After the recent global recession, companies are shifting their focus to growing top-line revenues and market share through strategic initiatives. Upgrading to the latest E-Business Suite release may be part of that strategic plan. This whitepaper is intended to highlight the benefits that may be realized through an upgrade to or implementation of Oracle E-Business Suite Financials Release 12.1.
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Ability 585 is TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) for manufacturing (SMB) solutions 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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Newly available software platforms known as governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) technologies can help your business stay on top of the myriad procedures, tasks, and behaviors that bear upon compliance. This paper discusses the drivers behind the growing awareness of GRC information technology, introduces the elements of an effective automated GRC system, and suggests a low-risk, high-impact approach to launching GRC automation.
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New business analytics solutions are bringing large-enterprise solutions and benefits down to the medium-size business’s level. They are exceptionally comprehensive but exceptionally customizable to the needs of the individual business, easy to upgrade to target new strategic initiatives, and in tune with customer trends such as social media use. This paper discusses one such effective business analytics solution.
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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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In late 2011, SNK Canada was engaged to help a sports management client select operations, accounting, and IT management software to replace a legacy system. The client was suffering productivity losses, and the cost of the legacy software was a growing concern. Learn how Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) helped SNK Manage the complexities of the project, so SNK could quickly identify the right system for the client.
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Sage 100 Standard ERP (formerly Sage ERP MAS 90), v. 4.5, is TEC Certified for online evaluation of mixed-mode manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions 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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The IQMS product EnterpriseIQ 7.8 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for mixed-mode manufacturing 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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The IQMS product EnterpriseIQ 7.8 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for process manufacturing 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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Westminster Saving Credit Union (WSCU) is one of Canada’s largest credit unions, with 12 branches, 50,000 members and more than $2.1 billion in assets. To meet its rigorous accounting and financial reporting needs, WSCU migrated from Sage PFW ERP to Sage ERP MAS 500 based on the advice of business partner The Answer Company. Download this case study to learn about the benefits WSCU realized after the transition.
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Expense management in the legal sector can be complex and burdened with problems. Expense errors in claims sent to clients can not only result in time being spent in sorting out resulting issues, but can also impact the trust between the client and firm. Legal firms must ensure expenses are dealt with accurately, effectively, and in a timely manner. Download this paper for Quocirca’s recommendations for a chosen system.
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NetSuite v11.2 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for small to medium business (SMB) 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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NetSuite Wholesale Distribution Edition v11.2 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for distribution 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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Sage 100 Standard ERP (formerly Sage ERP MAS 90), v. 4.5, is TEC Certified for online evaluation of discrete manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions 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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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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Organizations seeking the services of a value-added reseller (VAR), channel partner, implementer, vendor, or consultant require an evaluation of what this service provider has to offer. This report will assist organizations looking to determine the best-fit service provider for their implementation needs. Based on information provided to TEC by The Answer Company and its clients, this report focuses on real-life implementation projects delivered by the service provider to three of its existing clients.
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Glovia G2 is TEC Certified for online evaluation of discrete manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions 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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Finance departments are uniquely qualified to lead the effort to optimize profitability because of their neutrality, numbers orientation, and analytical abilities. However, as finance departments move to implement profitability management they need to recognize the challenges they may face. This white paper discusses how to manage profitability more effectively.
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All midsize and larger companies think they have systems in place to manage costs, so they give this issue little ongoing thought. They may be blind to the limitations of the systems they’re using and the improvements to cost management they can achieve. This paper identifies the information technology (IT) components used in cost management to enable finance executives to identify areas of improvement.
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Forecasting is changing from a top-down process to a bottom-up one. High-level targets may be useful starting points, but they must be combined with input from line management and department heads before being rolled up into enterprise-wide financial goals. Some companies find it effective to “embed” members of the finance function within other business units. Read this white paper to find out more.
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Embedding governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) management into all business process has become imperative. Companies need to adopt a holistic view when it comes to reducing and managing risks, and ensure better access risk management. This paper discusses the need for companies to take a proactive approach towards access risk management.
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Managing end-user access to critical enterprise resources as part of an organization's IT governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC) initiative helps companies to control access risk, provide real-time visibility for multiple stakeholders, and streamline regulatory compliance. This research shows that the leading performers in controlling access risk also realize tangible financial benefits.
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Dynacom Enterprise is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) for small to medium business (SMB) solutions 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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Expense management automation (EMA) solutions are critical components in an organization’s business strategy, and the right solution can provide both immediate and long-term cost savings. EMA dramatically cuts the cost of processing expense reports while increasing employee satisfaction by improving operational efficiency, shortening reimbursement cycles, and ensuring compliance. This report provides details on the many benefits and choices for deploying an EMA solution at your organization.
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Lean manufacturing initiatives and strategies can also be effectively applied toward a business’s largest controllable expense: its workforce. This paper examines lean manufacturing workforce management initiatives, the opportunities and benefits they provide, and the enterprise applications available to manage and support them.
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The by-product of a changing economy, increasingly mobile and remote workforces are fueled by the proliferation of high-speed networks. This white paper outlines how to best manage a rapid transition to work environments that support a global, mobile, and remote workforce, making the best of their skills and maintaining their identification with the organization, its culture, and its goals.
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IFS Applications (version 7.5) is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for the mining industry 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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Organizations seeking the services of a value-added reseller (VAR), channel partner, implementer, vendor, or consultant require an evaluation of what this service provider has to offer. This report will assist organizations looking to determine the best-fit service provider for their implementation needs. Based on service provider details provided to TEC by BT Business Solutions and its clients, this report focuses on real-life implementation projects delivered by the service provider to three of its existing clients.
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Unlike legacy strategies such as cost-plus, historical-based, and volume-driven pricing, which tend to decrease price premiums and profits over time, value-based pricing optimizes pricing structure for current market conditions. It can also accommodate market changes without loss of profit. Value-based pricing is a strategic tool to be championed by the executive suite and business unit leads. This paper outlines the elements of a successful value-based pricing strategy.
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Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of mixed-mode manufacturing solutions in the enterprise resource planning (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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Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of process manufacturing solutions in the enterprise resource planning (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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Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of financial packages in the Accounting 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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Organizations seeking the services of a value-added reseller (VAR), channel partner, implementer, vendor, or consultant require an evaluation of what this service provider has to offer. This report will assist organizations looking to determine the best-fit service provider for their implementation needs. Based on information provided to TEC by GMS Accounting Management Software (GMS) and its clients, this report focuses on real-life implementation projects delivered by the service provider to three of its existing clients.
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When food manufacturer Unigate (now Uniq plc) embarked on a multi-million–pound plan to update the manufacturing and financial systems at its factories in the United Kingdom, it needed a system that would provide flexibility in production without loss of efficiency. The company chose Solarsoft’s Tropos ERP, which was particularly strong on recipe management—the core of Uniq’s business. Read about Uniq’s benefits with Tropos.
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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 distribution 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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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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The IQMS product EnterpriseIQ is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for discrete manufacturing in the Enterprise Resource Planning 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 500 ERP (formerly Sage ERP MAS 500) is TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) for distribution solutions 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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Sage 500 ERP (formerly Sage ERP MAS 500) is TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) for engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturing solutions 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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Sage 500 ERP (formerly Sage ERP MAS 500) is TEC Certified for online evaluation of process manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions in the Process Manufacturing 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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Maintenance Connection Onsite/Online (v. 5.0) is TEC Certified for online evaluation of computerized maintenance management system (CMMS)–enterprise asset management (EAM) solutions in the Asset 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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The IBS product Enterprise7 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for distribution 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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CDC Ross ERP is TEC Certified for online evaluation of process manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions 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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Financial business process professionals need to coordinate financial process life cycle activities in order to enhance the value of information within the business, and drive better execution of compliance measures. But too often, automation and integration gaps discourage their efforts. Download this report to learn how to integrate and automate these activities, and improve your ability to make strategic and tactical decisions.
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Sage 500 ERP (formerly Sage ERP MAS 500) is TEC Certified for online evaluation of discrete manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions in the Discrete Manufacturing 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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Pricing initiatives are complex and difficult to implement, and need a thorough understanding of cost and related data. Most organizations turn to external pricing strategy consultants who, more often than not, steer them in the wrong direction. Rather than turning to these external consultants, organizations can follow certain steps to keep the task of pricing in-house. Find out what they are.
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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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Traditional methods for capturing billable time on projects can cost your company money. Relying on paper forms, e-mail, and spreadsheets prolongs the data gathering process, introduces errors, and can lead to missed hours and employee expenses. A new breed of project time-tracking software can help. This buyer’s guide shows you what to look for as you evaluate project time-tracking software to improve your client billing.
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Aquilon is TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) for small to medium business (SMB) solutions 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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IFS Applications (v. 7.5) is TEC Certified for online evaluation of process manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions 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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IFS Applications (v. 7.5) is TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) for engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturing solutions 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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IFS Applications (v. 7.5) is TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise asset management (EAM)–computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) solutions in the Asset 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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The AIM Computer Solutions product AIM Vision for Microsoft Dynamics GP is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for discrete manufacturing 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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Sage ERP X3 (v. 6) is TEC Certified for online evaluation of mixed-mode manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions 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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Sage ERP X3 (v. 6) is TEC Certified for online evaluation of process manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions 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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Sage ERP X3 (v. 6) is TEC Certified for online evaluation of discrete manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions 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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IFS Applications (v. 7.5) is TEC Certified for online evaluation of mixed-mode manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions 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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The Sunshine Act has prompted life science companies to look at alternatives to their expense reporting processes. The output to HHS is required to be electronic, searchable, and easily downloaded. A solution that supports these requirements from the initial input step of the process provides proactive control and management of the data—and of the direct marketing process as a whole.
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ECi Software Solutions M1 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for discrete manufacturing 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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The underlying challenge facing financial institutions is serving today’s mobile, security-conscious, and loyalty-reluctant customers. However, many financial institutions are trapped by legacy systems and islands of in-house development. How can they customize their payment platforms quickly, easily, and cost-effectively to unlock the opportunities that new market dynamics offer? Download this report to find out.
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The slump in the wealth management industry has its roots in the financial crisis in America and Europe. This has led to high-net-worth individuals (HNI) getting increasingly attracted to low risk, low management investments. Dr. Ashok Hegde, Global Head of Financial Services, Business Analyst Practice, Wipro, shares his expertise on the current challenges faced by and opportunities available to wealth managers. Read more.
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The recent financial meltdown has led to the downfall of some of the biggest universal investment banks (UIBs). Tightened regulatory norms have put pressure on global conglomerates in the Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) regions to re-strategize. Angan Guha, Head of Investment & Universal Banking, Wipro, gives his insights on the modifications UIBs have had to make to their services and products after the financial crisis.
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The Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, North Carolina, is the first hotel in the US to receive Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification at the platinum level from the U.S. Green Building Council. Combining luxury with energy efficiency and environmental sustainability, the hotel places the highest priority on guest comfort. The owner's goal is a sustainable, energy-efficient hotel that never compromises guest comfort. Learn more now.
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Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) for process manufacturing solutions 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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Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) for mixed-mode manufacturing solutions 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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Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of accounting solutions in the Financial Packages 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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Ramco Enterprise Process Manufacturing is TEC Certified for online evaluation enterprise resource planning (ERP) for process manufacturing solutions 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, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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This white paper identifies the five telltale signs that your business has hit the limits of QuickBooks (or perhaps already outgrown it), the business process inefficiencies caused by running a fast-growing business on limited bookkeeping software, and the hard benefits that businesses have experienced by making the jump from QuickBooks to a complete Web-based business management software suite.
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Based on the findings of a worldwide survey of more than 1,000 executives, one of the key strategies for becoming a truly global player is creating a global operating model supported by a foundation of integrated financial, human capital management (HCM), and other business applications. Find out why integrated financial and HCM applications are crucial if large and midsize companies are to emerge as truly global players.
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To compete effectively in the digital marketplace, telecom companies must answer a new call. New multisided business models require changes in the way they collaborate with partners, price offerings, and service customers. Discover the best practices and technologies that can help your telecom company take advantage of this industry transformation while supporting profitability, innovation, and differentiation.
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In 2007, CFO Research Services published The Superstar CFO, a study documenting the attributes of highly successful chief financial officers (CFOs). Since then, the world has been shaken by financial, political, and natural upheavals that have altered the economic landscape. This report explores how these changes may be affecting companies’ efforts to transform corporate finance into a value-added partner to the business.
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Bank chief financial officers (CFOs) are being forced to reexamine their roles and responsibilities. Simply closing the books no longer works. Finance departments are being asked to perform strategic budgeting and planning, monitor risk and compliance, and improve overall performance. To meet these demands while competing in a turbulent marketplace, bank CFOs need sound planning and forecasting support. Find out more.
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Security Information and Event Manager (SIEM) users face the pressure of high costs related to the selection of a SIEM product, its deployment, integration and day-to-day use. Such cost pressure stems from substantial initial cost of the product, additional expenses for specific hardware and third-party product licenses, etc. In the end, what was initially considered as an affordable price for the chosen SIEM solution may turn out to be a large hole in the budget with an enormous total cost of ownership. Download this white paper to learn different approaches for resolving them successfully.
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Davidson Companies is a leading regional financial services holding company in northwestern United States composed of five subsidiaries and 1,200 employees. The company’s back-office infrastructure could no longer support the timely and efficient administrative and financial reporting across all business units. Find out how TEC’s approach to software selection helped Davidson choose a fully integrated system in just 6 months.
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Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that address the needs of service industries such as advertising agencies represent a growing market. Although there are exceptions, business software vendors still approach the industry with a generalized set of functionality. This report aims to establish the areas of product functionality that this industry requires and identify a strategy vendors might take to improve the fit of their solutions to this market.
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Of the 30 billion invoices sent and received in Europe every year, more than 90% are in paper format. This is not only labour intensive and error prone, but comes at both a financial and environmental cost. Such manual operations slow invoice reconciliation, leading to poor relationships with suppliers and buyers and, potentially, poor cash flow management. This paper discusses the challenges posed by inefficient manual invoice processes, the need for e-invoicing, and how an organization can focus on its core business by handing over invoice processing to a managed service provider.
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Banks need robust risk analysis and reporting solutions to improve reporting accuracy and efficiency, while reducing the costs and burdens of compliance. Yet many forces hamper efficient enterprise risk reporting, including regulatory and stakeholder pressures, process inefficiencies, and disparate data. This paper focuses on the risk reporting challenges facing banks, and outlines the best practices banks need to improve reporting and manage risk.
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We interviewed CFOs at complex multinational companies to learn what they see as key to accelerating their consolidation and close processes, along with the challenges they face. They see their ability to conduct a high-quality close as a competitive advantage, rather than simply a regulatory obligation. A well managed close process is also important for building investor confidence in the company. Find out more. Download this report now.
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Depending on the size and type of your business, your enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution may touch every department from accounting to warehouse management (WM). That can make it difficult to select the right solution for your company. But there are three critical modules an ERP system must have in order to deliver basic ERP benefits to any company, regardless of size or industry. Find out what they are.
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A new breed of cloud computing solutions has emerged to address businesses’ real-time financial management needs. Research shows that these powerful and flexible solutions are gaining widespread adoption across nearly every application category, including financial management. Download this report to learn more about how cloud-based financial management solutions are responding to the growing needs of small and mid-sized organizations.
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A good financial and accounting system should propel your business forward. It should give you the specific insights you need to spot the storms ahead, help you maximize resources with streamlined processes, and be nimble enough to help you navigate the changing currents of today’s business environment. Download this white paper to make sure you have the facts straight about what to look for—and what to look out for.
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Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) is pleased to announce that IntegrateIT product ERP 123 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for distribution in TEC’s 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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Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) is pleased to announce that IntegrateIT product ERP 123 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for discrete manufacturing in TEC’s 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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Sage ERP X3 v.6 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for distribution 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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One of the most basic business axioms, held dear by all firms but especially small companies, is that cash flow is king. Customer payments are essential for fueling all other business activity, from staff salaries, to raw materials, to rent. Growing firms need to be especially attentive to cash flow because sales increases typically require new investments associated with product or service production before payments are received. Learn more now.
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Too often, finance professionals must contend with outdated financial and accounting systems that present spiraling overhead costs, functional limitations, and unnecessary risks. And that makes it challenging for them to respond to complex business issues such as frequent regulatory change and increased compliance challenges--as well as requirements for visibility across multiple entities, currencies, and tax and regulatory frameworks. Download this buyer guide for a comprehensive overview of how cloud computing can help, including a handy chart comparing software delivery models and vital tips for evaluating cloud solutions for finance and accounting.
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The result of implementing middleware products such as WebSphere MQ (WMQ) “out-of-the-box” without security measures has led to increased risk of failed audits on various regulatory measures. The need for auditing, penetration testing, and remediation of critical middleware structures to assure regulatory compliance and provide internal security methods beyond traditional perimeter security methodologies is paramount.
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Pacific Life needed to bring enterprise-wide learning technology into the company to ensure the success of compliance training. So it implemented a strategic compliance training initiative powered by SumTotal Learning Management to deliver critical online training and to streamline learning management across the enterprise. Find out the results of this initiative, including a shortened compliance training cycle by 82%.
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This paper debunks 5 myths surrounding cost estimating for manufacturing, based on years of input—talking with thousands of estimating managers, customer surveys, trainings, and on-going feedback. We expose these myths and offer improvement opportunities that can save your business. Overpriced quotations may be forcing your customers to seek out your competition.
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Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne (v. 9.0) is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of discrete enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions in TEC's ERP Evaluation Center. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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Epicor ERP Software System (v. 9.05) is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for small to medium businesses (SMBs) in TEC's ERP Evaluation Center. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.
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Epicor Financial Management Software (v. 9.05) is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of financial packages in TEC’s Accounting 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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In this spotlight report, TEC Research Analyst Aleksey Osintsev examines GMS Accounting and Financial Management System, which was specifically designed for not-for-profit organizations. Learn all about GMS’s customers and marketing positioning, and how the software addresses the challenges for not-for-profit accounting. Also featured is a high-level overview of GMS Accounting and Financial Management System functionality.
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Epicor ERP Software System (v. 9.05) is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturers 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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Epicor ERP Software System (v. 9.05) is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for distributors 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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Epicor ERP Software System (v. 9.05) is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for discrete manufacturers 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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Are you getting all the information you need to really understand how well your company is performing right now? How quickly do you get the information you need? Having timely and complete information allows people with good judgment to make better decisions more consistently. Know the options that can help executives in mid-size companies get the information about their businesses faster and more reliably than they can today.
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Planning and budgeting are critical components of any company’s performance management initiative, as they are a means of translating strategy into a coherent set of initiatives and provide a basis for objective assessment and alignment. But how well are companies achieving this? Read this benchmark research that examined the process, technology, and other components that reveal how effective planning and budgeting are.
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Planning, forecasting, and reporting are among the business processes that, if strengthened with analytic software, can help companies improve their performance. Due to time and expense of implementation, many mid-sized have been slow to aggressively adopt business performance management (BPM) solutions. See how on-demand BPM software is a low-cost, low-risk BPM solution that is likely to lead to an “early payback.”
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Business performance management (BPM) applications, particularly budgeting, forecasting, and reporting (BFR) solutions, bring high value to a mid-size company. But embarking upon a BPM initiative can seem daunting. There are many factors to consider, including potential benefits, expected costs, etc. Read this step-by-step guide that helps these companies navigate through these factors and move forward with a BPM solution.
