Cloud services will be a leading driver of productivity for manufacturers over the next decade. Businesses focused on reducing costs and improving the quality of manufacturing solutions will increasingly turn to the cloud for SaaS solutions. Read this white paper by president and CEO of inKumo, Inc., and find out how this new era of technology will dramatically improve productivity and cost savings in the industry.
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Semiconductor manufacturers can work more closely with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and expand into new markets by using Web 2.0 technologies. Infosys' experts reveal "white spaces" in semiconductor marketing strategies that can be addressed by digital and mobile capabilities. They demonstrate how best practices in information and customer experience embedded in Infosys' Semiconductor Digital Engagement Maturity Model can deliver a competitive advantage.
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Sage 100 Standard ERP (formerly Sage ERP MAS 90), v. 4.5, is TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for services in the ERP Evaluation Center. The certification seal is a valuable indicator for organizations relying on the integrity of TEC research for assistance with their software selection projects. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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Tenrox Project Workforce Management is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of PPM solutions in the Project and Process Management Evaluation Center. The certification seal is a valuable indicator for organizations relying on the integrity of TEC research for assistance with their software selection projects. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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Sage 300 ERP (formerly Sage ERP Accpac) 6.0 is TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for services in the ERP Evaluation Center. The certification seal is a valuable indicator for organizations relying on the integrity of TEC research for assistance with their software selection projects. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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Retailers today need to acquire ability to quickly adapt to changing market conditions or customer trends. They also need to plan for the future. One technology that can assist retailers is wireless. Wireless technology can be used not only to address business problems such as quick price changes, but can also help retailers make internal operations more efficient. They need a comprehensive wireless strategy that supports all aspects of the retail organization, from store operations, to warehouse or distribution centers, to corporate offices. Download this white paper to learn more.
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Organizations usually rely on historical data and transactions to determine their pricing strategy. However, this data is typically insufficient to arrive at a competitive price. Moreover, customers these days are well informed about the value of products they want to purchase. That's why organizations need to arrive at their pricing strategy only after taking into consideration external intelligence and competitive data. E-procurement systems and price comparison websites have put customers in the bargaining position with the availability of real-time information. This is the type and speed of data organizations need to obtain. Leveraging such information can help an organization counter the threats of new entrants, competitive rivalry, and substitutes with a strong pricing strategy.
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Tenrox Project Workforce Management is TEC Certified for online evaluation of project portfolio management for professional services automation (PPM for PSA) solutions in the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Evaluation Center. The certification seal is a valuable indicator for organizations relying on the integrity of TEC research for assistance with their software selection projects. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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Due to the wide range of size, scope, and complexity within the extended enterprise, different units often have different functional requirements for the business management software they use. The different demands can become a barrier to future growth, profitability, and agility. So how do you coordinate resources and activities to get everybody on the same page within an extended enterprise?
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Project-based solutions (PBS) is a new type of enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for complex, engineer-to-order companies and companies facing rapid change. And these days, most companies do face change, and their legacy ERP systems strain to keep up. Is PBS a better choice for you than traditional ERP?
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Promoting band image, improving overall business performance, and keeping customers happy is a main concern of many businesses. This paper demonstrates how the Extended Enterprise platform can help specific verticals to promote and sell their products to external audiences. Know the value of the Extended Enterprise solution in financial services, insurance, government, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and associations.
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The administration and management of printing can be time-consuming, often relying on manual processes. Many businesses are rethinking their approach to managing the print environment, by either adopting a managed service or implementing centralized print management tools. This can ensure the high availability, reliability and manageability of printing resources, while leaving IT staff free to focus on core activities.
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Successfully meeting today’s business challenges requires effective project management. How well your organization manages projects, tracks costs, and identifies and addresses project-related issues can have a big impact on your bottom line. But if your company still relies on traditional, stand-alone project management applications, most likely you lack the end-to-end process support you need to ensure success.
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The model of software delivery is in the midst of transition from traditional on-premise server−based software to software deployed over the Internet. This is in interplay with the emergence of new mobile technologies; a business environment where companies have to work in a distributed network of teams, partners, and clients; and changed end user needs and expectations. Read here to see how these changes can impact you.
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Universities and other higher education establishments have to address the need for savings across the board. One area is expenses from faculty members and other associated with faculty. The complex mix of expense types needs a flexible yet solid means of managing spend as close as possible to the point of expense that encourages the individual to participate in the process without it being seen as an imposition. Know how.
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Our global study of small and medium-sized discrete manufacturers worldwide revealed the industry is struggling with increasing complexity, global competition, rapidly changing business environments, and volatile raw materials prices. While manufacturers worldwide face similar challenges, this study clarifies how strategic initiatives and priorities vary by sector, geography, and job description.
