My two cents about Top 10 tech trends for 2012

It was almost a month ago when Gartner presented at its symposium ITXpro its "Top 10 strategic tech trends for 2012". The picture below shows that decologue and its order:

Since now I have been gathering different opions (I strongly recomend Jason Hiner's one) and making some inquiries about them and how to really impact on my customers, environment and me.

Agrees
It is irrefutable the fact that tablets and whatever surounds them will be the most growing field on technology for the next year. Join to the tablets we will find all the necesary software for improve and achive the user experience with all mobiles devices in general (points 1 and 2).

In my eyes Contextual  and social user experience keeps their previous years importance hiding the next upgraded which will put on top of tech trends for the next year. "Which upgraded are you waiting for?" may you wonder, and my personal answer for the question is "move from text to action".

Following with the pros, I understand everything on infraestructure is going down on importance (8 and 9 positions) but I guess an estable field on infraestructure keeps working on their offer started years ago with cloud computing and virtualitation.

Nevertheless, after 5 points of agreement we come along with Desagrees

In my humble opinion, Internet of things and App stores are over-evaluated for the next year. I don't feel importants improvements on those fields but we will feel better experiences on app stores. In relation with Internet of things, I can't see a proper moment for them.

In my eyes, Big data bloom and new analytics are under-estimated but for me will be much more important big data than new analytics (despite Gartner prediction). My opion is based in the fact that new analytics will come along after results on big data improvements.

I think that my absolutly disappointment with Cloud computing forecast for 2012 deserve a entire post for better comprenhension.

Keep tuned and do not forget to leave your comments below

Microsoft's vision about smarphones in a close future

What is Supply Chain Management?

I found several days ago this set of videos from W.P Carey business school about Supply Chain Management. I recommend you to watch these videos no matter what are your duties in your job, But even more if your work on a purchase department and you want to explain how large and deep is your job.

I just leave you the two first videos below, enjoy it:

Decisions Spring 2011 (do not forget ERP’s)

For having spoken about Decisions Spring 2011 along two posts (Overview and CRM) and nothing said about Dynamics suite of ERP’s becomes strange. The time has come and on the following lines the topic will be treated (always under my point of view).

I have to apologize but due my focus on NAV I will leave AX and GP aside on this post; however I would strongly like your feedback about rest of ERP on Decisions.

My interests on NAV sessions could be separated on “New Releases”, “Cloud Computing”, “Solving inherit problems” and “Business”. For “New Releases” topic:

·         An Inside Look at Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 R2. The latest version on market of NAV is 2009 R2; this version includes new features like Dynamics CRM integration and a set of minor ones such as technical structure for working on cloud and human resources improvements. I do not want to create great expectations about the session but I strongly wish to go beyond what we can find at the Statement of directions.

·         Integrate Microsoft Dynamics CRM and NAV: functions, Features and Possibilities. This session’s name explains everything about what I expect and I strongly recommend you.

On “Solving inherit problems” I would wish to find solutions to real problems found on customers:

·         Skills All Dynamics NAV Developers Need to Know Today to Keep Their Job.

·         SQL Optimize Programming in Dynamics NAV.

On “Cloud computing” any of the offered sessions is important and reliable. My personal behavior in front Cloud is a mind-opened attitude learning as much as I can about the new experiences. On the other side, it will be a complete disappointment if only commercial brochures are shown.

About “Business” topic only a remarkable session:

·         Five easy steps to Microsoft Dynamics Partner Success. Just open-mind.

What’s next? Just wait for Decisions Spring 2011.

Decisions Spring 2011 (About Dynamics CRM)

Decisions Spring 2011 (About Dynamics CRM)Next June 17^th will be the CRM day on Decisions Spring 2011, you will find a large number of speeches, roundtables and professionals who will treat everything about Dynamics CRM. If you wish an overview about the event follow this link.

Among the session list provide at event webpage I am pretty interested on the following ones:

* Is CRM + XRM the new ERP?. I don't know the speaker but I feel an unified company relation management with others would be the next milestone on ERP evolution. Allow companies to set up as much close as the need their sales chains with their production and supplier chains is still a dream to fudlfil and a huge business opportunity.

* Microsoft Dynamics CRM vs. Salesforce: The main event. Following the description info of the session , I expect to find an interesting explanation about the current status of both solutions and how the huge amount of money on R&D announced by Microsoft will give the leader status on CRM solutions. Trick: Don't forget Salesforce is only delivered on SaaS mode.


* Dynamics CRM MVP roundtable: exploring Dynamics CRM 2011. It could be very helpful in order to clarify some points about the last Dynamics CRM Statement of Direction (A.K.A Directions). Some samples about Micro-Blogging, Business activity feed and Social intelligence on CRM will be expected by me. However, what I have been expecting the most will be "Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace".


