business value proposition Archives - Innovate. Integrate. Transform. Run.

Storms Coming on the Salesforce.com Cloud Front
Storms Coming on the Salesforce.com Cloud Front

Storms Coming on the Salesforce.com Cloud Front

By Bill Wood|November 19th, 2012|

Salesforce.com financial clouds I recently ran into a post from a pretty well respected investor blog over at “Seeking Alpha.” The basic takeaway is that the Salesforce.com cloud business is not all it is hyped up to be and that shareholders may be in for a seriously rude awakening [FN1]. -------------------- The way it is described there sounds a LOT like Enron accounting. They called it a Ponzi Scheme and here is how it works: Employees receive stock options INSTEAD OF cas [...]

Create SAP Convergence Instead of Business to IT Alignment
Create SAP Convergence Instead of Business to IT Alignment

Create SAP Convergence Instead of Business to IT Alignment

By Bill Wood|April 4th, 2011|

This is part of an ongoing exploration of creating an SAP or Technology "Center of Excellence" within your enterprise. For the background and key insights on this approach, see the Series on SAP Competency Center or SAP Center of Excellence . ------------------------------ The real future of technology is for IT to integrate with business, or in other words, to converge business and technology. The idea of aligning with business is too weak to define what IT and SAP must do within the enterpris [...]

What are SAP Best Business Practices Anyway
What are SAP Best Business Practices Anyway

What are SAP Best Business Practices Anyway

By Bill Wood|March 7th, 2011|

Over the last couple months, I have seen a few posts debating the use of software “best business practices.” The basic takeaway is that if everyone uses the standard delivered “practices,” no one has competitive advantage. While this may be true for many software applications, two components of SAP make this idea misleading. Many of these commentators fail to recognize that SAP refers to different things as "best business practices." The key types of SAP best business practices involve the proc [...]

Where do you Start with SAP Return on Investment or SAP ROI?
Where do you Start with SAP Return on Investment or SAP ROI?

Where do you Start with SAP Return on Investment or SAP ROI?

By Bill Wood|July 19th, 2010|

See Part 1 - SAP Implementation Is an Investment Not an Event How much is it going to cost, and how long is it going to take? That is the classic approach to SAP implementations. However, this approach is not enough today, as the marketplace is demanding more from their IT dollars. Now the marketplace has questions about measuring cost reductions, process improvements, and customer retention/acquisition. These are all important discussions. Your money has to work for you in your business-- and [...]

A New SAP Implementation Methodology and Implementation Steps
A New SAP Implementation Methodology and Implementation Steps

A New SAP Implementation Methodology and Implementation Steps

By Bill Wood|June 28th, 2010|

Studies have shown that projected benefits in business cases for IT investments and actual value achieved face a critical disconnect, because so many firms focus on going live with a project rather than its value delivery. An SAP/ASUG best-practice survey on capturing the projected benefits of an IT project found that 73% of companies do not quantitatively measure value post-implementation (SAP Executive Insight Series, pg. 7, 2009). Critical business benefits for an SAP project require taking [...]

Change Management Strategies and Knowledge Transfer Processes for a Successful SAP Project 1
Change Management Strategies and Knowledge Transfer Processes for a Successful SAP Project 1

Change Management Strategies and Knowledge Transfer Processes for a Successful SAP Project 1

By Bill Wood|June 24th, 2010|

Why SAP Process Understanding, Troubleshooting Ability, and Knowledge Transfer Techniques Are Missing in SAP or ERP Projects Because an ERP system such as SAP has a single database or a single instance of data, a full process chain of dependencies is developed. Every organizational function becomes dependent on the process steps before and after it, no matter what department or area is responsible (Kallinikos, 2004). Because of these dependencies, a data error is no longer contained in a single [...]