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Rapid implementation is key to achieving rapid benefits. How can an industry that expects a slow return on investment speed up the process? Centric believes that customers should expect to see meaningful returns on product lifecycle management (PLM) investments within a product cycle, or four to six months. Learn the principles behind Centric’s rapid implementation methodology and how one customer reaped rapid benefits.
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Loss of strategic vision and leadership can pose a greater threat to organizations than dramatic economic downturn. Companies that invest in technology wisely will gain a competitive advantage and even prosper during hard times. Achieving financial results hinges on finding a product lifecycle management (PLM) solution that delivers business benefits not only in the short-term but also long into the future. Read how now.
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A simulation project is much more than building a model. And the skills required go well beyond knowing a particular simulation tool. This paper discusses some important steps to enable project success and some cautions and tips to help avoid common traps.
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When it comes to business process management (BPM), it makes sense to “look before you leap.” Organizations considering using BPM to automate or streamline business processes should step back and understand what is at the core of each process. Is it a well-defined workflow? Does it have a set of related tasks or steps? Find out how answering these questions can help you define the right BPM solution for your organization.
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Today’s project management offices (PMOs) must optimize their project plans while managing complex projects concurrently, respecting delivery dates, and reducing resource costs. Decisions made based on the construction and interpretation of these plans have crucial consequences for the projects themselves, for the people involved, and for profits. Discover eight strategies to improve your project plans.
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For managed services providers (MSPs) aiming to serve small and medium-sized businesses, the ability to capture and retain lasting customer relationships is a determining factor for long-term profitability. Only by clearly and consistently communicating your value to your customer can you hope to attain the role of trusted advisor—a position that will help protect you from losing business to lower-priced competitors. Learn how an integrated, offline reporting solution can help ensure that your customers perceive your value in the ways that matter most to all managers within the customer organization.
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A business' success delivering managed services depends on its ability to improve the delivery of effective and efficient services to its customer base. Learn about ways that managed services providers (MSPs) can develop a higher-value business by improving their ability to attract and retain high-quality customers and provide IT services in an effective manner.
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Service companies that want to thrive need to find a better way to deliver services and run their business. Automating IT services is the answer, and it should be the immediate goal of any company that aims to stay in business as market pressures increase. Looking beyond basic automation, becoming a managed services provider (MSP) should be the long-term goal. Discover ways to ensure your service company's survival in today’s competitive IT services market.
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For all but the smallest companies, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system promises big gains, by helping to grow revenue, increase productivity, improve efficiency, and manage costs. Right now, ERP for the midmarket is a hot topic. More and more midsized companies are replacing outdated ERP software or are jumping into ERP technology for the first time. Find out about what midmarket ERP buyers need to know.
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Business process management (BPM) and process improvement support the management and continuous improvement of business processes, both cross-departmental and enterprise-wide. How can you empower the transformation to lean and manage business operations in the various stages of its transformation, and manage the transition to lean? Learn about a BPM solution that employs lean Six Sigma for faster process improvements.
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As you begin a customer relationship management (CRM) initiative, software selection is only one facet of a successful project. You may consider implementing your new CRM system with internal resources. But even in providing a simple CRM solution in your company, a number of steps need to take place, including requirements gathering, configuration, and more. Discover the benefits of selecting a CRM implementation partner.
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Business process management (BPM) is an approach to administering business processes that involves people, organizations, and technologies—and can be carried out using varying levels of automation. Sadly, BPM often falls short of what it is intended to achieve. But there’s a fresh evolution of current BPM: goal-oriented autonomic BPM. Learn about the ideas, techniques, and benefits of autonomic and goal-oriented BPM.
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Change management is an inherent part of software implementation. Ideally, you want new business processes and the software to support them. However, companies still often compromise, due to their implementation approach and technology limitations—resulting in needless expense. There is a more rapid approach to implementation and change management, with reduced risk, greater value, and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).
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Sales at F.J. Westcott began to grow, placing a greater demand on its legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) system’s inventory capabilities. Unrelieved inventory and other challenges led Westcott to seek a new ERP system—and a software evaluation and comparison methodology within the company’s budget. See how Technology Evaluation Centers’ Software Selection Services provided the resources for a confident decision.
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This may be a challenging economic period, but smart companies will use it as an opportunity to examine operational efficiency and best practices to reap benefits once the market improves. Your warehouse management system (WMS), a vital component of the supply chain execution suite, should be a key contributor in the search for cost-saving efficiencies—as well as the integration of your global supply chains. Learn more.
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The implementation of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to automate business processes is a strategic investment. Buying the right system and choosing the best vendor for you are critical to a successful ERP implementation. As a decision maker, you need to quickly identify your ERP requirements, effectively communicate these needs to vendors, and successfully compare various product alternatives. Learn how.
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The idea that tier-one systems are difficult to maintain and upgrade is based on outdated notions about their complexity and flexibility. Although tier-one systems are more complex internally than tier-two or tier-three systems, tier-one systems are often easier to maintain: for one thing, one enterprise system is easier to maintain than several. Learn more about this and other reasons for upgrading to a tier-one system.
