Posts Tagged ‘ERP’

New Report: An elegant solution to keep your books INTACCT

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Jeffrey L. Williams (Jeff), good friend and colleague, and I took a fairly good look at Intacct recently.

If you don’t know Intacct, they’ve got a solid SaaS (software-as-a-service) Accounting solution that integrates with many best of breed solutions to round out an entire suite. We’ve interviewed top management, participated in product demonstrations, and more to develop this report.

 Intacct Report Cover May 2010

Here’s an excerpt from our Market Prognosis section of the report:

We particularly like the following about Intacct and its products:

  • The company is very focused on its product line focus (financials) and its sales strategies.
  • The company’s distribution channel is quite enviable. Moreover, the solution very elegantly solves a number of business needs that accounting firms (and their clients) have.
  • We also liked the team at Intacct and believe them to be motivated, sharp and focused on the right priorities for the company

     

    We believe additional focus may be required in these areas:

    • Intacct does not currently offer a PaaS. We believe this could be a limiting factor in its attractiveness to other software firms, systems integrators and other potential partners. Clients would benefit from a PaaS as well.
    • Supporting multi-nationals may force Intacct to develop more skills, more product capabilities and more local sales/support personnel. Rolling this out will need to be carefully metered if the company is to maintain growth rates cost effectively. Multi-lingual support is just one need here.
    • We believe the products could go even further up-market. The functionality may already adequate to do so for many prospective customers. However, Intacct will need more applications/application coverage to improve its penetration in larger accounts. This may also require an upgrading of Intacct’s service partner ecosystem, too.

     

    Overall, Intacct should exhibit better than average growth in the SaaS financial software space. As long as the company continues to serve customers well (e.g., no material system outages) and develops more product and architectural capabilities in a timely manner, they should do quite well.”

    Procure-to-Pay = Problems-to-Pay?

    Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

    Over the last couple of weeks, my colleague, Jeffrey L. Williams, and I have been pondering a number of heady topics affecting Finance organizations and the executives who run them. We’ve talked about the future of shared services, F&A Outsourcing and even the basic processes like Procure-to-Pay. Out of these conversations, we decided to do a few webinars and white papers.

    Next week, on July 27, 2010 at 2 pm Eastern/1 pm Central, Jeff and I are the featured speakers on an interactive Business Finance webcast titled: “Has Procure-to-Pay Become Problems to Pay?”  During the 1 hour event, we will explore the risks and associated issues with the Procure-to-Pay cycle in many organizations.  We will also demonstrate how Enterprise Content Management solutions can complement your ERP to solve many of these problems and give you a framework to ensure your meetings with ERP and ECM vendors about these issues are productive and focused on your business issues.   Information about the webinar can be found at:

     http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=227039&s=1&k=3CD2A84368067BBA8D80A5A3D061E0C7&partnerref=vitalanalysis

     Jeff and I are also developing a companion white paper on the same subject. 

     We hope many of you can attend

    New report: Plex Systems flexing its muscles

    Monday, May 31st, 2010

    Tom Ryan, good friend and colleague, and I took a fairly good look at Plex Systems recently.

    If you don’t know Plex, they’ve got a solid SaaS (software-as-a-service) ERP solution. We’ve interviewed customers, top management and more to develop this report.

    Vital Analysis 2010 Plex report

    Here’s an excerpt from our Market Prognosis section of the report:

    Currently, Plex Systems is enjoying significant market uptake in spite of the general economy. Why? We believe software buyers are becoming ever more attracted to the favorable economics behind true SaaS products. For those customers who are in the verticals that Plex Systems supports, Plex Systems has very limited competition.


    The competitive landscape may change soon as RootStock, a NetSuite based MRP solution, may be gaining ground in the SaaS space. Likewise, we anticipate SAP making new moves with its Business ByDesign product suite. Mark Symonds, CEO of Plex Systems, remarked that SAP’s announcement of Business ByDesign in 2007 was a positive for his firm as it showed a major ERP vendor embracing software as a service.He added that SAP’s decision to slow down or halt sales of that product was an even
    bigger favor.

    VisionPlex, the Plex Systems PaaS, may benefit from additional utilization by Plex partners. Product line extensions by these partners will only extend the market uptake of Plex applications.