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Corporate budgeting, forecasting, and reporting presents a formidable challenge to most companies, regardless of size or industry. Companies that are able to address budgeting obstacles and improve their process will not only be rewarded with more accurate budgets, more timely re-forecasts, and improved decision-making, but also foster a disciplined financial management culture that will deliver a true competitive advantage
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Most companies are not operating at a high-quality financial management. Budgeting is slow, re-forecasting is infrequent, monthly reports lack key information, and what-if analyses are incomplete or impossible. With Adaptive Planning, companies can elevate their financial management by creating better connections—within financial plans and reports, between organizations and teams, and among professionals across the globe.
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A volatile economy demands superior financial planning and management. Adaptive Planning’s Recession Survival Kit is designed for planning during difficult times. It allows companies to quickly and successfully gain control of their financial outlook, evaluate the potential business and cash impacts of strategic and tactical actions, and reset financial plans to deal with a global downturn. And it goes live in under a week.
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Why aren’t most companies able to achieve exceptional performance given that they have standard budgeting, analysis, and forecasting processes in place? It is because they don’t have a unified, integrated financial management process. Discover the benefits of a unified approach and the technologies that enable companies to adopt business performance management (BPM) best practices in just days or weeks, at an affordable price.
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Mid-size organizations have been conducting their budgeting and forecasting through a readily-available, inexpensive, and easy-to-use application—the spreadsheet. But spreadsheets fail to support complex planning processes, which involve multiple people, require real-time access to data, and demand comprehensive security. Discover how the Adaptive Planning budgeting and planning application can help you meet these needs.
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Manufacturers face many challenges with scarce credit, pricing pressures, and increasing costs. Critical to success is a comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that aligns operations and production with finance to understand risk, allowing manufacturers to deliver quality products at competitive prices. Discover how to create value and profitability through real-time monitoring of financial conditions.
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CIBS is a thriving business providing commercial cleaning, pest control, and washroom services to offices, schools, and the retail and leisure industries that needed to automate its manual, paper-based processes and better control day-to-day contract performance. Read about how this company chose SAP solutions and services, enabling it to double the size of its business.
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One of the biggest challenges of business software implementations is their unpredictability. Total costs and deployment time can vary wildly. Read about a new category of solutions that combines preconfigured software, predefined services, and other user-focused enablement content to provide predictable solution deployments in less than 12 weeks and at a fixed price.
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Chief financial officers (CFOs) and other senior managers are under tremendous pressure to maximize profitability, reduce operational costs, minimize risk, and improve stakeholder confidence. Read about an application that can help you streamline operations, instill confidence, and reduce risk. The solution provides planning, budgeting, and forecasting and supports financial consolidation and reporting operations.
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This paper examines the imperative for midsize companies to not only move away from the use of spreadsheets but ensure they use unified solutions in the core performance management disciplines of financial consolidation and planning. Unified planning and consolidation refers to systems that are specifically architected to use a common platform and data structure with a common user interface.
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This Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) paper explores the benefits of transitioning from an on-premise financials system to the cloud. The paper reviews research conducted among 800 IMA members regarding their perceived benefits and risks related to moving financials to the cloud, including drivers around total cost of ownership (TCO); anytime, anywhere access; easy upgrades; and business process improvement.
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This paper from independent analyst SMB Group considers the financial and operational challenges that global medium-sized businesses face, examines the value of achieving real-time financial consolidation, discusses the criteria they can use to evaluate solutions, and provides real-world case studies and research showing how cloud-based systems can provide global visibility and streamline consolidation and reporting needs.
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If you have acquired businesses, added subsidiaries, and entered international markets, you probably have error-prone and time-consuming consolidation processes and poor visibility into performance at the corporate or divisional level. This kit offers strategies for multi-subsidiary and global businesses to run their organizations more efficiently, including case studies, analyst research, and best-practice insights.
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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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While planning is often seen as a time-consuming task, leading organizations have moved from the traditional spreadsheet-based planning to implementing world-class planning, budgeting, and forecasting software, saving time, reducing errors, and improving internal communication. This IBM white paper discusses the common challenges businesses face with traditional planning processes and how technology can overcome these.
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Financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting can be an endless and arid process for business professionals. Spreadsheet-based planning can prove to be confusing and unorganized, which only costs the company more time and money. IBM's Cognos software can help not only reduce the time spent on planning processes, but also build complex business models and perform ‘what if’ scenarios, enhancing strategic decision making.
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This business management solution is an affordable offering that supports profitable growth, enables business agility, and empowers your employees. It’s comprehensive, easy-to-use software that supports all stakeholders across your company as well as your extended ecosystem. Read about how you can grow your business, develop relationships, accelerate innovation, and streamline operations.
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To effectively track and forecast your company’s financial performance, you need up-to-date and reliable financial data. As your business grows and diversifies, you need to maintain liquidity and manage cash flow and profits. Integration of your business transactions and operational data with financial data makes this possible, and helps you eliminate departmental silos and streamline your business operations.
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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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When selecting and deploying a new payroll software solution, there are many factors to take into consideration, including timing, data transfer and conversion, and side-by-side processing. In addition to specific software features and functionality, it’s important to choose a vendor known for experience in the payroll software industry. Read this guide by Sage to gain useful information before buying a software solution.
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Investing in a human resource management system (HRMS) can help you tap into the wide range of business intelligence that already resides within your HR department. Read further to find out implementing an HRMS can help you streamline your administrative activities, become more efficient and productive, and find new ways to move your business forward, giving your company a competitive advantage in today’s marketplace.
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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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Balancing employee requests for keeping mobile channels open, while getting the right level of work and commitment from them, should not be left to chance. All organizations need to fully understand their employees’ mobile usage and behaviors to be able to put appropriate policies in place to ensure business requirements are met while acceptable personal use is still enabled. Read this white paper to know how to do this.
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Managing mobile costs is a challenge for all organizations and becomes more complex and problematic for those organizations spanning across countries or using multiple suppliers within one country. Getting to grips with these costs in a way that does not undermine the value of mobile flexibility is paramount, and organizations need to gather sufficient detail to effectively manage and analyze their mobile costs. See how.
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Companies must meet GRC criteria defined by internal and external policies, as failing to do so can have business and legal consequences. Although management of travel and entertainment (T&E) expenses is often seen as being of low importance for overall GRC, poorly managed T&E can lead to unforeseen issues with long-term business impact. See why using an external T&E management provider is the best way to adhere to GRC.
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The managed print services (MPS) market continues to evolve as vendors expand their service offerings beyond the office print environment. Today the business agenda is broader, and MPS must provide a route to business transformation as well as cost efficiency. Businesses thus must place their transformational goals on the agenda at the start of an MPS engagement. See what major MPS providers have to offer to your business.
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The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) recently released the Global Technology Audit Guide (GTAG) 14: Auditing User-developed Applications. Read how the Prodiance Enterprise Risk Manager (ERM) suite of user-developed application (UDA) software tools and related professional service offerings enable organizations to fully comply with IIA’s guidelines for identifying, risk ranking, testing, and controlling critical UDAs.
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Escalating costs and employee retention issues have led companies to cut costs and improve efficiencies associated with their back office support processes. Outsourcing of non-core processes can result in operating efficiencies, reduced liabilities, and provide access to leading technologies and process best practices. See how the build operate transfer (BOT) model of shared payroll services can benefit your organization.
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Banks have progressed farther than companies in many other industries in automating financial processes and have more to lose from inefficient processes, facing intensified regulatory compliance. Effective governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) initiatives can multiply efficiency advantages of more conservative automation efforts while providing accurate, timely insight into the entire financial picture of the enterprise.
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Fabricated metals companies need to create a competitive advantage around their core competencies, demonstrated by their ability to respond quickly to change, efficiently manage relationships with suppliers, and deliver quality products on time. Read about a solution that provides these companies with transparency and control over their entire business, empowering them to respond immediately to issues and opportunities.
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Chief financial officers (CFOs) at large hospitals must process large amounts of information to make strategic decisions. Solutions that intelligently aggregate and summarize clinical, operational, and financial data give hospital CFOs the ability to quickly identify key indicators and root causes of issues. This paper explores the decision-making challenges faced by CFOs and examines the many benefits of such solutions.
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Portfolio management provides insight into what is the best way to distribute resources among the various innovative options/projects to ensure that a maximum yield is realized against acceptable risks; there is a good fit between the projects and the various strategic themes; and there is a good mix between the various types of projects. Read this paper to learn about the different approaches used n portfolio management.
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When switching to a new payroll solution, companies need to choose between commercial software and outsourced software. Commercial software typically offers more flexibility for midsized companies. Not only is it more cost-effective, it allows you to protect wage and salary information and maintain control over payroll processing. Discover the right questions to ask when choosing a commercial payroll software solution.
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This white paper summarizes how the Prodiance Enterprise Risk Manager (ERM) suite of user-developed applications (UDA) software tools and associated professional service offerings enable organizations to fully comply with the Institute of Internal Auditors’ (IIA’s) guidelines for identifying, risk ranking, testing, and controlling critical UDAs.
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More than 30 million users within businesses, government agencies, schools and other organizations world-wide have switched to Google Apps. Unfortunately, Google Apps does not have any built-in document compliance or records management features to meet organizational standards and legal regulations. This document discusses how to achieve regulatory and policy compliance with Google Apps.
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A leader in the design and manufacture of advanced lighting systems and rugged protective cases, Pelican Products Inc. is also recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in the United States. Learn how, by consolidating its worldwide operations on a single instance of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) application, Pelican gained greater operational transparency and established a platform for continued growth.
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TEC's online software comparison system, TEC Advisor, is designed to help you make sense of the massive amount of information you'll gather during your selection project. One leading enterprise software consulting firm decided to put TEC’s technology to the test, to help a client replace its legacy financials system. The result? An objectively chosen best-fit financials solution—a mere two and a half months after project kick-off.
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After 20-plus years in service, and with few changes to its original design, Reid and Wright’s legacy accounting system had become slow, unreliable, and expensive—requiring a variety of manual processes and custom software just to keep it running—and keep the company competitive. Find out how TEC helped Reid & Wright find a best-fit solution to support the unique requirements of the lumber industry.
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This white paper discusses explanation of benefits (EOB) and electronic remittance advice (ERA – ANSI 835). It also highlights iTech’s automated ERA processing solutions.
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Prospects for the global economy remain precarious. But effective financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting can enable successful decision making even in periods of unprecedented change. Dynamic financial planning enabled through five key elements—process, organization, knowledge management, technology, and performance management—give business leaders the tools to take action and emerge even stronger. Find out how.
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This white paper features insight from the UNIT4 group about issues facing companies that need an adaptable financial system but not necessarily a full-blown enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. Also included are TEC’s suggestions for identifying financial system functionality that supports your organization’s changing processes, and a checklist for soliciting such information about enterprise software solutions.
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The French Ministry of Employment needed a software solution to help drive the budget for its social cohesion plan budget at the national, regional, departmental, and local levels. The project would affect approximately 10,000 users managing hundreds of thousands of files. Learn how the Ministry chose a dashboard solution that made it possible to track budgets, and forecast gaps and bottlenecks to improve processes.
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Today’s finance executives must meet a growing number of complex demands and economic challenges to enable their company’s growth, profit, and risk objectives. Performance management (PM) capabilities such as financial modeling, profitability reporting, planning, budgeting and forecasting, and delivery of key performance information across the enterprise to a broader audience is more important than ever. Find out why.
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It doesn’t make sense to buy software based on price alone. Selecting a specific preferred vendor or spending as little as possible is the wrong choice if people will not use the purchased product and it winds up as “shelfware,” or if it hampers productivity and is an ongoing drain on resources. Learn the five questions financial professionals should ask before choosing a financial performance management (FPM) solution.
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Executives are placing greater demands on the finance department—and the chief financial officer (CFO) —to provide an accurate picture of the financial health of the enterprise, offer insight into how emerging shifts in key market factors will affect the organization, and establish timely scalable measures of corporate performance that align across functions. Learn how BI solutions can help finance departments deliver.
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In late 2004, the senior management team of the Huntsman Corporation, a global manufacturer of chemical products, identified an opportunity to both prepare the company for compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and achieve cost reductions. Learn how the company selected a new financials solution that helped it reduce audit fees, avoid headcount additions, improve productivity, and create an enterprise-wide analytics platform.
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This white paper is a transcript of a webinar hosted by SAP Insider and presented by IBM Cognos Software. In it, you’ll Discover how Nike—a leading global manufacturer and marketer of athletic footwear, apparel, and equipment—leverages SAP with IBM Cognos solutions to improve its planning and financial performance management process, driving additional business value.
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Navigator One for SAP Business One (v88) is now TEC Certified for online comparison of accounting software in TEC's Evaluation Centers. 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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Sales and operations planning (S&OP) is the key integrated process that the supply chain organization (specifically the vice president of supply chain) can use to achieve visibility across the entire organization and the value chain. This white paper highlights the results of over 220 companies participating in a survey on S&OP initiatives, and compares the views of the supply chain and finance organizations.
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After expanding its product lines and accelerating product roll-outs, the Campbell Soup Company needed to align demand forecasting and supply chain planning with its new, more dynamic business model. Learn how the company’s new solution helped it improve inventory forecasting, adapt to day-to-day changes in demand, enhance long-range production planning and risk management, and spend more time on strategic activities.
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Many US companies find themselves acting like “Wait-and-See, Inc.” They interpret the switch from US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) to IFRS as a matter of compliance rather than an opportunity to become more globally competitive by improving key internal processes. But transitioning to IFRS offers many benefits beyond compliance. Find out what those benefits are, and how your company can harness them.
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For job shop manufacturers, managing several different software systems to perform the various necessary tasks important to a business is no longer a viable option. Learn why a business system that integrates business process workflow, inventory, customer service, quoting, invoicing, accounting, and analytics, and that can expand onto the Internet, all using one software system, is crucial in today’s competitive market.
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Oracle E-Business Suite (12.1) is now TEC Certified for online comparison of financial packages in TEC's Evaluation Centers. 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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Burdened by reporting and tax compliance issues with its legacy financials system, Duke Corporate Education (Duke CE) needed a replacement solution to support its structure of international subsidiaries, and address multicurrency operations and intercompany transactions. Learn how Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) helped Duke CE accurately define its requirements, and develop a detailed and efficient project plan.
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The State of Wyoming’s IT organization and its customers were struggling with a mainframe-based chargeback system. For IT, productivity and interface complexity were the major problems. For client agencies, it was a lack of actionable information in billing reports. Learn how a new solution provided more detailed cost accounting and billing information, increased customer satisfaction, and lowered IT operational costs.
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The cost of enterprise information management (EIM) can be staggering—preventing many health care organizations from leveraging enterprise information when strategically planning for the entire system. If this is prohibitive for large and medium organizations, how are smaller organizations going to be able to leverage technology that can access vital information inside their own company if cost prevents consideration?
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Large companies can afford to develop their own budget and forecast systems, but for small businesses, there’s only one choice—the spreadsheet. But spreadsheet financial plans are all over the map—no rules, no procedures, no consistent formatting, and minimal GAAP accounting. This white paper proposes standards that can help entrepreneurs and small business owners create, format,and manage financial plans.
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Integrating actuals into the planning cycle is usually a zoo. Financial and operating results are spread across multiple databases. Actual results and plan details are at different levels. Lack of underlying volumes and rates makes meaningful causal analysis difficult. Discover financial planning and analysis software that lets you fully integrate actuals, and plan using driver-based planning and reporting.
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For many companies, spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Excel are the principal interface for budgets and forecasting. Often, these companies find themselves in “Excel hell,” a state of inefficiency and disruption related to using spreadsheets for collaborative planning. The result: frustration, and decisions based on bad information. Learn about solutions that can help your company stay out of “Excel hell.”
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When the top management at Hamworthy Gas Systems realized that the company needed to prepare for considerable organic growth, and gain better control of its core and support business processes, they began upgrading the company’s IT systems. Learn how a new solution, encompassing project and contract management, engineering, procurement and material management, and more, helped Hamworthy gain new perspective on its future.
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Executive teams are under great pressure to maximize profitability, reduce costs, minimize risk, and improve stakeholder confidence. To be effective, they need reliable, up-to-date financial and operational data for planning purposes as well as budgeting, forecasting, analysis, and statutory and management reporting. Learn about software solutions that can help your organization plan, forecast, and budget more effectively.
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Increased globalization, volatility in demand and commodity costs, regulatory requirements, and greater dependency on suppliers and other partners have significantly increased the risk of doing business. To manage performance efficiently, midsize companies need a unified planning, budgeting, and consolidation solution. Learn how such a solution can streamline the planning process and help reduce business risk.
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Confronted by globalization and volatile markets, today’s companies face a challenging and often risky business climate. Explore how to ensure alignment between your company's strategic objectives and risk management/compliance policies; how to mitigate all types of business risk and maintain a proper risk/reward balance; and how to ensure continuous compliance with regulatory requirements and internal policies.
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In previous years, Arizona (US)-based aerospace manufacturer Phoenix Logistics, Inc. managed its low-volume, batch-manufacturing process with non-integrated manual and paper-based systems. Find out how implementing a new software-as-a-service (SaaS) enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution helped the company overcome significant problems with ordering, regulatory compliance, and document management.
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KAMCO Industries, Inc. is an injection molder that serves tier-one and -two suppliers to Honda. After years of using stand-alone solutions and spreadsheets to manage business and production operations, the company was finding it challenging to maintain and support its IT infrastructure. Learn how KAMCO chose a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that helped it increase efficiency and standardize operations.
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Manufacturers face a challenging environment with scarce credit, pricing pressures, and increasing costs. Critical to success is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that aligns operations and production with finance—allowing manufacturers to deliver quality products at competitive prices. Discover the key areas necessary for creating value and profitability through real-time monitoring of financial conditions.
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A flexible enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can be the foundation for a complete overhaul of your business processes—providing numerous benefits over a set of disparate software systems. Find out how an ERP solution can help your company automate the movement of information, improve decision making, create disciplined workflows, and provide the agility needed to accommodate virtually any type of business change.
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OpSource, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology company, was experiencing some growing pains. The company’s financial application made it difficult to track and manage international operations, and was not well integrated with its customer relationship management (CRM) system. Learn how OpSource’s replacement solution helped improve financial controls and support financial operations in four locations worldwide.
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After struggling with manual and often duplicate data entry, paper-intensive processes, and a lack of visibility into financial data, Knoxville, Tennessee (US)-based Faith Promise Church needed a new accounting system that would scale as the church organization grew. Find out how Faith Promise selected a solution that provided much-needed process automation, as well as greater insight into financial operations.
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Emergent Game Technologies develops tools and technologies required to build interactive games. Faced with an accounting solution that was causing lost productivity and accounting inaccuracies, the company sought a replacement. Find out how Emergent’s new solution helped it reconcile multiple currencies across multiple subsidiaries, reduce manual data entry and consolidation processes, and streamline revenue management.
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For finance executives, the financial advantages of cloud computing are undeniable. Shifting the costs of hardware and software from a capital investment to an operating expense makes software-as-a-service (SaaS) more affordable, and far more accessible. Learn how SaaS financials tools can free finance executives from the constraints of on-premise solutions, allowing them to concentrate on growth, regulation, and risk.
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For an increasing number of companies, the costs of owning and operating on-premise software are a burden they are no longer willing to bear. Fortunately, cloud computing is transforming the way companies use computing services by simplifying IT infrastructure, and shifting costs and risks from clients to vendors. Discover how global companies are using cloud computing to manage their financials faster and more easily.
