Understanding “Social” in the Enterprise
Chris Jones, Senior Delivery Manager : 11 May 2012 / 9:49 AM : 2 
As social media platforms continue to expand on the internet … with record numbers flocking to places like FaceBook, YouTube and Twitter … many are still trying to figure out what it all means to the enterprise.
Marketing, Sales and Customer Service organizations are exploring possibilities in terms of customer contact.
But what can social technology do for employees, those working inside the firewall?
Unpacking this is no small task. Even grasping the concept of social media can be challenging. The example of a “virtual cocktail party” is still sometimes used to explain the interactive dynamic, but if you’re a CIO, you’ll need more than that to get traction with the Executive team.
In two recent posts, I introduced notion of the Connected Organization and talked about a concept popularized by Gossieaux (2010) called the knowledge network. In both posts, we touched on McAfee’s thought process in Enterprise 2.0 (2009) and our need to shift the traditional discussion of knowledge as a static “thing” (to be captured, stored, and managed) to a more organic vision, built around fostering the flow of insights.
To make social work in the enterprise, we need a viabl...
Posted in Enterprise Integration & IT Strategy on 11 May 2012
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Tagged: Change Management Digital Marketing Enterprise 2.0 Enterprise Integration Knowledge Management Process Improvement Social Media Social Networking Twitter
Inforum Review
Dan Puett, Sales & Delivery Manager : 26 April 2012 / 4:54 PM : 0
Congratulations, Infor, on the success of Inforum 2012, which closed Wednesday. With almost 5000 participants, this successful conference marked the first gathering of Infor and Lawson Software customers since both companies combined. CIBER is proud to have been a Diamond* Sponsor as well as a participant.
We are Lawson's largest service partner outside of Infor's own professional services organization. And no other company has completed more successful Lawson implementations, upgrades, and integrations across all industry verticals than CIBER. During the conference, we talked with hundreds of Infor customers and hosted more than 90 client strategy meetings. Our Lawson professionals shared their insights on leveraging Lawson investments for the greatest possible gain, and they highlighted their M3 and S3 expertise, Lawson Talent Management, and managed services and hosting solutions.
Throughout the conference, CIBER emphasized a number of client successes including recent work at the Northern Colorado Water Conversancy District (Northern Water, www.northernwater.org). This implementation follows our successful assessment of Northern Water's technological capabilities as well as our planning and design of the ERP system. Once CIBER completes the implementation of Lawson ERP software for Human Resources,...
Posted in Lawson on 26 April 2012
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Inforum - Day 1 Recap
Dan Puett, Sales & Delivery Manager : 24 April 2012 / 2:10 PM : 0
Infor’s Inforum opened Sunday in Denver with a grand reception for the more than 5000 participants. CIBER, Inc., the event’s only Platinum Sponsor, hosted a preliminary event for Lawson’s Public Sector and K-12 Community.
Monday morning, Infor’s CEO, Charles Phillips, and other senior executives began the meeting with their insights on how the third largest business software company is revolutionizing the software market and making a difference in how customers buy and deploy technology. They shared the company's vision and strategy, provided a preview of the latest innovative technology developments, and introduced customers who are leveraging these solutions.
On Monday afternoon, Infor announced the availability of Infor10 Lawson Talent Management. "Infor10 Lawson Talent Management delivers actionable information about talent in support of business strategy, positioning companies to make calculated business decisions to help maximize the value of staff," said Amy Ihlen, industry strategy director, Talent Management, Infor. "We took valuable feedback from our customers and have invested heavily in creating a talent management product that presents actionable information at every turn, enabling users to spend less time administrating and more time developing and strengthening talent."
In conjunction with Infor’s ...
Posted in Lawson on 24 April 2012
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Tagged: Enterprise Integration ERP Lawson
Project Portfolio Management - Resource Management
Walker, Woody M, Senior Director - Delivery Management : 23 April 2012 / 1:31 PM : 1
Once you have selected your project portfolio for the year; it’s time to assign resources to that portfolio. Portfolio Resource Management is an efficient and effective process of resource request, resource allocation, resource assignment, resource tracking, and resource forecasting for the entire PPM lifecycle. Answer the questions below to see how your organization is handling the Portfolio Resource Management process.
How does your organization assign resources to the selected project portfolio?
How does your organization manage resource supply/demand in the selection process?
Posted in Project Management on 23 April 2012 Tagged: Project Management Project Methodology The “Doom Loop” is a pattern of behavior consistent across all enterprise-wide software (not just Lawson) and utilized to describe the value of the software as it changes over time within the corporate environment. Come and find out what quadrant of the doom loop your organization may be in. CIBER will provide an easy ‘do it yourself’ assessment to determine where you are. We will examine the reasons why an organization may enter the doom loop, the symptoms of entering the doom loop, and the course of action needed to emerge from the doom loop into a healthy project life cycle.
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Is your organization contending with the “ERP Doom Loop?”
Michele Tharp, Senior Practice Manager : 13 April 2012 / 12:20 PM : 0
If you answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions, it is possible your organization is contending with the ERP Doom Loop.
CIBER will be presenting at Lawson’s Inforum (April 22-25, 2012) in Denver.
Posted in Healthcare on 13 April 2012
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Tagged: Change Management ERP Healthcare Lawson Process Improvement
Increasing Your Supply Chain Efficiency
Michele Tharp, Senior Practice Manager : 10 April 2012 / 9:32 AM : 0
Many organizations implemented a portion of Lawson's Mobile Supply Chain Management (MSCM) during their upgrade to version 9.0 or 9.0.1. Now that your existing environment is current, it is a great time to assess the functionality and technology implemented as part of MSCM. Often times, there are pieces of the product that were left off the initial plan due to timing, budget, or resource availability.
