Digital Transformation unleashed

You're the CIO/CDO sitting in your weekly update executive meeting with the CEO, CFO, COO, and others. You start the meeting with the priorities of the meeting and for the first time you see "Business Transformation". First thing that crossed your mind is this question - what is that?

Next you hear the details of the Business Transformation and the overall strategy. Everybody in the room was asked to present your vision and for you it's the Digital Transformation, a subset of Business Transformation. 

To those who haven't had any experience with Business Transformation, here are some business events that can trigger a transformation:

• Improve customer experience
• Rebranding
• Merger & Acquisition
• Business expansion
• Digitize the brand experience

Of course, there are more other events but essentially you can see that all of them have business impact. 

If you've done Digital Transformation, then good for you so you know what you need to present. If not, you need to think about your vision and strategy. Do you have a framework that you've used in the past? If you're reusing a framework make sure you know the end state of the Transformation and modify accordingly. Like the pic below, you should know your destination and create the digital vision to get there as there are many path that you need to consider. 

What is constant in Digital Transformation?

• Multi-year
• Roadmap creation
• Reviewing of technology stack & capabilities
• Large budget
• Cross-functional
• Change management
• Different technology resources - functional & technical & others

e-Commerce discount types

In the world of retail today every retailer is trying to find ways and be creative to attract online customers. To attract your attention and make a conversion they publish different ads in their websites. Some of these ads can come in discounts like "buy one, get one 50% off" or free shipping. To make sure the experience is captured by retailers and convert you to a customer then later as a repeat customer, the system they're using should be capable and flexible to offer these types of ads.

There are different types of eCommerce/Website discounts and normally called Cart discounts. It can be free shipping, percent (%) discounts or dollar ($) amount discounts.

Here are sample of each:

1. Free shipping - very common in eCommerce sites like Amazon who

1. Percent discounts
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Dollar discounts

Signs to upgrade or move to a new ERP platform

Is it time to upgrade or move to a new ERP?

Interesting question but why are you asking this question in the first place, there are several reasons, it can be business-related or technology challenges. Whatever the reason you don't need to make the decision alone. Here are some scenarios that businesses might encounter why they're thinking about upgrading or moving:

Business-related

• We've experienced rapid growth, we're opening new warehouses & distribution centers, we're hiring new people and doubled our headcount. This system can't grow as fast.
• We've been using this system since we started the company, it's been X years and this system is not doing what we want anymore.
• We've introduced new businesses and new channels. The system was upgraded with add-ons and work around but it's not working for us.
• We have compliance requirements; we need to change our processes, but this system is not flexible enough.

Technology challenges

• This version has reached its End of Life (EOL) and won't be supported by the vendor anymore, I think it's time to find another platform. 
• We've customized the heck out of this system. We have hired developers to maintain the system for years. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is too high that it's better for us to upgrade to the latest version or find another system.
• We need to integrate our ERP with other systems so we don't need to duplicate our work, the ERP technology is so old that it's not possible.

Do any of this apply to your situation? Surprise, you're not alone. Most companies go through this situation every 5 to 10 years. Is there a quick answer to your question? The answer is No. 

Let's answer the who, why, what and how.

Who can help answer the question? This is a collective effort between your IT, your ERP partner & vendor if they're different and I highly recommend a 3rd-party consultant who doesn't have any vested interest to your vendor or partner. 

What's the best process to get the answer? There are several ways to do this, and it all depends on your time; how much do you want to spend and your resources. The best way is RFP or Request for Proposal. This will require more time but it's very detailed and will give you the best result. 

Why do we need resources & time? ERP is not just a system or application, ERP consist of different processes - Order to cash (OTC), Procure to pay (PTP) and others. You need to get the business requirements from each business process owners & Stakeholders. Once you complete this process then you consolidate this to your RFP. You send this to your ERP partner and maybe even other ERP vendors. 

How can we know from the process that we should upgrade or stay with our current system?

If you decide to do the RFP route then at the end of the process you will fill out a vendor scorecard and if your current vendor or current system comes out as the top scorer then you don't need to spend money upgrading. 

The most difficult part of this process is finding the right system and partner. RFP will help you find both if you do this process methodically. Don't rush the process, find a good partner to help you with this process because like I said, you don't do this every full moon.

Duke del Prado has over 25 year's experience helping businesses find the right systems and partners for different enterprise applications like ERP, CRM, eCommerce, POS, EDI and others.