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Many successful midsized companies reach a point when transitioning to a tier-one enterprise application system is necessary. Transitioning to a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is a challenge—but it may not be as complex as you think. Learn common myths about tier-one ERP systems, as well as how ERP solutions can help you manage regulatory compliance and track performance with key performance indicators.
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Everything manufacturing executives thought they knew about project management and operations management is changing. Now, project managers may be connecting elements of an ongoing enterprise with a project in order to achieve certain defined goals, or use projects in a recurring way. Discover the many benefits manufacturers can realize by adopting a management-by-project approach with project-centric ERP software.
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To drive improvements in operating profit and customer service, you need to use business intelligence (BI) dashboard tools both tactically for operational visibility—and strategically for more forward-looking analysis. But you also need to ensure the use of BI is pervasive across the enterprise. Get insight into three discrete datasets that can help you examine the value of pervasive BI and drive business improvement.
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In today’s demanding project delivery environment, meeting contract deadlines is paramount. Companies are under pressure to rapidly establish plans, isolate deliverables, and deliver quality products. Learn about a project delivery management system that can help you streamline collaboration between business units, ensuring each step is monitored and controlled so you can deliver your project on time and on budget.
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There’s no magic bullet for compliance success—even the most experienced organizations use a combination of reliable processes and proven technologies to get the job done. But identifying, designing, and executing the right internal controls to meet compliance standards in a large, global company can be arduous and expensive. The systems you use to support compliance efforts must be implemented well. Find out more.
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Survey data shows that companies want to improve their strategic business partnerships. Reflecting on lessons learned from past business relationships, 60 percent of respondents say that in future they’ll place more emphasis on developing personal relationships and setting expectations with business partners. Find out how these companies are creating collaborative networks that include business partners and consumers.
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IT has long been one of the best ways to address business challenges. Yet significant obstacles at the level of IT infrastructure stand in the way. Siloed IT operations and rigid IT management processes can impede business agility. When IT partners with the business to act less as a technology provider and more as a service provider, business objectives can be achieved more efficiently and cost-effectively. Find out how.
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Many small to medium businesses (SMBs) do not have experience with software as a service (SaaS), but are looking to adopt SaaS solutions soon. According to studies, 2009 will be the tipping point, with a majority of companies aiming to adopt SaaS this year. But these companies must be cautious, as the old rules for on-premise software analysis and purchase don’t apply. Discover the new rigorous criteria you should use.
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Business process management (BPM) is an attempt to provide a holistic view of a company’s workflows and automate processes. It provides a new management discipline, a new suite of software tools, and a new IT implementation style based on concrete links between strategy and execution. Learn more about SAP’s place in the BPM landscape and what its new BPM tool—NetWeaver BPM—can do to help you better manage your company.
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As modern enterprises grow in complexity and scope, managers struggle to keep pace. Business process management (BPM) is increasingly seen as a way to master the swelling complexity of modern corporations and coordinate the work of thousands of people by focusing on well-defined processes. Find out how BPM, applied the right way, can fulfill the promise of IT to automate business processes and directly support strategy.
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Growth—whether organic or acquisitive—is challenging executives today from a strategic as well as an operational perspective. Studies estimate that 50 to 80 percent of deals fail to reach their projected results. Discover the challenges inherent in three common growth models, and find out how to implement a solid, flexible, and adaptive foundation that can support your company’s corporate growth strategies.
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Most strategies for dealing with e-mail deluge involve getting more power out of the e-mail solution: greater storage or better spam filters. But what if you’ve got the problem all wrong? The purpose of technology, including e-mail, is to enhance employee productivity. Find out how online collaboration tools can help you reduce the e-mail deluge, streamline information management, and increase overall productivity.
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Many companies recognize the need for project portfolio management (PPM) and implement a solution, but encounter cultural resistance to the initiative. Yet other companies can integrate PPM with virtually no resistance. The difference is the readiness for and acceptance of change in the company. Learn how to avoid the pitfalls, adhere to proven best practices, and realize the benefits and huge return on investment (ROI).
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IT spending is often an issue for companies, but in difficult economic times it’s even more important to see what benefit IT can bring to the business. But IT investments are most effective when they improve business performance. Find out the degree to which organizations in the United Kingdom (UK) understand what IT is doing for their businesses, and in particular how some companies measure this and benefit from it.
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Project portfolio management (PPM) software can provide a dynamic decision-making process for assessing projects such as portfolios, prioritizing projects, and allocating limited resources to meet key organizational objectives. Using PPM can also help you better align and manage your people, projects, and processes—giving you the ability to react quickly to change and minimize risk in the current declining market.
