Microsoft CRM Integration & Customization: SharePoint Document Gateway

MS CRM is very close to document workflow automation, including Microsoft Office documents: Words, Excel, etc. The document workflow was perfectly automated about 10 years ago in Lotus Notes Domino. In this small article we describe the solution based on MS CRM integration with MS SharePoint.

Microsoft CRM is new player on CRM applications market and it is gaining its market share. Having different paradigm in its design (it stakes on Microsoft OS and technologies and completely disregards alternative platform, such as UNIX, Linux, Oracle, etc. based). Microsoft CRM market is very diversified: from small (5 users) to large (several hundred MS CRM User licenses) and it serves variety of industries: Transportation, Logistics, Lawyers, Pension Funds, High-Tech, and many others. Deploying technologies, like Windows Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange 2003/2000, SQL Server, Crystal Reports Enterprise, Biztalk, Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Great Plains and Navision in close future - makes CRM a beloved system for Microsoft oriented IT departments.

Let's go right to the topic.

Major issue with storing documents in MS CRM in the form of attachments to Activity is inability to work on these attached files in cooperation with other colleagues, who do not have to use CRM. When several service people serve requests from the same client this is required. Currently you can use alternative way when you store office documents in the folders of your file system and when modifying document, you save it and reattach to CRM. This is inconvenient, because first it requires all your editing users to have CRM licenses, which delays CRM implementation.

We seem increasing popularity of document storage systems, like Microsoft SharePoint, Oracle Files, etc. Such systems, being implemented gives you time savings, related to documents revisions and versioning, approval cycles and workflows, web access through web-portals systems and the like.

The target of our product is Microsoft SharePoint integration with MS CRM for document storage. Let's take a look at the high level technical realization details:

oMain modification from the MS CRM side is standard system behavior change when you open attachment in Activity. Standard unmodified CRM suggests you to store documents in the file system. Modified version sores document in SharePoint Document Library (the required library is subject for setup by MS CRM system administrator) or keep it in MS CRM as is (for documents of minor importance). From the moment of saving the document in SharePoint Document Library it is not stored in MS CRM - CRM will now store only the link/reference to the document. Also you are given the ability to open and modify the document at the place of opening, which speeds up MS CRM user performance substantially.

oTable, storing the links to the documents sits in separate database and doesn't deal with MS CRM tables (you know that you are banned to do structure changes in MS CRM db)

oDocument saving into MS SharePoint process occurs in MS CRM and with its assistance - SharePoint bridge, which does addition and update for the existing document into destination Document Library with MS SharePoint Web Services calls

oUpon the addition into Document Library, MS CRM - SharePoint bridge registers the document in the special table for the future data extraction or notification mechanism registration

oThen, interested users can work with the documents just using MS Office 2003 or other programs/editing tools, assuming these tools have access to MS SharePoint

oFeedback is provided by MS SharePoint Event Handler component. This is special handler, inspecting document change status, transferred from MS CRM to document storage (SharePoint), and report Activity owner on the changes with home page notifications (User home page in MS CRM). User in turn can review the history of the document editing - who, when and where is the change

oOpening Activity, where document is "attached", and in fact placed into MS SharePoint Document Library, and pressing opening button, MS CRM user gets live version of the data

oThis approach allows you seamless work with MS CRM document in the whole informational space of your company

oAdditional enhancements to this product might be document library management directly from MS CRM (web interface - meaning remotely), administrative interface for MS Sharepoint documents revision, ability to create reports on the document storage status, rights/access management (Author, Reader, Contributor etc) from MS CRM, portal pages integration into MS CRM to name a few.

