I-BN Blog

On January 11, 2020 I published an article on LinkedIn on the 3 Reasons to Partner with a Leading Software Company.  This third blog on the subject os focused on Leadership.

You may think size and stability are old school evaluation parameters, and you would be correct. But the way we think about size and stability are different today than they were 10 years ago or even 2 years ago. In the past larger publishers used size and stability concerns to create fear, uncertainty and doubt and to discredit small companies entering the market. 

I recently came to the realization that I have been implementing business management systems for over 30 years.  In the early days, most of the time it was the company's first computer system and generating value was relatively easy.   By the time Y2K came around, the ERP boom was over and most companies had been through either implementing a new system or upgrading to prevent the potential disaster.  

The way we interact with our computers and the software they run has been evolving since the rise of the internet and mobile computing.  As the technology has evolved we have seen web pages being built to act more like computers and computers being designed to work with the touch of your hand and the sound of your voice.  This evolution is leading to higher productivity and efficiency when implemented properly by the publisher and the end user organization.

• Microsoft - As discussed in our previous blogpost, Microsoft has been moving online with its Office 365 and Dynamics 365.  Many of these changes have been evolutionary and productive such as the ongoing enhancement of SharePoint and Flow for extending ERP to the web.   However, some of the changes are more revolutionary like their recent April 2019 and upcoming October 2019 release wave of Microsoft Dynamics 365.  In this next release Business Central will support only the modern client and will only allow for development of customizations and solutions in AL through VS Code.   This means any customizations done by partners will need to be re-written and could cause some severe disruption to customers.
• Sage - Sage is leveraging the positive aspects of the Office 365 enhancements building its "connected cloud" strategy into the Outlook client.  For example, Sage Contacts makes a variety of information about customers available as a sidebar for sales and customer service representatives without being in the Sage 100cloud system.  As the majority of Sage applications are built to work on-premise or in the cloud, their strategy is to move at a slower pace and more conservative in nature.   Sage Intacct is the only "true cloud" solution in its portfolio and Sage is developing more modules to expand this financial oriented product to appeal to a broader range of industries.
• SAP - The SAP appears to be taking both approaches.  The SAP HANA Cloud is building interfaces similar to Microsoft Flow, the new version of SAP Business One being released in October will support the current Fiori user interface as well as a new web client for a sub-set of the core functionality.   Even more impressive are the "intelligent enterprise" advancements demonstrated at the recent SMB Innovation Summit.  Innovation such as the integration of Honeywell warehouse management system directs staff to specific locations to pick an order on their headset where they simply confirm information with their voice.

At I-Business Network, our goal is to Powerful  Business Technology Made Simple.  We do that by cloud enabling your business in a data center designed specifically for the ERP systems we host.   Whether the technology is "true cloud" or more traditional, we make the user interface easy to use for you via browser, cloud application, or hosted desktop.  Because we are experts in both the cloud and the business management software we host, we minimize business disruption caused by changes in technology.

For more information on how we can make your business more efficient contact one of our solution experts at 678-627-0646 x230 or sales@i-bn.net.

SAP has been a leader in business management software, and they have maintained their leadership by staying ahead of trends to meet customer needs.  The 2019 SAP SMB Innovation Summit held in Orlando June 18-20 was focused on how companies are starting to use big data, coupled with artificial intelligence to create the Intelligent Enterprise.  

Are you taking advantage of technology in the digital age to grow your company?

When people think of digital disruption Uber is the most often quoted example of how a startup is changing an industry. Amazon and Uber are that superstar athlete like Michael Jordan who is immediately recognizable. The majority of high school athletes will not play in college and an even smaller percentage will become a professional. Almost none will achieve superstardom. That does not mean there is not value from joining the team, learning about working together and participating in a smaller way.

Implementing a new business management software can be overwhelming to an organization,  Most companies undertake this endeavor once in a decade and are not experts in the process.  As the software has become more comprehensive and now impacts most everyone in the company, extensive coordination is necessary to get it right.

I-BN recently completed the recertification for hosting services by SAP. The audit is not just about our data center and its capabilties, but our ability to provide a stable, secure and reliable hosting services specifically for SAP Business One.  The audit covers many areas beyond the data center and equipment used: