In early 2019, I first wrote about the escalating strategic challenges facing organizations resulting from the decade-long dismantling of the liberal global trade environment and the shift to more restrictive regimes. Supply chain management was upended in 2020 as a series of extraordinary events, especially the pandemic-induced supply chain shocks, compounded the tactical challenges facing supply chain managers and increased awareness of the brittle nature of lowest-cost supply chain structures. The impact of this shift has been accentuated by the recent fracturing of the world’s political order, which is reshaping strategies about where goods are sourced and manufactured. Consequently, supply chains designed for the lowest possible cost had to be restructured for resiliency. However, minimizing costs remains a core objective, so organizations must manage their supply chains and logistics more intelligently, using technology to better match supply and demand while finding other ways to reduce working capital and their associated costs.
Improving Supply Chain Management in the Post-Pandemic World
Topics: Continuous Planning, Business Planning, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, Continuous Supply Chain & ERP
We’ve experienced an unusual, decades-long monetary policy in the developed world that emphasized interest rate repression as well as supply chain practices designed for lowest cost. This has produced a generation of chief financial officers likely unprepared to address the impact of fundamental changes now shaping a new, technology-driven approach to working capital optimization. Today’s CFOs must assess their working capital management processes and the systems that support them to balance the need to minimize the cost of working capital against customer requirements such as delivery times and order fulfillment. Technology can minimize frictions – and therefore costs – associated with managing inventories, receivables and payables balanced against customer satisfaction requirements and legal and regulatory considerations.
Topics: Office of Finance, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, digital finance, Sustainability Management, Purchasing/Sourcing/Payments
Early last December, just before ChatGPT became the new, bright, shiny object, The Economist magazine ran a story proclaiming that we had finally arrived at the age of boring artificial intelligence (AI). From my perspective, it’s unfortunate that didn’t last and that AI has been relegated back to the buzzword league. AI will be an increasingly important feature of business software through the end of this decade. Ventana Research asserts that by 2026, almost all vendors of software designed for finance organizations will have incorporated some AI capabilities to reduce workloads and improve performance. The same observation applies, to some significant degree, to other parts of an enterprise, so it’s important for people in operational roles to understand what AI can and cannot do. It’s also important for vendors to clearly and concretely communicate what they mean when they say, “AI-enabled.” Moreover, I prefer the alternative term “augmented intelligence” because it emphasizes that these systems enhance — rather than replace — the capabilities of the humans employing them, especially through improved decision-making and by eliminating the need to perform repetitive work.
Topics: Office of Finance, Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, natural language processing, AI and Machine Learning, continuous supply chain, digital finance, Purchasing/Sourcing/Payments, Consolidate/Close/Report
Cloud ERP is the Path Forward for Manufacturing and Product Companies
The cloud has come to dominate many business software categories, but until recently, enterprise resource planning for manufacturing and product-focused organizations has been a notable laggard. Cloud-based systems can be less costly to operate, perform better, be more secure and shift maintenance and update chores from the IT department to the vendor, freeing IT teams to concentrate on more strategic needs.
Topics: Office of Finance, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, continuous supply chain, digital finance
2023 Market Agenda: Greater Agility for a Less Certain World
Ventana Research recently announced its 2023 research agenda for Operations and Supply Chain, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for nearly two decades to help organizations across industries derive optimal value and improved outcomes from business technology.
Topics: Continuous Planning, Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, supplier relationship management, Property Technology
The Data Pantry Accelerates Actionable Analytics for Decision-Making
Ventana Research uses the term “data pantry” to describe a method of data storage (and the technology and process blueprint for its construction) created for a specific set of users and use cases in business-focused software. It’s a pantry because all the data one needs is readily available and easily accessible, with labels that are immediately recognized and understood by the users of the application. In tech speak, this means the semantic layer is optimized for the intended audience. It is stocked with data gathered from multiple sources and immediately available for analysis, forecasting, planning and reporting. This does away with the need for analysts to repeatedly perform data extraction, enrichment or transformation motions from the required source systems, all but eliminating the substantial amount of time analysts and business users routinely spend on data preparation.