ERP - Oracle Netsuite Cloud

It's been a while since my last post and I'm excited to share what I've been doing the last few months. I've renamed my blog as well to Digital Transformation as I feel the transition to a broader content makes more sense.

My topic for this post is Oracle Netsuite, a cloud ERP for medium sized companies which they claim is the first cloud ERP in the market. I can't argue with this being in the market for almost 25 years as around 2010, we migrated to this system before the Oracle acquisition, and it was already in the cloud.

My current company implemented Netsuite last year and now my team is supporting the system. I can see much improved performance and more functionalities both in Order-to-cash and Procure-to-pay. 

I'm learning more about this system so more content in the weeks & months to come. You can learn more about Netsuite here: Business Software, Business Management Software | NetSuite

Migrate from Dynamics to SAP S/4HANA

It is almost night and day when you get involve with this migration. I'm on my 3rd system migration from Dynamics AX/GP to SAP S4HANA and there's always something unique in each implementation.

One uniqueness is the S4 platform - On-premise vs Cloud, now there's Hybrid. Data migration is another unique criteria to consider. 

The process is almost the same as I remember, a WRICEF or RICEFW was the basis of all the development work and all other requirements like functional specs, change management, master data, etc. were documented.

Every detail is documented and this is where the implementation approach differs from Dynamics and SAP. This is why I said from the start it's like night and day. In a typical Dynamics implementation unless the partner don't have the resources, you normally will deal with a PM, a functional consultant, developer and maybe a report writer but the developer can fill this in some instances. 

The biggest difference is the functional consultant which in a Dynamics project is normally your resource for financials, distribution (supply chain), interfaces and reporting. In SAP, you have functional consultants in almost every module, well that's what I've experienced so far. You have one or two in FI/CO, one each for OTC, PTP and if you do inventory management (MTS/MTO) you need at least one. On the technical side you have one for conversions, one for SAP PI/PO, one or 2 for reporting, more than one for development (ABAP) based on WRICEF and one for training. There's more required for HANA hardware and database.

To summarize, the investment for the migration includes the following:

- SAP S/4HANA licenses. Do multiple negotiations before you commit to SAP.

- HANA hardware (Cloud, Hybrid, on-premise). Azure and AWS are pretty stable now.

- Implementation partner which can be one or multiple and I've done 3 partners at once (Not recommended)

- Internal resources. You'd rather over invest here as you don't want to scramble looking for a resource in the middle of the implementation 

- Get an overall Program Lead not just a project mgr who will oversee functional, technical, infrastructure, financials, and more important "change management". Don't underestimate the last one as you can be on schedule and budget but if your business partners are not happy with the transition then they won't consider it a success internally. 

Microsoft in Retail

In one of my previous post I've mentioned the lack of investment from Microsoft in the EPM space. In this post I'll touch on the Retail space and some transformations that organizations partake.

I was with Microsoft Dynamics between the years of 1990 to 2000 and very privileged with the opportunity. In the last 10 years it has been unfortunate though that most of my engagements (mostly Retail and CPG) have been moving Microsoft to SAP. Why is that? It took me awhile to realize that there were commonality between these companies.

Here are some of my observations:

1  Scalability. They have outgrown Microsoft products, their processes have become more complex and existing investments cannot scale.

2  Relationship. They don’t have direct relationship with Microsoft so they find another partner to help them with their transformation.

3   Support. They need more support from their partners including technology, processes and data. Their current partner don't have all expertise, they can only do one not all.

4  Technology. They want to explore new technologies like Cloud, Big Data, IoT and others. Even though Microsoft can fill these space, the companies don't know who to contact.

If you look at the reasons, Microsoft could’ve easily filled the gaps. SAP does this pretty well, their regional AE's are in constant contact with their clients. They’re constantly asking and they take care of companies that carry weight in the verticals, brands that matter in that space. 

Retail is one vertical where Microsoft can capture some market share. Here are some reasons:

1- Retail companies have complex processes from store operations to back office. Microsoft have all the toolset to help but they're not selling it bundled. They need to go to these retailers and sell their products from store to back office. Show how the POS can integrate with Microsoft Dynamics Inventory then show them Analytics thru Power BI. Do a retail suite of solutions that can solve a retailers process from end-to-end.