The History of CRM -- Moving Beyond the Customer Database

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is one of those magnificent concepts
that swept the business world in the 1990's with the promise of forever changing
the way businesses small and large interacted with their customer bases. In the
short term, however, it proved to be an unwieldy process that was better in
theory than in practice for a variety of reasons. First among these was that it
was simply so difficult and expensive to track and keep the high volume of
records needed accurately and constantly update them.
In the last several years, however, newer software systems and advanced
tracking features have vastly improved CRM capabilities and the real promise of
CRM is becoming a reality. As the price of newer, more customizable Internet
solutions have hit the marketplace; competition has driven the prices down so
that even relatively small businesses are reaping the benefits of some custom
CRM programs.
In the beginning...
The 1980's saw the emergence of database marketing, which was simply a catch
phrase to define the practice of setting up customer service groups to speak
individually to all of a company's customers.
In the case of larger, key clients it was a valuable tool for keeping the
lines of communication open and tailoring service to the clients needs. In the
case of smaller clients, however, it tended to provide repetitive, survey-like
information that cluttered databases and didn't provide much insight. As
companies began tracking database information, they realized that the bare bones
were all that was needed in most cases: what they buy regularly, what they
spend, what they do.
Advances in the 1990's
In the 1990's companies began to improve on Customer Relationship Management
by making it more of a two-way street. Instead of simply gathering data for
their own use, they began giving back to their customers not only in terms of
the obvious goal of improved customer service, but in incentives, gifts and
other perks for customer loyalty.
This was the beginning of the now familiar frequent flyer programs, bonus
points on credit cards and a host of other resources that are based on CRM
tracking of customer activity and spending patterns. CRM was now being used as a
way to increase sales passively as well as through active improvement of
customer service.
True CRM comes of age
Real Customer Relationship Management as it's thought of today really began
in earnest in the early years of this century. As software companies began
releasing newer, more advanced solutions that were customizable across
industries, it became feasible to really use the information in a dynamic way.

Instead of feeding information into a static database for future reference,
CRM became a way to continuously update understanding of customer needs and
behavior. Branching of information, sub-folders, and custom tailored features
enabled companies to break down information into smaller subsets so that they
could evaluate not only concrete statistics, but information on the motivation
and reactions of customers.
The Internet provided a huge boon to the development of these huge databases
by enabling offsite information storage. Where before companies had difficulty
supporting the enormous amounts of information, the Internet provided new
possibilities and CRM took off as providers began moving toward Internet
solutions.
With the increased fluidity of these programs came a less rigid relationship
between sales, customer service and marketing. CRM enabled the development of
new strategies for more cooperative work between these different divisions
through shared information and understanding, leading to increased customer
satisfaction from order to end product.
Today, CRM is still utilized most frequently by companies that rely heavily
on two distinct features: customer service or technology. The three sectors of
business that rely most heavily on CRM -- and use it to great advantage -- are
financial services, a variety of high tech corporations and the
telecommunications industry.
The financial services industry in particular tracks the level of client
satisfaction and what customers are looking for in terms of changes and
personalized features. They also track changes in investment habits and spending
patterns as the economy shifts. Software specific to the industry can give
financial service providers truly impressive feedback in these areas.
Who's in the CRM game?
About 50% of the CRM market is currently divided between five major players
in the industry: PeopleSoft, Oracle, SAP, Siebel and relative newcomer
Telemation, based on Linux and developed by an old standard, Database Solutions,
Inc.
The other half of the market falls to a variety of other players, although
Microsoft's new emergence in the CRM market may cause a shift soon. Whether
Microsoft can capture a share of the market remains to be seen. However, their
brand-name familiarity may give them an edge with small businesses considering a
first-time CRM package.
PeopleSoft was founded in the mid-1980's by Ken Morris and Dave
Duffield as a client-server based human resources application. In 1998,
PeopleSoft had evolved into a purely Internet based system, PeopleSoft 8.
There's no client software to maintain and it supports over 150 applications.
PeopleSoft 8 is the brainchild of over 2,000 dedicated developers and $500
million in research and development.
PeopleSoft branched out from their original human resources platform in the
1990's and now supports everything from customer service to supply chain
management. Its user-friendly system required minimal training is relatively
inexpensive to deploy. .
One of PeopleSoft's major contributions to CRM was their detailed analytic
program that identifies and ranks the importance of customers based on numerous
criteria, including amount of purchase, cost of supplying them, and frequency of
service.
Oracle built a solid base of high-end customers in the late 1980's,
then burst into national attention around 1990 when, under Tom Siebel, the
company aggressively marketed a small-to-medium business CRM solution.
Unfortunately they couldn't follow up themselves on the incredible sales they
garnered and ran into a few years of real problems.
Oracle landed on its feet after a restructuring and their own refocusing on
customer needs and by the mid-1990's the company was once again a leader in CRM
technologies. They continue to be one of the leaders in the enterprise
marketplace with the Oracle Customer Data Management System.
Telemation's CRM solution is flexible and user-friendly, with a
toolkit that makes changing features and settings relatively easy. The system
also provides a quick learning environment that newcomers will appreciate. Its
uniqueness lies in that, although compatible with Windows, it was developed as a
Linux program. Will Linux be the wave of the future? We don't know, but if it
is, Telemation's ahead of the game.
The last few years...
In 2002, Oracle released their Global CRM in 90 Days package that promised
quick implementation of CRM throughout company offices. Offered with the package
was a set fee service for set-up and training for core business needs. .
Also in 2002 (a stellar year for CRM), SAP America's mySAP began using a
"middleware" hub that was capable of connecting SAP systems to externals and
front and back office systems for a unified operation that links partners,
employees, process and technologies in a closed-loop function.