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Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems now support many organizations’ most important business processes, and house their most sensitive corporate data. As a result, senior management needs to fully understand both the timing and project plan before proceeding with any ERP upgrade. Learn how to plan and manage your next ERP upgrade project, and develop an overall corporate strategy for maintaining your ERP system.
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Professional services organizations (PSOs) currently face a number of financial and resource management pain points. Discover the benchmarks PSOs can use to improve management capabilities and how business applications can help PSOs achieve their goals, including streamlining their businesses, increasing operating margins, and meeting the internal and external challenges posed by today’s fast-paced global marketplace.
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Relevant to the current economic recession, find out about key challenges faced by the retail industry, such as multichannel integration. Get an introduction to a process excellence and governance approach specific to retail, for radical cost reduction and organizational agility and visibility. You’ll also find a case study about business performance management (BPM) in the food and beverage industry.
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Want to know more about distributed agile best practices for software development projects? Find out about the challenges and lessons learned from this implementation of distributed agile for teams distributed across US, Europe, and India. Discover how this large, globally distributed project for a large telecom vendor realized such benefits as better collaboration, higher quality product, and on-time delivery.
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Today, business is driven to change per customers’ needs, and IT organizations must be strategic partners with the lines of business. Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices are gaining popularity as one way to manage change. However, implementing ITIL best practices in an IT organization is not without challenges. Learn about the approaches that can be used for successful ITIL implementation.
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Best practices in technology can help manufacturers of complex products and equipment get their offerings to market more quickly and profitably by enabling them to become more cost effective and efficient. But there are still challenges to be overcome, due to product life cycle complexity. Discover the best practices that can help you make the product and make it right, on time, and within budget—while making a profit.
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Most businesses are impacted by the slow economy, but recessions and economic slowdowns don’t last forever. Smart companies will be able to manage the challenges and emerge stronger and more vital for the experience. Discover how business process automation, a renewed focus on customer service, new tax opportunities, and other best practices can help your company shine in these tough economic times.
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By automating and optimizing business processes, companies gain the efficiency, clarity, and flexibility they need to support the creative development of products and services. Employees in such an environment spend less time on mundane business tasks, focusing instead on generating new ideas and innovative products. Learn how integrated software solutions can help you invest and innovate to sustain your company’s growth.
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System planning is the Achilles’ heel of a data center physical infrastructure project. Planning mistakes can propagate through later deployment phases, resulting in delays, cost overruns, wasted time, and a compromised system. These troubles can be eliminated by viewing system planning as a data flow model, with sequenced tasks that progressively transform and refine data from initial concept to final design. Learn more.
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In data center design projects, flawed management frequently leads to delays, expense, and frustration. Effective project management requires well-defined responsibilities for every manager, tight coordination among suppliers, well-defined procedures for managing change, and consistent terminology. Learn how enforcing these requirements can help your company achieve an efficient process with a predictable outcome.
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Organizations preparing to meet globalization head on face a complex set of business and technology challenges—from the supply chain complexity of entering new markets to the need for global visibility and standardized business processes. Learn how globally implemented enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and integrated business processes are helping companies exploit new markets and lower manufacturing costs.
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Chief financial officers (CFOs) are moving beyond administrative and transactional tasks and becoming catalysts to improve business performance. In collaboration with business units, they are developing the metrics and data required to track and meet business goals. Find out how they’re capturing and disseminating the information needed to make operating and management decisions, and provide decision support to finance.
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With increased mergers and acquisitions at the global level, organizations have started recognizing the benefits of upgrading to a modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform and a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Learn how different approaches to ERP system and architecture upgrades can help your company drive down costs, raise employee productivity, and produce meaningful business process improvement.
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Compliance with regional and international standards, such as the Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) or Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directives, has made it more complicated for companies to deliver innovative products to customers. Learn how focusing on product innovation, data integration, and process optimization can help your company satisfy customer needs while meeting compliance standards.
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As companies come to grips with current fiscal realities, choices may result more from reaction than the use of sound judgment. Removing vital resources and reducing services can create an even lower return on investment (ROI) than existed before downsizing. Outsourcing may offer a solution. Learn about the effects that the present financial situation will have on the outsourcing community, including buyers and suppliers.
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A failed software implementation can cost companies millions in wasted time and money. To ensure your software selection project isn’t a sorry statistic, use the right metrics to gauge your success. Time, budget, and functionality aren’t enough--focus your efforts on requirements analysis and definition. Take measures to ensure your software meets your needs, and discover how to perform accurate requirements analysis.
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Recent EquaTerra market research finds a consensus among western business leaders that increased globalization is inevitable—and that it will generally be beneficial. Quickly and efficiently leveraging opportunities created by globalization is the best way to avoid being overwhelmed by its challenges. Learn how to compare buyer and service provider data and get insight into developing a responsive global strategy.