    We believe that Plex has market awareness, customer credentials and market momentum going for it now. It will need to embrace more service partners, strengthen the relationships it has with current partners and aggressively position its SaaS credentials
    before prospects as competition will undoubtedly increase
    .”

    Coda 2go – A Force to Reckon With

    Sunday, June 15th, 2008

    Coda 2go Cover

    New Research Report – Coda’s New Force.com Based Product Line

    We recently prepared a research report on the Coda 2go product line. Coda 2go is an all-new product line built off the software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, Force.com. Force.com is the salesforce.com development platform being featured to much fanfare by salesforce.com in events worldwide.

    We liked the speed with which Coda developed this offering and this speaks well of the Force.com platform. Both salesforce.com and Coda will benefit from this effort. We particularly like the combination of Coda’s strong financial functionality and saleforce.com’s SFA, CRM and platform.

    The report can be ordered from Vital Analysis for $395. Please complete an online request form or email us at contact@vitalanalysis.com .

    SAP Business ByDesign

    Thursday, June 5th, 2008

    Big, Report,

    Big Investment,

    Big Product Suite

    Enterprise Irregular Dennis Howlett  and Vital Analysis founder Brian Sommer have teamed up to write a single, definitive report on SAP’s Business ByDesign product suite.  While both of them have blogged and/or developed short research reports on this product suite, both parties believed that something this big and expansive deserved a more nuanced, deliberate review.

    The report has been written and is awaiting a final fact-check from SAP. We are also awaiting a couple of graphic files to insert into the document.

    Sap_comprehensive_draft

    Here’s some the teaser copy relating to the report:

    __________________________________________________________

                      Comprehensive SAP Business ByDesign Report

     

    It takes a comprehensive report to cover a comprehensive product suite like SAP’s Business ByDesign. This is a product suite that involved the efforts of thousands of developers and took approximately five years to bring to market. While much has been written about Business ByDesign, this report succinctly summarizes it all in a compact 20-page analysis. We examine subjects such as:

     

    · The Target Buyer for Business ByDesign – Do you have what it takes to be a Business ByDesign user?

    · Process Design vs. Functional Silos – This may be the single most important choice you make in buying a SMB software solution

    · Product Review – A walkthrough of the 8 major functional components of Business ByDesign along with our requests for needed improvements in each area

    · Vertical Assessment – How well does Business ByDesign serve your industry?

    · Product Enhancements – Where should/will SAP expend its future efforts? What role will channel partners play?

    · Technical Enhancements – Is the software delivering the performance that both you and SAP demand now?

    · Competitive Assessment – How does this solution stack up against Workday, NetSuite and other on-demand ERP offerings?

    · Author Summaries – See what our two report authors think. These are two of the software industries most visible and long-lived pundits.

    The report is out for fact checking and will come out under the Vital Analysis brand. We’re hoping it will be available for delivery by the end of next week. Yes, it is a paid for item because a combined 65+ years’ experience applied to this kind of thing doesn’t come free, especially when you’ve put in a lot of time into understanding the product, its position and value to the market.

    For professionals looking to extend their consulting practices, we believe ByDesign is a superb opportunity to get deep into what your clients’ businesses really do, how they’re shaped and the problems they meet. I’m encouraging practitioners to consider this as a way of massively improving the value they offer. It requires the kind of mindset that professionals need to be both methodical and have that all important eye for detail. Learning the solution is not the issue for new people. Understanding process most certainly is.

    ____________________________________________________________________________________

    Ordering and other information will be out shortly. Stay tuned.

    Oracle SMB Coverage

    Saturday, May 3rd, 2008

    Oracle Report Cover                                       

    Oracle’s Accelerate Strategy

    There’s been a flurry of press releases and announcements re: Oracle and their re-doubled partner program in the SMB (small-medium business) space. We recently spoke with Jeff Abbott, Vice President Global Accelerate Strategy of Oracle, about the program and its new momentum.

    Here’s a quote from the Prognosis section of the report:

    This new momentum around the SMB space has additional value to Oracle as SMB buyers are one of the most recession proof sectors in the application software marketplace.  Given the current economy, Oracle would do well to cultivate and expand its partner program in this space.