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Since its inception in 2005, digital services provider Acceller had been using the same system to manage accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR). But when business began to increase, the lack of sophisticated financial reporting and the need for improved financial controls became significant issues. Find out how the company chose a solution that provided the needed control and reporting capabilities.
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Although companies typically find it easy to accumulate data from their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, it often remains unusable or unavailable to the decision makers who need it. Learn how deploying automated tools for report building, planning, and budgeting, as well as other applications such as business intelligence (BI) and performance management (PM) can help your company make the most of its ERP data.
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In 2006, Envision Credit Union’s new chief financial officer (CFO) was looking to improve the visibility, efficiency, and accuracy of the company’s accounting and finance functions. Find out how a new business intelligence (BI) and analytics solution helped Envision reduce administrative costs, increase the average amount of overnight cash investments, and improve operational visibility, without adding staff.
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Tracking and reporting stimulus fund spending are difficult tasks for chief information officers (CIOs). The US government’s accountability demands are forcing organizations that are spending American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds to analyze floods of data. Discover how automated ARRA reporting systems can help you comply with reporting requirements without excessive labor costs or data management headaches.
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Transitioning to international financial reporting standards (IFRS) is more than just a mandate—it’s an opportunity for companies to improve their financial consolidation and reporting systems, and enable rapid legal compliance. But making the switch requires careful planning, thoughtful execution, and support from personnel throughout the enterprise. Find out how your company can manage the change.
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Today’s critical cash-flow and liquidity concerns are demanding executive-level attention. Turmoil in the financial markets is leaving many companies struggling to ensure the cash flow and liquidity needed for normal operations. Learn about software solutions that can help your company protect its commercial cash flows, improve visibility into sources and uses of cash, and increase control over global cash balances.
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In a recession, accounts payable (AP) departments need to process more invoices and pay them faster—all with a smaller staff. Perhaps the biggest challenge stems from the continued reliance on paper-based invoices and people-based processes. Discover solutions that address the most common accounts-payable problem areas, including liabilities, process control and visibility, approvals, exceptions, and manual processing.
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Line managers and finance staffs are frustrated by the inadequacies of spread-sheet based planning systems for delivering useful budgets and rolling forecasts. A major problem is the disconnect between the operational elements of a business and financial plans. What's missing is driver-based planning, a best practice methodology where financial plans incorporate assumptions about business activities which are modeled to drive financial data such as revenue projections, headcount, spend-ing and capital requirements. Learn how driver-based planning, empowers managers to do better budgeting and, in particular, improve the accuracy and decision making usefulness of rolling forecasts.
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The old way of thinking—you run a company through the once a year budget process—is on the way out in favor of new concepts and system approaches generally described as "continuous planning." The practical implementation of continuous planning is through rolling forecasts—frequent updates of financial plans that include integrating actuals data and rolling the forecast time period beyond the current fiscal year. Discover the concepts and practices of continuous planning, and find out how to define application requirements for integrating actuals, financial
modeling and scenario analysis—the three foundations of a continuous planning system.
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For multi-organizational enterprises, generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) have made everything from closing the books to daily management more complex. Learn how to manage the sales and financial components of your enterprise, including requirements for addressing differing currencies, taxation rules, and reporting.
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Considering that e-mail and other electronically stored information (ESI) create the electronic equivalent of DNA evidence, there is no doubt that their evidentiary role will continue to expand. Learn how implementing a strategic e-discovery compliance program can help US and Canadian employers preserve, protect, and produce legally compliant e-mail and other ESI when compelled to do so by a court or regulatory body.
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To improve efficiency and reduce overall workload on financials personnel, California (US)-based utilities company South Coast Water District (SCWD) needed a new financials system with integrated human resources (HR) functionality. Find out how Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) helped SCWD define its financial and HR requirements, evaluate its short list of solutions, and shorten the software selection process.
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ABB, a specialist in energy and automation technology, needed a business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management (CPM) solution in order to support varied business needs and processes such as sales control, management reporting, and planning. But the BI software ABB chose couldn’t cope with all the requirements for integrating analysis, planning, and reporting. Learn about the new BI solution ABB deployed.
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The global economic recession has put immense pressure on companies to cut costs—particularly IT-related expenditure. Companies were often forced to run only a few projects with regulatory impact and immovable deadlines, proceeding against very lean budgets. Recently, key economies such as the US and China have started to show signs of recovery. Learn more about how the recession has had an impact on IT investment.
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LPEC, a large Polish energy distributor, found its financial and bookkeeping system was obsolete. New systems didn’t offer the data integration the company needed, and so it implemented enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to address bookkeeping, fixed assets, and materials management, as well as logistics, purchase contracts, and fleet management. Find out how the ERP system allowed full integration of all data.
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Needing to meet demand from the Internet and other sources, Polish furniture maker Deftrans implemented an enterprise solution with functionality for personnel and payroll, warehouse management, financials, invoice management, and more. With the new system, the company has reduced the time needed to prepare goods specifications and other warehouse operations, as well as ensured greater accuracy of invoices. Learn more.
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International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are the reporting standards developed by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). IFRS is now required or permitted in nearly 100 countries, while others plan to adopt or align with IFRS soon. In the US, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) will soon be aligned with IFRS. Find out how this will affect your company, and what you can do about it.
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The TrainingPartner learning management system (LMS) helps New Horizons Computer Learning Centers keep its glocal edge by providing back office operations support.
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According to Nucleus Research, IBM Cognos business intelligence (BI) software can help companies make better use of their data when performing tasks related to reporting, financial statements, budgeting, and analysis. Learn about some of the barriers to better data use, as well as the key features and functions of this BI solution—and how you can improve data access and analysis, employee performance, and productivity.
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Businesses of all sizes need real insight into operations and customers—to do their planning, forecasting, modeling, and adjusting based on data that’s current, accurate, and accessible. This is at the core of today’s expanding business intelligence (BI) and enterprise performance management (EPM) markets. Find out more about how BI software or an EMP solution can help you improve your financial analysis and reporting.
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Extending the capabilities and value of SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse is a concern for users. To improve data use and fact-based decision making, and reduce stranded spreadsheets, SAP users can choose a business intelligence (BI) software solution such as IBM Cognos 8, with budgeting, planning, and forecasting functions. Find out more about how you can improve your business performance management content with BI.
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Finance professionals who plan, budget, and forecast in an SAP environment always need to drive additional value from their SAP solutions. One of the most pressing challenges is extending SAP functionality with a planning, budgeting, and forecasting solution that offers critical modeling and analytic capabilities for improved financial performance management. Learn how a business intelligence (BI) solution can help.
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You’ll increase your chances of business intelligence (BI) project success and overcome technical and other challenges if you follow a methodology. To begin with, evaluate any BI vendor based on specific features and functionality, service offerings, support structure, and other considerations. Learn more about how to ensure you choose a BI solution that suits your company—and how to ensure a successful implementation.
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In today’s competitive global business environment, nearly all firms work hard to analyze alternatives and create strategies that enable competitive advantage. But 9 out of 10 companies fail to implement strategy effectively. How can you communicate the strategy effectively and assure that the entire company is aligned behind it? Discover how business performance optimization systems can help you make better decisions.
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To reduce time to market and realize the full value of its intellectual property, Cadbury plc needed to ensure compliance with government regulations. The company launched a long-term data management strategy, which included storing all data in a central repository—a product lifecycle management (PLM) system. Find out how Cadbury not only ensured compliance but also improved its response to consumer and customer queries.
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Financial pressures can strain even the most efficient and lean company. So forward-thinking companies should now turn to the chief financial officer (CFO). The strategic CFO is equipped with the tools, plans, and fiscal philosophy that can transform the CFO’s role into a strategic business asset. Discover the processes that allow the CFO to break away from the old paradigm toward better financial and risk management.
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The role of the chief financial officer (CFO) is evolving, but due to pressures to meet financial reporting requirements, there’s still a strong pull toward “chief bean counter” responsibilities. But CFOs can find opportunities to become true business leaders. With help from technology, five key strategies can enable the CFO to have a significant impact on the direction and success of the business. Learn more.
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New economic conditions are driving companies to become increasingly cautious about the near future. But focusing on improving flexibility to dynamically account for change shifts focus away from budget accuracy—putting you at risk of falling short of shareholder expectations. To achieve best-in-class status, you must plan, budget, and forecast more efficiently for improved agility, accuracy, and corporate performance.
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Communication between companies is critical for smooth and effective commerce. Delays in information delivery may seriously affect a company’s profitability. But many companies don’t see that automating business communications can improve document delivery, and still rely on slow methods. Find out how you can improve the efficiency of your document delivery process by using common applications to simplify forms and more.
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Staying compliant with state transaction tax collection requirements is like navigating a mine field. Slipping out of compliance is easy—and you might also discover you’ve been out of compliance in one or more tax jurisdictions. You can reduce your liability and go forward with a clean slate through a voluntary disclosure agreement (VDA). Learn the ins and outs of the VDA process and the benefits you’ll gain.
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Sales and use tax compliance is serious business. To reduce your risk of facing a costly audit, you need to invest time and effort up-front by formulating a transaction tax policy. Responding effectively to audits involves knowing about your company, your operations, and your resources. Find out why a tax policy is important to your organization and how to make it part of your business process and procedures.
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The complexities and fluidities of sales tax nexus can be overwhelming and require the constant attention of a tax expert to navigate, but most small to medium businesses (SMBs) cannot afford that kind of resource internally. Meanwhile, the penalties for undercollecting, underreporting, and underpaying sales tax can be huge. Learn more about nexus issues and how they can impact your business—and your bottom line.
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When it comes to transaction tax management, midsized companies haven’t much choice. They can either stay the course—increasingly complex and risky—or they can change direction and embrace outsourcing as a way to achieve compliance. Per this survey, only 14 percent are satisfied with their present course. As a viable outsource offering for mid-market tax compliance now exists, such a shift seems inevitable. Learn more.
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Even in the best economic times, businesses must be vigilant against unnecessary costs and risks. But not just businesses need to be vigilant—states and other tax authorities are feeling the same economic pinch, and are ready to seek out non-compliers with tax reporting. Get tips on how to survive sales and use tax audits, starting with understanding your exposure to audits and how to avoid them right from the start.
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IT departments rarely have the luxury of spare capacity or sufficient knowledge of all the products and technologies that the rest of the organization expects. However, IT is an integral part of most companies, and supporting diverse or specialized technologies and understanding their impact on the business is necessary. Organizations not only need third parties—they need them to be focused and cost-effective. Learn more.
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Kempe, a provider of innovative engineering solutions and services for a variety of industries, was using separate systems to manage the financial and operation aspects of the business. These systems were out of date and made accurate financial reporting almost impossible. With the help of a value-added reseller (VAR), Kepme implemented a centralized, integrated solution that stores information in real time. Learn more.
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The first role of the corporate controller has been to ensure corporate financial controls and—as a distant second—make strategic business contributions. But the installation of on-premise enterprise resource planning (ERP) and accounting software meant that controllers’ roles now involve financial software know-how. To achieve financial transformation, controllers need guidance and practical strategies. Learn more.
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Fair Isaac Corporation’s FICO scores—the global industry standard for objective, profitable risk assessment—are the most widely used consumer credit scores in the world. Fair Isaac was using a simple in-house license manager to protect new installations of the FICO score, but as new implementations spread around the world, the company decided it needed a new system to manage its licenses. Learn about its chosen solution.
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Running four manufacturing operations simultaneously was a challenge for California (US)-based Calnetix. The company needed an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to help it manage its information, as well as control inventory and track sampling time. The ERP solution Calnetix chose has brought greater efficiencies in purchasing, and tracking work orders and inventory—and helps Calnetix meet due dates. Learn more.
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Martin’s Wood Products, producers of solid wood furniture for over 20 years, is a family-run business that has aimed to keep pace with the enterprise resource planning (ERP) advances of the 21st century. To bring costing under control, and to automatically place accurate and consistent work orders on the shop floor, the company uses an ERP and product configurator solution. Learn more about how the solutions help the company.
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The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) regulates the storage and management of corporate financial data for all Registered Public Accounting Firms and many publicly held companies. Which SOX regulations affect data backup in your company—and how can a remote data backup solution help you comply? Find out, with an explanation of various sections of the SOX act, matched with key remote data backup functionality.
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At a time when many companies are concerned about operational expenditure, a business assurance system with consultancy can help. Instead of randomly entering a remediation program whenever a major fault is found, use the business assurance system. The following areas have seen results: revenue management, customer acquisition and retention, credit management and bad debt recovery, supply chain management, among others.
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Business intelligence (BI) exists in many corners of a company, and even outside its walls. BI is hidden in industry publications, staff knowledge, market research, sales data, project schedules, spreadsheets, and packaged and legacy software applications. Without a true and complete picture of all available data and information, you cannot effectively plan for success or appropriately leverage a BI system. Learn more.
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With traditional paper-based invoicing, the cash conversion process is lengthy and very inefficient. Today’s pressures to be accountable mean that you must improve your financial systems to provide timely and accurate financial information. Electronic data interchange (EDI) can minimize the delays on payment and address the lack of access to process information. Learn more about improving your invoice and payment cycle.
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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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To do their jobs, knowledge workers use the gamut of media and technologies. However, although the proliferation of new means to locate and access data has multiplied the amount of information available to these workers, it’s also made the efficient dissemination, management, and processing of data more burdensome. Find out more about how collaborative tools are—and aren’t—being used in the information-sharing workplace.
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Like many distribution companies, Hydro-Scape needed to streamline and automate its business processes to increase speed and accuracy when serving customers, as well as boost productivity and profitability. The company chose an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution with distribution-specific functionality, including the ability to integrate data across the entire operation. Learn more about the distribution ERP.
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American Refrigeration Supplies (ARS) is a wholesaler of refrigeration and heating equipment, parts, and supplies. In a difficult economy, there is little margin for error with respect to how ARS manages its clients and vendors. Because a growing number of product vendors are using electronic data interchange (EDI), ARS was pushed to upgrade its distribution processes. Learn about the EDI solution the company chose.
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Falcon Technologies, Inc. (FTI) is a leading distributor of data and telecommunications products. After several years, FTI realized its legacy accounting system could no longer manage the growing business, and that it needed an industry-specific solution. The new system, with a few customizations, has allowed FTI to improve its efficiencies and productivity, resulting in a growth rate of over 50 percent. Find out more.
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As the economic downturn deepens, there’s no shortage of advice on how your company is to survive—where to cut costs and how to retrench the business. But despite the natural inclination to spend as little as possible, a recession might actually be a great time to use market conditions to your advantage. Find out why now is the time to invest in talent, increase your market presence, perk up your processes, and more.
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Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems offer great value to companies, but choosing the right ERP system can be overwhelming. To choose the system and vendor that can best meet your needs, you need the tools that can help you address the business goals of your enterprise and mitigate the risks involved in a selection project. You can apply these concepts to a variety of ERP selection processes. Learn more.
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“Financial close” is a company’s ability to complete accounting cycles and produce financial statements for internal management and external legal reporting—and is still a key part of today’s global finance function. Do you know how to overcome the barriers to a fast, high-quality close? Discover solutions that can help you improve your close times and address the challenges of automating and testing internal controls.
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Initiatives to automate and streamline financial processes often focus more on reducing costs than adding value. Adding the kind of value you should have in your financial processes stands at the heart of a broader initiative known as governance, risk, and compliance (GRC). Learn why embedding the components of GRC within your financial processes can help you track financial flows and alert you when things might go awry.
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Are you moving beyond the need to comply with legislation like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), to focus instead on driving sustainability and control in your processes? Do you have an initiative to support the fast close—or does your ability to complete your accounting cycles and close your books need a boost? Learn about technology and a methodology that can help you deal with the intercompany reconciliation challenge.
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Issues of governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) affect nearly everything life sciences companies do. But you shouldn’t approach GRC in an ad hoc manner—implementing point solutions one after another in response to regulatory demands as they arise. This is inefficient and costly—and may result in non-compliance, due to lack of transparency. Learn how an enterprise-wide GRC approach to compliance management can help.
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The role of the finance team has changed recently, due to increased oversight from regulators, more active investors, and company-specific changes in business operations. What steps are companies taking to respond to the internal and external forces? Find out how finance often repairs core finance and operating activities, as exposed in the results of a survey and a series of interviews among senior finance executives.
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You needn’t be a seer or sage to perceive risk—it’s as predictable and devastating as a Florida hurricane and as far-reaching as a corporate scandal. But you do need to be a visionary to see the underside of the risk coin. This side represents opportunity, competitiveness, and growth. Find out why insight into managing two types of risk, rewarded and unrewarded, can help you explore opportunities for growth and profit.
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Given the dramatic events in the capital markets, everyone is wondering what will happen next—and what the implications are for the wider economy. Learn about the crisis both in the capital markets and the wider economy; explore likely future economic scenarios and the challenges facing companies outside the financial sector—and discover the actions your company should take in order to respond to these challenges.
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Workers spend on average close to 80 percent of their workday with some combination of enterprise applications and desktop tools. Best-in-class companies have already found ways to improve productivity. Learn more about the convergence of enterprise applications with desktop tools, and the role it plays in providing visibility to enterprise data, improving communication, and facilitating real-time decision making.
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A benchmarking survey shows that most organizations have a reactive method to governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) management, channeling resources and management attention to address specific regulatory mandates independently and in isolation from each other. The result: fragmented GRC activities and data sources that increase costs and hinder business agility. Find out how your company can become less reactive.
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As financial institutions look to the future, there’s bound to be a careful reappraisal of the role and responsibilities of risk management. Were the tools available to risk managers fit for purpose? Was the approach to risk management appropriate? Examine lessons that have been learned from the current financial crisis, and get 10 tips to help you address weaknesses in risk identification, assessment, and management.
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One company executive has a growing influence in today’s boardroom—the chief financial officer (CFO). And the role of the finance organizations that these CFOs lead is expanding as well. Examine the changing role of the finance organization in today’s business environment, learn how your CFO can take on a more prominent role in defining company strategy, and find out how you can develop a best-run finance organization.
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The current global economic instability means firms have to quickly adapt to business conditions. This uncertainty may increase companies’ reliance on business alliances to provide as-needed skills, services, and products. To optimize these alliances, finance should enter the discussion as early as possible. Find out where finance’s true value lies when realigning strategic objectives to include business collaboration.
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Once you decide it’s time to upgrade the enterprise resource planning (ERP) for accounting system, the next question is: “How much does it cost?” However, many variables factor into the total project price—and software is only a fraction of that. Discover 16 insider tips that can help you save money, as well as 30 specific questions to ask your software vendor, so you can avoid hidden costs and understand the total quote.
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Accurate forecasting requires many different views of the business. Increasingly, the finance department must make the links between forward-looking data from core operations and explain to stakeholders how this will impact the balance sheet and cash flow statement. How can chief financial officers lead the effort to make their operational and financial planning more agile, detailed, reliable, and efficient? Learn more.
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Sustaining profitability in a landscape of volatile prices and exchange rates is difficult for even the best-run companies. One key challenge is to understand the real economic costs in your business and of your products so you can make accurate decisions about sourcing, substitutions, pricing, and logistics. Find out how to use the right costing methodology and have the right information—and the right analytical tools.
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Designed for the IBM System i and iSeries platforms, Inovis’ BizManager400 provides secure managed file transfer of critical business documents like purchase orders, advance ship notices, and invoices. BizManager400can also serve as a single business-to-business (B2B) gateway for trading partner connectivity, community management, integrated mapping, and integration. Find out about the key capabilities of BizManager400.