BI Approaches of Enterprise Software Vendors

The need for business intelligence (BI) is real for all enterprise software users. It is rare to find a user who feels they get the information they need from their enterprise software system and even those who do want more. The need is not just reporting; they need business monitoring, analysis, an understanding of why things are happening. They need diagnostic tools.

Enterprise software systems are designed as transaction processing tools and job one is to optimize for this need. For most enterprise software systems, reporting is a secondary objective and not usually a driving force when the system was originally designed. BI is designed with the objectives of reporting and analysis. BI has the power to significantly increase the value of enterprise software by turning the information captured in the system into knowledge and guidance about the business.

Today, the majority of enterprise software vendors sees this need and are proactively addressing it. However, their strategies different as do the impact of these strategies on their customers.

Enterprise Software Vendor Approaches

The enterprise software vendor community has delivered or is working on BI solutions. Their strategy options have included

1. Develop its own system
2. Partner with large "horizontal" BI vendor
3. Partner with small "boutique" BI vendor
4. Remain "BI agnostic" encouraging customers to choose their own

Enterprise Software Vendor Develops Its Own

Large enterprise software vendors have the resources and the business motivation to invest in their own solutions. This includes the underlying technology and the analytical applications. For example, Oracle and SAP have built and are marketing in-house developed solutions.

Large enterprises choose this strategy because they

* Have the internal resources to build and maintain their own solution

* Can leverage their product knowledge

* Feel they have a better understanding of their customers needs

* Have total control over the development direction (enhancements, fixes, etc.)

* Find it more profitable (they control pricing and don't have to share license, support, and services revenues)

* Have a mindset of products should "be invented here"

What is the impact on their customers? For most customers, this is probably a good choice for many of the reasons stated above. The possible exceptions to this include

* Price is too high (often, the vendor expects a premium over alternative options for the reasons stated above); and

* The need to integrate other data sources into the BI solution and the enterprise software vendor's solution is weak in this area.

Enterprise Software Vendor Partners With Large "Horizontal" BI Vendor

Both first and second tier vendors partner with large "horizontal" BI vendors. Examples of these vendors include SSA GT (Cognos) and I2 (Business Objects). The large horizontal vendors they partner with include Cognos, Business Objects, and Brio (now Hyperion).