When fully implemented, MSCM can save your organization time and money by leveraging technology and process enhancements to improve visibility to and timeliness of product moves in your health care organization. While there are many components that must be implemented and synchronized for a successful MSCM implementation such as handheld devices, bar code printers, PostScript enabled printers, wireless infrastructure, and WebSphere, CIBER can help you pull it all together.
CIBER has helped many healthcare organizations accomplish this goal in an efficient and timely manner. Now is the time to take advantage of the software and hardware that you already own. You may find there are only a few more pieces to roll out! CIBER can help with hardware, software, project management, MSCM expertise, and even be your “phone a friend” if needed.
To schedule time with a CIBER Procurement expert to discuss MSCM or anything else Procurement related, please...
Posted in Healthcare on 10 April 2012
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Tagged: ERP Healthcare Lawson Mobility Process Improvement Supply Chain
Differentiation, Development, and Bucking a Trend
Dan Puett, Sales & Delivery Manager : 09 April 2012 / 11:07 AM : 0
CIBER's Lawson Practice enjoys a long and successful partnership with Lawson Software. And Infor's acquisition of Lawson will generate new opportunities for CIBER and our clients. As with Lawson, CIBER and Infor together can provide solutions to reduce costs and generate efficiencies. The two companies will create a strong technology foundation for customer growth with managed services, cloud computing, product implementation, and system integration.
Soon after the Lawson acquisition, Infor's CEO, Charles Phillips wanted to find a way to differentiate the company and help customers be more successful. So he began to emphasize product development and innovation. One way he did this was to gather people into disciplined discussions, During these, they identified a number of processes that no one needed. By stripping those processes away, Infor gained a significant amount of development capacity.
With this time gain, Phillips and his team created the ION Middleware. This ambitious product provides prepackaged integration between Infor products, creates visibility into processes by enabling in-flight or historical data analysis, and simplifies integration to Infor applications, compared with other general-purpose integration tools. He and his team realized that building things once, like the localization and reports, means their core application's functionality ...
Posted in Lawson on 09 April 2012
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Tagged: Business Value Lawson
Collaboration in the 21st Century: Why Accelerating the “Flow of Insight” is Key to Getting Smarter, Faster
Chris Jones, Senior Delivery Manager : 29 March 2012 / 8:12 AM : 4
Today I start blogging with CIBER, and I’m excited to be here. For some years now, I’ve been posting in open spaces about organizational learning, knowledge and change, and the many possibilities emerging with social technologies. In the process, I’ve learned a great deal about what resonates in a business setting, and what doesn’t. It’s given me a broad sense of what it takes to collaborate in the 21st century, and it’s alerted me to many barriers.
To me, it’s a set of profound insights coming at a critical time. Business today is demanding more than ever, in a world that’s connected more than ever. Unfortunately, these powerful business dynamics can make IT Integration more complex and more challenging than ever, as well. Ask any CIO. Helping an enterprise get smarter is a difficult problem. And that’s if it even makes the agenda.
What organization can afford to rest on its past accomplishments?
It’s not a rhetorical question. Nor is it one to leave to chance.
I believe that accelerating the flow of insights is increasingly critical to any organization that seeks to advance its financial stake, or to otherwise enhance its ability to deliver. Organizations need to find ways to get smarter. And to survive in the 21...
Posted in Enterprise Integration & IT Strategy on 29 March 2012
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Tagged: Business Architecture Business Value Change Management CIO Collaboration Enterprise 2.0 Enterprise Integration IT Strategy IT to Business Alignment Knowledge Management Process Improvement Skill Development Social Media Social Networking
Are Your Requisitions Out of Control?
Michele Tharp, Senior Practice Manager : 27 March 2012 / 11:00 AM : 0
Many organizations have lost control over the requisition process resulting in adverse effects on the ‘procure to pay’ cycle. Some examples of this ‘lack of control’ include maverick spending and no specific requisition number or status to track within a system because the process is paper based with a manually intensive approval process. In addition, the requester often does not have the correct item description, vendor number, pricing, or department and account number to charge. These issues cascade down the ‘procure to pay’ stream resulting in other users and departments spending a lot of time correcting errors. With Lawson's Requisition Center (RQC) -
One of the significant improvements in the requisition process is the bu...
Posted in Healthcare on 27 March 2012
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Tagged: Healthcare Lawson Process Improvement Supply Chain
Get them in the door . . . and keep them there!
Diana Van Blaricom, Manager - Delivery : 06 March 2012 / 10:26 AM : 0
It's another year of creative financing for executives. How do you fund the merit and bonus pool without bleeding the budget or other programs? Meanwhile, HR professionals are asking, “How do my Pay-for-Performance programs influence the recruiting process? If the budget and merit increases don't happen, we're going to have to recruit because we are going to lose key talent!” And they are right!
So the million dollar question is, “How can leadership work together to understand the need for keeping talent happy and the fiscal responsibilities of the organization?”
Employees have waited long enough (at least that's what the research says) and those long term employees who stayed on to ride out the wave . . .well, they are ready for a change. But that doesn't mean they have to leave. With the right processes in place for tracking people's knowledge, skills and abilities, you can move and promote individuals so that you retain the knowledgeable resource while satisfying the career goals and emotional needs of the employee.
So what do employee’s expect this year? The research says that an average of 3 - 5% base pay increase can be expected. But for those key individuals in an organization, well, they could see double-digit increases if they have critical skills. (You can catch all the details in ...
Posted in Lawson on 06 March 2012
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Tagged: Lawson
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