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Mission Rubber’s customers—the manufacturer’s representatives and distributors it sells through—began insisting on the use of electronic data interchange (EDI) for all transactions. The company wanted a reliable supplier that could provide cost-effective EDI translation and document exchange functionality. Find out why Mission Rubber finds its EDI solution is simple to set up, manage, and use—and how the company benefits.
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For many suppliers, keeping up with their retail customers’ compliance guides is a challenge, driven by the fast pace of the retail supply chain and complex trading partner systems. But even when retailers and vendors work together, data errors can slow down the supply chain and trigger deductions for compliance errors. Discover a solution that can help you eliminate preventable chargebacks in your supply chain.
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Making a list and checking it twice is a particularly good practice when picking a finance and accounting software solution. If you don’t find the right product for your company, you’ll just pay for the mistakes on the back end. But first you need to know which features your small to midsize business must have and which you don’t want. Get some tips that will help you create your finance and accounting checklist.
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Today’s economic environment requires you to evaluate whether your current financial institution is in it for the long haul and can offer the full breadth of services that you may need. Many of these vital services can be delivered from one source—your bank. Your primary concern in selecting a financial services institution should be the security of your assets and data. Find out what to look for, and what to avoid.
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Most financial offices run at least three separate industry-specific software packages—often from different vendors. The problem with having all of these different solutions is that most of them require their own databases and do not integrate very well with each other. Document management systems (DMSs) are becoming popular with financial advisors, as they help organize the office and provide risk management. Learn more.
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The global economic downturn is impacting the way we do business. Many companies are looking to optimize costs. The best way to ensure your company’s survival is through strategic planning. High-level managers face many challenges that can be overcome by managing risks and tracking project progress and budgets. Find out why the key to success involves having the right information at the right level at the right time.
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Taleo, provider of software as a service (SaaS), was reaching $120 million (USD) and had more than 600 employees. Yet, in finance, the company was not quite so dynamic. The new director of finance recognized the need to move to a financial reporting system that featured technology advances. Find out about the online analytic processing (OLAP) server Taleo chose as part of its businessModify performance management strategy.
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Best practices for reporting have often been overlooked. Most of the time we focus on eye candy—such as dashboards—and overlook report generation and report production, which are crucial concepts at the heart of business intelligence (BI). Learn more about the current reporting situation, and learn about ways to use reporting tools to improve the reporting processes in your company and make them more efficient.
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Compliance is often treated as a necessary evil that creates costs, disruption, and complexity. But these pains often result from dealing with compliance in a clumsy way due to a lack of resources and the absence of a compliance strategy. There’s a better way: using standards-based data management solutions that integrate with existing infrastructure and leverage automation to embed compliance at all levels. Find out how.
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While companies have long seen their stores of data as valuable corporate assets, how they manage those stores varies enormously. Today, however, new government regulations require that companies retain and control information for long periods of time. Find out what IT managers are doing to meet these new regulatory requirements, and learn about solutions for storing vast quantities of data for the lowest possible cost.
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Addressing information protection and control (IPC) is a complex challenge. Enterprises must secure their databases to protect sensitive information and comply with policy regulations. Learn more about threats to business information, the impact of government regulations on data protection, and how database security best practices can prevent sensitive customer data or company information from being distributed.
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Hitachi’s Australian division has nearly 1,000 retail stores and 6 warehouses across Australia. As such, the company needs supply chain visibility and accurate information to maintain customer satisfaction. For over 10 years, Hitachi Australia has worked with Pronto Software to ensure that the PRONTO-Xi enterprise resource management (ERP) system meets its business requirements and maximizes productivity. Find out how.
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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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Research shows that back-office connectivity is not addressed by many customer relationship management (CRM) solutions—meaning, customer data cannot be shared effectively and companies are prone to errors, delays, and needless paperwork. In the long run, this negatively impacts overall customer satisfaction in small to medium businesses (SMBS). Learn how front-to-back-office integration can help you address these issues.
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Over 100 countries now require or permit International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) reporting. Companies preparing to make this challenging switch will need to focus on technical accounting issues, the differences between IFRS and generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), and more. Learn about the issues surrounding IFRS adoption and the systems you use to manage and report financial information.
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Since opening its first location in 1987, Australia’s TradeTools Direct has become a multilocation retailer to customers in the building trade. When it came time to transition from its cumbersome paper-based record-keeping system, the company chose Pronto Software. Find out how Pronto’s fully integrated point-of-sale (POS) system and accounting functions helped TradeTools increase efficiency and improve customer service.
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Integrative software as a service (SaaS) business systems are a way of transforming your finance operations. SaaS can position finance as the nexus of standardized, real-time information. Finance executives should investigate SaaS solutions and providers, so that finance and IT can work together to enable a cost-effective transformation of finance to a stronger leadership role and improve finance’s value to your company.
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Established in 2002, Fibrelogic is now Australia’s leading fiberglass pipe company. Recognizing that its spreadsheet-based systems—for everything from inventory management to financials—were delaying month-end reporting, the company implemented the PRONTO-Xi enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Learn how the new system helped Fibrelogic access information for strategic decision making and improve customer service.
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For over 11 years, Australia’s Capt’n Snooze—the largest bedding retailer in the southern hemisphere—used Pronto Software’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. Learn how integrated point of sale (POS), inventory, and financial management systems have helped reduce costs, increase customer retention, and maintain stock availability and consistent pricing across the company’s 73 franchised operations.
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After a number of acquisitions, it was vital that testing, inspection, and asset care provider PearlStreet have a solution to integrate each business and consolidate key company and financial information in one system. PearlStreet deployed a range of PRONTO-Xi modules, including project costing. Now, the company has greater operations visibility, more effective reporting, and the ability to analyze business performance.
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Hirotec has been supplying and caring for the assets of some of Australia’s biggest industries for more than 30 years. In 2003, Hirotec was on a strong growth trajectory and realized its IT system couldn’t support its expansion—but that deploying an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system across the company would require staff buy-in. Now, with PRONTO-Xi, Hirotec has reduced invoice cycle time by 20 percent. Learn more.
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When implementing a new business management system, you need to consider many factors. With advances in Web technologies and growth in broadband across the Internet, alternative deployment methods have emerged. Nowadays, you often must include the question of whether to implement the solution on premise or on demand. Find out more about these options and how your choice can impact the overall success of your solution.
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Regulations regarding digital information use, storage, and protection are meant to help maintain the integrity and security of public and private networks. Compliance measures such as the payment card industry (PCI), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), and others focus on the long-term retention and integrity of all data. Achieving secure, long-term data retention is easier with log management and incident response tools.
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A strategic compliance program can help employers in the United States (US) reduce the likelihood of litigation, regulatory investigations, security breaches, privacy violations, and other electronic disasters. Find out what it takes to make a compliance program succeed, and learn the importance of establishing clearly written rules, formal employee education, and effective hosted-services solutions right from the start.
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A growing number of smart suppliers recognize the competitive high ground to be seized as they deepen their connections to retail clients in regional markets. By adding value in the replenishment process through vendor-managed inventory, small and midsized manufacturers can differentiate themselves from larger brands. Most importantly, they can develop more loyal and profitable relationships with retail clients. Learn how.
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Automating finance processes—such as closing the books, reporting, and other labor-intensive processes—reduces finance costs. By streamlining financial processes, you can spend more time on higher-value responsibilities and help ensure your company has a competitive advantage. Find out about the financial solutions many financial managers are implementing to automate their financial processes and financial transactions.
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The question constantly being asked by Microsoft® customers is, “How can Microsoft® help our company save money?” Customers want an integrated, adaptable business management solution that works well with, and is similar to, familiar Microsoft® software. Find out about the solutions Microsoft® believes are the best for helping its customers save money, to gain a competitive advantage and fuel business productivity.
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As a business leader, you’re likely thinking about ways to save money and improve performance. A little fiscal probity coupled with an increase in productivity will ensure you ride out tough times and emerge as a stronger, more robust, successful business. Find out how Microsoft® business solutions can help not only save money, but drive productivity change with customer relationship management (CRM) and other solutions.
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These days, there is increasing pressure on companies to become more efficient and reduce the bottom line. Improving communication with suppliers, partners, and customers can dramatically optimize business processes and increase responsiveness. But how can you easily improve these channels of communication? Web-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that support Web 2.0 collaboration tools can help. Learn more.
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Utilization is important for all services organizations. Maintaining high utilization of your employees drives higher billing, higher revenue—and higher profits. Yet tracking and measuring utilization poses challenges. Learn how to create a policy for calculating utilization that is consistent with common industry practices—and how to use your professional services automation (PSA) tool to measure and report utilization.
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As companies grow, their organizational structure and decision-making processes may outgrow managements’ ability to run that business by the “seat of their pants.” To make complex decisions, you need systems that collect information offering true business intelligence (BI). Discover the ways two solutions can meet complex BI capabilities for chart of accounts, financial reporting tools, and other key BI solution elements.
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Swiss financial services company Global Refund needed to replace its antiquated customer relationship management (CRM) system. To find a mobile-enabled, user-friendly solution that could handle the company’s 15 million yearly transactions, Global Refund turned to TEC. Learn how TEC helped Global Refund turn its long-list of 40 vendors into a short-list of four, and shave two months off the selection process.
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Today’s rigorous reporting requirements suggest there’s a crisis of trust among companies’ stakeholders. But scrambling reactively to implement one-off responses to each new set of compliance regulations won’t rebuild stakeholder trust—such short-sighted solutions just cost a lot of money. An integrated approach to governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC) offers a path to better decision making. Learn how.
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The environmental protection agency (EPA) is limiting the amount of R-22 hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) refrigerant to 20 percent less than industry demand. This means R-22 will likely increase in cost. It could also mean that reclaimed, recycled, and used R-22 could become more valuable. Learn how to continue education related to R-22 phaseout requirements and begin managing your refrigerant inventory more accurately.
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Chief financial officers (CFOs) are under greater pressure, scrutiny, and accountability at companies large and small. An ideal CFO is a steward of decision-support information, cost controller, and more. With data supplied by some of the world’s most successful CFOs, get insight into what CFO responsibilities should be today to achieve extraordinary results, and how they should change to meet future challenges.
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Guardian Management had a clear vision for its business: shift emphasis from real-estate management to real-estate investment, and expand throughout the western United States. But Guardian’s technology infrastructure didn’t support these goals, so the company embarked on comprehensive infrastructure optimization. Discover why the new infrastructure is more available and reliable—and how it’s fueling business productivity.
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Expanding rapidly into new lines of business and geographic regions, Current Energy found its old accounting software was limiting its potential. The company wanted to combine intercompany accounting functions, its point-of-sale (POS) and field service management solutions, and top-notch business intelligence (BI) and reporting capabilities. Find out how it improved customer care and reduced monthly closing times.
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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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Governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) issues are hot topics today, thanks to high-profile stories about companies that failed to meet regulatory requirements. In each case, executives were held accountable, stock prices dropped, and brand image suffered. Find out about cross-enterprise GRC solutions that can make it easier to monitor compliance and risk effectively, and adjust to changing regulatory mandates.
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In addition to traditional duties like financial planning, reporting, and governance, chief financial officers (CFOs) and financial managers are being tasked with more strategic responsibilities. Learn how the right data, performance management applications, and resources can help finance managers improve operational efficiency, ensure regulatory compliance, and control performance for maximized profitability.
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A few years ago, Progress Paint realized its non-integrated software systems and manual processes were slowing productivity. To boost efficiency, the company replaced the old systems with a single accounting and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. Now, Progress manages inventory control, order entry, accounting, formulations, production, and environmental reporting via one automated, integrated ERP solution.
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Does your company need to capture and cost direct and indirect labor? Does it also need to configure user input devices to meet their specific requirements and accommodate changes in the way time and attendance are calculated? Learn about a web-based workforce management solution that automates the collection of labor and attendance information, facilitates the processing of complex attendance policies, and more.
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Tortilla and wrap manufacturer La Tortilla Factory had three software systems to manage its business: one for billing, one for financial reporting, and one for inventory. As the company grew, this multisystem setup wasn’t providing the necessary integration. Find out about an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that helped the company establish process controls to help it grow, while integrating older systems.
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Many chief financial officers (CFOs) have started to take on new strategic roles. Their goals are to enforce stricter controls to ensure legal and regulatory compliance, offer strategic insights into the internal and external business environment, and connect the business strategy with daily operations through performance tracking. Learn more about the changing role of the CFO in today’s finance organization.
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A producer of whole milk powder for the chocolate industry, VernDale Products wanted to replace its existing manual system with automated, fully integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. The company, aided by technology consultants, found an ERP software system that was the best functional fit—reducing the time needed to perform routine office tasks and improving accuracy in financial statements. Learn more.
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Designed to be agile and dependable, financial analysis solutions can bring clarity to the reasons behind your company’s growth, and help steer you toward future growth. Learn how financial analysis solutions enhance the value of your existing business support systems, and distill enterprise-wide information to answer the question: How can we increase revenue, maximize profits, and increase our competitive advantage?
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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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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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American Crane & Equipment Corporation (ACECO) designs and manufactures electric overhead traveling cranes. Managing and tracking custom projects for accurate job costing is key—but ACECO’s legacy system involved labor-intensive, manual manipulation of data. ACECO saw that real-time job cost data was vital to operational performance. It found a solution with integrated functionality for all process operations. Learn more.
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Well-informed accounting treatment of network-critical physical infrastructure (NCPI) assets can improve a company’s financial performance. Design and manufacturing improvements in modular and scalable uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), power distribution units (PDUs), and computer room air conditioners provide entirely new NCPI asset management opportunities with direct and measurable financial benefits. Learn how.
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The need to share information is greater than ever, with increasingly complex company-wide processes. The movement of digital data, both within a company and across its porous boundaries, carries more and more risk as regulations for data protection and personal privacy are tightened. Discover how to stay ahead of the competition by putting the technology in place that allows you to share content widely, but safely.
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The Internet offers companies the opportunity to present a commercial image independent of size and location. With this and the Internet’s ability to extend a business’s reach, it is valuable to know precisely what various Internet service providers (ISPs) offer before buying. This includes evaluating service level and support capabilities and understanding how these vary throughout the United Kingdom (UK). Find out more.
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Security Benefit is a financial services company based in Topeka, Kansas (US). The company’s outside sales team operates from remote locations nationwide. For years, the company used an internally developed contact management system to support its remote sales force. But, field sales staff couldn’t stay connected to the most relevant business data. Learn about the solution that gave the company access to real-time data.
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In the late 1990s, TDIndustries had disparate business systems that kept the company from increasing efficiency and performance. Today, nearly all business activities run through Microsoft Dynamics SL, which helps to simplify financial management and empower employees with real-time data. And, to enhance Dynamics SL, the company built a business intelligence (BI) solution that helped save $3 million (USD). Find out more.
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Due to acquisitions, Zurn—manufacturer and distributor of plumbing products—was running three disparate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Financial reporting and data sharing across business units was time-consuming. To handle current and future business needs, Zurn wanted an integrated ERP system that would provide up-to-date accounting, sales, and warehouse data. Find out about the integrated ERP Zurn chose.
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Founded in 1983, Network Equipment Technlogies (NET) provides network and voice exchange solutions for government and enterprise customers worldwide. To increase its operational efficiency, cut costs, and improve government reporting and compliance capabilities, NET needed a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Find out how switching to Microsoft Dynamics AX has helped NET save an estimated $1.5 million (USD).
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Old-world quality is great for a chocolate manufacturer, but old-style business systems are not. Hauser Chocolatier learned this the hard way, struggling for years with DOS-based accounting software. Needing a seamless flow of information from a system that would accommodate Hauser’s unique pricing structure, the company chose Sage MAS 90. Find out how Hauser uses this accounting solution for more than just accounting.
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Your old solution provided the basic bookkeeping capabilities you needed to start your company. But now, you have more customers. More employees. More complexity. What do you do when your small business is no longer so small? Before you make the move to a more powerful accounting solution, you should gather the facts and compare solutions. Get started with 37 tips for finding the accounting solution that fits your needs.
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Industrial equipment manufacturers and maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) distributors can’t afford to miss bidding deadlines, delivery dates, product specifications, or service level agreements. They also can’t afford the penalties of non-compliance with regulations. Learn how some businesses are leveraging integrated enterprise infrastructures to maximize profits while minimizing exposure to risks.
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Midsize food and beverage companies are striving to be more things to more markets, while ensuring consistent customer satisfaction and regulatory compliance. This industry is experiencing unprecedented opportunities at a time when reliability, quality, and food safety are growing concerns. Learn how business systems that tightly integrate vertical operations have helped these companies achieve a competitive advantage.
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An unprecedented wave of security breaches has led to the establishment of technical standards, IT governance frameworks and laws designed to improve and enforce IT security. Companies are under increasing pressure to control their IT infrastructures more effectively. Learn how ongoing automated vulnerability assessments, together with well-defined network security policies, can simplify the compliance process.
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New network vulnerabilities appear every day due to flaws in software, faulty configuration, and human error. Detecting, removing, and controlling vulnerabilities requires vulnerability management (VM)—the continuous use of software tools to purge exploitable risks. Find out how making VM a part of your network security strategy can help you counter sophisticated exploits and document compliance with security standards.
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Crowley Maritime, offering a range of services such as shipping and barge towing, needs rapid customer billing and invoicing. The company’s electronic data interchange (EDI) volume increased by 500 percent over five years, and management wanted to sustain this growth without harming service delivery. Find out how an integration solution enabled Crowley to support new growth without adding new staff, while reducing costs.
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Outsourcing is increasingly used to reduce costs and increase value—but it has its risks. As companies look to push more of their custom software application development needs to outsourcing partners, you need to plan carefully to build stringent security requirements into contracts and create metrics to ensure those requirements are met. Find out how to increase the value and reduce the risk of outsourcing.
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Financial performance management—often categorized as one aspect of enterprise performance management—can help chief financial officers (CFOs) maximize their companies’ profitability, protect against non-compliance, and optimize efficiency by ensuring delivery of information when it is needed, in context. Learn more about a solution that can help you adapt to rapid business change and predict future financial performance.
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As financial resources become scarcer, maximizing return on assets (ROA) is becoming a key corporate strategy. Unfortunately, metrics governing asset performance are not always available in real time, and are often of low or mixed reliability. Improving visibility into asset performance can help management streamline processes and make better decisions that can ultimately deliver superior corporate results. Find out more.
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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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If there's one constant in any business today, it's pressure. And dealing with pressure can lead managers toward the temptation of taking complete control. However, this often stifles the one element that enables companies to break away from the pack: employee-driven innovation. Learn why empowering your customer-facing employees is the new path to achieving extraordinary, sustainable results—and find out how to do it.
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The payment card industry (PCI) Data Security Standard establishes common processes and precautions for handling credit card data. Although achieving PCI compliance can seem daunting, the requirements represent security best practices that should be observed by any organization with IT systems and data to protect. Learn about network scanning and security assessment solutions that can help you manage PCI compliance.
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Designed to improve consumer financial services, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) includes security provisions for protecting confidential electronic financial information. For the approximately 9,500 financial institutions affected, compliance can be complex and process-intensive. Learn about network security auditing and vulnerability management solutions that can make GLBA compliance faster and more cost-effective.
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Midsize companies engaged in manufacturing, trade, or services need innovative solutions they can implement quickly to help them manage changing customer demands, government regulations, and market requirements. Online tools can speed the configuration, control costs and scope, and tailor the solution to your company—and you’ll have the agility and support you need to grow, while staying within budget. Find out how.
