Magazine Reads

Epicor has been sold, again – this time to CD&R, a venture capital house with plans to double the business in five years. Paul Esherwood sat down (virtually) with Steve Murphy, CEO, to discuss what the new ownership means...

Just how low can the RPA ERP robots go?

If we were allowed to create new insertions to conjoin acronyms with acronyms, then our first mission would be to add ERP to RPA. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) augmented under (AU) robotic process automation...

What’s your COVID price? Is the pandemic threatening the consultancy model?

Consultancies and systems integrators have been both criticised and critical over the past few months but what does a post-pandemic future look like? Last year we predicted some big changes for the SIs in terms of their delivery methods...

What shape are your shared services in?

A simple way to think about shared services is as one back office installation that is used by various departments. The administrative tasks in an HR office, for example, can increasingly be carried out on a single system. This same system can then feed...

Is this the reckoning humanity needed?

t’s obvious to conclude that humanity doesn’t work. Our purpose in this world seems unclear and we have stumbled from century to century without direction or reason. Like a rudderless ship cast into the vast oceans, we have tried many ideas over several thousand years and none have delivered peace, purpose or paradise.

The future of human touch in business

Around the world, humans are struggling to ignore thousands of years of bio-social convention and avoid touching each other. What are the implications for how we conduct business?

HR in Lockdown

COVID-19 lockdown stipulations rocketed employee well-being and online collaboration to priority status practically overnight. HR teams scrambled to find ways to help the workforce keep in touch, maintain morale, and enable...

The importance of leadership, purpose and wellbeing in a crisis

When I interviewed Mike Ettling back in April 2019 he had just taken the hot seat at Unit4. He inherited a mixed bag of fortunes but told me about a bold plan to transform the company into a contemporary ERP vendor...

Software firms at forefront of COVID-19 efforts

Software vendors are leveraging their expertise to help customers, employees and the community overcome COVID-19 challenges. The way in which companies conduct themselves during the COVID-19 crisis has come under intense scrutiny. As we have already seen, companies that fail to support both their customers and staff during this period are likely to be judged harshly – and publicly – and could incur financial and reputational damage from which it will be difficult to recover...

COVID stress test demonstrates resilience in software values

M&A activity is set to play a key role in the enterprise tech sector as strategic alliances, opportune acquisitions and distressed sales bolster the ERP market. It used to be the case that it was only when the tide went out that you could see who was swimming naked...

New best practices for a Pandemic World

The COVID-19 pandemic has caught enterprises off guard and now CxOs are under pressure to determine their new business plans and how to get their enterprises started again. Markets, customers, business and ways...

Is now a good time for an ERP project?

As we slowly start to see the easing of restrictions on the UK economy business leaders are faced with a dichotomy; the sudden shift to new ways of working has highlighted the fragilities in many business systems...

Mihir Shukla / Automation Anywhere CEO & Co-Founder

There’s a storm coming and it’s called RPA.

Mihir Shukla is the CEO and co-founder of Automation Anywhere. By the end of this year his company will have over three million digital workers deployed in the world’s largest organisations. RPA is likely to be the most transformative technology to emerge from the digital revolution and Automation Anywhere is at the head of the field when it comes to capitalising on the burgeoning demands...

Sage is Resurgent and taking on the mid-market with Intacct. Sabby Gill speaks to Paul Esherwood

Sage is a brand that we all know. It is one of the most iconic British companies and has more than 600,000 customers in the UK – more than any other tech company by far. Known for its small business accounting software, Sage recently acquired Intacct for a cool $850m and has set its sights firmly on the mid-market opportunity...

Speed wins out over size. Anton Chilton discusses how manufacturers can become adaptive enterprises

Paul Esherwood sat down with Anton Chilton, CEO at QAD to discuss their new Adaptive ERP and how it works with global manufacturers to ensure they have the tools to be competitive in a highly disrupted sector...

How to get what you want in the ERP Jungle. A guide to Vendor Selection

Changing core business applications can be a daunting challenge. Finding a single solution for your entire organisation and integrating it with your existing IT estate is not a simple thing to do...

Open source is the disruption that enterprises need. First of two-part series from SUSE

Enterprises are now able to reduce costs and complexity, and accelerate product development cycles and infrastructure management, using open source software. An ideological movement founded in the last century is powering digital transformation for enterprises...

Digital transformation 2.0. ADNOC takes enterprise agility to new levels with SAP S/4HANA

ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company) has been one of the key drivers for the UAE’s economy for the last 40 years. It is the twelfth largest oil producer in the world generating in excess of 3 million barrels...

Melissa Di Donato – how far have we really come?

Melissa Di Donato dares to be different. And she is daring you to be the same. The new CEO of SUSE is unashamedly taking aim at the issue of gender-bias and diversity while hatching a plan to grow SUSE into a global powerhouse.

How to choose your public cloud partner

Not all infrastructure platforms are the same and choosing your cloud partner is a critical strategic decision. Holger Mueller, contributing editor at ERP Today and principal analyst at Constellation Research...

Why is transformation failing in our universities?

The irony of lagging progress for ERP in educational faculties. Few, if any sectors, could benefit more from an overhaul of systems and processes than higher education (HE). Yet, virtually every attempt...

It’s no longer a two-horse race

As the post-modern ERP market matures there’s more choice than ever and the opportunities for ERP buyers could not be better. It used to be said that no-one ever got sacked for choosing Oracle or SAP...

Do women [still] really have more to prove?

We can walk the same walk, but do we talk the same talk? Georgina Elrington looks at how the simple conditioning of genders will keep the diversity conversation going...

For the challengers

IFS may be the biggest (and best) ERP vendor that you haven’t heard of. With sales approaching $700m and plans to hit the $1bn mark by 2021, IFS is a taking a refreshing approach to selling enterprise technology...

Has the face of consulting changed forever?

In my former life as editor of a corporate finance magazine I was no stranger to the offices of the big five (as it was then). They were often dark, uninspiring, misogynistic places where partners sat at oak desks wearing...

What future for on premise?

As a journalist, I find myself at the same crossroads as many CIOs; I know cloud technologies – whether applications or infrastructure – are complete game changers. I understand that AI-infused ERP systems...

Are you ready to get ready for the cloud?

For decades we have believed that our business processes were the horse and the system was the cart. Now, CEOs are being urged to switch that long held belief and embrace a new way of working that puts...

Customisation

There was once a well-trodden path for ERP implementations. Buy a licence from Oracle or SAP for some generic finance and HR software and then give Deloitte or Capgemini several million pounds to dismantle...

IPO set to catapult Infor into the big league

Charles Phillips is not your typical American tech CEO. He is an elegant man. Gently spoken, thoughtful in his responses and his calm and measured tone is to the point and unexaggerated; a far cry from...

Artificial Intelligence

Do you know what it is? AI is the hottest topic in tech right now. But, like with so many other hot topics there is a lot of confusion, misunderstanding and false narrative...