its offering, TradeBeam has embarked on a series of careful acquisitions. Its acquisition of SupplySolution has helped TradeBeam produce its collaborative inventory management (CIM) solution blueprint, which shares and communicate parts levels, shipment data, and forecast to anticipate and manage shortages and schedule changes through event driven alerts. In doing so, the solution solves business problems like poor inventory visibility through the networked supply chain, excessive buffer inventories, and costly impact of shortages and schedule changes. TradeBeam also has other acquisitions bundled with its in-house, organic development.. Export management, import management, trade finance, legalization, global trade content, insurance and claims management, letter of credit, and supply chain electronic management are other solution blueprints that TradeBeam has developed or is in the process of releasing. TradeBeam's Letter of Credit Solution Blueprint and SCEM Solution Blueprint are two that are particularly noteworthy because both their core functionality came from acquisitions and lead to significant advances in the field of global trade settlement solutions

TradeBeam Letter of Credit Solution Blueprint

TradeBeam aimed to reduce discrepancies and improve efficiencies in the financial supply chain through automated document preparation and collections, managed LC creation, and issuance expiry and draws. Thus it acquired LC Express in 2003, IFR, and eTime Capital in 2002, which has allowed TradeBeam to develop its impressive LC methodology. The transactions were stock and cash deals, where TradeBeam acquired the companies out of bankruptcy. eTime Capital had spent over $45 million (USD) developing solutions for its customers to helped them optimize their cash flow cycle by applying a groundbreaking technology and a differentiated capability linking financial settlement to the global trade logistics business processes through reconciliation, exception management and real-time reporting. These capabilities have meanwhile provided an excellent complement to TradeBeam's global trade business process and document management solution. Automating the overall letters of credit (LC) process to ensure accuracy and reduce the discrepancy rate is not simply a matter of automating LC issuance. The process if far more complicated because automation is a necessary precursor to integrating the entire supply chain. LC are one of the most important payment and financing vehicles for international trade, because they offer security and risk mitigation. However, in exchange for this security, there are additional costs and challenges. For example, up to 70 percent of all LC documents submitted to the bank for payment are rejected upon first presentation because the documentation has been issued incorrectly. This leads to payment delays, additional fees, and in some cases, non-payment of the drawing. Other LC-related challenges are complicated and lengthy application process, delays in conducting the transaction due to the long issuance process, the strict and often complex documentary requirements, associated secondary and penalty fees, and the high susceptibility to errors because multiple parties must produce documentation.

The result was TradeBeam's Letter of Credit Solution Blueprint, which manages existing LC use and relationships for over one hundred and fifty corporate clients. It synchronizes payment terms and critical supporting documents to enable both electronic LC creation and bank presentation. Part of the secret to TradeBeam's success lies in its document management and reconciliation capability that generates documents based on the LC terms, making use of business partner profiles, electronic data transmission, and templates to minimize data entry. Paper and electronic distribution of LC documentation can be made to banks, trading partners, or any service provider. All documents created and managed by TradeBeam are compliant with Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP500) and Electronic Uniform Customs and Practice (eUCP).

This is Part Four of a five-part note.

Part One discussed TradeBeam and GTM.

Part Two presented TradeBeam's background.

Part Three covered TradeBeam's tackling of the supply chain.

Part Five will cover competition, challenges, and make user recommendations.

Qiva Acquisition and TradeBeam's SCEM Solution Blueprint

Another acquisition helped TradeBeam further expand its solution offering. In mid 2003, TradeBeam acquired certain assets of Qiva Inc., which had previously spent over $50 million (USD) developing solutions to help customers manage global logistics and compliance activities. Qiva's customers were predominantly in the hi-tech and retail markets, and the vendor, which had originally only sold transportation and supply chain electronic management (SCEM) software acquired Capstan in 2002 to strengthen its ability to handle import and export compliance, landed cost calculations, and trade document generation. Qiva's solution capabilities have enhanced TradeBeam's existing GTM application suite in terms of transportation event management.

Like virtually all global supply chain execution (SCE) and logistics systems, Qiva has a SCEM function that detects disruptions, delays and other exceptions across the supply chain (see SCP and SCE Need to Collaborate for Better Fulfillment). In addition to managing time-related exceptions, Qiva's SCEM tool would look for other anomalies. For example, if a shipment weighed 1,000 kilograms when it left the factory, but weighs 2,000 kilograms at the pier, a security alert would be issued because contraband could have been introduced into the shipment. The system would look for tolerances at the service level, as well as from a security perspective in terms of weights and measures and descriptions of products. Also, Qiva's trade compliance engine screens against prohibited parties and other rules to comply with government regulations, like most ITL applications, but this same rules engine also flag companies that have been refused credit or for other reasons are considered poor risks. If a new sales person takes an order from one of these buyers, the system would catch it before the user enterprise engages in a trade and produces the product for a problematic customer.



source
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/confronting-core-global-trade-problems-order-shipment-and-financial-settlement-17990/

A Semi–open Source Vendor Discusses Market Trends

TEC's continuing question and answer (Q&A) series, in which we solicit vendors' responses to our questions and observations on market trends (see previous articles in this series: Two Stalwart Vendors Discuss Market Trends and A Partner-friendly Platform Provider Discusses Market Trends), has become quite popular with readers and vendors alike.

Another market player that has voiced its opinions is Norfolk, Virginia, (US)-based xTuple (formerly OpenMFG). Privately held xTuple is a self-financed developer of enterprise-class business process applications powered by open source software and infrastructure such as Linux operating system (OS), PostgreSQL database, and Qt, a C++ graphical user interface (GUI) development framework from Trolltech, a Norwegian software company.

Before delving into xTuple's answers to our questions, some background on xTuple and OpenMFG is in order. The vendor is a relative newcomer in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) arena; it was founded in 2002 (as OpenMFG) by its current president and chief executive officer (CEO) Ned Lilly, a former executive at Landmark Communications.

The first we learned of OpenMFG was at an industry event in early 2003, where the company had a booth and was able to brag about only a few pilot ("beta," or test) customers. Our impression at that time, given the depressed economy worldwide and the demise of so many vendors, was that a brand new ERP provider was not badly needed in the market. However, xTuple has, to a degree, proved us wrong: its current roster of xTuple ERP commercial customers to date is about 100, and it has 20 partner resellers. The company's focus on the smaller enterprises, with up to $100 million (USD) in revenues, must have played a great part in its current success. The free version of xTuple ERP has also been downloaded over 150,000 times from SourceForge.net, the world's largest development and download repository of open source code and applications.

Expanding Product Offerings

Though it might not sound like marketing wizardry to some, the xTuple name was picked to denote the company's diversification in terms of product offering: OpenMFG, a manufacturing-oriented ERP product; OpenRPT, an open source report writer; and the most recent PostBooks open source accounting/ERP application. The name xTuple, therefore, speaks to the exponential growth possible with open source solutions.

The vendor continues to develop and market the xTuple ERP OpenMFG Edition, its commercially licensed solution for small to midsized manufacturers. The maturing manufacturing-focused ERP product will continue to be available under the hybrid community source code license that the company has employed for the past six years. In this arrangement, partners and customers get full source code, and any subsequent enhancements flow into the base product to which xTuple maintains and claims the intellectual property rights.