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Even in challenging economic times, companies still need to use technology to communicate with customers, partners, suppliers, and employees. Cutting back on spending can have a negative effect in a long downturn. You’ll have fewer options when conditions improve—and a disadvantage compared to competitors that continue to invest. Learn about 10 steps you can take to maximize use of communications, while minimizing costs.
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Ove Wrist & Co., a full-service supplier to the shipping industry, was looking for a tool to help it optimize its business processes and get more information about the billions of transactions processed each year. Implementing a business intelligence (BI) solution allowed the company to bid on jobs faster, retrieve details about individual customers, and improve the overall customer experience. Find out how.
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SDMO Industries, a global manufacturer of power generators, sells its broad product line through a variety of sales channels. Communicating accurate product feature and pricing information was challenging, so SDMO looked for a customer relationship management (CRM) and order management software solution to improve sales productivity. Find out how SDMO optimized its global sales teams’ efficiency and reduced overall costs.
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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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For many companies, the second largest cost after people is facilities. Solutions have evolved from traditional out-tasking and outsourcing to the more recent strategy of integrating facilities management and real estate under a single service provider. But first, understand marketplace realities: provider capabilities don’t always line up with buyer expectations. Learn about the challenges of integrating these services.
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Chief financial officers (CFOs) and procurement directors want to speed up and simplify the outsourcing provider selection process, to reduce costs and gain benefits sooner. Here are key issues you should consider when fast-tracking the process of scoping and negotiating a sourcing transaction. Collaboration and interaction are key to shortening the process while still achieving your end goal. Find out more.
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Adkev is a custom molder of thermoplastic injection components. In order to serve its automotive customers, Adkev must meet strict requirements, including processing electronic orders effectively and maintaining control of inventory and production schedules for on-time delivery. Find out why the company’s old enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution couldn’t support these requirements, and how the new system can.
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Anderson Power Products manufactures power connectors for telecommunications and other industries. The company, needing to consolidate data for its standard and customized products across five global locations, found an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that offers one reliable point of entry. Discover how the ERP solution helped improve shipping, customer relationships, financial reporting time, and more.
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Nebraska, US-based Smeal grew to over 315 employees at two sites manufacturing 15 kinds of pumps, 12 types of aerial ladders, and four kinds of aerial platforms—all with over 4,400 custom options each. To increase efficiency and improve inventory tracking, the company installed an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that integrated its old manual paper-based systems. Learn more about how the company benefited.
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At first glance, less-than-truckload (LTL) purchasing seems like a straightforward process. However, purchasing approaches that save you money in the short term also introduce your company to financial and operational risk. A truly successful LTL bidding process is data-driven and has very different financial outcomes for shippers, 3PLs, and their customers. Discover more about this and other LTL best practices.
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One of the biggest issues now facing corporations is regulatory compliance. As if corporate security threats weren’t enough, regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), and others now have long checklists of mandated requirements that must be adhered to—and thoroughly documented—by IT departments. Learn about a logical approach to managing the volumes of data required to prove compliance.
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Big-name vendors are competing with those that have long catered to midsized enterprises. With a little savvy, midsize companies can make the dynamic enterprise resource planning (ERP) market work to their advantage. Learn the industry’s top 10 strategies to grow your company and revenue by upgrading from an out-of-the-box finance solution to one that better connects systems and processes throughout your business.
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For large organizations, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems promise big gains by helping grow revenue and increase productivity. But can ERP benefit small to medium businesses (SMBs) in the same way? This step-by-step guide includes important decision-making considerations, such as benefits and costs, across some of the top finance and accounting solution providers for small to midsize companies.
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When conducting a mid-market enterprise resource planning (ERP) system comparison, there are several key questions that you should ask: How much should ERP software cost? What IT resources will be needed to implement it? But don’t stop there. The seas of ERP are vast, and navigating through the current market is not simple. Equip yourself with these questions before evaluating and interviewing vendors.
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Acquiring, validating, and managing sales tax and use tax exemption certificates can be challenging. However, the appropriate exemption certificate management (ECM) strategy can help avoid sales tax audit risk while lowering audit assessments and penalties. Learn how to find the right solution for your organization.
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Indiana, US-based Old National Bancorp owns multiple financial services operations and offers a range of services. With over 3,000 employees, the bank needed a comprehensive policy-based e-mail retention plan to address compliance, legal discovery, and the exponential growth of message stores. Learn how an e-mail retention solution helped the bank meet compliance, scalability, and information life cycle management needs.
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Before you talk to a payroll services provider, you need to ask yourself several important questions about the current situation of your organization, and to consider its budget, expected growth, and more. Here’s a checklist of some of those questions so you can make the most of your consultation with potential services providers. Get organized and know your requirements before you commit to buying a payroll solution.
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Gunther Gifts, a California (US)-based company, engraves and ships unique gifts nationwide to over 200,000 customers. An integrated solution that could efficiently manage accounting and inventory was crucial. And with several web sites taking information from the same inventory pool, the company needed a system to track inventory across multiple channels. Discover the company’s chosen solution, and the benefits gained.
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When the first Kenneth David Apparel store opened in 1992, the company could manage operations with an accounting solution alone. But as new stores opened, the company needed software to scale with growth—not only on the retail side, but design and manufacture too. Its new solution has e-commerce and point-of-sale features, and allows the company more insight for more effective management. Read more about the benefits.
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Fischer, the world’s largest ski manufacturer, grew 47 percent in a three-year period and found its operational staff was spending too much time reconciling data among disparate systems. Plus, it was impossible to accurately analyze customer data to forecast sales and inventory projections. After implementing Everest, Fischer has increased customer satisfaction with real-time order and inventory information. Find out how.
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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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Financial services companies need the right solutions to manage the delivery of trading applications. But this challenge grows ever more complex, with regulatory initiatives forcing trading services to provide market access in a timely manner. Learn the issues involved in effectively managing the delivery of electronic trading applications and order management systems—and how to ensure consistent delivery for end users.
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Nucleus Research reports that NetSuite, a leading integrated Web-based business software suite, can deliver a positive return on investment (ROI) in fewer than nine months, by automating processes, boosting sales, increasing productivity, reducing or avoiding headcount, increasing data visibility, and retiring costly legacy systems. Learn how NetSuite business management software provides a positive ROI to businesses.
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Companies spend millions each year conducting mandatory training for audits, the risk of noncompliance, internal training requirements, and a plethora of other reasons. Manual training processes increase a company’s risk of noncompliance—and can be redundant. Read the 10 steps that can help you develop an enterprise-wide compliance training strategy, to reduce the costs and the compliance risks of mandatory training.
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With the economy in India growing like never before, India’s small to medium businesses (SMBs) are in a position to market their products globally. But to succeed, SMBs need the right information about the business solutions market and the benefits of ERP implementation. This guide explains how Indian SMBs can find the solutions that are adaptable to their requirements and that can enable maximum growth at the lowest cost.
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With the compliance demands of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), the Payment Card Industry (PCI), and others, it’s crucial that companies emphasize separation of duties (SoD) and internal access controls to help maximize network security. But many still struggle with the real-time need of granting temporary access to resources. Learn about a solution that can offer secure, controlled, and audited resource access in a timely fashion.
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What if you could track the location of mobile assets and provide the information to your accountants, without global positioning system (GPS) devices, radio frequency identification (RFID), or satellites? How about by capturing asset ID numbers and locations with camera cell phones? Find out how this system works and how it can be implemented in public companies—for more compliant tracking of mobile assets.
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Before you commit to an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, you should answer several questions about what your company needs and wants to accomplish with its ERP strategy. The answers can help you determine which applications and what kind of functionality you need from your ERP solution—which goes a long way toward easing the implementation process. Discover the key questions now with this convenient checklist.
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The Washington Post Company (WPC) needed a system to manage tax and asset depreciation from 25 companies, while allowing each company to independently add fixed assets and generate reports. With more than 100,000 fixed assets throughout the company, this was no minor task. But with the new Web-hosted fixed assets management solution, WPC accesses all data in real time, saving time and ensuring accuracy. Find out how.
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For Sequa, a manufacturing company with 60 major operating units, the challenge was to replace its old fixed assets management system—which didn’t support tax law changes— with a remotely accessible solution to eliminate manual calculations. Sequa’s new Web-hosted solution allows accurate results, better reporting, and up-to-the-minute tax change support—with no need for IT maintenance. Learn more about the benefits.
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Establishing, maintaining, and making records available as outlined in the Bioterrorism Preparedness Act is overwhelming for manufacturers. To prepare for any type of disaster—from cross-contamination to processing failure—you need to make sure your processes are adhering to regulations. An enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution can help minimize potentially adverse effects—on both your business and consumers.
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A company with a global presence can easily face “double trouble” with regard to financial reporting. Each division needs to keep books, pay employees, manage accounts, and pay taxes in the currency of its region. But all accounts must be consolidated, which involves processes that can cause inaccuracies and use up valuable time. Find out how to more effectively close your books, and manage your disparate sales teams.
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Effective CRM deployment can bring many productivity gains. And although free customer relationship management (CRM) tools may sound great to overburdened company directors, there are five reasons why free CRM tools should be avoided. For one, free isn’t always free, as hidden costs can undermine your budget. Find out about the other reasons why it’s better to tighten your CRM budget now, rather than go bust later.
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A national health insurance company’s spreadsheet-based telecom management process was leading to time and money wasted as staff tried to make up for lack of spend visibility. Further pressure to prepare the telecom function for upcoming merger activity pushed the company to find a technology that would effect immediate cost savings and long-term telecom expense management. Read more about the solution the company chose.
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Georg Fischer, a global provider of fluid-handling systems, was using a simple database to manage customer contact information. But the company couldn’t effectively track the progress of customer relationships, opportunities, and projects, and so key data was often lost. By implementing an integrated enterprise application, the company now has centralized customer contact information, and improved customer relationships.
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Unlike large manufacturing companies, small and medium facilities often handle asset management and maintenance with cobbled-together manual and semi-automated systems. This results in many lost benefits, including uninterrupted production and simplified regulatory compliance burdens. As you explore asset management solutions, you should know five critical factors that can determine the success or failure of your project.
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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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As part of its effort to improve literacy in grades K-3, the Chicago Public Schools District needed to manage thousands of personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other devices to ensure distribution to the right teachers at the right institutions—and under serious time constraints. The schools deployed an asset-tracking solution that enabled real-time tracking, as well as budget planning with depreciation. Learn more.
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Human resources (HR) payroll solutions can foster greater efficiency and accuracy while cutting labor costs and bolstering employee morale. But getting the right payroll software for you isn’t easy. Is enterprise resource planning (ERP) with a payroll module what you need? Or best-of-breed HR payroll software? Find out what to look for, how to buy, and other tips to getting the most value from your payroll solution.
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As the banking industry goes global, the need to be available 24/7, increased demands for customer service, and reduced budgets have introduced new pressures to small to medium banking firms. And with the ongoing challenges of regulatory compliance, firms need financial services software that can reduce the risk of noncompliance while addressing the scale of their operations. Find out how an integrated solution can help.
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The basic spreadsheet and accounting programs you’ve relied on ’til now won’t help your growing business eliminate decision-making bottlenecks, reduce IT costs, increase productivity, or improve the customer experience. To do all that requires an enterprise-wide, integrated software system. Learn how an integrated system can help take your business to the next level, and how to ensure you get the right system for you.
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HSB-Stockholm, a property management firm, manages more than 200 client work orders daily. The company realized its back-office solution couldn’t address customer satisfaction, and that a new solution would have to keep up with the growth of field operations. Learn how HSB implemented a mobile, Internet-based solution that increased the speed of service delivery and maintenance operations by 50 percent.
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Structured planning can make all the difference to your business’s growth. But are you using the right tools? Spreadsheets may not be meeting your financial management and budget planning needs. Find out the risks of using spreadsheets as a planning tool, and how enterprise performance management can help consolidate your departments’ financial information and budgets to give you real-time views of business performance.
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When buying a job scheduling solution, you should gather as much information as possible to make an objective comparison of competitive products’ key capabilities. Seek out customer references, analyst recommendations, and press articles to supplement vendor marketing materials. And to make sure you don’t miss any important evaluation criteria, benchmark the functions of job-scheduling software with a detailed checklist.
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Rapid changes in the market and in customer needs mean small to medium businesses (SMBs) must work harder to stay competitive. Setting and achieving goals in this economic environment is increasingly difficult. Upgrading to a next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) can be a way to manage change—and even benefit from it. Learn more about how to customize an on-demand ERP solution that’s right for you.
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Spreadsheets have boosted the productivity of the financial reporting supply chain for nearly two decades. But in the current age of compliance and legislation, it’s necessary to create controls around the sharing of information—and so spreadsheets can be a liability. How can you control formal, important documents while allowing them to be easily changed and shared? Treat spreadsheets as a software product. Find out how.
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Successful strategic planning relies on your ability to develop and evaluate alternative strategies to identify the most viable approach. But when the outcomes are dependent on complex systems that are difficult to predict, you might conclude that the unknowns are insurmountable. Avoid making decisions based on intuition—develop models using computer simulation for clearer pictures of the outcomes of your strategies.
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Many companies face the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance challenge of monitoring all the data activity of their most privileged users. Those challenges include tracking access to sensitive financial data, reporting on controls, and responding to problems. Learn about a database auditing and protection solution that can help capture targeted activities, without impacting the performance of production databases and software.
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Wellman Thermal, a make-to-contract (MTC) manufacturer of boilers and industrial furnaces, needed an information system to record actual costs and allocate resources for each project from beginning to end. It also wanted help forecasting the outcome of individual projects. The system Wellman implemented allows the company better control of factory capacity planning and high visibility into operations. Get the details.
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By implementing a job costing and enterprise resource planning (ERP) system designed for discrete manufacturing, Young Electric Sign Company (YESCO) was able to save almost $250,000 (USD). Managers now have more accurate views of job completion and employee performance. Plus, the system’s ability to sort service contracts by region enables YESCO to be more responsive to its customers. Learn about the other benefits.
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Nol-Tec, a manufacturer of conveying equipment, needed a job costing solution that would integrate key information about parts and assemblies. Why? So its sales and engineering teams could communicate better about customers’ systems. The company found Jobscope’s order analysis, accounts payable, and customer tracking modules integrated well with its own sales quotation system and helped improved visibility. Learn more.
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For most businesses, the subject of regulatory compliance and risk management usually evokes feelings of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. But it doesn’t have to. By taking the right approach, you can turn risk management and compliance into a proactive process that will put your business at the forefront of your market and set you apart from your competitors.
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To keep your IT infrastructure healthy, strong operational processes are essential to managing changes—both planned and unexpected. A streamlined, integrated approach that incorporates hardware and software assets is a key foundation for meeting regulatory compliance requirements. Find out how you can benefit from applications that enable continuous compliance with operational processes and tools—and reduce your business risk.
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Is your IT environment suffering? Increasing complexity and the challenges of achieving regulatory compliance within a tight budget could be making it more difficult for you to manage change. A traditional change and configuration management (CCM) tool might not be providing all the help you need. Find out how a CCM tool that addresses configuration audit and control can ease your IT infrastructure’s aches and pains.
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You've made the effort and created a great brand—but how do you ensure it stays intact as you diversify across multiple marketing channels, and product and service lines? Combining Web operations into an integrated marketing tool for acquisition, retention, and cross-sell can provide your company with many benefits. Learn how with 7 tips for centralizing your Web management strategy with a content management system (CMS).
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Before you decide if you need to update your financial management software, you should ask some questions about five key areas of your operations. For example, does your current system generate the types of reports you need? And does it allow your processes to support your policies? Evaluate all the challenges you face with your current financial management software—and find out how you can overcome them with an upgrade.
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As a fast-growing company, you have the same objectives as any business. But you’re probably finding it challenging to gain the control you need to achieve these goals without sacrificing your IT budget. And when you try to achieve control, it’s often at the risk of slowing down your business. Find out how having enterprise-wide visibility of your business processes and activities can put you back in the driver’s seat.
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Compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is mandatory. As such, businesses must think seriously about their data storage security and the day-to-day encryption management of their customer data. As a merchant or credit card processor, will you be ready when the auditors come knocking? Learn more about the foolproof way that many businesses are passing PCI DSS audits.
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This report identifies the major IT issues faced by small to midsized businesses (SMBs), including information silos, lack of IT staff, and outdated business applications. Because they lack the right information to meet customer expectations, SMBs have difficulty reacting quickly to fast-changing market dynamics and growing their revenue. Find out how the elimination of information silos can create a more consistent effective customer experience.
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Today, financial services firms are increasingly focusing on organic growth—forcing contact centers to drive cross-selling efforts as well as strengthen customer relationships. But in order to contribute to profitable growth, they must be able to quickly identify and address customers in a personalized fashion and present offers that are highly relevant. Discover how a customer interaction optimization solution can help.
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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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Over 80 percent of consultants in service organizations consider spreadsheet-based business plan modeling inadequate. Weak client–partner relationships reflect this inadequacy. An integrated business planning and modeling platform can provide deeper insight into a range of strategic and operational issues. Find out how this can result in enhanced decision making and optimized long-term client engagement and satisfaction.
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High-speed Internet access (HSIA) has become a key technology asset for many hospitality providers around the world. But as a widely regarded bottom-line impacting resource, HSIA must be properly managed in order to prevent negative impacts on a facility’s revenue. Learn how to create a strong, winning HSIA strategy that will increase your guest satisfaction and secure recurring revenue well into the future.
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Billions of dollars are spent each year on business travel worldwide, of which over 5 percent is spent on tracking and reporting expenses. But is it possible to complete an expense report with virtually no human intervention? Now, automated corporate travel and expense management solutions are making this possible—reducing both direct and indirect costs, and providing significant savings to your bottom line.
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With the globalization of business, the rise of virtual offices, and an increase in traveling employees, travel and entertainment (T&E) spend is ever increasing. While business travel is considered a vital function and a cost of doing business, it’s not always seen as a category of spend that can be controlled and reduced. To efficiently manage T&E expenses, the procurement department must be involved. Find out why.
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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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Many businesses today rely on telecom expense management (TEM) for mission-critical functions ranging from sales to service to customer relationship management. But despite its overall importance, nearly one-third of a telecom staff’s time is spent on processing orders and invoices. Maximizing the potential of a telecom system requires a data-driven approach. Find out how Map-To-Win is helping businesses do just that.
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Maximizing transparency and control over travel and expense (T&E) management is essential in a compliant-conscious market. Purpose-built software and on-demand services are part of a best-practices approach that help with not only streamlining your processes, but also analysis and reporting. Find out what you need to know about automated T&E solutions—and how they can help you reduce your risk of noncompliance.
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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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Every enterprise must be prepared to confront an incident that threatens the security, privacy, or general operations of the company or its customers. But how is it possible to respond to an incident quickly, without interrupting corporate operations? By building an incident response team (IRT) with the right skills, authority, and knowledge to properly deal with a range of known—and unknown incidents. Find out how.
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Today, all retailers that process, store, or transmit cardholder data have a fiduciary responsibility to protect that data. As such, they must comply with a diverse range of regulations and industry mandates. However, many retailers struggle with the task of implementing the proper policies and controls. Discover how log management and intelligence (LMI) can help you simplify and accelerate the compliance process.
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Understanding the full scope of risk in today’s complex business environment is a must for achieving compliance with governmental mandates and industry regulations. However, many companies have a limited perception of risk and struggle to make compliance an enterprise-wide, integrated process. Compliance is no longer a one-time isolated project; it’s an ongoing effort—and you’re just tens steps away from discovering why.
