Nick Mutt’s Neighborhood

The Amazon Conduit is Fixed

Team Vox
5 days ago
16 comments

Go forth and fill your libraries with media.

Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.

~daisy

Amazon Conduit Update

Team Vox
Oct 29, 2009
17 comments

I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.

I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.

Cheers,

daisy

Amazon Conduit: Update

Team Vox
Oct 20, 2009
22 comments

Bad news. As many of you have probably noticed, the Amazon Conduit was not fixed in the last week's release. Unfortunately, there was an undetected bug that is preventing the conduit from working.

We are working on this bug fix and hope to have the Conduit back up and running this week.

I will keep you posted.

Thank you for being so patient.

~daisy

Today is Blog Action Day! Blog for Climate Change.

Team Vox
Oct 15, 2009
51 comments

Blog Action Day

5 comments

Blog Action Day is every October 15th, when blogger are asked to post something about a single issue to show our strength and conviction as an online community. It's a great way to feel connected to the greater good, and the participation of so many bloggers to support the world's leading non-profit organizations is something you can do to help, right now. By blogging today, you're supporting some of the world's leading non-profits and sharing your voice for change.

This year's topic is climate change, and we'd love to read your thoughts on the topic. If you participate, leave us a link to your post in the comments, so we know to check out your post!

Go to www.blogactionday.org to learn more, get a badge for your blog showing your participation, and see some ideas for your post on climate change.

Can't wait to read your posts!

~ daisy

Amazon Conduit Fix Date: October 15, 2009

Team Vox
Sep 11, 2009
36 comments

The Amazon Conduit will be working again on October 15, 2009. Thank you to everyone for your patience.

Have a great weekend,

daisy, Team Vox

ERP Implementation and Change Management

Enterprise resource planning software requires full support from top management at the time of implementation, selection, customization etc. During implementation, organization may require to change some business processes to meet the software standards, which are industry specific standards. Business process can not be change without top management support. It is quite necessary to change some of the business process. It helps in implementation. If you are not willing to change any business process you may go for customization. But, customization is costly and not good for any ERP. Little bit customization is ok, but too much customization will affect your ERP project. It will increase your project duration, budget, and increase the risk of implementation failure.

It will be better to change some business process if possible, rather than customizing. When an organization changes their some business processes, change management expert is required. People resist change. Change management expert will guide how to change, and explain the benefits of changes to the employees. ERP system helps in changing the process; it is designed and developed by adopting best practices of specific industries.

Internal Change Management: An ERP implementation entails changes in business processes and reporting structure. Addressing this paradigm move is a process that the organization has to go through. This will help in achieving the acceptability of the ERP users.

Change Management Drivers:

Employees: Employees are the key players in any ERP implementation. The employees of the organization will be in the capacity of process owners, software users and administrators of the ERP software. The main challenge of an ERP implementation is to achieve the acceptability of the system to the employees and for them to perceive the benefits to the organization and to their way of working.

Process: One of the returns on investment (ROI) is adopting business best practices by virtue of an ERP system. Little change in the business process will reduce the chance of implementation failure. Minimum or no customization is very good for any ERP implementation. These processes impact the effectiveness levels to be attained by the organization.

Technology: Implementation of ERP system automatically entails adopting technology that will address easy scalability, eradication of distance and upgradeability to latest technologies.

Organization Commitment: ERP system has to be viewed as a process enabler rather than a software package to be installed and run. The implementation process is a journey towards achieving organizational effectiveness. This demands a very strong commitment of the top management throughout the entire process.

Read information on ERP Implementation Strategy and fundamentals of ERP. Know more on SAP Business One Implementation. Also know How to Select ERP Software and other ERP fundamentals.

Amazon Conduit Update

Team Vox
Sep 2, 2009
26 comments

In my last Team Vox post, I let you know that we're aware that the Amazon conduit is broken and that we're working to fix it. Many of you want to know when it's going to be fixed and I'm so sorry I haven't gotten back to you about that sooner.

Unfortunately, I don't have an exact date to give you, but rest assured, the Amazon conduit will be fixed in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, I'm about to finish my latest book and I could use a few suggestions as to what to read next, so... if you don't mind, let me know in the comments what's on your nightstand and/or what book you think I absolutely must read next.