2 - Microsoft needs to put more investment in their Retail space. They have the products to scale up and capture a market share but it’s not happening. They’re even losing clients and more importantly “brands” that matter in the space. SAP talks directly to top brand customers to know what processes are changing because of regulations, compliance, tariffs and others. In the Enterprise Applications technology takes a back seat, CIO’s look at vendors who can solve complex processes, use best practices, able to provide solutions to regulatory or country specific requirements and others.

I can go on but my point here is Microsoft does have the products but they need to understand the business needs and how they’re going to selling their products effectively. I’ve seen demos where the CFO and CIO just walk out of the room because they’ve missed the mark so bad. SAP is not untouchable, they just know how to sell their products well and Microsoft needs to learn from them.

Amazon piece of the pie

How big is Amazon compared to the other retailers

Did SAP Fiori capture the future of software development?

SAP Fiori is using modern design principles like role-based, responsive, simple and delightful to create the next generation of SAP software products. The user experience or UX is personalized that you can create an application by targeting a certain user or persona instead of the current designs where we all fit everything in one window to target multiple users. What happens, users tend to ignore fields that are not relevant to them and this equates to frustration or even inefficiencies. So the question then is, will the future design of applications target certain personas not roles to make business users feel that its personalize than targeting a role then use that as your template?

Here are some videos about SAP Fiori:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX5X8ewlD0I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-UMfarMOoo&list=PLeNDocm2iuMMT75fIkxK_OwF97nzk4p5o

In-Memory Appliance: SAP HANA vs Oracle Exalytics

I was trying to research Oracle Exalytics to learn more about the Oracle cloud offering and stumbled upon this interesting video comparing it with SAP HANA. Just interested as previously had implemented HANA with another client so knowing the basic difference might make a difference in the future I need to choose between the 2 giant vendors.

Here's the video, ignore the characters as they look like aliens without neck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2ykQHmudoQ

EPM arena but where is Microsoft

Happy Monkey Year!!!

I haven't been as active as I've been learning and implementing different systems. If you check my previous posts, my last project was moving Dynamics to SAP suite and we finally wrapped that at end of 2014. One reason my client move out of Dynamics is lack of applications in planning and HR.

In 2015, I started another chapter and this time managing programs. One program was finance transformation where there were several tracks including SAP upgrade, Financial Planning, Tax Transformation and others. I'm also managing other parts of retail like OmniChannel, Retail Accounting, Visual Mechandising programs which was very interesting as you see other parts of a retail business.

The SAP landscape was moving to a new platform, can't really say it but it's in the retail space. 

Financial Planning was another exciting program where I'm moving an Infor system to Oracle Planning Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS). 

I want to call out Microsoft Dynamics as I moved to implementing Tier 1 applications,  I realized that Microsoft Dynamics is missing a lot of business applications. One application which organizations have now realized benefits is Enterprise or Corporate Performance Management (EPM/CPM). Leaders include SAP BPC, Oracle Hyperion/PBCS, IBM TM1 (Cognos). In my years attending Convergence and others, I never heard Microsoft going into this arena and you ask why. 

Every organization today do performance planning in one way or the other. Retail, CPG, Telecom, Healthcare, Prof Services and others need to do this to stay competitive and the functionality is already mature. I think to survive the next wave of ERP investments or Postmodern ERP, CIOs will look for vendors who can provide a consolidated package of solutions including the following - ERP, CPM, BI, CRM, HRIS and others.

If you look at the market today, you can count the vendors with one hand. Unfortunately, Microsoft Dynamics is not one of them as they missed investing in CPM and HRIS. SAP even have solutions for HRIS - SAP HR and SuccessFactor.

I hope this will open conversations inside Microsoft where the next investment should be. I'd be interested to be part of that conversation.

Actuals vs Budget using Tableau

One product I liked using to do data visualization and analytics is Tableau. It's easy to use and can work with most of the datasources that I have in my environment. I could've utilized another tool like MicroStrategy, SAP Lumira or BusinessObjects but because I need a quick turnaround for the client, I decided to used Tableau.

In this video, I used Tableau Desktop so show a simple side-by-side of Budget vs Actual Sales. I could've added other steps but since it's my introductory video I wanted to make it simple.

Find the video here http://youtu.be/kSl8h0ny6LE or watch it below:

Microsoft Dynamics to SAP ECC - Part 2

As promised, I'm posting Part 2 of the Dynamics GP to SAP migration.