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Here's an all-too typical scenario. Management at a multinational company decides to implement a standardized enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. Everyone expects to cut costs and improve core end-to-end processes. But 13 months later, vital key performance indicators (KPIs) don’t improve as planned. Discover how a company focused on user performance to bring its ERP reality back into alignment with its vision.
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Ping Identity provides software for the computer security and identity management industry. Ping wanted to facilitate rapid, high-end development and accelerate time to market for its leading Web security product. When its first outsourcing choice didn’t offer enough Agile development expertise, Ping found another solution that helped reduce costs by 46 percent and doubled in-house performance in key areas. Learn more.
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The requirements of the engineer-to-order (ETO) environment create special challenges for capital equipment manufacturers. Traditional material requirements planning (MRP) techniques don’t account for these manufacturers’ needs. Before you invest in manufacturing software, you should carefully consider 10 questions to ensure that software vendors are focused on your business and can deliver the solution you need.
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Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software can facilitate business improvements. But it can also create new challenges, including obsolete technology, lack of flexibility, and high support costs, to name a few. There’s a way to keep your current ERP system while extending its capabilities to remote manufacturing sites, service centers, and supply chain partners: a service-oriented architecture (SOA) approach. Learn more.
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A fast-growing robotics product manufacturer needed to track an extremely large inventory of individual products. A daily expanding product line presented even greater hurdles for inventory management, and meeting on-time delivery goals. The company’s old enterprise resource planning (ERP) system wasn’t keeping up, so the company moved to a system that allows more options for product customization and more. Learn how.
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The one thing you can count on today in business is change, whether it’s customers, business models, or the pace of business. To manage change, companies rely on technology. But the most effective management control and optimization of company performance can be achieved only if you have the right systems. Discover how an integrated system can help you manage data and make better decisions, for a more successful company.
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When your quality control plan is complex because there are many features to control—and it involves many people—you need to pay special attention to your quality control process. Also, a complex plan places high demands on your software solution. Discover how an online integrated factory information system can work across production, job tracking, spoilage, and quality to support all of your quality control processes.
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Escalating health fears, new global policies, and a highly competitive market means that traceability is an issue food and beverage companies cannot afford to ignore. All this has led to a need for information on quality and food safety that companies must live up to. Explore the key issues surrounding traceability in the food and beverage industry, and find out why you might need to consider a new traceability system.
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The results of a recent industry survey shed light on the latest trends, challenges, and solutions in software product development for 2008. If you are involved in the planning and development of products, software applications, or systems, this report can help you gain insight into the biggest challenges in innovation, the top barriers to success, which metrics matter most when measuring success, and more.
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In today’s changing, competitive world, companies must adopt a continuous improvement methodology to support sustainable and profitable business models. Processes must be seen as a lever for analyzing and optimizing the way firms works. Before you initiate any project involving process automation and management, discover five key points that can help you make continuous improvements in the life cycles of your processes.
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Financial services organizations are always looking for ways to improve business processes to implement tighter control—and improve the bottom line. But finding new ways to boost efficiency is challenging. One strategy for success is to improve the use and allocation of resources in order to eliminate errors from duplicate data entry. Discover more about this strategy and two others, as well as how they can benefit you.
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An estimated two-thirds of IT projects aren’t completed on time or budget, while 15 percent are cancelled entirely. But your IT project doesn’t have to be a gamble. By knowing the most common causes of project failure, your company increases the potential for a successful project outcome. Learn more about how inadequate initial project planning can be one of your greatest obstacles to success—and how you can overcome it.
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Small and medium businesses (SMBs) often don’t know how to engage and manage outsourcing initiatives. Both outsourcing provider and seeker should together address several questions when starting a project to outsource business or technology processes. What’s the cost benefit? What are the risks involved? Find out the customer and the vendor perspectives, and how to achieve cost savings and service-level improvements.
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No doubt about it: the project manager is essential for the successful completion of any project. But supporting the project manager—and the goal of reaching the target within the defined time and budget frame—is a solid project management system. Discover the vital elements of project planning and management, and how you can optimize communication by standardizing information formats in a project management system.
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Why bother measuring your recruiting performance? The simple answer is, if you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Unfortunately, human resources (HR) is great at working with people, but not always so successful at driving strategic value. Turn touchy-feely comments like “our hiring managers are very happy” into hard metrics, and accurately measure your recruiting performance by following a simple six-step process.
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Even the best “best-of-breed” enterprise resource planning systems don’t give business stakeholders enough real-time visibility. And without that, you can’t ensure performance improvements. Are employees using the right transactions for business processes? Are employees efficient, or are they making huge errors? Help identify inefficiencies in your company with an end-user experience and performance management solution.
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Software developers need a powerful tool to control and plan the quality of their software applications. With a solution that offers project analysis, testing, and bug administration, you have options that can help increase the quality of your software products. Read about a software test tool that has administrative functions to help you more effectively plan, control, and evaluate your software as it’s developed.