Having been referred to on occasion as a quasi–open source provider, xTuple points out it has never claimed that the OpenMFG Edition is fully open source (the vendor knows enough about that "clique-y" and somewhat snobbish world to be very careful with its choice of words and definitions). Yet the company believes that the hybrid approach has offered the best of both worlds to its users for the past five years in terms of a solid, professionally supported ERP solution built on a fully open source infrastructure, and licensed under a community source license through which community members can be actively involved in the product's ongoing development.

What's new is the PostBooks product: the company has carved off a new, entry-level, fully open source product that shares the same code base as the commercially licensed Editions. In fact, the client binaries are identical for both products, so an upgrade from PostBooks to the Standard or OpenMFG Editions involves running a simple database script. The only difference is that OpenMFG offers more advanced functionality in manufacturing and distribution, which non-manufacturing enterprises probably do not need. For more details about the commercially licensed xTuple ERP Standard Edition product (targeted at distributors and retail), and the free PostBooks Edition and the OpenMFG Edition, see http://www.xtuple.com/comparison for a chart of all three products.

To be more precise, OpenMFG-specific features cover approximately 20 percent of the highest-value functionality, such as multi-warehouse inventory, warehouse transfer orders, lot/serial control, manufacturing resource planning (MRP), master production schedule (MPS), bills of operations (BOOs)/routings, breeder bills of material (BOMs), item transformations, infinite capacity planning, lean/buffer management, returns/service, and batch manager/electronic data interchange (EDI).

PostBooks is available now as free and open source software (FOSS) on SourceForge.net, and elsewhere under common public attribution license (CPAL) open source license. Based on over 150,000 downloads to date, and the active community of users and developers at SourceForge.net and xTuple's own xtuple.org website, xTuple thinks the offering will be a big hit. Thus, the two communities will grow in tandem, while xTuple pledges to manage the ongoing development of both products, so that enhancements to one can flow into the other. As mentioned above, it is the same code base, after all; should a PostBooks user enterprise ever wish to upgrade to OpenMFG, it only has to run a short upgrade script on its database. Since the business logic for both applications resides in the PostgreSQL back end (in the procedural language), this is relatively easy to maintain.

PostBooks, xTuple believes, is one of the most advanced open source accounting/ERP solutions out there in the market. The recent 3.0 version of xTuple ERP featured what xTuple billed as "the world's only open source ERP product configurator" as part of the base PostBooks package. Of course, the OpenMFG and Standard Editions will also continue to feature added advanced functionality that will make it "worth the upgrade" from the free "sibling" (related) product, especially for small manufacturers that cannot afford the money and time requirements of traditional ERP deployments. As a company, xTuple pledges to support the entire technology stack its applications employ, notably the PostgreSQL database.

Appealing Pricing Transparency

Where xTuple is indisputably "open" (referring back to the question of OpenMFG's true open source nature) is in the vendor's transparency about its pricing and current product functionalities. For one, product pricing is available online. Despite new product additions, OpenMFG pricing remains unchanged, and the application continues to be offered as either 1) a subscription-style license (which includes software maintenance) at $1,000 (USD) per user, per year; or 2) a perpetual license at $3,000 (USD), plus 18 percent annual maintenance (for a minimum of five users). The pickup among the current customer base is roughly 50-50.

While PostBooks is free software, xTuple offers some commercial support options, such as an annual retainer at roughly half the cost of OpenMFG annual license and incident-based bundles of consulting hours. Following are some of the vendor's selected productized professional service offerings:



source
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/a-semi-open-source-vendor-discusses-market-trends-19391/

Event Summary

The enterprise applications market is rapidly consolidating and "high-flying" vendors are now falling to the wayside en mass (see Rapidly Consolidating Enterprise Applications Market: The Worlds of "Organic Grower" and "Aggressive Consolidators"). This coupled with the dread of functional parity and software commoditization among the surviving solution providers has lead many to believe that only a vendor's size will matter from now on, and that small, focused local or niche providers have little to offer, let alone to hope for in the market. (see If Software Is A Commodity...Then What?)

However, one should still not be hasty and dismiss small specialist providers as some are making a comeback. Tampa, Florida-based (US) Verticent (www.verticent.com) is one such company. Verticent is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Framingham, Michigan-based (US) ASA International, Ltd. (www.asaint.com), a private holding company of vertical enterprise business-to-business (B2B) software solutions and value-added services. Verticent is a provider of integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), e-business, and business intelligence (BI) software solutions, and strives to meet the unique business demands of small-to-medium size discrete manufacturers and distributors.

Verticent is committed to only a few specific vertical industries in areas where it has proven experience, and lately it has successfully leveraged industry-specific knowledge and functionality to deliver a flexible, yet affordable, enterprise business systems.

Recently the vendor announced that it has enjoyed several key license sales in the US Midwest, namely in Detroit, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and central Illinois. Verticent believes its focus continues to payoff, since these new license sales were won in its targeted verticals: metal service center industry, metal fabrication, and configure-to-order (CTO) manufacturing. Moreover, early in 2005, Verticent announced that Kandil Industries (Cairo, Egypt) licensed the vendor's ERP Plus suite for metal service centers. Kandil Industries reportedly chose ERP Plus to better match its demand and supply chain so it could achieve lower inventories; improve capacity management at critical bottlenecks in its process; reduce scrap costs and improve yields; streamline financial consolidation of all its divisions and companies; and move the company from islands of automation and spreadsheets to an integrated enterprise solution.

This win should allow Verticent to leverage its accomplishments in the North American metals industry and give it "a foot in the door" to the Middle Eastern market. Kandil Industries is a well-known and respected company in Egypt and the Middle East, and Verticent hopes to parlay its partnership to showcase its solution's capabilities, and replicate this success throughout the Middle East.

This is Part One of a two-part note. Part two will discuss the functionality of ERP Plus and analyze Verticent's target market.

Verticent's Background

Formerly called PowerCerv Corporation, the once publicly traded company been on a "rollercoaster ride" since its founding in 1992. In its first four years, the company grew meteorically seeing revenue of approximately $38 million (USD) in 1996 (although its ERP-related revenue was only one quarter of this). PowerCerv, which started as a reseller of PowerBuilder tools, evolved into a value added reseller (VAR) for Powersoft (now part of Sybase), reselling Powersoft's development tools and providing complementary services. PowerCerv spent its first few years crafting its business applications product and expanding its sales and marketing organization to support application sales. During that time, PowerCerv developed a suite of products aimed at PowerBuilder developers, including an object class library, workflow and asynchronous processing tools, and a security system.

The extraordinary growth of PowerBuilder during the mid 1990s fostered a market for PowerBuilder-based applications. In response, PowerCerv begun to develop and garner a set of modern enterprise applications, initially called the EnPower Series. However, the rapid transition from a software tool reseller to a "Johnny came late to the party", full-fledged enterprise resource planning (ERP) software developer took its toll, and since 1997, PowerCerv has made numerous major attempts to revitalize itself.

Throughout 1996 and 1997, the company did away with its unfocused strategy where it tried to serve multiple markets, and it began to focus on the discrete manufacturing mid-market offering a single product suite renamed ERP Plus. PowerCerv then divested several businesses that were not in tune with its new strategy, including its general consulting, application development tools, and database software reseller businesses. However, since 1997, the company continued to shrink. Its total revenue in 2001 was approximately $6 million (USD), down more than six times from its peak in 1996, and it had almost no new license revenue in 2002. This eventually lead to its "yard sale" where ASA bought several of PowerCerv's assets, assuming certain liabilities (see PowerCerv Finally Overpowered by the '02 Hurricane Season).