A lot of people I talk about said me they would be interested on CRM Online. Personally It does not impressive me at all.


Keep in tune for the NAV day.

Decisions Spring 2011 (Introduction)

Next June 14th starts “Decisions Spring 2011”, for those who still do not know what I am talking about, I will tell you it is the largest and deepest conference about the whole Microsoft Dynamics world. There you will find the top solution providers, the best in breed on vertical solutions, a lot of complementary solutions which complete Dynamics functionality and, overall, the best professionals around the globe on Microsoft Dynamics.

The past year was my first participation as attendant on Decisions and my first huge virtual conference too. People who use to assist to on-site conferences will not find any problem for addressing to their points or speeches of interest, because of its normal conference structured within several thematic saloons and an (at least for me) uncountable number of stands with people from every corner of the planet. By the way, you already can take a test tour and get familiar with the environment.

The bad side was I missed a lot of interesting speeches from MVP’s (Microsoft Value Professional) and MAP’s (Microsoft Active Professional) join to their related round tables.

 And this year we will back to back and I strongly recommend you to take a look at the conference website http://decisions.msdynamicsworld.com/ and check the scheduled plan out and select your areas of interest:

• Dynamics AX day on June 14^th
• Dynamics GP day on June 15^th
• Dynamics NAV day on June 16^th
• Dynamics CRM  day on June 17^th

I am going to start to make my interest points schedule, you will find it on this blog

Keep in tune, next Decisions CRM day

What lies beneath Amazon

I just share with you this presentation about what and how Amazon is and will be. This presentation provide a lot of information about actual cloud computing working on and it helps us up for the next upcoming post. Enjoy it Amazon.com: the Hidden Empire

Holy Grail of Enterprise Performance Management

Check out this interesting presentation about EPM:

Holy Grail of Enterprise Performance Management

View more presentations from Pack22.

InfoQ: Large-Scale Agile Design & Architecture: Ways of Working

InfoQ: Large-Scale Agile Design & Architecture: Ways of Working

ERP for Process Industry Companies

Several times people ask me what my duties consists in or the reason why a company could need my work. As IT Consultant, I always solve this situation in two main steps, starting with a formal definition and ending with a practical sample. And which could the best sample be? Then this sample consists lately in a short explanation about an ERP Selection Process. 

One of the selection process in which I have been involve during the past year was an ERP Selection for a seeds company. Despite several years of work and more of experience in ERP projects, finding the right ERP for any given company using a limited list of resources is still a hard and special work. Among all industries there was certain field where neither accurate selection, nor different vertical solutions nor vendors expertise could help to fulfill completely the large list of requirements and several topics to assure the investment (TCO, ROI,..). That field is Process Industry, where we will include others like food-and-beverage, pharmaceutical and R+D and so on.

The key points at the requirements list were:

• ·         Accurate item tracking, indeed as accurate as current country and international laws.

• ·         Lot Managing. Process Industry does not use to manufacture a single product with a single identification, use to manage several lots of a product which could be used in different production lines and for different purposes. Splitting and merging lots are most common operations in a manufacturing plant and focus of optimization in production processes.

• ·         Quality tests and evaluations. Allowing different types of lots for the same item, i.e: corn with A Quality and chicken with B Quality. But the best ERP must manage re-assign qualities to certain lots after a improve quality process.

• ·         Delivery Tracking, in which location or warehouse is or was a certain product with a certain lot number?

As you can see the key factors lays on the manufacturing and delivery ERP modules, but does not mean rest of modules are not important enough, otherwise are more or less cover but the best-in-breed standard ERP solutions.

Once RFP is finished, we continued creating a study case building the best-in-breed standard solutions up with several vendor with success cases inside the industry process field (SAP, Microsoft Dynamics AX, J.D Edwards, CDC, QAD, Lawson and Infor were the standard products).

We went on with demo and RFP fill up for each vendor evaluation, key functional areas and requirements and we ended with and TCO and ROI report about them.

It is always difficult to select among the finalists but in this case all the parts in selection we felt very comfortable and fulfilling completely the key requirements and widely the rest of them, being the Microsoft Dynamics AX with Microsoft Industry Process vertical solution the chosen one.

Nevertheless I only found one paragraph about this new vertical solution included on Dynamics AX portfolio at Microsoft’s “Statement of Direction”, bought to Fullscope with more than 5 years of live and hundreds of success cases.

IMHO, Microsoft Dynamics AX with Process Industry vertical addition is one of the top standard ERP products for a new or an updating implantation in food-and-beverage companies, Pharmaceutical enterprises and so on.