    We believe Oracle’s focus on fixed-price implementations is not only appropriate but also long overdue in the SMB space.  As we have published previously, SMB buyers have complex businesses while lacking the budgets of big firms (i.e., wine tastes/beer budgets).  In discussions we have had with midmarket CFOs, the pain these companies face around uncertain implementation and integration costs is palpable.  Vendors that seek to address this very real and painful market concern may do quite well.”

    To receive a copy of this report, please complete our online form or email us at contact@vitalanalysis.com

    NetSuite’s NS-BOS – Part of a Bigger Story

    Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

    Last week, NetSuite announced its NS-BOS business operating system. Along with this announcement, NetSuite also announced the availability of a new debugging tool.

    There is a bigger picture angle to this and its one that escapes other SaaS application vendors. NetSuite’s approach to the mid-market maybe superior to that of over SaaS vendors. It’s a lower integration cost strategy that should receive a very warm welcome with mid-market software buyers and the vertical industry application developers who ally with NetSuite.

     NS -BOS Report Cover

    This report is available for sale @ $495 per copy. To order, please use our online info request form or email us at contact@vitalanalysis.com

    NetSuite Earnings

    Thursday, February 14th, 2008

    New Report on NetSuite’s 2007 Earnings

    Today, 2/14/2008, NetSuite management briefed analysts on the company’s financial performance for the year 2007. Executives also discussed NetSuite’s competition, capital deployment, hiring plans and a recent 1000 user CRM win. earnings report cover

    All of these items are discussed in the a special Vital Analysis report. For a limited time, this report is available for free to those persons submitting a report request on our website and using a valid business email address. Alternatively, you can request a copy via email from: contact@vitalanalysis.com

    When Event Technology Meets ERP

    Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008

    Progress Apama – An Event Technology That’s Work a Long, Hard Look

    We recently had a chance to watch a demonstration of Progress’ Apama product.  Apama is an event-driven technology that has seen market successes in the financial services industry. The demonstration we witnessed was in another industry – Manufacturing – and was provided by a Progress partner Manuvis.  This demonstration was so striking because of the way that Manuvis has incorporated event processing into discrete manufacturing. Consider this example:

    Manuvis continuously monitors production equipment and other key production statistics in a manufacturing environment. Suppose the software detects a continuing anomaly in a machine. The software will notify workers to tend to the machine. The software will also dynamically re-direct production and potentially re-optimize the production schedule. Workers, in a Manuvis environment, answer to this network software – not a production supervisor. Why? No human being can continuously monitor every aspect of production, every product produced, every machine, etc. Nor can a production supervisor continuously re-adjust production schedules, repairs, etc. while monitoring events at the plant.

    ERP systems were good at crafting a periodic production schedule; however, the need to optimize business results requires a more dynamic solution. Event-driven technologies, like Apama, are particularly well-suited to such a business need.

    apama manuvis report cover

    If you’d like a copy of this report, please complete the request form on this website or send a valid, business email to: contact@vitalanalysis.com . This report is available for free for a limited time.

    SuiteBundler to Propel Innovation Within NetSuite

    Thursday, January 3rd, 2008

    NetSuite SuiteBuilder cover

    NetSuite Adds Powerful Tools to its Product Line

    Late 2007, NetSuite announced powerful new product line capabilities to its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application product line. We were particularly impressed with the intense new vertical extensions that have been developed by NetSuite resellers using the new SuiteBundler tools.

    In the Prognosis section of our report, we wrote that:

    For NetSuite customers, SuiteBundler is a very positive, albeit indirect, step forward. SuiteBundler should trigger a landslide of new vertical functionality within the NetSuite ecosystem.  For NetSuite’s target market, the small to midsized business, this additional breadth and depth in industry functionality is a welcome sight.  While high-end ERP solution providers possess some of this needed industry expertise in their products, their price points are cost prohibitive for SMB buyers.  Traditional SMB solutions often contain stripped down or skeletal vertical capabilities.  These traditional SMB solutions may create perplexing or undesirable workarounds for their customers and often require excessively high-cost implementation fees to make workable. SuiteBundler should help usher in a more cost-effective and robust set of vertical solutions for the SMB space.”

     

    This report is available to Vital Analysis clients. Inquiries regarding it can be directed to contact@vitalanalysis.com .