The nature of PowerCerv during its pre-acquisition days in the early 2000s were indisputably different than those in 1997. Like other tier two and tier three vendors, PowerCerv attributed its woes to the Y2K pinch which morphed into a seemingly never-ending economic slump. Even now, the company admits that it simply could not compete in the tough general, discrete manufacturing ERP markets where many larger vendors are considered to be a more viable option, as customers became more cautious of a vendor's viability.


source
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/the-strengths-of-a-vertically-centric-enterprise-software-provider-18310/

Event Summary

At the National Manufacturing Week (NMW) event, held February 23-26, 2004 in Chicago, Illinois (US), SAP AG (NYSE: SAP), the leading provider of enterprise applications, announced the availability of new industry-specific solutions for small and midsize manufacturing companies with the aim of extending its leadership as a provider of solutions for an even broader range of companies from small enterprises via mid-market companies to the world's industry leaders.

SAP's two-tiered product offering for small and medium businesses (SMB)—SAP Business One and mySAP All-in-One solutionsaims at addressing the diverse IT and business requirements of manufacturing companies of varying sizes, resources, and complexity. Both solutions for SMBs are designed to be competitively affordable and easy-to-implement for adequate enterprises, and are delivered through SAP's partner network. While SAP Business One is designed for smaller companies with less complex business processes, SAP also offers its partners mySAP All-in-One turnkey solutions to meet the industry-specific needs of more sophisticated companies. Namely, this is for the "sophisticated" or the upper echelon SMBs with a high need for individualization and industry-specific functionality. SAP is globally expanding its existing strategy of offering industry-specific SMB solutions ranging from automotive supply to food processing. These are based on the flagship, top of the range mySAP Business Suite product and are tailored, configured, and complemented by SAP channel partners, and are also available on a fixed-price, fixed implementation time basis.

To that end, in 2003, SAP and its network of qualified business partners reportedly introduced 120 new manufacturing solutions, including such specialized offerings which range, for example from fabricated metals, construction equipment, and civil works to agro-products companies. SAP and its partners currently offer 180 mySAP All-in-One solutions for manufacturers globally, based on industry best practices from SAP's more than thirty years of experience serving the world's leading businesses. For example, to meet the needs of custom manufacturers, US-based N2 Consulting has leveraged its expertise as an SAP consultant to develop FastTrack, a pre-packaged, fixed-price and implementation timeline mySAP All-in-One solution that can be implemented in as few as sixteen weeks. Spanning the engineering, quality, sales and service, and finance functions for small and midsize companies, FastTrack is touted as an end-to-end, complex manufacturing solution to manage processes such as make-to-order (MTO) with product configurator, engineer-to-order (ETO), engineering change management (ECM), service management, and make-to-stock (MTS).

Other additional new mySAP All-in-One solutions would include BDO para Agroalimentos, offered by SAP partner BDO for agro-products companies in Mexico. The solution helps companies manage purchasing, production, bulk delivery, and sales administration processes specific to the manufacture of products for the agricultural industry. Last but not least, for high-tech and electronic manufacturers, South Korea-based BizTech Consulting Co., Ltd., has introduced the BizExpert solution, with industry-specific capabilities such as electronic manufacturing system management, bin management, and multiple planning scenarios.

As for the lower-end of the market, SAP has designed SAP Business One to meet the core management needs of dynamically growing small and midsize businesses, and is moving to better address the specific needs of small and mid-sized manufacturers through a planned strategic solution relationship with SoftBrands (www.softbrands.com), an established, privately-held, global leader in manufacturing management systems for SMBs, whereby the two vendors have initiated efforts to integrate SoftBrands' leading manufacturing software product Fourth Shift with SAP Business One. Fourth Shift is a renowned mid-market, web-based manufacturing management solution that has broad functionality and that facilitates many critical business functions including manufacturing, operations, financials, and customer and supplier relationship management (SRM).

The integration of Fourth Shift Manufacturing Edition with SAP Business One is scheduled to be released in two phases beginning in July 2004. It should give small manufacturers fairly comprehensive but easy-to-use capabilities for managing a variety of manufacturing processes to replace dated legacy systems and manual processes. The combined solution should enhance capabilities in SAP Business One to serve repetitive, batch, MTO, discrete, and mixed-mode manufacturers, as well as those that are on the path to lean or demand-driven operations. Namely, further down the track, the relationship with SoftBrands will also extend SAP Business One with Fourth Shift's DemandStream Lean Enterprise Automation integrated module, a specialized solution for managing lean manufacturing operations. The combined solution will be offered through SAP Business One partners worldwide, while SoftBrands will continue to support manufacturers in its key worldwide markets, including the US, Europe, Middle East, Africa, China, Asia Pacific, and India.

Prior to this announcement, in November, SAP announced the US launch of enhancements to SAP Business One that combine broader customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities and comprehensive business management tools in a single software solution. SAP Business One was originally launched in the United States in March 2003. The solution's award-winning Drag & Relate data navigation system, which encompasses good traits (i.e., "the best of both worlds") similar to both Microsoft Excel Pivot Tables and to typical report writers' querying capabilities, has since provided users with intuitive data access simply by highlighting and dragging pieces of information on the screen. Additionally, the product features strong integration with desktop applications, since users can drag information between different data sources and link them on the desktop. It also has integrated customer relationship management (CRM) system for pipeline tracking, opportunity management, strategic selling, and contact management, while other initial key functionalities also include comprehensive financial management, with multi-currency, budgeting, and bank reconciliation; a well-rounded inventory management system, with kitting and multilevel price lists; and a comprehensive reporting module that allows easy access to any data.

The solution initially supported only the Microsoft SQL Server database and the Microsoft Windows operating system, which was recently extended with the support for the Sybase database. Its open architecture has reportedly allowed integration with the flagship mySAP Business Suite giving companies the adaptability to scale their applications with the growth of their business. In addition to the US, SAP Business One has meanwhile become available in twenty-six countries and twenty-five languages as of first quarter 2004, and the product has nearly 3,000 customers and over 500 partners worldwide. The newest version of SAP Business One is available to SMBs in the US, through SAP AG's subsidiary SAP America, Inc. and its SAP Business One distribution partner channel.



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http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/softbrands-to-institute-fourth-shift-for-sap-business-one-manufacturing-work-plan-part-one-event-summary-17269/

The process of selecting mid-market accounting software usually starts with products that have achieved some name recognition, and that's fine as long as the search does not end there. SouthWare Innovations (www.southware.com) has created in its Excellence Series a worthy competitor serving a number of industries and offering users a surprising array of functionality, either directly as SouthWare applications or through one of their independent sales vendors (ISV).

Founded in 1984 and based in Auburn, Alabama (US), SouthWare is a relatively small company of very dedicated people (80 percent of its employees have at least twelve years seniority), which has created what may be one of the best examples of a true business management system, not just an accounting system. What may be even more important to companies of all sizes is that the Excellence Series operates on many platforms and databases, giving users the option to select the environment that best suits their technology requirements rather than forcing them to accept a single option.