Since my last post we've done a lot of cleansing to the GP data. Some of the ETL processes we ran include:

- Master data including GL accounts, Profit Center, Cost Center, Employees, Vendors and others
- Vendor and Customer addresses including multiple addresses for Vendor Partner functions
- Any Tax-related fields including 1099, GST, etc.
- Hierarchy if any (can be messy)
- Open Balances for General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable and Fixed Assets

Lastly, I consider my SQL scripting decent but get a really good one as you'll need to create lines of code and SP for your ETL.

Goodluck!

Note: I'll see if there's a need for another Part in FI, otherwise Part 3 will be more on SAP SD.

Microsoft Dynamics to SAP ECC - Part 1

Actively participating in the data modeling & cleansing, reporting (including BPC, BW and BI) and testing of a Dynamics GP client to SAP AFS.

Exciting, as the last time I was part of a SAP implementation was almost 10 years ago.

Piece of advice if you know you're going to migrate to SAP:
1 - When creating your Chart of Accounts start integrating Cost Center and Profit Center
2 - Create a logic in your Item, Vendor, Customer and Asset masters
3 - Addresses can create a lot of work if not properly maintained
4 - Use logic when using the classes

Dynamics GP 2013

This month Microsoft announced the availability of Dynamics GP 2013 demo which you can download here.

Most of the improvements were geared to improving security, integration with other Microsoft products and the Web client.

I was reading the installation guide of the web client and the requirements were pretty basic including the Web server OS which can either be Windows Server 2008 R2 or 2012. You can secure the web client by implementing SSL which you can purchase from a vendor or use one provided by IIS.

If you've installed Microsoft Sharepoint Server, most of the required steps were very similar including the required authentication.

Goodluck!

ETL tools

Following are top ETL tools used for extracting, cleaning, transforming and loading data to a data warehouse:

1. Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB)
2. SAP Business Objects Data Integrator (BODI)
3. IBM Data Stage
4. Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
5. SAS Data Integration Studio
6. Talend Open Studio
7. Clover ETL
8. Adeptia Integration Suite

Former Citi VP of Treasury Sentenced

In this age of compliance and tight security, how can one still manage to embezzlement more than $22 million?

Well Mr. Gary Foster did, the former vice president at Citigroup Inc.’s treasury finance department was sentenced to 97 months in prison for fraud related to his embezzlement. Foster embezzled funds from various Citigroup accounts by transferring money to Citigroup's cash account and then wiring it to his personal bank account.

Foster concealed his thefts with various false accounting entries, making the Citi cash account appear in balance and placing a fraudulent contract or deal number in the reference line of the wire transfer instructions.

Made me wonder, which accounting system were they using that nobody can even catch this kind of false transactions especially during month-end reconciliation. I guess if you work for a large multinational bank, it'll take a few cycle before you can confirm that there's fraud or breakage in the process. But mostly this can be remediated by constant communication between people who audit and reconciles cash.

LinkedIn error

LinkedIn is acting up today as I'm getting this error a lot - Sorry, there was a problem processing your request. Please try again.

Even on simple links, it doesn't work.

10 things you should know about NoSQL databases

Did you hear about the latest trend in databases? If not then you should read this article about NoSQL or  "not only SQL".

NoSQL vary from your classic relational database management system (RDBMS) as they do not use SQL as their primary query language. These data stores may not require fixed table schemas, usually do not support join operations, may not give full ACID (atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) guarantees, and typically scale horizontally. NoSQL is now used by major internet companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter and others.

Here's an article about NoSQL which will help you understand the pros & cons of using the technology. Click here.

Cloud Computing Practice Overview

Bessemer Venture has been an advocate of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for years now. They've compiled a one-pager of all potential providers of cloud services in different areas of the business. Get the one-pager here.

Apple's iPhone forcing smartphone industry change by Computerworld

The intensely competitive smartphone industry is becoming an increasingly challenging space. Analysts say Apple [AAPL] has achieved the largest share of hardware sales and revenue, putting competitors on any current platform (Android, Microsoft, RIM, etc.) under lots of pressure. In this environment, surely it won't be long until another round of mergers and acquisitions begins?

[ABOVE: Thanks to Asymco for this image, which shows how much things have changed since Apple invaded the mobile industry with the iPhone.]
Apple's game to lose
Surely it's obvious? Think about this: Asymco's Horace Dediu, believes four of the biggest smartphone makers lost money in the last quarter: Nokia, Motorola, Sony-Ericsson and LG.

For more on this click here.