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In today’s Internet-connected global economy, the market doesn’t allow for companies to sit back and relax into a comfortable niche. Customer loyalty is ever harder to maintain, and you risk losing your business to competition if you can’t respond quickly to market change. Before you lose any more ground, find out how to replace your disconnected, redundant business processes with flexible and efficient ones integrated by IT.
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When it comes to US Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance, safe change actions are critical. But what’s the best approach for file integrity monitoring and change detection? While there are many solutions on the market, continuous file integrity monitoring (CFIM) is winning over the competition worldwide. Find out how CFIM can handle your operational control monitoring requirements.
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If the auditors came knocking, would you be prepared? When they do come, you’ll need to be ready to answer some tough questions regarding your change management processes. Implementing and assessing change management controls for Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) compliance in the US can be a very expensive and time consuming process. Find out how you can reduce the SOX burden by improving the way you manage your change processes.
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Small to medium businesses (SMBs) can benefit from the expansive use of IT just as much as their larger counterparts. And in many cases they have to, because of their interactions not only with remote users, but with suppliers and customers as well. To this end, an SMB’s IT infrastructure needs to be resilient and secure. To ensure end-to-end care of data assets, businesses need to adopt the right strategy. Find out how.
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Aon Corporation’s business is part of a highly regulated industry that maintains strict licensing requirements. With these constantly changing requirements, the company realized its outdated procedures and processes were no longer adequate and that a learning management system (LMS) was what it needed. The company turned to Cornerstone OnDemand for help, and since adopting LMS, Aon has achieved 100 percent compliance.
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The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) was created by credit card companies to protect cardholder data, ensuring that merchants and service providers maintain the highest degree of information security. However, many retailers are still questioning its effectiveness and necessity in light of the high cost of compliance. Read this white paper to find out what this cost really means for your organization.
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For many companies, enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the single most important infrastructure element, thanks largely to its power in delivering end-to-end integration. New technology in ERP software has grown in sophistication over the years, enabling even further automation of business functions. Find out how you can leverage one ERP solution to deal with one of your biggest bugbears: Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.
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You probably already know that a human resources information system (HRIS) should track all information on current and former employees, and reduce your HR staff’s workload. Not sure what lies beyond that? There are a few things you should know before selecting an HRIS. Find out how to identify your HR needs, so your HRIS can help you reach your business objectives—and give you a quick return on investment (ROI).
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The US energy sector has experienced recent loss of counterparty confidence. To offset this, managing credit risk has become paramount. Knowing what the risks are is just the start—risk mitigation methods must be used to reduce overall credit risk exposure and to free up capital resources. Find out three key ways to mitigate risk, and how a clearing, novation, and release agreement (CNRA) can help guarantee collateral.
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Unlike most other business, transmission and distribution companies do not have the flexibility to adjust their prices independently based on demand-supply dynamics. Given the practice of performance-based rate-making, these companies must continually strive to reduce cost. To achieve this, supply chain managers must create a blueprint of their processes by systematically analyzing their supply chain practices.
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Choosing the right professional services automation (PSA) solution may be one of the most important decisions a billable services organization will ever have to make. It’s a decision that can clearly impact your company’s bottom line, so it’s crucial that you get all the facts—up front. When talking with PSA vendors, knowing what questions to ask in order to make an informed selection is vital. Read here to find out why.
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With the growing significance of services to the bottom line, it’s never been more important to effectively monitor, measure, and manage your services business. Knowing which key performance indicators (KPI) can help drive success and contribute to your bottom line is essential. But with over 150 KPIs available, where do you start? Discover how these few small key improvements can help your service business performance.
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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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Soudronic AG’s incoming order confirmations were getting out of hand and finding misfiled critical documents was increasingly laborious. Before implementing OCR for AnyDoc, documents were printed and filed in binders, together with supporting documentation. With AnyDoc’s optical character recognition solution, Soudronic can retrieve its documents more quickly, and its labor and storage costs have been reduced.
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PSCU Financial Services mediates disputes between its customers and their credit card companies. Many of these disputes require multiple pages of documentation as evidence—which need to be scanned. Its scanning process was draining its resources and PSCU knew it was time to get automated. Since deploying OCR for AnyDoc (an optical character recognition solution), PSCU has realized an annual savings of $125,000 (USD).
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A combination of manual data entry processes and the sheer volume of invoices it received every day was causing Northeast Utilities major backlogs in processing—as well as added payroll expense. To automate its processes and free up its staff resources, the company adopted AnyDocINVOICE. Since its implementation, Northeast has reduced its backlog by more than 90 percent and saved $240,000 (USD) in labor costs.
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Sykes-Health Plan Service Bureau (SHPS) was growing and needed a solution that could boost its productivity and deliver results to its clients. Processing thousands of health- and benefit-related forms was a major component of its business, and as such, employees faced ever-increasing workloads. To ease the load, SHPS implemented AnyDoc’s optical character recognition (OCR) solution and drastically reduced labor costs.
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Administrative errors can and do happen, but native tools do little to aid administrators in this area. While Microsoft’s Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) is a great tool for managing group policy, it has its limitations. Discover how to implement best-practice approaches to help successfully extend the deployment of group policy to your server security settings, while reducing costs and minimizing errors.
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Increasing user productivity is an ongoing challenge for many companies. While an abundance of online information and applications is available to them, facilitating fast and secure access to the information can be a complex task. An integrated provisioning and single sign-on (SSO) solution provides secure access to the network from the moment an employee starts the job—enabling full productivity from day one.
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CTS Cement Corporation, a manufacturer of professional-grade construction cement, operates out of 15 facilities across the US. As the company grew, it needed to address the inefficiencies of its accounts payable invoice processing, which was being keyed manually into two different systems. With this lack of connectivity between systems, CTS turned to AnyDocINVOICE solution and now indexes nearly 2,500 invoices per month.
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Bluecross Blueshield of South Carolina (BCBSSC) had been using optical character recognition (OCR) technology for many years, but wanted to improve productivity by automating its claims processing system from document and data capture to document storage. By integrating AnyDocCLAIM into its existing automated system, BCBSSC has increased its processing speed and averages more than 400 claims per hour.
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LeasePlan Norway, a large automobile fleet management company, needed an alternative to manual entry of incoming invoice data, while still maintaining complete accuracy. The company implemented AnyDocINVOICE for invoice data capture, because of its ease- of- use and ability to capture data without templates. Find out about all the other functionalities that prompted the company to install the solution in its Swedish office.
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Duke Realty Corporation—the largest publicly traded office and industrial property owner in the US—needed to find a more organized way to process the nearly 20,000 invoices its thirteen locations handled each month. To ensure data was properly captured and processed, Duke Realty turned to AnyDocINVOICE solution and has since been able to create a faster, more visible invoice process that uses 50 percent less staff.
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More than 95,000 documents arrive annually at Baton Rouge’s Department of
Finance in the form of invoices, purchase orders, confirmations, and more. In an effort to get this vast amount of documents under control, it sought an automated indexing solution that would eliminate the need for filing cabinets. Since deploying BROKERit, the department has increased productivity and realized an annual savings of $58,000 (USD).
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Compliance with regulatory requirements is a business-critical need you must maintain. But meeting this need is more challenging with the creation of new regulations, such as 21 CFR Part 11, governing the use of software for secure data processing. But compliance is possible: an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can help with audits, document and digital signatures, validation scripts, and other security needs.
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Aceto Corporation, a global importer and distributor of chemical-related products, was operating on a legacy system that didn’t allow the company to meet new compliance demands. To increase automation and improve real-time performance, Aceto implemented the Sage ERP X3 Process enterprise resource planning solution. Learn more about how Aceto’s needs for compliance and industry-specific functionality were met.
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A secure and accurate flow of information in your supply chain operations has never been more critical—and complex. Digital transfer of unstructured information is a security risk, for both confidentiality and compliance, and traditional file transfer methods are now falling short. A managed file transfer solution combining hardware, software, and networks can meet your demands for visibility, security, and compliance.
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The divide between strategy development and strategy execution can be overcome by creating balanced scorecards. Prioritize your objectives to determine which are most critical. Then cascade objectives and metrics down and across the organization, creating linked and related—but not identical—scorecards for each critical area. These and five other tips for scorecarding success will move you in the right direction.
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It’s not enough to develop a strategy for your enterprise; real success comes from effective execution of that strategy. Prioritization, improvement, and control are the key steps involved in enterprise strategy execution. But before leaping right into deployment, you might need a few more details. Learn how planning your objectives and fixing performance gaps gives you control of improvement gains—now and in the future.
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Eight years ago, architect Kevin Harris, like many other architects, found it difficult to accurately charge clients for his services. But after attending courses to learn the proper methods for tracking time and costs, he realized that what he really needed was an integrated system. Since implementing BillQuick time billing and project management solution, Kevin has been able to easily and accurately manage billing.
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Accounting firm Fox and Fiorino P.A. knew there had to be a better way to take care of billing. With most of its billing being entered manually, no real-time reporting was available to ensure accuracy. So in 2003, the company implemented BillQuick. With this automated time-keeping and billing solution, Fox and Fiorino has improved the quality of its information, reduced overtime, and increased revenues and cash flow.
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For AG & Co., embracing new technology was the only way to go if it wanted to continue increasing its revenues. Although it had purchased a new computer system back in 1986, the old software products it was using were non-integrated, making it difficult to keep track of engagements and billing. Billable time meant revenue, so AG & Co. opted to implement BillQuick, and has since reduced its overhead and increased profits.
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There are key systems in every infrastructure where unapproved change can pose significant business risk. These guidelines show you how to properly categorize these systems in order to identify those that have risk characteristics. By learning how to identify critical change control failure points in your infrastructure, you reduce the threat of costly downtime, potential security breaches, and compliance weaknesses.
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Identity theft and credit card fraud affect all businesses—and the problem is only getting worse. In order to combat these threats, credit card companies have joined forces to introduce the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). For financial institutions, complying with PCI DSS by using real-time monitoring and selective enforcement software can help to relieve the burden of unauthorized changes.
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Maybe you’ve already invested in an e-commerce site for your business. However, to fully maximize its potential, it must be integrated with your accounting system. If not, your staff may be wasting valuable time re-entering inventory and customer data from one system into another. Save time, reduce labor costs, and boost your competitive advantage with an e-commerce solution that allows full integration.
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Desserts of Distinction was using too many ingredients to take care of its key business activities. Storing recipes, controlling inventory, and tracking orders required various accounting software applications, spreadsheets, and databases. As a result, simple processes were time-consuming and manually intensive. Find out how BatchMaster addressed a number of needs, including inventory accuracy and traceability.
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Having the right IT infrastructure is critical to consistent growth and profitability for midsize companies. Sadly, many business applications don’t support changes to both business processes and a company’s organizational structure. In fact, many are inflexible and create disconnects between departments. However, there is a solution that’s built to enable growth and adaptability in all business functions and operations.
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Many business owners and managers wonder how to maintain visibility and control in order to keep ahead of the competition, focus on customers, and adapt to market changes. Are you worried your company will lose its competitive edge as it grows, because of an outmoded IT landscape? Keep your IT requirements simple and meet your company goals, with an on-demand solution that integrates support for all business activities.
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As a provider of employee benefits, CIGNA must observe a bevy of regulatory compliance mandates. Because much of its efforts are compliance-focused, it continually embraces technology, searching for new products to better manage its benefit offerings and track its security risks. With QualysGuard’s vulnerability management solution, CIGNA has mitigated vulnerabilities and remained up-to-date with compliance regulations.
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For many years, S&C Electric, a global provider of electric power system equipment, used internally built tracking and Subversion data to manage source code and documents and to track viruses. But as it grew, its needs became more complex, and more maintenance time was required. A managed source control solution now manages and protects S&C Electric’s intellectual property, and saves the company a lot in man-hours.
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For customer relationship management (CRM) to work effectively, departments within an organization must communicate and have access to centralized information. But integrating front- and back-office applications shouldn’t involve compromise. Learn how to automate sales and CRM with accounting systems, with key pointers in planning your integration project. And find out how to boost your CRM return on investment (ROI).
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For many years, the various departments at Walker Foods worked independently of one another, which seriously impeded the flow of data throughout the enterprise. It was clear that an integrated system was in order, and after a few initial upgrades, the company decided on AppFinity’s WebCustomer overall online solution. Since its implementation, Walker Foods has increased order accuracy and significantly reduced expenses.
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An estimated 55 percent of users of business critical applications work in remote locations. With so many users working remotely, networks become congested and user productivity suffers. Until now, wide area network (WAN) monitoring and shaping has required special appliances, but there’s a new alternative software-based solution available that leverages the power of the user’s PC—providing unprecedented traffic control.
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In their efforts to accelerate time to market and improve business process efficiency, many marketing organizations adopt customer relationship management (CRM). But CRM often falls short in exploiting the exponential growth of content associated with product and brand marketing. By using a digital asset management (DAM) solution, however, you can increase productivity and achieve a favorable return on investment (ROI).
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In today’s business world, heightened privacy concerns and tightened regulations such as the US Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act have forced organizations to improve their workflow and archival and records management processes. That's why many results-oriented organizations are now using workflow software—bringing together people, processes, and documents to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and meet compliance requirements.
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Small businesses often become trapped by their outdated accounting systems, limiting their profits and arresting their growth. How can your business avoid this software trap? Planning and anticipating your business growth will help you minimize this costly mistake. Find the right accounting or enterprise resource planning solution to help your small business continue to expand and remain successful.
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Accounting and enterprise resource planning software are not interchangeable solutions. How do you decide which option is for you? Outlining your business structure and considering four key facets of your selection process will help you determine which software meets all your business needs. You can find the right product for your business, whether you need a bookkeeping or all-encompassing business software.
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Offering health insurance is critical to recruiting new employees and retaining current staff. Taking care of your employees and attracting future intellectual property is a high priority in any business. But is it possible to find an affordable health plan in today’s costly health insurance market? Discover what insurance brokers can do for your business.
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Developing a good disaster recovery plan (DRP) in today’s business world is a must. In fact, downplaying the importance of a DRP can be costly—especially if you’re a small to medium business (SMB) that is slow in adopting DRP. Recent studies have shown that 40 percent of businesses that have encountered a disaster close their doors within the following five years. To stay afloat, here are ten steps that should be taken.
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In order for a business to stay on top of compliance requirements required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)—and avoid financial penalties or possible jail time—it must take a good look at its IT environment and financial reporting processes. The collection, management, and analysis of log data are integral to meeting SOX requirements and as such, require a system that automates these processes across the IT infrastructure.
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Asset management cannot be successfully implemented by your accounting department alone (or any other single department). That’s why you should be on top of today’s asset management climate and the tools available to improve controls. Learn about approaches that are getting results, and find out what doesn’t work (and why). Finally, get the lowdown on best practices which have proved both effective and durable.
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Information lifecycle management (ILM) is rapidly gaining acceptance as a process crucial to the success of many IT initiatives. The reason for this is the importance of managing data. With the growing demand for ILM comes a variety of solutions that follow a disjointed, point product approach. By choosing an ILM software designed to scale to its needs, a business can benefit from software built on a unified platform.
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The growth of application data has placed an enormous burden on IT organizations to maintain acceptable application performance and availability. The weight of managing and navigating through vast amounts of inactive data has caused outages and raised budgets, among other problems. Active archiving software, however, addresses complex data management issues and delivers lasting benefits to organizations and its users.
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Data breach is a very real problem in business today. Every day, organizations store massive amounts of data inside database tables—data ranging from credit card transactions to product inventories. This valuable information is what runs the business. In order to protect this data and stay on top of compliance, an enterprise data management solution that respects information privacy regulations should be considered.
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Fax hardware plays a crucial role in the sending and receiving of business documents. With high-volume use over time, instabilities in performance can occur. Therefore, how well fax boards and fax software applications perform together becomes an important consideration. With IQ Express intelligent fax board series, fax servers send and receive corporate documents electronically—reducing costs and improving productivity.
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When Naghi Group’s annual revenue began to soar, it realized that running core business operations on multiple systems was no longer feasible; its current solution lacked the integration capabilities necessary to communicate with its distribution and manufacturing departments. After only a few months since integrating VAI’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, Naghi has already realized its many benefits.
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Financial service institutions spend thousands of dollars every year on securing their networks from external breaches, but often fail to think about possible internal threats. Employee fraud has become a growing problem in the financial sector—one that many institutions are not fully prepared to handle. Implementing automated detection technologies, however, can be their first line of defense to eradicating this problem.
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Manual IT management can create significant problems with service and control for small- to medium-sized businesses, and add worrisome operational and resource costs. However, automated IT systems can significantly reduce and even eliminate many of these problems. Automate your IT systems now to increase security, provide users with better service, and lower your total cost of ownership (TCO).
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In today’s economic climate, you need to ensure you keep your business and operational costs down while delivering world-class customer service. Conventional stand-alone business software applications do not enable you to do this. The business benefits of software as a service (SaaS) applications are leading many smart companies to use SaaS to help cut costs, improve operational productivity, and increase efficiency.
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On top of the many challenges faced by IT managers today comes yet another challenge: ensuring efficient and secure user access to SAP. Because of the unencrypted communication between users’ workstations and the backend servers, the SAP environment—and the confidential data it stores—become vulnerable. With a secure single sign-on solution to SAP, however, you can significantly improve the security of this environment.
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Today’s business environment is more mobile than ever. With more employees traveling—using laptops, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and home computers to conduct business—vulnerabilities increase. Companies are now protecting their digital assets with full disk encryption (FDE). Recent advances in FDE allow businesses to protect data stored on users’ mobile devices, without jeopardizing intellectual property.
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Protecting your company’s data is not only wise, but often legally necessary. In order to beef up their data security programs, more companies are implementing full disk encryption (FDE). In the past, FDE was software based, which left it open to greater security risks. With the advent of new technology, however, it is now possible to migrate from software- to hardware-based FDE while still protecting your existing systems.
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You’re already well aware that secure file delivery is key to your company’s information security. But are you one of many who don’t know how to send a file securely from one person to another? Think you know how, but aren’t sure about federal and state compliance? Knowing how to keep data secure doesn’t have to be top secret. Learn more about a delivery server that can give you confidence about your confidential data.
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Insecure data. Heavy fines due to non-compliance. Loss of customers and reputation. It adds up to a nightmare scenario that businesses want to avoid at all costs. However, this nightmare is preventable: knowledge base-driven data security solutions can be critical tools for enterprises wanting to secure not only their data—but also their status in the marketplace.
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With ever-changing technology, businesses often spend too much time and money trying to sustain their outdated systems. But is it possible to maintain a legacy system without the substantial costs of frequently updating it? By adopting service-oriented architecture (SOA)—which provides a suite of automated tools and services for migrating and extending legacy platforms—businesses can maximize quality and minimize costs.
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The role of finance departments needs to shift from cost center and scorekeeper to that of key advisor to the business. That’s why you need to change processes to help employees work more efficiently on high-value analytical tasks. Implementing next-generation enterprise financial systems will help balance control, transaction processing, and decision support—as well as lower your total cost of ownership.
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Globalization is one of the top issues affecting organizations’ supplier management strategies. True supplier collaboration can no longer be avoided: working closely with suppliers around the globe is the best way to streamline and reduce costs and increase value. With practical tips and techniques on how to achieve your vision statement, you can attain sourcing excellence while setting a pace that’s right for your company.
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Market trends are reshaping financial management approaches for companies of all sizes, especially small to medium businesses (SMBs). That’s why many SMBs are exploring alternatives to Intuit’s QuickBooks, which many young companies rely on in their initial stages. And although software as a service (SaaS) is emerging to address real-time financial management requirements, can SaaS really satisfy your needs?