This is Part One of a five-part note.

Part Two will look at what makes SouthWare different.

Parts Three and Four will discuss the applications and development environment.

Part Five will provide a competitive analysis and make user recommendations.

Product Line Summary

The Excellence Series supports a significant number of applications, most of which complement its historical strengths in the distribution industry. However, users should not eliminate the Excellence Series simply because they are not in this single industry. In fact, the Excellence Series supports accounting, distribution, e-business, service management, rental management, and job costing out-of-the-box. Together with its third-party developers the Excellence Series also supports manufacturing and a whole host of other industry verticals.

Currently, SouthWare supports 6,000 sites in the US—it has no plans to expand internationally. The largest site supports 500 users—a cellular telephone company—with the next largest site supporting 300 users—high-end photographic equipment.

While we will discuss some of SouthWare's applications in more depth a little later, let's start by summarizing what's available out-of-the-box. I have elected to segregate this list into four categories

* Business Management Functions
* Accounting Applications
* Productivity Tools
* Technology Features

The Excellence Series, and every other business management system for that matter, is not all-powerful, but it does offer advanced functionality in several areas and outstanding business management support.

Business Management Functions

* ExecuMate II is a powerful executive information system that presents to executives and managers user-defined summary data (expressed numerically and graphically) that allows them to take the company's pulse. If more detailed information is required, extensive drill-down is available. The system even posts alarm warnings for key financial areas (Note: These same alarms could also generate a standard alert in TaskWise, SouthWare's unified task, relationship management, and exception management system).

* ExcelReport: This unique application helps users establish both subjective and financial goals and grades progress toward achieving them. We will discuss this in more detail later.

* TaskWise: Combines into one application business processes such as task management, relationship management, exception management, and information sharing (collaboration). SouthWare has taken the concept of user-defined menus, which it supports, to the next logical level whereby the concept of a menu has been replaced by a completely integrated task management system that helps users carry out their jobs both more efficiently (do it cheaper) and effectively (do it better). This will be discussed in more detail later.

* Collections Adapter: Full-featured collections management application. This will be discussed in more detail later.

* AnswerReady is a tool that lets users set up a searchable database of topics, instructions, company policies, documents (e.g., employee handbooks), as well as questions and answers. The system has but one purpose and that is to help people do their jobs better by giving them ready access to the information they need. Users can create a table of contents to form the basic framework of the information management system, and add or modify topics (with appropriate access controls) as required.

Accounting Applications

* General Ledger: Standard functionality.

* Cash Flow Ledger: Bank reconciliation and powerful cash flow monitor. This will be discussed in more detail later.

* Accounts Receivable: Standard functionality.

* A/R Invoicing Adapter: Simplifies the invoicing process rather than using the more comprehensive order entry screens.

* Accounts Payable: Payment processing that includes cash requirements reporting, invoice and vendor holds, and cash basis accounting. The application will support over 99 pay-to addresses per vendor. If there is any question about an invoice (questionable charges, total amount that exceeds a specified value, etc.), the invoice can be placed on hold automatically and handled by TaskWise, SouthWare's exception management application.

* Purchasing: SouthWare has created a comprehensive purchasing system that is significantly more robust than other middle market accounting systems. This will be discussed in more detail later.

* Order Entry: Standard functionality.

* Inventory Control: Comprehensive inventory control including substitute items, vendor part numbers, RF receipts, and landed cost tracking. Although SouthWare provides significant functionality that relates to inventory management, these more comprehensive controls are contained in separate applications. If users require only basic inventory control, that's all they have to purchase or see.

* Warehouse Tracking: SouthWare has adopted a unique approach to warehouse management by creating an application (November 2004 release) that offers sophisticated day-to-day controls that are actually outside the formal accounting process while at the same time maintaining full quantity and cost tracking. This will be discussed in more detail later.

* Browser-based Handheld Processing: To complement its Warehouse Tracking application, SouthWare supports RF processing using handheld devices. This will be discussed in more detail later.

* Item Group Matrix Adapter: Complete inventory matrix (row and column) support for clothing, lumber, landscape plants, and any other item that uses multiple units of measure per item. Users can assign their own part numbers or the system will automatically generate part numbers to fit the row and column combinations. The system will also generate different price multipliers per row or per column.

* Marketing Catalogs: This feature allows users to group items into logical categories that can then be used to improve lookup speed, create logical ordering systems on web sites, or to improve inquiries. As an example, users can post items on web sites using multiple categories (e.g. coats / boys' coats / winter coats / long sleeve / blue) that make the ordering process for users far easier. This same feature is available on the buy side to improve lookup of required items. Finally, Marketing Catalogs can be combined with a tree view of stock items to vastly improve the search and inquiry capabilities of the system.




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http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/southware-excellence-series-making-excellence-easier-part-one-company-background-and-product-overview-17707/

On March 27, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP), the leading provider of enterprise applications, announced the launch of the US version of SAP Business One, a new solution that should promote the company's capability to a new segment of the small and midsize business (SMB) market. At the same time, in a major pairing of two of the most trusted names in their respective technology and business services fields, SAP also announced that the Tax and Business Services (TBS) unit of American Express would distribute and provide support services for SAP Business One. Together, the two companies will also reportedly develop specialized vertical-industry editions of SAP Business One and establish a new distribution and support service model to meet the needs of small and midsize firms.

Not waiting for the grass to grow underneath its feet, and further refining its offering, on April 14, after building on more than six years of its the mid-market feats, PeopleSoft Inc. (NASDAQ: PSFT), one of the leading business applications providers, delivered 13 new mid-market solutions designed specifically for companies with $50 to $500 million in annual revenues. Preconfigured to automate mid-market business processes, PeopleSoft Mid-Market Solutions include an unlimited user license for PeopleSoft applications, training, and implementation services -- all for a fixed price. The solutions address a supposedly growing demand from mid-sized organizations to integrate critical business processes, and provide the flexibility to implement one module at a time.

This is Part One of a four-part note.

Parts Two and Three will discuss the Market Impact.

Part Four will discuss Challenges and make User Recommendations.

SAP Business One

SAP claims that, while many small and midsize firms have invested in multiple software applications, several report that they lack the ability to access the information they need, when they need it to make critical decisions, and they report a pressing need for easy access to real-time information. SAP Business One was thus designed to address these problems in an affordable, easy-to-implement solution. The solution aims at helping small and midsize businesses streamline their operational and managerial processes by providing strong and fully integrated financial and sales management capabilities. SAP Business One supports companies with as few as ten and as many as several hundred employees, and can also reportedly be implemented in as little as one week.

The solution's award-winning Drag & Relate data navigation system provides users with intuitive data access simply by highlighting and dragging pieces of information on the screen. In addition to the touted easy-to-use intuitive interface with Drag & Relate capabilities, the product features strong integration with desktop applications, since users can drag information between different data sources and link them on the desktop. The product also features integrated sales force automation (SFA) system for pipeline tracking, opportunity management, strategic selling, and contact management. Key functionalities also include comprehensive financial management, with multi-currency, budgeting, and bank reconciliation; a well-rounded inventory management system, with kitting and multi-level price lists; and a comprehensive reporting module that allows easy access to any data. The solution supports the Microsoft SQL Server database and the Microsoft Windows operating system. Its open architecture has reportedly allowed integration with the flagship mySAP Business Suite giving companies the adaptability to scale their applications with the growth of their business.