They choose this strategy because they

* Realize they don't have the resources to develop and support

* They see a recognizable (BI) name as a marketing advantage

* Attach the BI vendor's large size to the image of stability

* See the BI vendor's reference customers as an assist in selling efforts

* See a very broad BI product line from the horizontal BI vendor

What is the impact on their customers? Many customers certainly see benefits in the relationship with a large horizontal BI vendor. Stability and a broad product line are important. These vendors also enable the connection of other data sources to the BI solution. What issues should customers investigate if their enterprise software vendor follows this strategy?

* These BI vendors tend to offer product suites that are broad but lack deep industry specific needs. Are your industry specific needs provided by the solution?

* The horizontal BI vendor may have a large customer base, but limited customers in your specific industry. Does this make a difference to you?

* As both the enterprise and BI products evolve, who is responsible for keeping the two in synch? Who is responsible for the integration?

* A solution based upon a BI product from a horizontal may be overkill in terms of function, support requirements, and cost.

* Can you support the hardware and software required for a solution based upon a horizontal BI vendor?

JD Edwards’ Alliances: Is It Too Much of a Good Thing?

Enterprise application vendor JD Edwards has forged a number of alliances since September 1999 as the company looks to expand the availability of its OneWorld product suite.

In a two-pronged attack, the company has secured an agreement with Andersen Consulting and extended its existing deal with IBM Global Services. It will concentrate on the consumer packaged goods market, and a co-development deal with Andersen will provide collaborative brand management and promotions applications.

The JD Edwards storefront for e-business will be powered using IBM's Websphere Commerce suite and will be available in the spring. Doug Massingill, chief executive of JD Edwards, said: "We have to give customers a solid, integrated platform that scales, and for us, that means reselling Websphere. We're going for the one-to-few rather than one-to-many sector with Andersen and IBM, providing customization services."

JD Edwards has also reviewed its reselling agreement with Siebel to include Siebel's entire suite of front office applications. Alongside these agreements, JD Edwards will focus on its demand planning, scheduling and product configuration products that include applications from last year's Numetrix acquisition and the partnership with Synquest. JDE has also decided to enter the arena of B2B electronic exchanges with Active Marketplace. The TRADEX Commerce Center platform is the basis for this and as with other exchanges, the idea is to link trading communities in an on-line marketplace. Yet another partnership is with Extensity, a vendor that delivers automated travel and expense reporting software.

Mike Schmitt, senior vice president of product strategy at JD Edwards, said: "Mid-market enterprises need to respond to competition from customer-driven digital exchanges. These applications add value to their businesses." Schmitt conceded that JD Edwards' own development needs to move forward so that customers get access through a full HTML client, which will be available in June. This will allow ASPs to host on a one-to-many basis, which is not possible under client/server architectures.

JD Edwards is repositioning itself as an enterprise vendor to convince medium sized manufacturing enterprises that it is worthwhile extending their activities into e-business. But managing a large application portfolio, much of which involves partnering or extensive integration and customization, is difficult. "We have to show offerings in all these markets, but today it's hard to know where the demand will concentrate itself. It will be tough for the foot soldiers out there selling," added Schmitt. Asked whether the company is comfortable with having many critical components outside its immediate control, Schmitt said: "We think the OneWorld architecture insulates us from incremental application change issues."

Market Impact

J.D. Edwards has entered 2000 with a bitter taste of a dismal 1999 and a great deal of painstaking integration efforts remaining, both with its recently acquired products and with products of its partners, such as Siebel, Ariba, Extensity, and Synquest. We condone J.D. Edwards' move to reposition itself as an enterprise vendor to convince medium sized manufacturing enterprises that it is worthwhile extending their activities into e-business. Consequently, it has launched ActivEra Solutions, with the idea to present it as an integrated set of front office and back office functions.

The first component of the solution is Active Supply Chain, which combines supply chain planning and execution. This includes advanced planning capability along with traditional functions like warehousing and transportation. It also allows full collaboration with business partners who are given a window into the system through a self-service Internet front end.

The next component is Active Customer Relationship Management, which is mere a repackaging of Siebel's CRM solution along with an electronic storefront solution from IBM.