Topics: Continuous Planning, Business Intelligence, Data Management, Business Planning, Data, Financial Performance Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, AI and Machine Learning, continuous supply chain, data operations, digital finance, profitability management, Analytics & Data, Streaming Data & Events
Kinaxis Extends Platform into Supply Chain Execution with MPO Acquisition
Kinaxis recently announced it has acquired a Netherlands-based company, MPO, a cloud-based software offering that orchestrates multiparty supply chain execution. The combination is designed to enable Kinaxis to extend its concurrent planning platform to handle core elements of supply chain execution. Kinaxis acquired all the shares of MPO for approximately US$45 million, with some of the final consideration dependent on performance. MPO will continue to operate as a standalone business, but will be increasingly integrated into Kinaxis’ operations worldwide.
Topics: Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, AI and Machine Learning, continuous supply chain
Kinaxis is a sales and operation planning software company headquartered in Ottawa, Canada. Its RapidResponse is an S&OP platform for concurrent planning, designed to integrate an organization’s supply chain planning silos, accelerate planning cycles and optimize supply chain execution to match customer demand.
Topics: Continuous Planning, Business Planning, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain
Reordered Global Trade Requires Agile Sales and Operations Planning
I first wrote about a new era of trade a few years ago to make the point that the period of optimizing supply chains for the lowest cost was over, and that companies needed to redesign them to achieve greater resiliency. That observation proved correct. Now we are hearing about “the end of globalization,” a hyperbolic phrase describing the effects of ongoing changes to the international political order that have been underway for more than a decade. These changes are forcing companies to make sometimes significant adjustments to sourcing and supply chain management. Globalization, which started in 1492, isn’t over, but managing international trade requires the ability to deal with shifts in strategic planning assumptions and agility in dealing with tactical events. Software will play an important role in enabling corporations to meet these ongoing challenges caused by a major reordering of global trade.
Topics: Continuous Planning, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, continuous supply chain
2022 Market Agenda: Increasing Supply Chain Agility and Resilience
Ventana Research recently announced its 2022 research agenda for Operations and Supply Chain, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for nearly two decades to help organizations across industries derive optimal value from business technology and improve outcomes.
Topics: Continuous Planning, Product Information Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, supplier relationship management, Property Technology
Fix Sales and Operations Planning to Improve Financial Efficiency
Several years ago, I noted the importance of gaining resilience in managing supply chains. The world had entered a new era of trade following the financial crisis of 2007, as multilateral relationships were steadily fragmenting. For decades, sourcing and supply chain management was focused almost exclusively on achieving the lowest cost, and the world’s trade environment supported this approach. However, I observed that the new era of trade, supply chain planning and execution, would be more complex, and organizations needed to shift focus to emphasize business continuity and sustainability, accommodating change with the least disruption at the lowest cost. Sourcing decisions, logistics and product design would be crafted with an eye to a far-from-perfect and changeable world. Higher costs would be balanced against necessary resilience and sustainability, supported by the ability to make changes rapidly with assurance and limited risk.
Topics: Office of Finance, Continuous Planning, Business Planning, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain
The Digital Awakening of Business Process Intelligence
The work environment today demands that your organization advances the efficiency to execute business processes for continuous operations to have a positive impact on business performance. The capability to be responsive to any range of minor to disruptive business events is required to support business continuity and level of organizational readiness to meet the needs of digital business. Ventana Research asserts that in 2025, one-quarter of organizations will remain digitally ineffective in achieving the business priorities for customer-, product- and people-related processes. It is essential to eliminate bottlenecks and become an organization that places action and decision-making at is center to optimize the execution of business processes.
Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Contact Center, Data, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, Digital transformation, natural language processing, AI and Machine Learning, continuous supply chain, agent management, Digital Business, Experience Management, Field Service, Process Mining, Streaming Analytics
BillingPlatform Bolsters the Rise of Subscription Services
Subscription management and billing services help organizations offer unique benefits and enhance delivery to customers. By making services more personalized, organizations can acquire – and retain – more customers.
Topics: Sales, Office of Finance, Continuous Planning, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Product Information Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, natural language processing, AI and Machine Learning, revenue and lease accounting, continuous supply chain, Subscription Management, partner management, digital finance, Process Mining, Streaming Analytics, supplier relationship management
The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcase advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to the improved processes and performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations to advance business and IT.
Topics: Continuous Planning, Analytics, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, Conversational Computing, AI and Machine Learning, collaborative computing, continuous supply chain, work experience management
Innovit Named a Vendor with Merit in the 2021 PIM Value Index
We are happy to share some insights about Innovit MDM drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Data, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Office of Sales
Viamedici Named a Vendor with Merit in the 2021 PIM Value Index
We are happy to share some insights about Viamedici EPIM drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Marketing, Data Governance, Data, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Office of Sales, data operations
Contentserv is a Vendor with Merit in the 2021 PIM Value Index
We are happy to share some insights about Contentserv CS drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Marketing, Data Governance, Data, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Office of Sales, data operations
Perfion Named a Vendor with Merit in the 2021 PIM Value Index
We are happy to share some insights about Perfion drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Marketing, Data Governance, Data, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Office of Sales, data operations
Winshuttle is a Vendor with Merit in the 2021 PIM Value Index
We are happy to share some insights about Winshuttle EnterWorks drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Marketing, Data Governance, Data, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Office of Sales, data operations
Palantir Earns Overall Digital Innovation Award for 2021
The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcase advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to the improved processes and performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations to advance business and IT.
Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Continuous Planning, embedded analytics, Learning Management, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Information Management, Internet of Things, Business Planning, Contact Center, Data, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management, Workforce Management, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Technology, Digital Marketing, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Revenue, blockchain, natural language processing, data lakes, Total Compensation Management, robotic finance, Predictive Planning, employee experience, candidate engagement, Conversational Computing, Continuous Payroll, AI and Machine Learning, collaborative computing, mobile computing, continuous supply chain, Subscription Management, agent management, extended reality, intelligent marketing, sales enablement, work experience management, lease and tax accounting, robotic automation
Oracle is a Vendor of Merit in the 2021 PIM Value Index
We are happy to share some insights about Oracle’s Product Lifecycle Management Cloud drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Continuous Planning, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, work experience management
inRiver is a Vendor of Assurance in the 2021 PIM Value Index
We are happy to share some insights about inRiver PIM drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Marketing, Data Governance, Data, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Office of Sales, data operations
IBM Named an Innovative Vendor in the 2021 PIM Value Index
We are happy to share some insights about IBM Product Master drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Continuous Planning, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, work experience management
Bluestone PIM Named a Vendor of Assurance in the 2021 Value Index
We are happy to share some insights about Bluestone PIM drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, work experience management
Stibo Systems is Innovative in the 2021 PIM Value Index
We are happy to share some insights about Stibo Systems Enterprise Platform drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Continuous Planning, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, work experience management
Riversand is Exemplary and a Leader in the 2021 PIM Value Index
We are happy to share some insights about Riversand PX 360 drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Marketing, Data Governance, Data, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Office of Sales, data operations
We are happy to share some insights about Magnitude Agility PIM drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Marketing, Data Governance, Data, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Office of Sales, data operations
Salsify is Exemplary and a Leader in the 2021 PIM Value Index
We are happy to share some insights about Salsify ProductXM drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Marketing, Data Governance, Data, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Office of Sales, data operations
Pimcore Named Exemplary and Overall Leader in 2021 PIM Value Index
We are happy to share some insights about Pimcore Platform drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Marketing, Data Governance, Data, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Office of Sales, data operations
Akeneo Rated Exemplary Leader in the 2021 PIM Value Index
We are happy to share some insights about Akeneo Serenity drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Marketing, Data Governance, Data, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Office of Sales, data operations
Informatica is Exemplary and Leader in the 2021 PIM Value Index
We are happy to share some insights about Informatica's Product 360 drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.