Thanks! :)

daisy

Challenges of an ERP Implementation in SME Segment

ERP implementation is always a tough job for the organizations. To get successful implementation organizations need to be very careful. When SMEs think about ERP implementation, they identify the need of an ERP system. They prepare pre-implementation strategy for enterprise software. This strategy involves identification of business needs, budgeting for the procurement of ERP software and services, evaluation of various ERP software to suite its business process. After finalizing the enterprise software they start the implementation and finally adopt the ERP system as an organization wide solution. The major challenges of an ERP implementation for an organization are: Selection of ERP software: This is a very critical decision that an organization needs to take. However it is vital to consider the size of the business operations, the projected growth in the years to come, geographical spread, nature of business and investment figures as key factors in determining the selection of ERP software. The key considerations evaluation and selection of ERP Software are scalability, vendor management, functionality, reliable service and support. ERP systems are designed to grow with the organization. Unlike some stand-alone systems, they do not succumb to volume and change pressures, leaving you to start from scratch. Managing excess of vendors for customer service is not easy. An integrated ERP system gives you one solution supplier to work with. Organization needs to access the software functionality which is necessary to run the business over time at an affordable cost. It may not be cost effective choice at first, but it will usually be the most cost effective and economical in the long run as your business needs grow and change. It gives better ROI. Reliable service and support at affordable cost is critical. It is easier to support an integrated ERP system environment than a mixture of different stand alone applications. Copyright © Nick Mutt, All Rights Reserved. If you want to use this article on your website or in your ezine, make all the urls (links) active.

Read information on ERP Implementation Strategy and fundamentals of ERP. Know more on SAP Business One Implementation.

Benefits of Enterprise Resource Planning Software (ERP)

Usually, an organization thinks to implement ERP (enterprise resource planning) software to align business objective with latest technology solutions, to enhance customer confidence and stakeholder commitment, to optimum utilization of organization’s resources and assets. Typically, an organization is looking for good enterprise resource planning software with advance features and functions.

Benefits of ERP Software

ERP system introduces efficiency and improvement of its business processes.

Good enterprise software helps you to achieve transparency and availability of data across all business functions. It gives right information at the right time to the right people for effective decision making. This decision would be based on accurate information, which will give positive result and increase productivity.

ERP software helps you to optimize your human resource management and asset management. It also improves financial management. Trail balance, balance sheet, cash in hand, cash in bank, top supplier, top customer, ABC analysis, dead stock, WIP (work in progress) and other important reports are ready at any point of time. It helps in achieving better efficiency in organization reporting. ERP software streamlines the supply chain management and improves customer relationship management.

Enterprise resource planning software ensures data security and data scalability: organization can customize the enterprise software according to their requirements. It adopts systems that address changing technologies. It gives better ROI (return on investment). Organization can increase turnover with same human resource. There is a misconception that, ERP is for IT department and they will get more benefits, but it is not true. During implementation and after go-live, IT department responsibility is higher than other department.

Proper training gives better output from the new system. Lack of proper training to user results wrong entry and create problem. Top management should understand the need of detailed user training. Ultimately, user is going to use this enterprise resource planning software.

Read Benefits of ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning system. Also Know How to Select ERP Software for your organization for successful implementation.

Importance and Benefits of ERP System in SME Segment

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is a system which integrates various business data in a single database and provides cross function reporting on click of a single button. Earlier ERP was made for large organizations but, now it is made for medium and even for small organizations. In this global competitive market, organizations need to upgrade with latest technologies. Most of the large organizations are using enterprise resource planning system. To deal with those large organization SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) need to work on a similar type of technologies. In this case, importance of ERP system for SMEs increases.

Of course, there are lots of business benefits of enterprise software. Apart from all other basic benefits, enterprise software gives an information system with three important capabilities i.e.

1. Consistency and reliability of business data across the organization

2. Streamlined transaction processing within and outside organization

3. Provides operations level reporting on a click of a button

These capabilities, basic and important as they are, ensure that organizations are ready for specific solutions that improve overall performance. The areas that will increase the basic ERP requirements are like supply chain management (SCM) with electronic collaboration between supplier and customer, customer relationship management (CRM), business intelligence (BI), product data management, complete product life cycle (PLC) management, inventory and warehouse management using RFID tools. For these applications, ERP system becomes the substratum, a kind of gateway to expert functions. That is, enterprise software is a sine qua non for other applications.

In fact, the latest trend is that with basic enterprise resource planning software, tailor-made system is given by ERP companies. ERP vendors are speeding-up to integrate most of these additional capabilities. This type of customized or tailor-made enterprise system is easy to install and implement for SMEs. It also takes less time to implement and chances of implementation failure are lesser.

Know more on SAP Business One Implementation. Also know How to Select ERP Software and other ERP fundamentals.