Frank O Smith (fosmith@thewritinggroup.com)
Articles
For Coca-Cola Enterprises, standardized printing bubbles up with lean opportunity
With deep roots in manufacturing production, Lean's key premise—the reduction or elimination of waste—has broad applicability across business processes. It entails taking a fresh look at entrenched work patterns and sharply questioning assumptions. In a time when companies are seeking to leverage every opportunity to reduce costs, lean's core tenets are delivering big benefits in un...
Licensing solution simplifies asset management in SAP, other software deployments
Acresso Software (formerly Macrovision) says its License Manager for the SAP Business Suite helps companies using SAP reduce their license requirements by 30 percent. That's a significant amount, given that an enterprisewide SAP system represents the top one or two technology investments that an organization will make over a 10-year period, according to Cambridge, Mass.
Feel IT: Microsoft wants to earn your love for Dynamics
Can users really love a business application? Jakob Nielsen, principal user experience manager, Microsoft Dynamics, asserts unequivocally you can. “There's usability, and then there's desirability,” Nielsen explains. “Designing the user experience isn't just about making business applications usable, but making people love them.
I/O worth millions: Weak economy signals IT’s opportunity to improve data center performance
The next time financial cutbacks are on the table, consider virtualization technology to improve data center performance and achieve cost savings. Virtualization can increase network, storage, and hardware utilization, allowing organizations to reduce the number of power-consuming servers, and improve application and network performance.
Nalco masters data governance with quality management tool
With operations around the globe and more than 70,000 customers in 130 countries, data quality ended up being the hot button in Nalco Company's migration to a single global instance of SAP. “Data governance is a critical issue for the company. Quality data is a key asset,” says Charlon Franklin, senior data steward analyst for the Naperville, Ill.
SMBs set to slash marketing costs using SaaS research model
A partnership between Vantedge Group and AbsolutData aims to bring the value of manufacturing market intelligence to small and midsize businesses (SMB) via an on-demand model with an affordable monthly service fee. According to Bob May, senior VP of analytic services for Vantedge Group, “We've come up with the Software-as-a-Service [SaaS] approach.