Topics: Marketing, Data Governance, Data, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Office of Sales, data operations
The 2021 Product Information Management Value Index: 16 Vendors to Assess and Select
I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Value Index research, an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Product Information Management 2021 is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research. Drawing on our Benchmark Research, we apply a structured methodology built on evaluation categories that reflect the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal to product information management software vendors supporting the spectrum of business intelligence. Using this methodology, we evaluated vendor submissions in seven categories: five relevant to the Product Experience ﹘ Adaptability, Capability, Manageability, Reliability and Usability ﹘ and two related to the Customer Experience ﹘ Total Cost of Ownership/Return on Investment and Vendor Validation.
Topics: Sales, Marketing, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning
Reinventing Product Experiences Through Product Information Management
Having just completed the 2021 Ventana Research Value Index for Product Information Management, I want to share some of my observations about how the market and category have advanced since our first examination over 15 years ago.
Topics: Marketing, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, Office of Sales
SAP Service Cloud Bridges the Contact Center and the Back Office
The contact center is still, for most businesses, where customer experience is designed, delivered and measured. And as we might expect, customer experience (CX) tools are migrating from where they started point solutions based on narrow functions into broader suites that encompass multi-departmental functions and reach across customer journeys. The goal is to provide more consistency across interactions, and to provide organizations with deeper insights into customer behavior along with control over the various moments of influence that occur along the lifecycle.
Topics: Customer Experience, Marketing, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, Digital Commerce, Enterprise Resource Planning, agent management
The Operations and Supply Chain Market Agenda for 2021: Increasing Agility and Resilience of the Supply Chain
Ventana Research recently announced its 2021 research agenda for Operations and Supply Chain, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for nearly two decades to help organizations across industries derive optimal value from business technology and improve outcomes.
Topics: Continuous Planning, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, work experience management
ShipChain Earns our 13th Digital Innovation Award for Operations and Supply Chain
The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcases advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to improved efficiency and productivity in the processes and the performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations that advance business and IT.
Topics: Continuous Planning, Data, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, blockchain, continuous supply chain
ServiceNow: Now Platform earns our Overall Digital Innovation Award
The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcases advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to improved efficiency and productivity in the processes and the performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations that advance business and IT.
Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Contact Center, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, robotic finance, employee experience, continuous supply chain, agent management, work experience management
Zuora and Subscription Management: Suite and Platform to Address Digital Business
The last decade has seen exponential growth amongst subscription-based business models. Pioneered in the B2C market with cloud-based SaaS offerings, the last decade has seen exponential growth in the share of the economy that is now subscription based. Increasingly, this modern business model is permeating throughout more traditional style industries and companies. But regardless of whether a company is natively subscription based, or is transitioning, maintaining this growth requires organizations to foster long-term relationships with customers and deliver products and services that get better over time.
Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, natural language processing, robotic finance, AI and Machine Learning, revenue and lease accounting, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, sales enablement
Subscription and Usage Management Technology Needs for the Modern Economy
Subscription-based business models have seen exponential growth over the last decade. The growth of this recurring revenue business model, where a subscriber commits to repeatedly pay for a good or device for a fixed or indefinite timeline, has been caused by the shift from the one-time selling of physical products to selling digital services on a subscription basis. The first phase of this transformation was led by “digitally native” organizations, typically B2C, that have only ever offered services via subscription. Although a large market in its own right, it is still dwarfed by businesses selling physical products. But this market is also changing, as more and more traditional organizations transition some or all of their revenue to the subscription economy. Ventana Research asserts that through 2023, fewer than half of organizations will have the correct technology in place to support such a transition. This Analyst Perspective looks at some of the key implications of this transition and what it means for technology choices as companies move toward a subscription management approach to overseeing the subscribers and usage of their products and services.
Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, natural language processing, robotic finance, AI and Machine Learning, revenue and lease accounting, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, sales enablement
OneStream Wins Our Innovation Award in Office of Finance with Analytic Blend
One of the challenges of being a practically minded technology analyst is squaring the importance of “the next big thing” with the reality of what most organizations are doing. For decades it’s been the case that “the next big thing” in the world of information technology is easily several years ahead of where most organizations are in their use of technology. And before most organizations can realize the benefit of some whiz-bang technology, they frequently need to address a range of more mundane issues, such as data availability and accuracy, employee training and corporate culture, among other impediments. Sometimes, though, advanced technology works to uncomplicate things for organizations.
Topics: Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Sales Performance Management, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Marketing, Work and Resource Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, robotic finance, Predictive Planning, AI and Machine Learning, revenue and lease accounting, Subscription Management, intelligent sales
The Business Continuity Imperative: The Continuous Planning Experience and Organizational Agility in 2020 and Beyond
Business planning is an essential part of an organization’s focus on its future performance and overall potential because it ensures continuous operations, even in black-swan events. Planning across the entire organization needs to be a critical priority and leadership should give it the attention it deserves. In challenging times, a focus on execution tends to take hold — this is not unreasonable but in focusing on satisfying immediate customer and workforce needs and putting out fires, business leaders too often forget that forward-looking continuous planning is essential to achieving desired outcomes. Fulfilling this objective requires technology designed to meet these needs for every business process in the organization.
Topics: Sales, Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Continuous Planning, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Data, Sales Performance Management, Workforce Management, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Total Compensation Management, Predictive Planning, Conversational Computing
In late February I attended Spark, the Scout annual user group meeting. This was the third and likely the last such meeting, as Scout was recently acquired by Workday. Scout’s users represent a new breed of purchasing managers and executives looking to change the role of the purchasing department. This change is critical for businesses. Saving money is the essential job of sourcing and purchasing departments. But departments can go far beyond that, helping support product and go-to-market strategies that are more complex and innovative. To empower this change, the bulk of conference content included experience-driven advice from practitioners who are pioneering the evolution of sourcing and procurement.
Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, purchasing, procurement, sourcing
The Ventana Research Operations and the Supply Chain Agenda in 2020
Ventana Research recently announced its 2020 research agenda for operations and the supply chain, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for nearly two decades to help organizations across industries derive optimal value from business technology and improve outcomes. Organizations must shift their focus on technology investments to include not just operational productivity but the efficiency of the processes that impact customers’ and workers’ experiences.
Topics: Continuous Planning, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain
Blockchains Pose Problems of Persistence and Trust
I’ve written before about blockchain’s significant potential. A lot of the current discussion on the topic centers on cryptocurrencies and financial trading platforms, both of which are already in operation. However, my focus is on its applicability to business generally, especially in B2B commerce, where I believe there is significant potential for it to serve as a universal data connector. There’s also a great deal of potential for blockchain to provide individuals with greater power in managing their identity and greasing the wheels of trade. That noted, those designing and planning to implement commerce-related blockchains must address fundamental issues if blockchain technology is to achieve its potential.
Topics: Sales, Human Capital Management, business intelligence, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Data, Product Information Management, Digital Commerce, Enterprise Resource Planning, blockchain, candidate engagement, collaborative computing, continuous supply chain
Kinaxis recently held its annual user conference, Kinexions, which focuses on helping the company’s customers improve their execution of supply chain and sales and operations planning (S&OP). Its RapidResponse software handles S&OP, demand, supply, inventory and capacity planning. S&OP is a function sorely in need of improvement: Our research finds that only 22 percent of companies perform it well or very well.