In addition to the US, SAP Business One is currently available in twelve countries and fourteen languages. Part of SAP Solutions for Small and Mid-size Businesses (formerly SAP Smart Business Solutions), SAP Business One has more than 1,300 customers worldwide. The new product in the US has for some time been successfully sold in the lower-end of the European SMB market, since it provides small and medium businesses with an integrated family of enterprise applications tailored to the specific needs of sales-driven companies. As mentioned earlier, it addresses the core operational needs of SMBs, such as accounting and banking, financials, sales force automation (SFA), purchasing and selling, logistics and product trees, as well as reporting and analysis.

It also provides analytical tools to gain insight into an organization's operations, online alerts for collaborative event tracking and problem solving, and customizable reports that give companies the information they need in a format that allows them to brand their business. The solution is not a reconfigured or dumbed-down' version of its larger sibling mySAP Business Suite, but is rather based on TopManage, a product developed and marketed by former Israeli software company TopManage Financial Solutions LTD, which SAP acquired in March 2002 and integrated into its business unit for the SMB market, which was formed at about the same time.and which supports the further development of Smart Business Solutions from SAP and its partners and assist SAP partners in delivering customized, industry-specific solutions.

Since SAP's Solutions for Small and Mid-size Businesses division aims to provide the full spectrum of SMBs with affordable, easy-to-implement and scalable solutions to meet their business and technical needs, in addition to SAP Business One, designed for smaller companies with less complex business processes, SAP also offers to its partners mySAP All-in-One, turnkey solutions to meet the industry-specific needs of more sophisticated companies. For "sophisticated" or the upper echelon SMBs with a high need for individualization and industry-specific functionality, SAP is globally expanding its existing strategy of offering industry-specific SMB solutions. These are based on flagship mySAP Business Suite (recently supplanted mySAP.com) product and are tailored, configured and complemented by SAP channel partners, and are available on a fixed-price, fixed implementation time basis.

Relationship With American Express

SAP pledges to support its channel partners by providing training and by facilitating the transfer of relevant customization and development knowledge, aiming to create synergies and efficiencies worldwide. In addition, the existing SAP indirect sales organization will also strengthen its support to channel partners with their international marketing and lead-generation activities in this market segment. To that end, the relationship between SAP and American Express involves two major components. First, American Express will reportedly serve as an individual reseller of SAP Business One and is building its own national network of highly qualified channel partners. In addition, American Express is working with SAP to develop specialized versions of SAP Business One, to be offered exclusively by American Express and its channel partner network under the brand SAP Business One - The American Express Edition. American Express Tax and Business Services Inc. is a professional services firm that provides solutions for the financial and business consulting needs of small to mid-sized organizations. The firm has 54 offices and over 3,000 employees in 16 US states.


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http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/the-path-to-erp-for-small-businesses-part-1-the-research-20527/

IQMS (www.iqms.com), a privately-held company located in Paso Robles, California (US), has experienced a period of growth over the past few years when other companies have experienced decline. Its flagship product, EnterpriseIQ is one of the industry's leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for repetitive manufacturing environments, particularly suited for injection plastics molding/extruding and rubber industries. With its products, the company experienced a 12 percent growth globally in 2003 when 700 new licensed users reportedly joined its client base. Closing the year with a 15 percent increase in revenue, IQMS responded to this increase by expanded its US Midwest office, offering additional training and sales support to clients.

Part Two of IQMS Prospers by Helping Enterprises Work Smarter series

At first glance, IQMS resembles many of its peers from the lower-end of the enterprise applications market, not only in terms of its budding global presence, annual revenues, and install size figures, but also in terms of its industry-specific software that reduces implementation and training costs. For example, an average EnterpriseIQ implementation typically only takes between three and six months. However, despite the like corporate profile and product similarity, IQMS has a comprehensive, one-source delivery and service where all of its product development, training, implementation, and support are provided by its own employees, rather than third party providers. These employees are American Production & Inventory Control Society (APICS) certified and have extensive implementation and proven project management experience. They also have strong manufacturing and accounting backgrounds. This, in addition to its implementation methodology that balances on-site consulting, classroom training, and Internet-based training, are notable differentiating traits.

IQMS also has an upfront nature that makes it stand-out from its peers. Its maintenance contracts include all product upgrades and technical support, without any hidden costs. This, combined with IQMS' great reputation for customer support, highlights the company's open lines of communication. Customers are almost never put on hold or have to go through an annoyingly long automated process. Rather, calls are answered by a knowledgeable person, not a recording. The vendor happily lets anyone talk to any of its satisfied customers within selected industries of focus and that have had similar issues as the prospective customer. IQMS also proclaims its confidence by offering a one-year, money-back guarantee.

Still, although indisputably impressive, one could dig up similar value propositions from other players in the market. Also, on the surface, the product has many pedestrian functional and technological capabilities. For example, it has a Microsoft Windows-based platform for the client side and networks features familiar user-friendly interface with familiar navigation that involves easy jumps between tightly integrated modules and drill-down capabilities. The database resides on the server that performs operations on that data at the request of clients. Data is then transmitted over the network and users access the information from clients/workstations; ultimately, its a process that uses very little code. Furthermore, the front-end Delphi graphical interface allows users to manipulate or search for data, while Microsoft Terminal Server (MTS) and Citrix Metaframe clients are used for wide-area network (WAN) links.

Part Two of the six part IQMS Prospers by Helping Enterprises Work Smarter series

Part One presented the company background.



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http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/why-service-matters-enterprise-solutions-market-differentiation-and-iqms-17877/

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the enterprise applications arena are certainly not uncommon. In fact, if a week goes by without an intra-market acquisition announcement, a market observer might even begin feeling out of sorts. Often, many acquisitions have meant outright bad news or at least anxiety for existing customers of the (usually beleaguered) acquired software provider. However, the market has also witnessed a number of mergers between relatively well-performing supply chain software companies that have joined forces to deliver even broader and deeper set of solution footprints and better value propositions to the market.

Such an example is Sterling Commerce, a $630 million (USD) subsidiary of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T), which has long been a prominent provider of solutions that connect client enterprises' business communities, processes, people, and technology in a global economy. Over the last few years, the company has acquired a number of supply chain management (SCM) software companies that, at the time, were not perceived as companies in distress or in any pressing need of a "white knight" to help stave off a hostile takeover or abate financial woes. However, these relatively small vendors were apparently not loath to more liberal access to new funds for product development and international customer cross-selling opportunities within Sterling's huge traditional install base. This is particularly true in light of Sterling Commerce's operations in 24 countries, with regional headquarters in four geographies: 1) the






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http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/microsoft-s-dynamic-new-approach-to-professional-services-automation-18403/

Event Summary

On November 3, the Board of Directors of Geac Computer Corporation Limited (TSE: GAC), a Canadian supplier of enterprise management software, announced the appointment of. Charles S. Jones as non-executive Chairman of the Board and. John E. Caldwell as interim President and Chief Executive Officer. These appointments were made following the decision of William Nelson to step down as Chairman and interim Chief Executive Officer of the Company for personal reasons, only one month after his appointment on October 2. Mr. Nelson remains a director of Geac.