There is then Active Enterprise (another inventive way to avoid using the infamous word ERP) and finally, Active Procurement (Ariba) to round off the core system components. The whole suite is complimented by Active Knowledge Management, which provides business intelligence and document management capability.

However, we believe that managing this large application portfolio (a kind of a software Frankenstein), much of which involves partnering or extensive integration and customization, will be cumbersome despite its highly marketed flexible product architecture. One should never neglect the inevitable intricacies of managing softer, people issues.

Complementary product alliances can often be a good thing. Nevertheless, it is puzzling why J.D. Edwards needs them more than most of its competitors. Ten alliances have been highlighted in announcements since September 1999. Of these, at least seven deal with functional areas that are included as standard, not only by larger rivals like SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, and Baan, but also by its smaller competitors like Great Plains, Epicor Software, Symix Systems, and IFS AB.

While the best-of-breed approach can have its merits, we believe it invariably leads to additional integration costs and complicates service & support arrangements. Interfaces between significant components like ERP and CRM usually need some tailoring. This can be a barrier to future changes as further modifying already modified code is notoriously time consuming, costly, and risky.

J.D. Edwards' heavy reliance on other vendor's software flies in the face of its aggressive positioning around flexibility, which customers may find very disconcerting. To further rub salt in the wound, the vast majority of its customers are still running both its mature World and new, less mature OneWorld products simultaneously on a single, shared database. This coexistence, bundled with additional future integrations could be a perfect definition of an IT manager's nightmare.

Furthermore, J.D. Edwards has to be careful how it manages its alliances with "big stars" like Siebel and Ariba. In most of its key relationships the partner seems to be more influential and currently has a stronger brand. J.D. Edwards could therefore find it a challenge keeping control of its own destiny.

Both Ariba and Siebel have partnerships with its fierce competitors too. Great Plains, for example, points out that its integration with Siebel is well ahead of J.D. Edwards'. It is in its second phase, meaning the integration on a database level has been completed; the blending of user interfaces is the focus now. Moreover, Great Plains cites that it will not have a conflict of interest with Siebel's sales force in its SME market segment (companies with less than $250 million in revenue). This is not necessarily so in case of J.D. Edwards, which tends to target much larger companies as well.

The strategy also gives J.D. Edwards less control of its own business. ERP has taken a back seat in the market and hot areas like CRM and e-Commerce are driving much more activity. Oracle and SAP are increasingly starting to report wins of new accounts. They also see a broader product portfolio as the means to further mine their large existing customer bases.

J.D. Edwards is not well positioned to compete and develop its business in this way. Its income seems to be much constrained. As a result it will find it increasingly difficult to close the functionality gaps. The market is demanding more and more from vendors and broadening a product offering through R&D or acquisition is very expensive. We wonder whether J.D. Edwards having spent a hefty amount of its R&D expenses on resolving quality inconsistencies, missed functionality, poor performance, and Web-enablement of its OneWorld flagship product; is therefore reticent to undertake any internal development or acquisition of CRM and e-commerce functionality. While this may be a more prudent approach than the risk of following the steps Baan took, the 64,000 dollar question is whether J.D. Edwards' core competency is now going to be system integration.

AS/400 Users’ “Phantom Limb” Pains

As you may know, TEC performs all types of system selection projects with clients in which analysts are usually involved to a lesser or greater degree. In collaboration with a client, analysts usually prepare the “to be”—the future system business and technical requirements document, or request for information (RFI)—and make corrections or additions to the template based on the client’s current needs. Often analysts are astonished about the kind of future requirements that users demand—especially the users of early Application System 400 (AS/400). I clearly understand that with that statement, I am at risk of inciting anger in AS/400 system proponents; nevertheless, I cannot keep silent and as such need to share what I have discovered during these projects.

It is quite a difficult task to understand the nature of a user’s future system requirements. Their requirements often look unusual—until you know what type of system they’re currently using.