Topics: Continuous Planning, Analytics, Enterprise Resource Planning, AI and Machine Learning, continuous supply chain, business digital commerce
What’s the easiest way to completely immobilize a 500,000-ton ship?
Lose a sheet of paper.
The paperwork that accompanies international trade is a serious source of friction, inefficiency — and therefore cost — in supply chain execution. Trade documentation requires massive amounts of paper that today can be replaced by digital data. In 2018, Maersk, the world’s largest shipping company, teamed up with IBM to create TradeLens, a digital platform that utilizes blockchain technology as a secure, unified source of trade transaction data used by businesses, financial institutions and government authorities. TradeLens is designed to enable all participants to connect, share information and collaborate, providing them with a comprehensive view of the data they need to transact trade. The system makes it possible to digitally collaborate in handling their global supply chains.
Topics: Office of Finance, Continuous Planning, Internet of Things, Data, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, blockchain, continuous supply chain
Infor recently held their Innovation Summit at Infor corporate headquarters in New York. At this annual event, they spend a good deal of time talking about progress on current initiatives and the exciting parts of the development roadmap. A key focus this year was AI and machine learning with Infor Coleman.
Topics: ERP, Office of Finance, Enterprise Resource Planning
“Platform,” as used in the world of technology, originally referred to an operating system on which one could construct software applications. More recently, its usage has been expanded to apply to two types of business models. One enables third parties to create products and services that are complementary to a company’s core technology. For instance, both Apple and Salesforce have attracted a wide array of third-party software developers whose offerings greatly increase the value of each software vendor’s platform to its customers. The second, such as Amazon’s marketplace, Facebook, Twitter and Uber, facilitates transactions and interactions. This latter type adds value by reducing transaction frictions and increasing efficiency and, in attracting large numbers of people to the platform, enables innovative business offerings to take advantage of Metcalf’s law — the “network effect.”
Topics: Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Continuous Planning, Information Management, Internet of Things, Workforce Management, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Marketing, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, robotic finance, Predictive Planning, revenue and lease accounting, collaborative computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management
From my perspective there were two significant takeaways from this year’s SuiteWorld. The first is that, almost two years on from the announced acquisition of NetSuite by Oracle, the combination has achieved its immediate objectives in growing NetSuite’s business, especially in Europe and Asia, and accelerating product development efforts. The second takeaway is that, at least for now, the unit appears to continue to operate as if the combination were a private equity investment by a public company.
Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, robotic finance, Predictive Planning
Supply Chain Management and Sourcing in a New Era of Trade
We’re in a new era of trade, the result of converging issues that have been building for at least a decade. Structurally and politically, the liberal ethos that drove the trade environment through the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st has changed. There will be a new equilibrium in the future; getting there, though, will be a bumpy ride. Adding to the challenges posed by a shifting trade environment are commodity and currency market volatility and the impacts of ongoing legal, regulatory and taxation changes.
Topics: Office of Finance, Recurring Revenue, Continuous Planning, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Inventory Optimization, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, Sales and Operations Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Sales Planning and Analytics, revenue recognition
Workiva recently introduced Wdata, a cloud facility for centralizing financial and non-financial information from multiple sources. It frees up time for finance organizations, especially financial planning and analysis (FP&A) groups, to explore conditions and trends in their business because they need to spend less of it gathering data and preparing it for analysis and reporting. Ventana Research recently awarded Workiva our Digital Innovation award for Wdata because of its transformative potential.
Topics: Office of Finance, Recurring Revenue, Continuous Planning, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Sales Planning and Analytics, revenue recognition
Kinaxis Assists in the Planning of Supply Chains for the New Era of Trade
Kinaxis recently held its annual user conference, Kinexions, which focuses on helping the company’s customers improve their execution of supply chain and sales and operations planning (S&OP). This year’s event took place against a backdrop of what is beginning to look like a new and more challenging era of world trade. This will have a significant impact on most product companies with international operations. (I also reviewed last year’s event, which can be found here.)