The announcement comes only a few weeks after Geac's "profit improvement initiative" announcement. On October 16, Geac announced that it had taken steps to improve future profitability through a comprehensive restructuring program. The Company expects this initiative will reduce annual costs by approximately $60 million, commencing in the third quarter of the current fiscal year. Staff reductions, achieved through a combination of layoffs and attrition, as well as infrastructure cutbacks, will result in a one-time pretax charge of up to $20 million, the majority of which is expected to be taken in the second quarter. In addition, a pre-tax provision of approximately $8 million will be taken in the second quarter for certain claims and legal matters related to contract disputes involving a subsidiary of the former JBA Holdings plc.

William Nelson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Geac at the time, said, "This restructuring initiative was necessary to enhance our competitive position and to restore ongoing profitability. We are experiencing lengthening sales cycles in certain markets, as customers defer software acquisition and related integration and implementation services. The cost reductions coupled with the anticipated seasonal revenue increases should result in improved operating profits and cash flow for the second half of the fiscal year. We also will increase support for our e-commerce businesses. Specifically, we will add resources to our Pyramaz division and e-purchase business of up to $4 million annually to capitalize on its growing pipeline of opportunities. In addition, Interealty.com, AMSI (our property management business) and other e-focused divisions will be maintained at current staffing levels to support ongoing business and product development initiatives."

On September 11, Geac announced results for Q1 2001, which ended July 31, 2000. The revenues for the first quarter from continuing operations were $212.5 million compared to $192.7 million for the same period last year. (Revenues in both periods exclude sales made by the Banking Systems business that was sold on July 13, 2000.) Excluding the gain on the sale of discontinued operations noted above, but including the increase in amortization, the fully diluted loss per share from continuing operations was $0.70 during the quarter compared to earnings per share of $0.56 in the first quarter of the prior year (See Figure 1). However, as a result of the sale of the Banking Systems business Geac's balance sheet was significantly strengthened compared to the year-end at April 30, 2000. Bank indebtedness has also been substantially reduced.

Figure 1.

Douglas Bergeron, President and CEO at the time commented: "Our revenues in the quarter were significantly affected by the industry-wide softness in license sales and professional services consulting in addition to the normal seasonal slowdown in our now substantial European business. However, our customer base remains largely intact. We remain confident that revenue will improve during the second half of the year. We have taken steps during the quarter to reduce our costs going forward and are continuing our efforts to manage our costs to reflect properly our anticipated level of business activity."

Market Impact

While one could have long sensed some forthcoming turbulent times at Geac, not many expected the speed and the magnitude of the events. It is a no-brainer that the company has irretrievably missed the opportunity to seriously compete with other ERP giants like SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards. Although Geac has proven itself an adept and disciplined acquirer of application software businesses in the past, its rampant acquisition strategy in the face of the overall weakness of the ERP market has resulted in insufficient growth and dismal results. Consequently, the investors' diminished confidence has crippled its market valuation. The loss in the last quarter and the resignation of Douglas Bergeron have been the final straws in this basket of negative events. Moreover, there are some indications that the company has recently received a few takeover inquiries.

We only partly agree with management that Geac's difficulties coincided with the slump of the ERP market. However, the greater part of Geac's difficulties lies in poorly executed acquisition of struggling UK-based ERP vendor JBA in 1999. The acquisition has unfortunately stopped short of producing the great synergy it seemed to have offered initially. In spite of the fact that Geac, being a large software company with a track record for profitability and growth, has significantly enhanced System 21 by embedding acquired CRM and SCE products for the apparel industry, Geac has been unable to be successful in marketing its System 21 business. The revenue from the product in the last year was only $67 million compared to the level attained in 1998, when JBA reported $487 million in sales.

Another problem for Geac has been its preference for acquiring new products rather than investing generously in in-house product development. The strategy has apparently worked in a number of esoteric industries with a low penetration of competitors like hotels and publishing. It is however, a completely different ball game in the global enterprise applications market in the mainstream industries. Contemporary enterprise applications must be able to support dynamic business requirements, which are nowadays directly related to customers' e-business strategies. Therefore, every vendor is compelled to add much more value to its products and services portfolio to attract and retain customers, rather than mainly investing in the existing disparate, possibly outdated, core products and hoping for endless support revenues. Sticking to this thrifty strategy instead of taking decisive action to breathe fresh air into its arsenal of products, based on diverse technologies and serving different, fragmented markets (e.g., System 21, SmartStream, E- and M-Series mainframe packages, etc.) appears to have backfired on Geac and put it in the back seat of the enterprise applications market.




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http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/geac-lives-by-acquisitions-will-it-die-by-an-acquisition-16224/

Companies involved with global and transnational trade need management processes to navigate compliancy, regulations, and other trade issues specific to the countries they are trading with. This is a daunting task, not only because of the copious amounts of information and regulation but also because trading companies are held accountable for non-compliance. Typically supply chain management solutions (SCM) and enterprise resource planning solutions (ERP) lack strong international logistics and global trade management (GTM) capabilities. In light of this over sight, the merger between JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. (NYSE: JPM), a leading global financial services firm and Vastera (NASDAQ: VAST), a public global trade solutions provider, is looked upon with great interest. Supplementing JPMorgan Chase's financial services with Vastera's global trade management software will likely make JPMorgan Chase the first financial institution to offer a complete set of integrated cash, trade, and logistics solutions across the physical and financial supply chain.

Part two in the Merging Global Trade Management with Global Finance series.

Vastera provides global trade services that manage the flow of information throughout the global trade community to improve visibility of international product movement and more quickly move goods from country-to-country. To help companies fulfill global demand, forwarders, carriers, and brokers have joined financial institutions and customs agencies to form the global trade community. Improving near real-time collaboration between the members of the community has also become essential to maintaining control over the movement of goods.

Vastera's initial services began with application software designed to address logistics and country-specific regulations including taxation, duty, and licensing, etc. After acquiring Ford Motor Company's global custom import operations, it broadened its services to include trade management business process outsourcing (BPO) services. These trade services became the backbone of its Managed Services Provider (MSP) offering.

Managed Services Expanded

Managed Services is now Vastera's principal line of business. While the vendor has numerous Managed Services customers, its two largest customers, supplied 69 percent of Managed Services revenues in 2003. Specifically, its Managed Service agreement with Ford included the administration, automation, and management of Ford's global trade import operations in the US, which will be in effect until August 2005. This relationship has expanded to include the administration and management Ford's global trade import operations in Mexico, Canada, the UK, Spain, Belgium, and Germany. These agreements provide Vastera with a guaranteed, predictable, and recurring revenue stream worth about $25 million (USD) in annual revenues from the agreements with Ford US, Ford Mexico, Ford Canada, and Ford Europe in 2004.




source
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/navigating-global-trade-waters-17939/

Lyndsay Wise

The cause of poor customer service ratings, ineffective marketing initiatives, faulty financial planning, and the increase in fraudulent activity can, in many cases, relate back to an organization's management of its data. As the data collected and stored in organizations has grown exponentially over the past few years, its proper management has become critical to the successful implementation of such business initiatives as product marketing and corporate planning. Additionally, as fraud and acts of terror receive greater attention, it has become essential to use data to identify people and their relationships with one another.