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Payroll is a vital yet meticulous component of operating a business, and it involves much more than just paying employees. Some large businesses have a separate department handling payroll duties, but many small to medium businesses outsource their payroll needs. No matter what option works for you, the best decisions are informed decisions, and this how-to guide can help you manage all your payroll needs.
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The rules have changed for IT outsourcing companies and their clients. The US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) casts a giant shadow over every person and organization that comes in contact with a company’s financial records and reports. We’ll look at ways in which outsourcing companies can take proactive measures to meet both the spirit and letter of compliance guidelines through audits and adherence to industry best practices.
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Line managers and finance staff are frustrated by the inability of spreadsheet-based planning systems to deliver useful budgets and rolling forecasts. A major problem is the disconnect between the operational elements of business and financial plans. What's missing is driver-based planning, a best-practice methodology where financial plans incorporate assumptions about business activities modeled to drive financial data.
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Customers, employees, and partners are an integral part of any business—each playing an important role in its success. But how is it possible to share vital information between them? In order to access information, understand trends, and build better processes, a system that enables multi-user collaborative technologies is required. Without these collaboration tools, business process management (BPM) cannot be successful.
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In 2004, there were 1.3 billion credit cards in circulation in the US. With fraud incidents on the rise, credit card companies are at constant risk of losing sensitive cardholder data. At the same time, strict payment card industry (PCI) requirements are forcing companies to put better systems in place to ensure clients are adequately protected. By implementing the right software tools, achieving compliance is possible.
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Benchmarking is a process where companies compare their performance over time against their competition. In doing so, they can identify where their strengths lie and where improvement may be needed. The point of benchmarking is to focus on areas that will yield the best return. For companies to succeed in their benchmarking efforts and gain a sustained competitive advantage, five key steps should be considered.
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In business, planning plays a fundamental role in analyzing and forecasting key financial data. While forecasting future events is one benefit of planning, it can also be used to achieve a series of objectives, including regulatory compliance. In order to achieve these objectives, companies should consider implementing a unified customer performance management (CPM) solution—one that takes compliance into consideration.
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For most companies, e-mail is an integral part of the business workflow and a primary channel for communication. For these reasons, e-mails can be considered legal business documents and should be retained for a predefined period to satisfy government regulations. With an e-mail archiving system, message contents and attachments are stored in a read-only format, ensuring they are archived in their original state.
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Research shows that between 65 and 95 percent of all e-mail is considered spam. On an individual level, spam is an annoyance more than anything else, but on a company-wide basis, spam causes significant problems—and the cost to manage it is sizeable. Spammers are always one step ahead of antispam vendors, so to combat this persistent problem, companies need a single-source product that can eliminate spam for good.
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By some estimates, there are over 8,000 sales taxing jurisdictions in the US—and they implement from 900 to more than 3,000 rate and tax-rule changes every year. Understandably, the accountants who try to guide small to medium businesses (SMBs) through the intricacies of tax compliance are having a hard time of it. However, solutions are emerging that are uniquely suited to SMB needs for sales tax compliance.
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Spam considerably lowers user productivity, as it delivers unwanted, irrelevant, or anonymous e-mail messages. The best way to manage the incidence of spam is to measure it. The Spam Index—a tool for measuring improvement in spam control systems and for comparing spam control performance with competitors—is a method used by businesses worldwide to achieve lower spam levels and improve business performance.
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E-mail is a powerful business tool that most enterprises can’t live without. Unfortunately, along with its capability of accelerating commerce, productivity, and social interactions, there are some drawbacks—such as spam! Companies that rely on e-mail to do business simply can’t afford the negative affects of spam. However, new technology is emerging that helps stop spam and allows users to get on with business.
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In order to stay competitive, growing organizations need technology that allows them to react quickly to changing industry. According to recent polls, nearly 40 percent of midsized businesses are getting that technology through customer relationship management (CRM). With a rapidly growing market of choices, it’s important to look within your company to assess its needs and goals—before you commit to a CRM solution.
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If you could have a 360-degree view of your business, wouldn’t you want to take a peek? Most companies would say yes, but no business could benefit more from this panoramic view than large enterprises. Today, they’re getting that view—and more, from customer relationship management (CRM) technology. For large enterprises, CRM represents a powerful opportunity for positive change—and you ignore it at your own risk.
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You can’t pick up a business or IT magazine today without seeing numerous articles about the growth of mobile and wireless technologies. Why are these technologies so trendy? The answer is simple: developments in mobile computing, wireless communication, bar codes, and other data collection and communications technologies help businesses extend visibility and control over the operations that really matter to them.
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It s hard to go anywhere these days and not see ads for mobile wireless carriers. But the technology is so confusing and the choices so overwhelming, it can be impossible to know which solution to choose. Before making the wrong choice, it’s best to have a basic understanding of mobile wireless communication—how it is currently being used in the industry, and how it can benefit your organization in the future.
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How can you establish a priority-based mobile networking system that provides workers access to company and customer records that they can manipulate from the field? By employing a total solution system that provides various methods of transmitting data. While this type of system may be more costly to implement than a stand-alone pager or cell phone, the benefits it offers can directly impact your bottom line.
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Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has retailers talking. The reason: RFID helps reduce labor and improves the ability to gather data. Retailers can use this data to make positive changes to business processes, which can be tremendously advantageous for them. With careful planning, an RFID system can provide immediate benefits, as well as long-term competitive and total cost of ownership advantages.
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Small to medium businesses (SMBs) often face the same challenges as large businesses—just on a smaller scale. One such challenge is finding a business solution that manages expansion and addresses complex reporting and compliance issues. Many SMBs are now adopting enterprise performance management (EPM) solutions—complete with tools to help them meet the current and future needs of their growing business.
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Small to medium businesses (SMBs) face the same challenges as large businesses when it comes to IT management—they have increasingly complex systems they rely on to drive their businesses and gain a competitive advantage. Operating and maintaining a complex IT infrastructure requires specific skills, but getting the right staff at an affordable price can be a problem. Outsourcing IT management may help to ease the strain.
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In any organization, people remain one of the largest sources of value when it comes to business processes. But providing them with tools that can be easily accessed and used has its challenges. As we move into the era of service-oriented architecture (SOA), portal and collaboration software now delivers the essential people-focused capabilities businesses need, while adding significant value to the organization.
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How can a budget administrator, burdened with the task of gathering data from hundreds of spreadsheets from all over the organization, manage this monumental undertaking? Additionally, how to avoid using a costly packaged budget application that doesn’t take the organization’s business rules into consideration? The solution: a spreadsheet automation tool that easily adapts to the organization’s unique corporate processes.
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Today, companies are looking to improve work processes, comply with legislation, and increase productivity—and they’re implementing electronic document management systems (EDMS) to help them effectively manage their information. By deploying EDMS—which are capable of capturing, storing, and retrieving records, files, and folders—these companies are achieving unprecedented levels of control, efficiency, and automation.
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Industry today demands more quality of manufacturers, and as such, ISO 9001—the yardstick by which quality products and services are measured—is forcing more and more companies to become ISO-certified. However, companies can use a browser-based tool to help bridge any information gaps they may encounter during the process—and to give them the head start they need to intelligently manage their ISO certification.
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One of the first and seemingly simple questions that companies ask when making IT investments is “how much does it cost?” Many often find themselves wondering why—even after a successful implementation—their costs keep going up. When evaluating a mobile workforce automation project, companies should take the time to conduct a thorough total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis to detect hidden costs—and avoid nasty surprises.
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Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology can provide a strong return on investment (ROI) when combined with improved business processes that reduce labor and prevent errors. But mobile RFID systems, with forklift-mounted readers, can be implemented for a fraction of the cost of traditional infrastructure configurations. They can improve supply chain visibility, reduce capital expenditure, and slash labor costs.
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How do companies address the out-of-control costs associated with network printing? Many look to control them by outsourcing their managed printer services. The transition from basic dealer services to a holistic approach—where the dealer manages the print services for the entire organization—has its challenges. With printer fleet management tools, companies gain a competitive advantage and save on printing costs.
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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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Choosing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) package that’s right for your business can be difficult and time consuming. Finding a software provider and discovering what doing business with them will be like is as important as the overall functionality of the software itself. Before committing to a long-term relationship with any potential software provider, there are some really tough questions you need to ask them.
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Going mobile has become a growing trend, with many businesses reaching well beyond the use of cellular phones as their only lines of communication. Why? Because these businesses realize that linking the mobile workforce with the enterprise and its data resources—using mobile applications—is key to enhancing productivity, profitability, and customer satisfaction. Choosing the right devices, however, can be very challenging.
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When considering any software solution, two things come to mind: flexibility and cost. With virtualization technology, multiple applications can now be hosted safely and securely on a single server, eliminating the overhead of running multiple operating systems (OS) per server. This capability can greatly reduce costs and help organizations deliver consistent service levels despite unpredictable workloads.
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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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Cox Communications, a leading cable provider, needed to find a way to centralize the IT requirements of its customer support team. With over a hundred users, its challenge was to move from single desktop applications to a centralized server which would offer many concurrent instances of the application—and minimize the cost. By deploying a virtualization solution, Cox realized a return on investment (ROI) of 300 percent.
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An important question facing IT professionals today is how best to harness computing power to further improve automated business processes. This is especially critical in business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce. While service-oriented architecture (SOA) delivers the benefits of IT integration to business, it needs a programming language—such as Lisp—that can optimize its capabilities and scale in size and complexity.
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The computational complexity of problems faced by programmers today is growing exponentially. With accelerated changes brought on by the Internet, companies need to explore new methods of enabling their programmers to focus on these complex problems. When dealing with complex data, an object caching database system can alleviate the task of programming special code for persistent data while writing applications.
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Understanding how a system really works is the first step toward using, improving, automating, or explaining it to others. The basic concept of a system is that it is driven by cause and effect—but there is so much more to understanding its full complexity. The best place to start is by learning how causal loop diagrams (CLDs) are used to model dynamic systems by identifying variables and causal effects.
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In 2004, Microsoft offered a midwestern-US-based financial services corporation a range of options to renew and replace its existing enterprise agreement. But without the right negotiating skills, how could it be certain Microsoft’s offer was the most cost-saving approach? The company engaged an independent consulting firm, and in less than three weeks recognized savings of 28 percent on a $3 million (USD) agreement.
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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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Small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) encounter many of the same challenges as larger companies in unlocking information from the data they collect, yet they lack cost-effective solutions. Many must choose between expensive business intelligence solutions or complicated homegrown solutions. With many hosted reporting solutions now available, SMBs have an option that may meet their requirements—at a fraction of the cost.
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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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Manufacturers of all sizes are more efficient, better managed, and more profitable because of lean—yet this improvement has plateaued at many companies. What’s holding up the progress of lean? The real problem is that as lean evolves and spreads beyond the plant floor, its conflict with traditional accounting is escalating—and becoming more dangerous to the financial health of manufacturers.
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Corporate leaders know that revenues are made from “better data.” And when your data is at risk, so is the survival of your organization. That’s why it’s essential to protect your revenues with “safer data”—and it’s also why the common business language is now one of risk management. IT departments are now learning this in many of the same ways that business people have always had to—including the hard way.
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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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Risk managers and compliance officials in banking institutions often face problems of how to measure and monitor risk and incorporate risk practices. Solutions to these problems must be linked to decision-making processes, but they also need to increase the speed at which institutions can react to market changes. Can new risk management solutions really deliver compliance in a verifiable, measurable, and timely manner?
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The earned value management system (EVMS) is a method of tracking cost and schedule performance using work breakdown structure/earned value (WBS/EV) techniques. Formerly called C/SCSC (Cost/Schedule Control Systems Criteria) by the contract industry, an understanding of WBS basics is essential for any US contractor wishing to be selected for new major systems contracts over a certain funding threshold.
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Whether you’re familiar with the world of accounting or not, understanding the basic concepts and principles of accounting functions can give you an essential edge in the competitive manufacturing sector. This in-depth guide, complete with glossary, takes you through the step-by-step process of cost accounting for manufacturers—from prototype manufacturing, shipping, and full production, through to financial reports.
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Small to medium businesses (SMBs) need technology to survive in a competitive business environment. However, regardless of the business type, size, or industry, incorporating technology into existing frameworks involves risk—to productivity, customer service, operations, and the bottom line! The key to reducing risk and increasing productivity is thus the selection of technologies that will accommodate change in your business.
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Not all integrated accounting and point of sale (POS) systems are created equal. If sales prices aren’t updated, or if on-hand stock isn’t managed properly, you will be at a major competitive disadvantage. Fully integrated accounting systems move information smoothly from one module to another—but what does integration as it applies to accounting and POS software really mean?
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Organizational growth can come in many forms. It can be sheer increases in number of employees, customers, patients, members or constituents; it can involve launching new products, or entering new geographies; it can simply be increasing transaction levels. Regardless of form, managing growth confidently means relying not only on an organization’s people, but also on its business systems.
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If you’re like most small to midsized business executives, your primary focus is on growing revenue and controlling company spending. However, you probably use paper-based processes to deal with company expenses. Without an automated system, you have limited ability to actively manage spending—and can only hope that spending decisions remain within budget and in compliance with company policies.
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There are seven core operational measures that can be leveraged to fine-tune a company’s business processes and achieve a higher return on capital employed (RoCE). Even modest gains in these measurements can spur a significant increase in RoCE. If the level of performance against each core operational measure rises by just one percentage point, for example, RoCE can nearly double.
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Finance executives must meet a growing number of challenges if their companies are to continue being profitable. So how can they deliver strong performance in every aspect of their businesses? The answer: by deploying a corporate financial management system that expands the capabilities of their core activities—a system that extends its reach to automate other processes within the enterprise.
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When it comes to US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) compliance, the role of financial information systems simply cannot be overlooked. This was recently underscored by a study naming "financial systems and procedures" as the most common problem among companies disclosing material weaknesses. Indeed, this weakness has prompted organizations to take a deeper look at their business processes—and underlying financial systems.
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IT departments play a key role in complying with the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). Without the right technological solutions to record and monitor access to networks, financial systems, and sensitive data, company management cannot ensure the integrity of the information in their financial reports. That’s why technology that helps with SOX compliance and internal control management is imperative.
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One of the biggest “time-wasters” in not-for-profit organizations is the constant reentry of data from one system to another. For example, many organizations must manually reenter information from their fundraising applications to their accounting systems. This is error-prone, costs valuable time, and delays important reporting. The solution lies in finding efficient ways to share information—across the organization.
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In general, the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) requires publicly traded companies to be financially accountable. SOX compliance requires cooperation among many business units—particularly IT, as IT supports SOX compliance by securing and protecting financial data on the network. IT is also required to consistently document this effort. In fact, without IT support, a corporation simply cannot be SOX-compliant.
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To meet regulatory requirements such as the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), IT managers are now receiving the board-level visibility and budgets required to improve enterprise data security. For example, companies need secure and verifiable audit trails that track the activities of database administrators (DBAs) and other privileged insiders. But have you considered the seven essential elements of database security?
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Under the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act, companies must maintain proven auditing practices and assure integrity and timeliness of data. Thus, companies must secure systems that monitor corporate data. To effectively accomplish this, you are best off investing in a solution that can comprehensively cover your reporting and auditing needs while providing you the capacity to respond swiftly should any incidents occur.
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The source code for mission-critical software products is almost never provided to users by the supplier. All the end-user has is a copy of the compiled source code—in other words, the object code that can only be read and executed by the computers concerned. That’s why professional escrow is becoming an essential component of operational risk management.
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Recent changes in accounting standards and compliance, along with greater emphasis on managing risk and value, have introduced new key measures of bank performance and made it more important to coordinate the internal and external reporting of financials and risk. To meet these challenges, banks must do their utmost to more fully integrate their accounting data and processes.
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As is generally the case with such issues as the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), the quick fix is often too good to be true. Leading companies are thus using SOX as an opportunity to restructure the way they run their business. What’s more, they’re finding they already have much of what they need—including the right people, processes, and technology.
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Interactive Data Corporation is a provider of securities pricing, financial information, and analytic tools to institutional and individual investors. The company supplies time-sensitive pricing, dividend, corporate action, and descriptive information. However, as a result of global growth, Interactive Data faced the challenge of finding a forecasting and budgeting solution that would generate more comprehensive and less manually intensive performance reports.
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Brady Corporation is a world leader in identification solutions that help companies improve safety and security. Founded in 1914, its divisions operate some twenty enterprise resource planning systems. However, even with Brady’s move to centralize about half its financial information on SAP R/3, serious data inconsistency issues were hampering reporting reliability. To resolve these issues, Brady turned to OutlookSoft Everest.
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Ask any three people in an organization why they budget and you’ll get three different answers. But no one says they budget in order to direct the way in which their organization will achieve its strategic goals—the intended purpose of the budget. For budgeting to become the relevant process it was meant to be, this gap must be fixed.
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There are many business pressures urging organizations to improve their planning processes. However, in many organizations, the achievement of delivering the annual plan is so onerous that little business benefit is derived from it. That’s why organizations should look for a planning solution capable of delivering flexible business models—models which are mapped to their unique business requirements.
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Organizations often see a significant gap between their strategic plans and their ability to execute them, and many try to implement scorecards to solve precisely this problem. Unfortunately, most organizations look solely at the warning lights (how close are expenses and revenue to budget) rather than focusing on where they want to go—and how they’re going to get there.
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Compliance with the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) is not a one-time project, but a sustained effort to gain visibility into processes affecting financial reporting accuracy. Most IT controls are manual, error-prone, and resource-intensive. However, there’s a new, radical solution: an automated IT control framework in which all the information required to verify compliance is available in a single reporting system.
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Given that virtually all small and midsized businesses can benefit from business intelligence (BI) tools, the real question is how much of this technology constitutes a good investment of time and energy? Your need to determine what BI tools you really require to drill down and extract the key performance data that will make your company more efficient and profitable.
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Thanks to recent accounting scandals and an increasingly competitive environment, many chief financial officers and the finance organizations they lead have started to take on new roles within the enterprise. However, given the current state of the finance function in US companies, companies first need to understand the challenges to finance—and the road map to increasing its strategic capabilities.
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For compliance with vendor requirements, Source 1 Enterprises, a supplier of health and beauty products, needed a solution to automate bill-back revenue and current deal sheet promotions. Reporting and alert systems were also needed, to collect potential revenue based on standard vendor terms, in conjunction with the latest promotions. For a solution, the supplier turned to SAP Business One.
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Because of the risks inherent in any financial implementation, it’s essential to get back to business basics. These implementations need to be understood and planned for. Thus, there are a few premises that must be addressed in the planning stages of a financials implementation. If these premises are followed in a disciplined manner, the nosebleed of implementation can be avoided.
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Whether you’re a niche-market start-up developing a single compound or a well-established global company with dozens of projects in the pipeline, the pressure to innovate in the life
sciences industry is unrelenting. That’s why you need a solution that can help monitor resources, prioritize projects, optimize the clinical trial supply chain, and maximize the overall value of your product portfolio.
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To better understand record management (RM) challenges related to regulatory compliance in the financial services and health care industries, it is important to know why the laws and acts were written and codified. This knowledge will help organizations understand why the RM team is creating and maintaining new records, and how report management can ease RM compliance challenges.
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Conversion can be defined as the process of manipulating data from one format or system to another format or system. It is not “sexy.” It requires extraordinary attention to detail. Done incorrectly, the project fails. Done correctly, the organization will enjoy the confidence provided by a streamlined, efficient, and accurate system, with processes ensuring the data stays that way.