Topics: Continuous Planning, Financial Performance Management, Inventory Optimization, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, Sales and Operations Planning
A recent analysis of our sales and operations planning (S&OP) dynamic insight research provides perspective on the current state of this core business process. Using concise web-based surveys, Ventana Research’s Dynamic Insights provide research participants with an immediate assessment of their company’s efforts as well as research- and experience-based advice on potential next steps to improve. For those who wish to do a quick assessment of their own company’s sales and operations planning, the Dynamic Insight can be found here.
Topics: Continuous Planning, Product Information Management, Inventory Optimization, Work and Resource Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, Sales and Operations Planning, Sales Planning and Analytics
Was accounting ever cool? Well, yes, in a nerdy sort of way. Double-entry bookkeeping, codified in the 15th century by Fra Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan friar and pal of Leonardo Da Vinci, was essential for the expansion of trade and the creation of the modern corporation. Bookkeeping and accounting were as important to economic development as two other financial inventions – insurance and fractional reserve banking. Double-entry bookkeeping is an elegant system, simple yet powerful. It supports the accurate recording of transactions and the economic condition of a business as well as analyses of its performance. That’s cool.
Topics: Big Data, Office of Finance, Continuous Planning, business intelligence, Analytics, Financial Performance Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting
Warning: Software Now Mandatory for Lease Accounting
Accountants love electronic spreadsheets – and for good reason. They’re a powerful and versatile personal productivity tool and just about everyone knows how to use them. Spreadsheets are the default software tool for accountants because they enable autonomy (you don’t need to ask IT for anything) and they’re free (so you don’t have to make a business case to authorize buying something). Some accountants humorously (but earnestly) invoke the line “you’ll have to pry this spreadsheet from my cold, dead hands” whenever somebody suggests eliminating them.
Topics: ERP, Office of Finance, Continuous Accounting, FASB, IASB, CFO, controller, Financial Performance Management, Spreadsheets, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, revenue recognition, Accounting, Lease Accounting, real estate, Lease Management, ASC842, IFRS16, leasing
Pricing is an issue that almost every for-profit company confronts – and usually agonizes over. Organizations’ approach to pricing can range from centralized to decentralized and from highly disciplined to lax. Whether pricing is best handled in a centralized or decentralized fashion depends a great deal on the markets the company is serving as well as its organizational structure and culture. However specific pricing policies are established, though, a disciplined approach to price setting and negotiation is always superior to an ad-hoc process. Discipline is key to preventing margin “leakage” caused by unnecessary price concessions. Configure, price and quote (CPQ) software is a critical component in any leakage-prevention strategy.
Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Enterprise Resource Planning
Oracle Demonstrates ERP Cloud Progress at OpenWorld
Oracle OpenWorld is a fall event that sprawls over a lot of territory – figuratively in terms of the IT landscape and, if you’re in San Francisco, literally. My focus here is on the ERP portion of the company’s software portfolio.
Topics: Office of Finance, Recurring Revenue, Cloud Computing, asc 606, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, revenue recognition
Sage Intacct recently held its annual user group meeting. The cloud financial management software service provider targets rapidly growing small- and midsize services companies. Within this broad category, Sage Intacct focuses on verticals including software, financial services, healthcare, nonprofits, wholesale and franchisers.
Topics: Office of Finance, Recurring Revenue, Cloud Computing, asc 606, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, revenue recognition
I recently attended SuiteWorld, NetSuite’s annual user conference. In the opening keynotes and throughout the event speakers emphasized benefits for NetSuite users resulting from the merger of NetSuite and Oracle, completed last fall. I wrote about this at the time. NetSuite users are likely to benefit from Oracle’s sales and core technology infrastructure. Before the merger, NetSuite’s R&D spending was constrained by being a public company. The amounts needed to rebuild and extend its software on an accelerated timetable likely would not have been acceptable to stock market investors.