This article will define master data management (MDM) and explain how customer data integration (CDI) fits within MDM's framework. Additionally, this article will provide an understanding of how MDM and CDI differ from entity analytics, outline their practical uses, and discuss how organizations can leverage their benefits. Various applications of entity analytics, including examples of its application to different types of organizations, will be highlighted along with the benefits it offers organizations in such service industries as government, security, banking, and insurance.

Data Management—Its Broad Spectrum

MDM has emerged to provide organizations with the tools to manage data and data definitions effectively throughout an organization in order to present a consistent view of the organization's data. In essence, MDM overcomes the silos of data created by different departments and provides an operational view of the information so that it may be leveraged by the entire organization. It focuses on the identification and management of reference data across the organization to create one consistent view of data. MDM's application identifies how different subsets of MDM address separate aspects of an organization's needs.

MDM manifests its importance when a customer service representative (CSR) cannot access customer information due to inconsistencies introduced by a corporate acquisition or a new system implementation, which may lead to the frustration (or even alienation) of the customer. Add to this the extra time the CSR spends accessing the appropriate data, and the issue extends to wasted time and money. MDM focuses on the identification and management of reference data across the organization to create one consistent view of data.

CDI is a subset of MDM, and serves to consolidate the many views of a customer within the organization into one centralized structure. This data consolidation provides the CSR with the information required or the ability to link to the required information, which may include billing, accounts receivable, etc. Once the data is consolidated, references to each customer file are created that link to one another and assign the "best" record from the available information. Consequently, data inconsistencies that occur across disparate systems, such as multiple address formats, are cleansed based on defined business rules to create one version of customer data that will be viewed across multiple departments within the organization.

The creation of "one version of the truth" presents unique challenges to organizations In many organizations, there are multiple views of the customer, such as accounts payable, call center, shipping, etc. Each profile may have the same customer name, but different addresses or other associated information such as unique customer numbers for each department, making it difficult to link one person to multiple processes. The difficulty comes when determining which view is the most correct. For example, if four versions of the same customer name and associated address exist, one version should be chosen from the four files to represent the most correct view in order to create a consolidated profile of that customer. The issue that arises here is that each department may have a different definition of "customer," making reconciliation of customer data an enormous task. For instance, organizations often profile their customers differently in systems across the organization, giving employees an incomplete view of the customer. The resolution of this issue allows the redundant or inaccurate customer records to be purged.

Aside from incomplete records, as the customer information is entered into the system multiple times, more silos are created, amplifying the problem. In addition to CSRs and employees having direct contact with the customer, marketing is another department that may have a different or incomplete view of the customer. This can translate into ineffective marketing campaigns and missed revenue opportunities. Although this last example may seem farfetched, the reality is that poor management of data within an organization affects the bottom line. CDI, when implemented properly, can not only reduce costs, but also increase sales, customer service ratings, and customer loyalty.

Data Complexity

As data becomes more complex, management strategies have been applied differently and used more widely to address not only organizational needs, but those concerning fraud detection and security. IBM's Entity Analytics Solution (EAS) addresses the needs of such organizations as government agencies and financial and insurance institutions to combat fraud and terrorism by applying data management techniques in a different way than CDI. Essentially, the concept surrounding the EAS platform translates into "the more data collected, the better". Instead of discarding extra information, as CDI does, the opposite direction is taken by aggregating, grouping, and resolving identity information attributes to use new, old, accurate, inaccurate, and seemingly attributes. This helps with the development of pattern recognition. For example, if a person collects more than one social security check using two or more separate addresses, EAS will identify the fact that a particular individual collects multiple checks sent to various addresses, and will create an alert in the system.

The ability to link individuals to multiple data sets and determine their interconnectivity helps proactive identification of potential fraudulent or criminal activity. IBM, with its acquisition of Language Analysis Systems (LAS), has started to address these needs through IBM Global Name Recognition. Instead of taking a business intelligence data integration or customer relationship management (CRM) customer data integration approach (whereby data cleansing activities take place to create one version of the truth), Entity Analytics uses the opposite approach to identify recurring data patterns to address terrorism and fraud through its Terrorism and Fraud Intelligence Framework (T&FI). The software addresses the issues of searching and managing data on individuals across geographic regions, customers within financial institutions, etc. to meet the demands of managing data sets from diverse cultures and geographic regions. This goes beyond name recognition to analyze how names are interconnected through the identification of recurring data patterns and entity connections. These connections are flagged based on rules created to identify suspicious transactions or behavior.

IBM Entity Analytics Software Offering

IBM Entity Analytics Solutions Global Name Recognition provides four modules (see figure 1 below) to enable organizations to identify people, relationships, and data patterns, and to share that information anonymously to identify potential fraudulent or suspicious behavior. IBM's EAS consists of

* IBM Identity Resolution, which identifies an individual entity and connects the data associated to that individual across data silos;
* IBM Relationship Resolution, which identifies non-obvious relationships to reveal social, professional, or criminal networks. This module also provides instant alerts once data connections are detected;
* IBM Anonymous Resolution, which de-identifies sensitive data sets using proprietary preprocessing and one-way hashing to add additional layers of privacy, and link that data based on codes that enable entity relationship identification without jeopardizing individual privacy laws. Data is shared anonymously and remains with the data owner to ensure data security;
* IBM Name Resolution solution includes name searching, variation generator, parser, culture classifier, and defining genders. Global Name Recognition's primary use is to recognize customers, citizens, and criminals across multiple cultural variations of name data. A practical application of the name variation generator is to learn the different spellings of names across various geographical regions.




source
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/business-intelligence-and-identity-recognition-ibm-s-entity-analytics-18862/

Why Privately Held Manufacturers Should Implement IFRS-ready ERP Solutions
Christine Anderson and Mitch Dwight

In this article, we'll review the different reasons why even private companies should prepare to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). We'll also delve into the reasons why asset-intensive industries should be excited to make the switch, and we'll discuss the specific steps involved in IFRS adoption.

Currently, the United States (US) is slow to adopt IFRS to replace Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP). While the timeline for adopting IFRS in the US may be an uncertainty, it may be inevitable. In the meantime, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) recently released IFRS guidelines specifically for small to medium businesses (SMBs)—which should put privately held companies on notice that IFRS is of keen interest to them as well.

In the US, some companies like IFS North America have already adopted IFRS. Companies with overseas operations may also adopt IFRS for parts of their business while running the rest of their operations on US-based GAAP.

What is IFRS, and Why Do I Care?

It is perfectly logical to think of IFRS as a new set of accounting standards that some companies will be required to adopt, and one that companies in some countries have already adopted. By looking past the regulatory requirement to holistic business dynamics, we get a better picture of what IFRS really means.

IFRS is becoming the global language of business. In the future, companies will communicate with investors in public securities, bankers, customers, merger and acquisition consultants, and other influential parties. It will be a consistent standard that everyone will be measured against—whether you are in China, the US, Canada, Mexico or anywhere else. As the global economy begins to encompass more and more mid-market manufacturers, and as more of these companies have trading partners or even subsidiaries overseas, it will be important for companies to speak the same financial language as the rest of the globe.

The IASB developed IFRS. This new method of financial reporting has already been formally adopted by many countries who are members of the European Union (EU), and more countries are adopting this standard every day. Some of the key business drivers for IFRS include the need for consistent accounting standards and disclosure requirements. If you are using US-based GAAP, or some other accounting standard, conduct international business operations, and you are dealing with IFRS, you are really operating with two different sets of records. This can be time-consuming, costly, and challenging at the end of every month, quarter, and annum as the different sets of books are reconciled.

