Feb 3, 2010
SAP Peer Forum
SAP Peer Forum Teleconference: SAP BusinessObjects Roadmap and Pricing with SAP
John Hagerty
There is little practical experience with SAP BusinessObjects software within SAP Peer Forum clients. It was apparent that many members were still confused or unsure about SAP's business intelligence (BI) strategy. Amid rumor and conjecture, members requested that SAP again articulate its business intelligence (BI) roadmap and pricing strategy so they could effectively plan for 2010/2011 projects.
Jan 20, 2010
Market Service: ERP
Reintroducing an Old Friend: SAP Standard Support
Derek Prior, Jim Shepherd
When SAP reintroduced a standard support service on January 14, 2010, you could hear the shouts of "Yippee!" in every language across the globe. But what impact will SAP Standard Support really have on loyal SAP customers that currently have SAP Enterprise Support?
Jan 5, 2010
Enterprise Application Strategies
Oracle Takes Silver Creek Systems Home From the Ball
Bill Swanton
Oracle has acquired Silver Creek Systems to boost the data cleansing capabilities of its data integration and master data management (MDM) products. Silver Creek offers one of the few data cleansing products focused on product rather than customer data, making it a sought-after dance partner at the MDM alliance ball.
Dec 23, 2009
Market Service: ERP
SAP Solution Manager Opens Up
Derek Prior
SAP's enigmatic Solution Manager lifecycle support product has been around for at least eight years, but it's still underutilized by most SAP customers. The company is now trying to encourage broader adoption by becoming more open with it in its ecosystem-and it's about time, too.
Dec 23, 2009
Sustainability Strategies
SAP Maps the Corporate Sustainable Future: Enterprise-Wide Sustainability Software Comes of Age
Stephen Stokes, Bill Polk
It's been quite a transformative year for SAP, with the creation of the new chief sustainability officer role and the launches of its first sustainability report and product strategy. This shift and alignment with sustainability parallels IBM's Smarter Planet initiative and GE's ongoing pursuit of ecomagination, two other big players that are focusing on and engaging with sustainability as a business and product transformational event.
Dec 22, 2009
Market Service: Supply Management
Oracle Advances Procurement Investments
Mickey North Rizza
Oracle's OpenWorld was a great adventure for procurement professionals. Even though attendance was down just like at any other conference this year, numbers were higher than expected.
Dec 21, 2009
Market Service: Global Business and Outsourcing Services
Proving Value, Establishing Trust: Assessing Oracle's Services and Support Strategy
Dana Stiffler
Oracle has strengthened and focused its services and support business in recent years. For a publicly held software company, this means focus, automation, and innovation while aligning more closely with the product side of the house, with pricing and delivery models gradually shifting toward software as a service and the cloud.
Dec 21, 2009
SAP Peer Forum
SAP Peer Forum Summit Session: Maximizing Your SAP Relationship Effectiveness
Derek Prior
The clear Peer Forum consensus was that building a real win-win SAP customer relationship requires executive level commitment, hard work, careful planning and documentation, plus agreeing up front how overall success of the relationship will be measured and celebrated.
Dec 18, 2009
SAP Peer Forum
SAP Peer Forum Summit Session: SAP COE Budgeting and Staffing: How Much is Required?
Bill Swanton
SAP Peer Forum members find themselves under constant budgetary and head count pressure. Benchmarking shows the needed resources are driven by user count and the extent of implementation of SAP. Justification of the budget, however, requires tying it to business goals.
Dec 18, 2009
Oracle EBS Peer Forum
Oracle EBS Peer Forum Summit Session: EBS Center of Excellence (COE) Staffing
Bill Swanton
Oracle Peer Forum members used a variety of organization styles, but the greatest degree of commonality was pairing functional teams with a process lead in the business. Retention strategies are based on ongoing evaluation of advancement potential and a variety of challenging roles.