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Oil and gas industry leader MODEC was already using Microsoft Dynamics SL for core financial activities. But as the company faced rapid growth, it began to look at how the technology could be used to improve other vital business processes. Discover how MODEC worked with the NexTec Group to hone those processes, identify areas for improvement, and propose and direct the technology initiatives to effect the needed changes.
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An online American bank, providing various financial services, needed to replace its legacy script-driven batch job processes with a job scheduling solution that could handle the bank’s growth. The bank’s IT team, however, faced two major hurdles affecting growth: both batch job processes and script-writing were manual and inefficient. A job management solution helped the bank achieve new levels of growth. Learn how.
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Simulation software can give you valuable insights into the forecasted outcomes of your business processes and decision making. But if you don’t have the type of simulation software than can develop and analyze the types of models made for your particular industry or service offering, you won’t get insights that really help. With this concise list, learn about the functions of three types of computer simulation software.
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Identifying and managing the risks associated with water resource projects is a challenge due to the variables of water systems. To overcome this challenge, you need to compile all available information into a framework that can be used to predict the outcome of alternatives. Find out how a computer simulation model can help water resource engineers improve the financial and environmental performance of their operations.
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Contrary to popular belief, requirements discovery and elicitation are processes—not deliverables. And in fact, companies that focus on both the process and the deliverables of requirements are far more successful than those that focus on documentation quality alone. After all, it’s the quality of the document development process that creates an economic advantage. Find out what you can do for immediate and tangible benefits.
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According to an IAG survey, 70 percent of companies lack the fundamental competencies within business requirements discovery to consistently bring in projects on time and on budget. Why do so many fall short in properly diagnosing their requirements failures? Discover how placing a greater focus on the combined aspects of business requirements—people, process, and tools—can provide better project outcomes.
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Some managers have concluded that strategic planning is nothing more than an exercise in futility, to be taken out and dusted off at annual meetings. However, strategic planning can still help direct your company and improve earnings. The trick is strategizing well—which means having all the information you need, when you need it. Find out how to hone your competitive edge with integrated business planning capabilities.
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Although information technology service management (ITSM) is not a new discipline, many organizations have yet to adopt it as a part of their IT service improvement strategy. To be successful, businesses must start by building a custom road map. Read about how focusing on long-term, strategic objectives—including a realized return on investment (ROI)—can greatly improve your IT service delivery and support.
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In the public sector, where it’s often more about process than the business case, recompeting a current outsourcing relationship doesn’t always make the most sense for ensuring continued value. Due to the cost and time investment in the recompete process, it can often cause more problems than solutions. In many cases, outsourcing agreements simply need to be updated to meet changing business requirements. Find out how.
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In the past 10 years, business process and IT outsourcing markets have become globalized, raising some key issues for outsourcing buyers. How can you develop a service delivery model for your business that fully exploits global sourcing opportunities while supporting overall corporate strategies, goals, and principles? By developing a set of integrated capabilities and processes as part of your core competency.
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Empirical evidence demonstrates that the benefits of a distributed IT services model are considerable—yet many companies still resist the change. If IT professionals took the time to fully understand the positive impact of distributed services models on both cost and value, they’d be better equipped to fight organizational resistance and develop a road map for successful change. Find out how you can build yours today.
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A contact center is a mission-critical component of any organization’s operations—regardless of who they service. Yet stakeholders often remain dissatisfied with its performance. In the past, contact centers benefited from advances in information and technologies, yet many companies struggled to determine how they could take advantage of these benefits. Find out how embracing both old and new technologies today can work.
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Senior finance executives in all industries recognize the long-term benefits of transaction-processing automation on resource allocation. Transaction automation frees time and resources that can be allocated for decision support and financial planning and analysis. The result: sustained, profitable top-line growth and risk reduction. Find out other benefits of improving your back-office processes through automation.
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To effectively serve their customers, operations managers need to have visibility as well as control of the delivery and quality of their outsourced components. And because supply chain management is such a critical part of the manufacturing process, it’s important to have the right tools to optimize performance. Find out how real-time collaborative manufacturing is now helping to solve some key manufacturing problems.
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The media industry is undergoing radical and rapid change driven by liberalization, privatization, and digitization. Broadcasting is no longer highly regulated, but is ever more dynamic and competitive—and the logistical challenges of production planning for TV and radio ever more complex. Implement a composite resource planning and scheduling solution to maximize your equipment, facilities, and employees.
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The rules for success in today’s fiercely competitive market are constantly changing. Through service delivery innovation, a company can differentiate itself. But how do you change your service delivery methods to keep existing clients and entice new ones? A networked organization is one of six characteristics of successful service delivery innovation. Find out how you can put them into practice and attain the benefits.