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Intuit recently identified a need to better serve larger and growing users within and outside the QuickBooks base. Thus, Enterprise Solutions 7.0 was designed with growing businesses in mind. For current users, Enterprise Solutions offers a way to support growth with a familiar interface. For those not currently using QuickBooks, it may be a viable alternative to their current solution.
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Organizations need to strike a balance between global and local reporting requirements. This is particularly challenging, as a lack of flexibility in data structures adversely impacts both business development and local reporting. Organizations must thus focus on harmonizing the global model and data structures, and assist local entities in designing for local requirements—thereby providing one data source for reporting.
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Quaker Oats has been an icon in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (US) since 1901. In 1979, Quaker sought a system for the storeroom function and purchasing department, and selected CHAMPS. In 1991, the company implemented the CHAMPS maintenance management functionality. Its internal team interfaced CHAMPS with the existing accounts payable system, for seamless data transfer between the maintenance and accounting departments.
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The US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) addresses the issues of corporate fiscal accountability, accounting standards and practices, and reporting, as well as investor confidence in publicly owned corporations. SOX thus presents challenges to satisfy regulatory requirements, as well as opportunities to improve processes. That's why SOX compliance can be aided by an integrated, automated enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution.
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Companies still struggle to close the gap between strategy and day-to-day operational decisions, particularly when they over-complicate planning with practices delving too deeply into their business. A key issue is thus the consolidation of actuals into planning, and the visibility of details for specific plans and assumptions. This points to a need for more strategically aligned “planning and performance” approaches.
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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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To manage any resource, one must first see it clearly by tracking it carefully. Hence, time tracking should be a fundamental part of any business. Certainly, every business already tracks time at some level—even if only for payroll. The most successful businesses, however, understand that time tracking is a core business process, and they use that process to best advantage.
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The demands placed on executives to balance compliance requirements with those of the market have increased dramatically over the past few years. However, balancing the rigidity of compliance with the flexibility that allows people to create a better organization can be achieved through a solid understanding of how compliance requirements are integrated into people-ready and agile business process systems.
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By using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, automotive companies can eliminate material shortfalls of containers, which lead to delivery delays and, in the case of time-sensitive shipments, cause production downtime. Manufacturers, suppliers, dealers, and freight forwarders can all benefit by reducing launch and assembly delays resulting from errors in part quantities, types, and locations for containers targeted for production lines.
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When telecom operators interconect to send or receive different types of traffic, call detail records (CDRs) are generated at both ends. These CDRs need to be reconciled periodically to find errors, if any. While there are industry standards for resolving these errors, comprehensive reconciliation solutions do exist that focus on the issue from a billing perspective.
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The medical marketing agency AlphaMedica, based in New York, New York (US), is a fast-growing business. It needed an accounting system that could keep up with a flurry of activity, generate quick payments and reports, and link smoothly to the in-house systems used to manage the more specialized aspects of its business. For help, it turned to QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions.
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When operators interconnect together to send and receive voice and other services, special requirements arise for the billing. Operator to operator interconnect billing, settlements, rate sheets, and charging policies are some of the areas that need special consideration.
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The Yosemite Association is a US-based not-for-profit organization that was operating disparate financial systems that didn’t integrate data across the organization, resulting in data it could not trust. It chose to implement an integrated business management software solution based on Microsoft Dynamics NAV. The organization has now gained better management of its financial information, with access to reliable, real-time information.
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Mulhaupt, a distributor of specialty building products, knew it needed dedicated software that would help track its numerous inventory items, as well as the financial aspects of the business. To do this, Mulhaupt’s implemented Microsoft Business Solutions–Navision. Since its deployment, the solution has helped boost business revenues by 70 percent, while increasing the employee base by only 10 percent.
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Steinway & Sons is a subsidiary of Steinway Musical Instruments, and the year 2003 marked 150 years of their business success. Steinway & Sons received national attention for the rigorous, textbook approach they used in their mid-90s search for an alternative to their old home-grown accounting system. Ultimately, Steinway chose the Navision solution.
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US-based Skarnes, Inc. distributes material handling products and provides warehouse storage and material handling solutions. Migrating from RealWorld to Microsoft Business Solutions-Navision provided Skarnes with improved reporting capabilities, the ability to track costs, and the ability to view work in process. Furthermore, elimination of redundant data entry provided a 40 percent reduction in accounting work time.
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Analysis and reporting services are an important part of the enterprise resource planning process. Microsoft Dynamics NAV has been designed to give users options for optimal analysis and reporting, and to leave room for partners to provide customized solutions. With the correct reporting tools and Microsoft Dynamics NAV, practical analysis and reporting is available and adaptable to individual users’ needs.
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Organizations cannot achieve Sarbanes-Oxley compliance without the proper tools. But once these tools have been obtained, compliance becomes an opportunity for organizations to reevaluate their business practices and grow. Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a powerful ally in compliance efforts, and can give organizations the extra controls and review tools they need to help reach compliance and improve their organizational capacity.
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Veolia Transport required a locally supported yet highly capable financial product that could be tailored to suit its needs. With over 100 years of public transport operations experience in 25 countries, the company quickly understood that Greentree was exactly what they needed to help transform Auckland’s rail system into a modern, efficient, and integrated public transport service.
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Intuit recently identified a need to better serve larger and growing users within and outside the QuickBooks base. Thus, Enterprise Solutions was designed with growing businesses in mind. For current QuickBooks users, Enterprise Solutions offers a way to support growth with a familiar interface. For those not currently using QuickBooks, it may be an alternative to their current solution.
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In 2002, US suppliers wrote off more than $18 billion (USD) in bad checks. And the bankruptcy picture has certainly not improved since then. Companies that act quickly to secure overdue accounts are the companies that have the best chance of remaining in the black. The SYSPRO Collections Module automates debt collection, and can help address this acute need.
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The risks of enterprise resource planning (ERP) upgrades are clear. However, progress has been made, and this is especially true for SAP customers migrating to ECC 5.0. But what are the risks associated with SAP upgrades? And what are specific risk-mitigation approaches? SAP’s ASAP upgrade methodology can help answer these questions to maximize the value of an upgrade investment.
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The US Sarbanes-Oxley Act has significantly impacted budgets, personnel allocation, business processes, and documentation. But leveraging a technology solution can smooth the overall compliance process. By investing in a content-centric business process management solution, organizations can automate and improve their compliance. This leads to an effort that is more effective and more efficient, and that ultimately saves money.
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Banks can benefit enormously from understanding the various stages of the Basel II compliance program, as identified by i-flex. Banks today are discovering problems as they stumble along the path to compliance. However, if they can benchmark themselves on which stage they fall in along the continuum, and buckle themselves for the challenges that lie ahead, they will have greater success towards Basel II compliance, and enjoy the benefits of maintaining reduced capital.
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Strategic cost reduction has been a focus area for financial institutions (FIs), with outsourcing emerging as a very attractive option lately. But outsourcing is fraught with risks. This article examines risks associated with outsourcing and offers perspectives on managing these risks.
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The current focus in operational risk management is on enterprise-wide data capture across loss events, key risk indicators and self-assessments, with follow-up actions based on triggers. A system should satisfy regulatory requirements, such as Basel II and the US Sarbanes Oxley Act, and be built in a manner that minimizes the impact of changing business management functionality.
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Banks endeavoring to comply with Basel II, which requires banks to commensurate their capital with underlying risk, can use the framework for strategic decisions, such as appropriate capital allocation, for various lines of business, risk-based pricing, and employee compensation. Basel II gives banks an opportunity to have a single system that can be used for compliance as well as risk management.
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This paper presents the arguments in favour of adopting a risk assessment strategy, and ways in which it can benefit your project as well as your business as a whole.
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When it comes to customer relationship management (CRM), it’s important to understand all the benefits of an integrated CRM system before beginning your selection process. This guide is designed to help you build the business case for a CRM system, form an effective project team, ask the right questions, identify the challenges involved and much more.
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Before beginning your selection process for a customer relationship management (CRM) system, it’s important to understand all the benefits of an integrated CRM system. These 17 “rules of the road” for CRM were collected from executives, managers, employees and consultants and provide useful information when choosing a CRM system.
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Implementing standard enterprise resource planning (ERP) products and other enterprise applications is risky. Industry statistics show that more than 60 percent of implementations fail. A common reason for failure is that the purchased software does not support one or more critical business processes. However, a change-on-demand system ensures that incomplete or changing business requirements are met through adjustments in the application model.
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The globalization of discrete manufacturing is forever changing the notion of what a "small manufacturer" is. Even companies that are considered relatively small in revenue, employment, or client base, must now operate like the largest corporations when structuring and conducting their businesses. Infor examines how today's mid-market manufacturers are transforming themselves—focusing on business processes and employing ERP systems for their own operations.
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To comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), businesses need to be forthcoming to shareholders. Earned value management system (EVMS) is a set of best business processes and tools for enterprise project planning and control. Early warning signals and reliable information from an EVMS helps management ensure that material changes in the financial condition or operations of projects are communicated as required by SOX.
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A common pain many business managers experience is the proliferation of spreadsheet-based reports and tracking. Disconnected or manually integrated systems, unapproved data, and wild e-mail exchange leads to an environment that is ripe for errors, fraud, and control weakness. Employing a system that works in conjunction with legacy systems, and provides policy and rule-based time and expense entry with audit support capabilities can ameliorate the pain and create a compliance-enabled environment.
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North American Electric Motors needed an accounting software package that better met its growing needs. By implementing QuickBooks, the company was able to gain transparency into its warehouses and monitor inventory. Security controls enabled employees to process orders without access to sensitive information, and the company saved up to twelve hours a week when processing daily activities.
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The high price and complexity of traditional, installed, on-premise enterprise software has left small and medium businesses (SMB) unable to obtain true integrated customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. On-demand, software as a service is changing all that. The lower costs and the short implementation period for an on-demand customer relationship management solutions make it lucrative for smaller businesses.
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Because of new compliance and regulation, HealthSouth Corporation, one of the US largest providers of health care services, needed a comprehensive view of its security risks, automated reporting on compliance to ensure published security standards, and to prioritize the remediation of critical risks. Through Preventsys Security Risk Management System, HealthSouth was able to audit it facilities remotely, and reduce overhead costs.
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Human resources (HR) organizations have not fully embraced automation technologies. Up to 92 percent of HR “key controls”—fundamental to compliance with the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)—are executed manually. This paper explores how technology-savvy HR organizations, especially those with the right software, can satisfy SOX requirements, and bolster their role as a strategic partner in the enterprise.
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Human resource management systems (HRMS) and payroll vendors are entering the software as a service (SaaS) market en masse. Though much as been written about the benefits of SaaS, only now are the short and long term ramifications of SaaS being discussed. As long as the purchaser is fully informed, then a decision can be made that best meets the needs of the enterprise.
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Almost $75 billion (USD) is spend on trade and promotion funds every year. Unfortunately most enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are not equiped to handle the complexities of promotion causing false reports and inaccurate invoices. Small and medium businesses (SMB) have had limited choices, until now.
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The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires pharmaceuticals and medical device companies to comply with numerous standards. Medical device manufacturers have long embraced enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM), but primarily use them to achieve operational efficiencies. However these systems can play a significant role in their abilities to comply with strictly FDA regulations.
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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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Adopting on-line payment systems can help businesses improve cash flow and save time and money. Inovium’s integrated, web-based account receivable management application for electronic invoice payment presentment is one such system.
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The Expert Hardware Industry System provides critical information whenever you need it, in addition to full support in handling and controlling your business, easily and quickly. This will help you to substantially cut processing times, reduce errors and, as a consequence, make your processes more effective. All interrelated process are linked with the Expert Hardware System, which means that when a process is carried out, it automatically affects another.
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A partir de este año las grandes cadenas comerciales “obligarán” a sus proveedores a que se les entregue sus compras mediante documentos electrónicos, a este documento se le ha llamado Factura Electrónica, que no es más que el documento original de la factura entregado por un medio electrónico en un formato basado en el estándar de Internet XML. Intelisis ya esta preparado tanto para emitir como recibir las facturas electrónicas y únicamente habrá que solicitar la instalación del servidor de impresión de estos documentos
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Despite intense price competition for its volume products, the electrical products industry remains healthy and dynamic. World-class companies are succeeding by marketing innovative products, scaling up and outsourcing production, expanding into new geographic areas, implementing more efficient business systems, and focusing on ever-closer relationships with suppliers, partners, and customers. This white paper explores the issues of manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors and the current state and future of the industry. Industry specific technological are also discussed.
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Business intelligence (BI) capabilities transform vast amounts of data into relevant information that organizations rely on to make decisions and manage performance. Most companies have some form of BI, and most are familiar with its benefits. However, in order to extract maximum advantage from BI initiatives, it is necessary to be aware of—and avoid—their seven “fatal flaws.”
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There are compelling reasons to transform into an on-line corporation; more are surfacing daily. The common reason is the need to run the entire business under total, on-line, unified, synchronized operational and functional control. Learn how to monitor live action, and correlate and unify operations and finance to ensure the availability of instantaneous financial and operational performance insights.
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Effective planning is integral to the success of a bank. It helps define and ensure the achievement of the organization’s objectives. Understanding and implementing the planning cycle, which leverages forecasting, operational metrics, and multidimensional analyses can help management determine the feasibility of a strategy. An enterprise-wide, integrated planning and forecasting environment that reaches business units, products, customer segments, and geographies can align non-financial performance targets with high-level financial targets and help banks meet their goals.
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A balanced scorecard is a measurement system for management that provides real insight into the status of a business or some part of it. Developed by Kaplan and Norton in the early 1990s, balanced scorecards provide a control system that helps ensure the right balance between different, and often times conflicting, perspectives. For example, an insurance company may increase profitability by offering incentives to claims assessors for taking a tough stance on payout, but will soon find dissatisfaction among its clients that may lead to lost business. Scorecards help ensure this balance and are an improvement over more traditional single dimension approaches that tend to be based purely on expense management and business growth.
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An overview for CIOs of the provision and management of IT services at a level that addresses the risk management issues raised by the Basel Committee's New Capital Accord expected to become effective during 2006. Because of the dependence financial institutions have on IT services, the accord requires adequate provision to assure the availability of these services. Centauri Business Service Manager is presented as the solution: one that allows a CIO to assess current risk levels, measure ongoing risk and support a process of ongoing improvement to reduce this risk. Furthermore, Centauri provides the financial institution with a cost-effective balanced scorecard to improve decision-making.
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Ignoring the warning signs of missing metadata? Gramm-Bliley-Leach, Sarbanes Oxley (also known as “SOX” and “Sarbox”) and the Patriot Act are forerunners of the regulatory trend that has elevated the need for metadata.
Increasing consumer demand for privacy and fallout from corporate accounting scandals are spurring regulatory agencies to putting better teeth into regulations; compliance increasingly depends on an ability to “prove it”—not just by certifying content, but also by demonstrating the process by which the information was developed and managed—and metadata is the key to traceability.
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Identification of landed costs—a long-time goal of manufacturers, distributors, importers, and retailers—has grown in importance for all successful businesses in today’s increasingly competitive market. This white paper focuses on mid-size business needs. It provides comprehensive background information; examines some common business challenges; suggests cost-effective solutions provides links to case studies; and lists resources for additional information.
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Recent accounting scandals, highlighted by cases at Enron, Arthur Andersen, WorldCom, and Qwest, have emphasized the need for corporate governance, especially responsible corporate accounting. Not only must businesses use responsible accounting methods, but they must know that their methods are accurate. Small and mid-sized businesses must know the limitations of their current accounting software; understand the possible ramifications of system accounting balance failure; and take steps to guarantee the integrity, reliability, and accuracy of their systems. This white paper highlights the need to recognize problematic software accounting methods; minimize errors in account balance integrity, ledgers, and sub ledgers; and reduce the need for expensive rectification, to avoid serious legal ramifications.
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Daniel Mourand, CEO, chose Microsoft Great Plains sofware and, today, he does not regret his decision.
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Orezone strikes gold with Microsoft Business Solutions - Great Plains. Orezone is a Canadian mining company that needed a more efficient means to track and store data sent from its African mines to its Canadian offices. Learn how it used MBS Great Plains to boost efficiency.
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Metro Canada Logistics, a third party provider of warehousing, transporatation, and related logistics services streamlines accounting processes with the help of Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains.
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This paper examines key issues for CFOs and CEOs in managing ERP systems in the new world of SOX, IFRS, Basle II. While most IT management attention seems to be on document retention, reporting quality, and security, there are broader issues to be considered toward ensuring good governance and compliance with regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, IFRS and Basle II.
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Companies everywhere have realized the need for greater efficiency and improved quality within the enterprise to stay productive and competitive in today's business environment. In order to obtain these efficiencies, corporations have turned to the successful model used by manufacturers for years known as lean, just-in-time (JIT), or kaizen. The fundamental goal of lean manufacturing includes the reduction of waste increase in productivity and improved quality. Most manufacturers launch their lean initiatives in order to maximize work flow and obtain dramatic improvements in performance.
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This white paper reviews the need for broader financial management solutions that enable the finance function to deliver greater transparency and visibility of business information. It also covers the growing requirement to improve both the efficiency of financial management and reporting processes, whilst at the same time maximizing the effectiveness of corporate performance activities.
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The Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002 (also known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 0f 2002) was passed by US lawmakers to reinforce honest and transparent corporate practices in the wake of the various public accounting scandals and corporate failures of the 1990s. The Act, named after US Senator Paul S. Sarbanes and US Congressman Michael G. Oxley, has changed the way public companies do business. Although not specifically covered under the Act, non-public entities are also finding that bankers, investors, and acquisition candidates are now conditioned to expect increased transparency and real-time disclosures, in effect placing a greater accounting and reporting burden on companies that are not legally obligated to comply with this act. As with any far-reaching legislation of this magnitude, there is plenty of hype that has emerged in connection with this law. This document is designed to help companies large and small navigate some of the "hype" that sometimes blurs the line between fact and fiction.
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Risk, risk mitigation, and accountability are at the center of several key industry regulations and are factored into all forms of financial and operational metrics. Learn how enterprise software can be used to develop strong models using balanced planning to mitigate risk.
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Recent legislation has bought about unparalleled emphasis on corporate governance and regulatory compliance. In the United States, the Enron and Worldcom affairs have led to a new law Sarbannes-Oxley. In Europe, the EU parliament has decided that all countries must streamline the laws for financial reporting in accordance with IFRS rules from IASC. Bringing organizations into compliance with new demands for corporate governance is having immediate and long-term effects. In this paper we discuss the current business environment, those facets of legislation impacting manufacturers and how QAD enterprise suite of applications can assist you in achieving corporate governance and regulatory compliance quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively.
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Howard Johnson’s Enterprises, Inc. (HJE) is a provider of lawn and garden fertilizer products whose discrete manufacturing package assumed a discrete process. It took ProcessPro eight months to implement a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that worked to address HJE’s unique needs.
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Customer relationship management (CRM) is more than just software or a set of processes--it's a business culture solidly focused on winning and keeping the right customers. A good CRM solution builds value to your business. Learn about the value of an integrated CRM suite.
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Despite the efficiencies brought about by technology, many organizations remain dependant on paper driven, labor intensive tasks. If companies embrace the issue of compliance head-on, they can actually improve business practices, financial performance, and reduce the business risk of their organization. Learn how to develop a process that embraces Sarbanes Oxley compliance and boosts organizational efficiency.
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Learn how Swiss-American Inc., a leading manufacturer of medical products, improved the accuracy of its inventory levels by adopting a new manufacturing system complete lot traceability, manufacturing resource planning (MRP), purchasing, and manufacturing projections.
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