In the meantime, you might be using management basis of accounting to run your business because US-based GAAP does not provide the best real-time information when it comes to making decisions about your business. This means that some companies may find themselves running three sets of books: IFRS, US-based GAAP, and management basis of accounting. Enterprise solutions are agile enough to deliver this degree of flexibility with minimal rework and administrative overhead, which is critical for manufacturers.

Figure 1. Internal Ledgers (top) track IFRS, US-based GAAP, and management accounts in one transaction feed eliminating the complexity of tracking multiple reporting books. The screen that displays asset carrying cost (below) provides visibility in multiple currencies by transaction, account, and corporate entity. Illustration provided by IFS North America.

Apart from agile enterprise software, financial executives will need agile minds as IFRS places a greater emphasis on fair value as a measurement basis. This may require some additional legwork and exercise of sound business judgment. IFRS is a more principle-based approach. It gives the financial executive greater latitude to exercise judgment as they account for the economic realities of a transaction rather than following proscribed steps. However, this will create challenges in the absence of precedent or guidelines. Accountants, chief financial officers (CFOs), and chief executive officers (CEOs) will find themselves making more judgment calls than they might initially be comfortable with.

There are three basic reasons why manufacturers will want to be prepared for IFRS sooner than required by regulation—even if the private companies are not affected by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) mandates:

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IFRS is important in order to access capital markets. Publicly held companies should find this attractive as an alternative method of obtaining capital, but if you are a private company, you are often entirely dependent on commercial lenders for capital. Analysts for these lenders are always looking at your company's progress, often comparing your company against competitors. It is hard to do that without a uniform measure for comparing organizations.
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The increasingly global nature of business will make IFRS capabilities a business success factor. Some US manufacturers with subsidiaries in countries that have rolled out IFRS will already have to run at least part of their business on international standards. Other companies planning to expand globally will want to develop IFRS capabilities proactively. There are already enough organizational hurdles to hanging a shingle in a different country without adding a new financial reporting methodology at the same time. Moreover, potential customers, particularly those located in geographies where IFRS is already mandated, will use international standards rather than US-based GAAP to evaluate the financial stability of their vendors.
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Manufacturers who are not publicly held often act as suppliers to companies that are public. These corporations in turn may see IFRS as a way to gain greater visibility into the financial health of their supply chain partners, which means the ability to communicate through IFRS could make a vendor more attractive as a trading partner.





source
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/why-privately-held-manufacturers-should-implement-ifrs-ready-erp-solutions-20471/

In March, Great Plains Software, Inc., a leading provider of e-business solutions for the mid-market, announced financial results for the fiscal quarter ended February 29, 2000. Great Plains reported record third quarter revenues of $48.1 million, a 34% increase over the same period last fiscal year. Revenues for the nine months ended February 29, 2000 were $135.3 million, an increase of 43% over the same period last fiscal year. Net income and diluted earnings per share for the third fiscal quarter, excluding the effect of amortization of acquired intangibles, were $3.5 million and 21 cents per share, respectively. Consensus EPS reported by First Call is 20 cents. These results compare to $3.5 million and 24 cents per share for the same period last fiscal year.

"In the mid-market, business is becoming e-business. Increasingly, every mid-market customer realizes the need to become electronically interconnected with their community including their suppliers, customers, employees and prospects. Great Plains and our partners are delivering the e-business solutions today to enable these companies to thrive in this new interconnected world," said Doug Burgum, chairman and CEO of Great Plains.

The following are some of the highlights that have been announced or occurred since Great Plains' last earnings release:

* Great Plains enhanced the Sales and Marketing Series of Great Plains Siebel Front Office with the addition of Telebusiness for telemarketing campaign management. The Sales and Marketing Series is fully integrated with its core ERP products, eEnterprise and Dynamics for SQL Server.

* Great Plains' network of Application Service Provider (ASP) partnerships grew to 27. The ASP offering expands the prospect base, adds incremental distribution, and provides additional business opportunities to partners.

* Great Plains announced immediate support for the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system with its leading e-business product solutions, eEnterprise, Dynamics, and Great Plains Siebel Front Office.

* Great Plains continued its European expansion with the establishment of offices across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Through acquisitions, Great Plains added 100 team members, 80 partners, and more than 1,600 customers across this European region.

* Great Plains acquired PWA Group, Limited, a leading provider of Web-based employee-facing solutions and upper-tier mid-market human resources and payroll solutions. This acquisition provides Great Plains a strategic e-business employee-facing component and significantly expands its human resources and payroll offerings.

* Great Plains grew its community of mid-market customers and expanded its reseller partner channel through the acquisition of RealWorld Corporation, a developer of accounting and business solutions. This acquisition added 20,000 customers and 200 partners to the Great Plains community.

* Great Plains announced the acquisition of FRx Software. FRx's Web-centric analytic applications are the standard for mid-market financial reporting and have been marketed with Great Plains' solutions since 1994. FRx Software will operate as an independent, wholly owned subsidiary of Great Plains and will continue to market it solutions through existing and new distribution relationships.

* Great Plains and Scala Business Solutions N.V. formed a strategic partnership to collaborate and deliver additional e-business and enterprise solutions to global customers, including the development of a new generation of Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) products to extend the e-business desktop to a variety of devices.

* Great Plains released the Call Center application for Great Plains Siebel Front Office. The Call Center application is an integrated sales and service solution for universal call agents to address outbound sales opportunities while conducting inbound support.

* AppNet, Inc. and Great Plains partnered to design a Web-based business environment that delivers personalized, end-to-end business processes, community interactions, and buying power aggregation to any interconnected community member.

* Great Plains added e-business banking functionality through the addition of funds transfer, pay tracking and reconciliation applications. These e-bank applications electronically interconnect businesses and banks and fully integrate with eEnterprise and Dynamics.

Market Impact

Over the last 18 months, Great Plains has made a big noise and established itself as a low-end mid-market leader while remaining constantly profitable (See Figure 1). Great Plains has recently taken full advantage of its favorable market capitalization to extend both its foothold in the coveted small-to-medium (SME) ERP market segment and fill the current gaps within its product portfolio and geographical coverage.

We believe that the company struck a good balance in extending its offering through both acquisition and partnering with best-of-breed vendors. Further, it has been impressive in selecting partners and integrating disparate products. Nevertheless, we believe that the company should now take a deep breath and carefully devise its future moves. Rampant additional acquisitions may lead to an unmanageable product portfolio and wear thin corporate financial and human resources.

Moreover, the company will be faced with the following challenges.

First, it will have to integrate its full suite of acquired applications, since some of its fierce competitors within the SME market, like Solomon Software, promote their single code base for the entire product range as a big advantage.

Second, it can expect growing pains in merging disparate product lines and training the newly extended large affiliate channel.

Finally, Great Plains will have to beef up its multi-site manufacturing and distribution functionality as well as its multi-national capabilities in order to remain the leader in the SME market. The dot.com companies are increasingly realizing that the fancy 'click' side of the business is a mere castle in the air without a proper 'brick' business foundation. Will these capabilities be achieved with yet another acquisition?


source
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/great-plains-getting-greater-and-less-plain-15700/