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Changing business practices, especially those that consolidate business and IT functions, requires careful research and decision making. For companies needing to move beyond traditional enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, enterprise service applications (ESA) can help reduce the complexity of having disparate IT systems. Find out about the benefits of ESA and how it can help you achieve operational excellence.
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Euromadi was looking to automate its business processes and increase effectiveness. With hundreds of suppliers all over the world, it needed a system that could help manage the relationships of more than 220 associate companies. By integrating business process management (BPM) with an enterprise content management (ECM) system, Euromadi has increased productivity and reduced data input and maintenance by 30 percent.
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Sant Joan de Déu Hospital is one of the most important hospitals in Spain, and specializes in pediatrics and women’s medicine. Because of its status, it needed to find a way to automate its internal processes and develop a corporate portal for patients and health professionals. Since deploying a business process management (BPM) solution, Sant Joan has increased accessibility and created autonomy within its departments.
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Construction companies often use a combination of outdated, paper-based, and software tools to manage their projects—which puts them at a severe disadvantage. Online project management, however, can provide you with a more efficient method to manage projects. Find out why these businesses are shifting to owner-centric solutions, and discover what main factors you should consider before implementing a web-based tool.
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Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) helps ensure that projects are delivered on time and within budget, and creates a system for improving accountability. Once KPIs are established, there needs to be a way to easily track this data—otherwise it will become an arduous task that may be done improperly. Learn how leveraging integrated project management software can help drive your business process improvements.
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The competitive nature of the financial services industry today and the changing landscape of the customer approach to investing puts an onus on suppliers to consider how well they are dealing with customers’ business transactions. In order to provide better customer service—while at the same time improving operations—these organizations must invest in a system that allows real-time visibility of the entire process.
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What would you do if a critical error occurred during production—all because the wrong data was input into your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system? You’d probably be asking “how could this happen?” The ability to communicate information between teams can mean the difference between production success and failure. Avoid these snafus with a system that can integrate the data of both the design and ERP systems.
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Joshen Paper & Packaging needed to update its enterprise resource planning (ERP) distribution system. Joshen partnered with Vormittag Associates Inc. (VAI) and found a solution that consolidates its financial reporting and provides its sales team with real-time inventory information access. The result: faster inventory turnaround and order fulfillment—and to date, about 100 new clients in its customer base.
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For a lot of companies, making the decision to replace an existing business software system can be a difficult one. The process can be so unpleasant that many organizations may be reluctant to even get started, coming up with a number of reasons why they could probably get by with the systems they already have. If your company is struggling with this tough decision, you may want to ask yourself these ten basic questions.
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Any organization that deploys multiple same-application servers with regularity could benefit from virtual appliances. Virtualization solutions eliminate the need to copy an operating system (OS) and application into each virtual environment, by creating a single, centrally installed master copy instead. It saves time on installation and enables greater levels of efficiency, manageability, flexibility, and resource use.
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Traditional business intelligence (BI) solutions are becoming a thing of the past. Companies today are moving toward business solutions that can help maintain a competitive edge while empowering business executives across the enterprise. Operational BI is an approach that incorporates traditional BI best practices with the benefits of real-time information flow, resulting in more user-directed initiatives.
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Point of sale (POS) software was designed to speed up sales checkout processes. However, it has evolved to include many more features, and is now more commonly referred to as retail management systems (RMS). The benefits of implementing RMS are clear—they can help increase profits, improve marketing strategies, automate manual processes, manage inventory, and—most importantly—make the customer experience more memorable.
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As a business employing IT, you may have encountered situations where the software application you purchased didn’t come with a help file. With no time to write complete documentation yourself and no budget to hire a professional technical writer to do it for you, what do you do? By applying the basic principles of cost-effective documentation, your business can develop impressive documentation quickly—for a minimal cost.
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The most effective project managers know that accounting for the effort, cost, and profitability of each person or project is the best way to succeed—and doing so is not as hard as you might think. The process will take you from where you probably are right now (the state we affectionately term “chaos”) to a prosperous state of order—and will also save your organization financial resources and valuable employee time.
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Project portfolio management (PPM) is a tool-supported process for optimally managing an organization’s “portfolio” of projects. And although PPM can provide real value, many organizations are finding PPM implementations difficult. However, there are key approaches that can increase your likelihood of success, as well as an effective step-by-step process for implementing PPM within your organization.
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New product development and introduction (NPDI) is probably the most important process for many companies, but also one of the least understood. While NPDI is responsible for revenues, few companies assign an owner for the whole process. Instead, it is usually driven through a series of functional “silos,” causing delay—and the loss of the original market requirements.
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While open innovation is a hot topic, capitalizing on opportunity requires a holistic strategy—not just increased collaboration. Companies must have repeatable, compliant, and responsive business processes. These processes must be supplemented by a global information infrastructure that provides a single source of the truth, along with alignment across departmental silos, and solutions that evolve without coding.