Topics: Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Recurring Revenue, Cloud Computing, HRMS, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting
Zuora, a subscription commerce and billing software company, recently acquired Leeyo, a company that provides software that automates the revenue recognition and forecasting processes. The terms were not disclosed. The acquisition is relevant to subscription-based businesses because of changes to accounting standards about to go into effect that will have a significant impact on how they account for their revenue. Leeyo and Zuora already have been deployed together with multiple ERP systems. The combined company plans to tighten integration between the two going forward.
Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Continuous Planning, Contact Center, Financial Performance Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting
Oracle recently held its second ERP Cloud Summit with industry analysts. The all-day event wasn’t just about ERP. The company covered a range of its business applications, including financial performance management as well as its Adaptive Intelligent Applications. And it wasn’t just about the cloud. After more than a decade of steady developments, ERP systems have begun to change fundamentally, facilitated by the growing availability of new technologies including cloud computing, advanced database architecture, collaboration, user interface design, mobility, analytics and planning. Here are my key takeaways from the event:
Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Mobile, Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Machine Learning, Office of Finance, Analytics, Data Integration, Internet of Things, Cognitive Computing, HRMS, Financial Performance Management, Mobile Marketing Digital Commerce, Digital Marketing, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting
Ventana Research recently announced the results of its latest Benchmark Research, Next-Generation ERP. The enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is at the core of nearly every company’s record-keeping and management of business processes. Its smooth and uninterrupted functioning is essential to an organization’s accounting and finance functions. In manufacturing and distribution, ERP manages inventory and logistics. Some companies use it to handle human resources functions like tracking employees, payroll and related costs.
Topics: Big Data, Mobile, Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Inventory Optimization, Work and Resource Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting
Digital Process Reengineering Drives Business Change
Business process reengineering was a consulting fashion in the early 1990s that spurred many companies to purchase their first ERP systems. BPR proposes a fundamental redesign of core business processes to achieve substantial improvements in market and customer responsiveness, productivity, cycle times and quality. ERP systems support business process reengineering by guiding the step-by-step execution of the redesigned process to ensure that it is performed consistently. They also automate the handoffs between individuals and departments to accelerate completion of that process.
Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Mobile, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Machine Learning, Office of Finance, Wearable Computing, Continuous Planning, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data Integration, Internet of Things, Financial Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Marketing, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Sales Planning and Analytics
Senior finance executives and finance organizations that want to improve their performance must recognize the value of technology as a key tool for doing high-quality work. Consider how poorly your organization would perform if it had to operate using 25-year-old software and hardware. Having the latest technology isn’t always necessary, but it’s important for executives to understand that technology shapes a finance organization’s ability to improve its overall effectiveness.
Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Mobile, Human Capital Management, Mobile Technology, Office of Finance, Continuous Planning, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Inventory Optimization, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, Sales and Operations Planning, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing, ERP and Continuous Accounting
Oracle and NetSuite have completed their merger. The combination is likely to be positive for customers because NetSuite will have access to “more,” a word repeated many times over the course of Oracle’s post-acquisition webcast. Existing NetSuite customers will benefit from increased investment as well as economies of scale that Oracle can bring to R&D and sales and marketing. Oracle has stated that there’s little overlap between its target customer base and NetSuite’s. However, there is substantial overlap with NetSuite’s application partner network because of Oracle’s own broad application portfolio. As such, many of these partners are likely to shift their attention to NetSuite’s cloud-only competitors (for example, FinancialForce and Intacct), which will benefit those rivals’ sales and marketing efforts.
Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Continuous Planning, Customer Service, HRMS, Price and Revenue Management, Work and Resource Management, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, Sales and Operations Planning