Here are some examples of user worries.

• Concern about the availability of multiple internal interfaces . In my understanding, the interfaces for GL and accounts receivable (A/R), GL and fixed assets, and GL and invoicing (for example) are the core of any enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and must be there by default. Moreover, submodules of the same functional module cannot be interfaced to each other, simply because they are inherent parts of a whole. There are no such problems in any modern ERP software packages.

• Odd report formatting concerns bring you to the era of early mainframe environments—in which black spreadsheets are needed to set up the initial spreadsheet layout (field length, number of fields, etc.). How can this be compared with such highly powerful and flexible analytical tools as business intelligence (BI) applications? Is there a need to specifically require cell font formatting or rows sorting capabilities? I don’t think so. It is there by default.

• Having a user’s query as the only way to obtain current information instead of seeing it on the screen, is a big weakness of AS400 software. Still many of the AS/400 programs show users very little except menu screens, lists of running jobs, and a few information fields. Thus users are still concerning about running queries instead of using visual and user-friendly reporting and data mining tools.

• Green and black screens are the most visible attributes of AS/400. It is quite obvious that there is nothing to discuss here; however, it is fair to say that too many different bright colors, too much animation, and a wide variety of fonts and styles available in some modern software applications quickly become a substantive irritating factor.

• There are multiple user concerns about programming and coding, as AS/400 systems require the user to remember and type program codes and be a “light” programmer. I don’t think it is abnormal when an accountant wants to have, say, pseudo-coding capabilities in a new financial system.

• Another worry seems to be obsolete; running multiple “engines” is no longer required. Lots of errors and other problems were related to the simple fact that one or another software engine is not running for some reason.

• The ability to see a document or the results of a report on the screen before printing is still considered a problem in the AS/400 world. This type of functionality is now available to every PC user, and raising this question in terms of new enterprise software requirements is quite strange.

The SCM Perspective: 2009 in Review—and What You Can Do to Weather the Storms of 2010

In spite of the 2009 recession, some SCM vendors were able to create traction in the supply chain space this year. From an industry landscape perspective, three events from 2009 will have a more far-reaching impact than any other in this space, primarily because they’re priming the conditions for still more vendor competition and industry volatility in the year to come.

News item: Oracle announced its launch of Fusion Applications, its mishmash of E-Business Suite/PeopleSoft/JDE/Siebel applications)
So what? As though Oracle’s strengths were not already apparent, Oracle has created an application that can potentially combine the best features and functions from its current product offerings.

News item: JDA and i2 Technologies decided to get back together after a year of shilly-shallying.
So what? With the combination of two leading supply chain products, many vertical industries will benefit from one source of supply chain expertise (with the exception of warehouse management, which is a key piece of the puzzle that JDA seems to be missing).

News item: SAP reevaluated its go-to market strategy for the SAP Business ByDesign SaaS business model.
So what? SAP is taking this market very seriously—which not only means that the giant will continue to chase after it aggressively, but also spells the beginning of the end for software as a commodity, as the market is increasingly treating it as a true service.

Even though many analysts have predicted that economy will recover next year, I am not holding my breath. Current market conditions are still so volatile that organizations are facing crisis conditions in every aspect (technology changes, regulations, price/demand fluctuations, etc), meaning that they need to adapt to change quickly and effectively.

Oracle E-Business Suite vs. Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne for Mixed-mode ERP

They say a picture is worth a thousand words—but in my opinion, graphs are sometimes worth even more. Therefore, I decided to let the graphs do most of the talking about the main differences between Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne (JDE) and E-Business Suite (EBS).

In order to do that, I have selected our Mixed-mode Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Evaluation Center because it has functionality from ERP for discrete, ERP for process, and ERP for engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturing. For those of you who are not familiar with our Evaluation Centers, I should mention that you can use them to compare different software vendors, understand the differences between them, and even use the Evaluation Center data to build beautiful and easy-to-read graphs, like the ones below.