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Project portfolio management (PPM) is a hot topic, and there’s no shortage of related advice. However, much of the current advice is incomplete—or flat-out wrong. Before purchasing a tool, buyers should familiarize themselves with established theories for valuing projects. Armed with understanding, they can avoid getting "burned" by the unsuitable PPM tools that are being pushed in the marketplace.
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Most chief executive officers (CEOs) have developed strategies that push their companies to achieve certain goals. So why are so many companies failing to achieve these goals? Because their twenty-first century vision is being held back by twentieth century processes and IT systems. The missing ingredient: information. And the key to facilitating the flow of information lies in integrated processes.
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Installing a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is both challenging and exciting. Yet many organizations do not recognize that one of the largest threats to such a project is a failure to focus on process improvement. If process change is not seen as a necessary element of the project, it will never be as successful as it should be.
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If you’ve outgrown your paper-based timesheet system, or if you have multiple time collection systems, it gets hard to understand project costs, figure out what people are working on, and send error-free bills to your customers. That’s why you need to be sure you’ll be immune to the most common problems people experience when buying a timesheet collection automation system.
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IT today is often caught between a rock and a hard place: its budget has been reduced, while expectations remain undiminished. Moving beyond this paradox requires fresh approaches to IT management and governance. Today’s IT operations must remain aligned with strategic organizational priorities, deliver promised results with control and predictability, and transparently report problems in time to act on them.
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In the UK, government IT has a poor track record. Too much money is wasted on complex projects which fail to deliver the anticipated benefits. However, it is possible to deliver IT projects successfully in the public sector if sensible business and technology strategies are combined within strong project management frameworks to promote a spirit of mutual understanding and respect.
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Current enterprise resource planning (ERP) system implementation methodologies give too much attention to the ”hard core” technical side of the project, and too little to the organizational change needed to complete the project successfully. Because of the complex nature of these projects, different experts are required—not only ERP or IT experts, but also experts in managing organizational change.
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The Microsoft Dynamics NAV Rapid Implementation Methodology (RIM) automates standard processes, speeds up implementation time, and drives the sharing of best practice knowledge and solutions between partners. But in order to understand how RIM can be used in an implementation project to get implementations up and running smoothly and quickly, it is important to understand the different components of RIM.
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The concept of getting business requirements right sounds straightforward. However, flawed requirements trigger 70 percent of project failures. The larger the number of stakeholder groups involved, and the more complex the processes, the more likely a project will fail. Success in large projects is not just about completeness, but also about getting complete requirements information early in the development process.
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When a project management office (PMO) operates well, the impact can be extraordinary. All too often, though, the PMO doesn’t become a clear asset. In order to avoid the worst-case scenario, PMO team members often become internal advisors with marginal impact and no authority. What can be done to avoid this? And what are the keys to successful PMO implementations?
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Product lifecycle management (PLM) implementation strategies are in many cases unique from company to company. However, it is not uncommon for companies to encounter some of the same obstacles or pitfalls along the way. Understanding where these nasty little pitfalls lie will hopefully help you steer clear of them, and improve your chances for PLM success.
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One of the biggest challenges a project manager faces is the difficulty of tracking project progress once a project has been started. It can be difficult to keep track of each task and assignment as they are started, completed, or delayed. Fortunately, there are now new tools and methodologies, made available through PSNext 1.6, that help manage projects.
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Enterprises must collaborate or they will surely stagnate. Guarded proprietary information has given way to collaborative approaches where information is shared both inside and outside the enterprise’s walls. To survive, an enterprise must be flexible enough to collaborate externally with suppliers and partners while fostering the same environment with its employers.
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Cada módulo cuenta con múltiples funcionalidades que facilitan la operación de los procesos lo que permite su adecuado control y administración. Entre los módulos se encuentran: Punto de Venta, Activos Fijos, Asistencias, Warehouse Management System, auto transporte, Vales, Tesorería, Servicios, Servicios internos, Recursos Humanos, Producción, Proyectos, Precios y Costos, Planeador de Ordenes, Nómina y otros.
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Quality data in the supply chain is essential in when information is automated and shared with internal and external customers. Dirty data is a huge impediment to businesses. In this article, learn about the four critical success factors to clean data: 1- scope, 2- team, 3- process, and 4- technology.
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Any project represents significant effort in terms of justifying resource allocation and expense. Project failure may not only diminish or eliminate expected benefits, but also damage existing tools and processes. There are ten key steps for project success; many of these steps occur concurrently, and are important focal points for teams and executives contemplating initiating projects.
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Manufacturers of capital equipment and highly engineered products face design, production, and delivery obstacles. The most challenging of these activities is scheduling projects and resource demand in a concurrent engineering environment. Learn about a resource scheduling tool that can allow you to put demand on materials, work-centers, and labor as soon as it is known—so you can deliver projects on time and on budget.
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