The overall ratings show two very similar products, with almost no difference between each corresponding module.

figure-1.PNG [click to enlarge]

Figure 1. Strengths and weaknesses of the two products for the main sections of Mixed-mode ERP.

The first thing worth mentioning is that for the Financials module, the scores are almost exactly the same, even when we drill down into the subsections and to the lowest level. Some of the subsections, like Fixed Assets, Cash Management, Budgeting, and Project Accounting, are supported 100 percent by both products.

The first important difference between the two products can be found in the Human Resources (HR) module. In the Personnel Management section, EBS outperforms JDE by almost 20 percent, which is mainly due to Management of Rewards (almost not supported by JDE, which offers 1.79 percent support) and Recruitment Management (where the difference between the two products is almost 30 percent).



Figure 2. Strengths and weaknesses of the two products for Personnel Management.

The Health and Safety section of the HR module is not very well supported by either product; each of them seems to cover what the other one doesn’t.



Figure 3. Strengths and weaknesses of the two products for Health and Safety.

There are no surprises for the Manufacturing Management module, except in the Field Service and Repairs section, for which JDE does not support Service Training Management.



Figure 4. Strengths and weaknesses of the two products for Field Service and Repairs.

For Process Manufacturing, the main difference is in Costing, as shown below.



Figure 5. Strengths and weaknesses of the two products for Process Manufacturing Costing.

For the Sales Management module, the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) section shows that EBS offers more support. The case is similar for the section on Reporting and Interfacing Requirements, except that the difference between the two products is smaller.



Figure 6. Strengths and weaknesses of the two products for Sales Management.

The SCM Perspective: 2009 in Review—and What You Can Do to Weather the Storms of 2010

In spite of the 2009 recession, some SCM vendors were able to create traction in the supply chain space this year. From an industry landscape perspective, three events from 2009 will have a more far-reaching impact than any other in this space, primarily because they’re priming the conditions for still more vendor competition and industry volatility in the year to come.

News item: Oracle announced its launch of Fusion Applications, its mishmash of E-Business Suite/PeopleSoft/JDE/Siebel applications)
So what? As though Oracle’s strengths were not already apparent, Oracle has created an application that can potentially combine the best features and functions from its current product offerings.

News item: JDA and i2 Technologies decided to get back together after a year of shilly-shallying.
So what? With the combination of two leading supply chain products, many vertical industries will benefit from one source of supply chain expertise (with the exception of warehouse management, which is a key piece of the puzzle that JDA seems to be missing).

News item: SAP reevaluated its go-to market strategy for the SAP Business ByDesign SaaS business model.
So what? SAP is taking this market very seriously—which not only means that the giant will continue to chase after it aggressively, but also spells the beginning of the end for software as a commodity, as the market is increasingly treating it as a true service.

Even though many analysts have predicted that economy will recover next year, I am not holding my breath. Current market conditions are still so volatile that organizations are facing crisis conditions in every aspect (technology changes, regulations, price/demand fluctuations, etc), meaning that they need to adapt to change quickly and effectively.

What You Can Do to Weather the 2010 Storms

Not everyone has the resources of SAP, Oracle, or JDA to handle change. Here’s what you need to do if you’re not one of the giants:

1. Focus on creating a flexible supply chain that can handle uncertainty and volatility with respect to demand/price changes.
2. Develop operational strategies focused on product branding and customers to provide customer centric models.
3. Create a model of collaboration with partners that will provide end-to-end visibility into the extended supply chain.

Fine, but how? You will need to reevaluate how you are using your technologies. Many organizations can adapt to change by

* using tools such as sales and operations planning (S&OP), linked to advance planning and scheduling (APS) to create a complete view of demand and to determine how pricing needs to be adjusted
* integrating manufacturing, product development, and supply chain applications
* using e-commerce or SaaS models to create an extended supply chain network that allows partners to communicate and collaborate effectively

As Charles Darwin says: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”