(c)iStock.com/Yuri_Arcurs

Integrating ERP, CRM, and legacy systems lead to greater manufacturing innovation, setting the foundation to move beyond business models that don’t stay in step with customers’ fast-changing needs. Bringing contextual intelligence into manufacturing that centers on customers’ unique, fast-changing requirements is a must-have to keep growing sales profitably. By integrating ERP, CRM, SCM, pricing and legacy systems together, manufacturers can provide customers what they want most, and that’s accurate, fast responses to their questions and perfect orders delivered.

Integration powers manufacturing innovation

Enabling a faster pace of innovation in manufacturing starts by using systems and process integration as a growth catalyst to profitably grow. There is a myriad of ways integration will transform manufacturing in 2017, and the top 10 ways are presented below:

• Real-time visibility across selling, pricing, product, manufacturing and service improves the speed of customer response and makes planning easier. By integrating legacy SAP ERP systems with CRM, pricing, product catalog, Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and service, telling customers in real-time the status of their orders is possible. Having real-time data on manufacturing operations provides planners with the visibility they need to optimize production schedules, including fine-tuning Material Requirements Planning (MRP). By orchestrating these areas of manufacturing more efficiently, customer satisfaction increases, the potential of upselling and cross-sell improves and less order fulfillment errors turn into higher profits.
• Making analytics the fuel manufacturing needs to move faster, attaining time-to-market goals and exceeding customer expectations. One of the quickest ways manufacturers are going to use integration to fuel greater growth in 2017 is by using analytics to measure operations from the customer’s perspective first. From quality management to order fulfillment and meeting delivery dates, every manufacturer has the baseline data they need to begin a customer-driven analytics strategy today. Integration is the catalyst that is making this happen. Making quality a company-wide focus begins with real-time integration of quality management and broader IT systems. enosiX has taken a unique approach to real-time integration, streamlining quality inspections and inventory control for beverage equipment manufacturer Bunn.
• Improving new product success rates by integrating CRM, pricing, product catalog, service, and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems are enabling manufacturers to create new product lines that drive new business models. For consumer electronics and high-tech products manufacturers serving B2C (business to consumer) and Business to Business (B2B), speed and time-to-market are a core part of their business models. Capitalizing on the speed of customers’ changing requirements is more important to stay ins type with than competitors, however. To do this, manufacturers capturing feedback from service and PLM systems and then putting it into context using CRM systems can innovate faster than competitors who track each other instead of customers.
• Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) will continue to be one of the most effective strategies manufacturers can use for accelerating sales in 2017, made possible by the real-time integration between ERP, CRM, pricing and manufacturing systems. Winning new customers and closing deals often comes down to being faster than competitors at delivering accurate, complete quotes and proposals. By integrating CRM, ERP, and pricing systems manufacturers can trim days and in some cases weeks and months off of how long it takes to produce a quote or proposal. CPQ will continue to accelerate in 2017, gaining momentum as more manufacturers move beyond their manually-based methods of quoting and opt for more integrated approaches to excelling at this vital selling activity.
• Industry 4.0’s many advantages including creating smart factories are dependent on the real-time integration of traditional IT and manufacturing systems increasing production speed and quality. Engraining greater contextual intelligence into every phase of manufacturing increases shop-floor visibility. It also makes planning more efficient and customer-driven. The key to revitalizing existing production centers and getting them started on the journey to becoming smart factories depends on the real-time integration of IT and manufacturing systems.
• Personalizing pricing strategies by customer persona and segment using real-time integration between CRM, pricing, accounting and finance systems to optimize profitability. Manufacturers doing this today also have propensity models that define which customers are most and least likely to accept up-sell and cross-sell offers. For many manufacturers, this level of pricing precision is possible today with greater systems integration. By having pricing strategies defined by persona and segment, measuring just how much speed and time-to-market matters to each is possible by measuring sales rates of new products and services.
• IT system security companywide improves with tighter real-time integration as long-standing legacy systems are updated to enable greater connectivity with newer systems. When manufacturers choose to pursue a more focused, urgent strategy of systems integration to improve manufacturing performance, system security often improves companywide. It’s because longstanding legacy systems, often the most vulnerable to unauthorized use, get re-evaluated at the operating system and integration levels. The result is company-wide IT security improves when real-time integration is attained. For manufacturers where 70% or more of their materials and costs are from outside their owned production centers, this is more important in 2017 than ever before.
• Sensor data generated from the Internet of Things (IoT) combined with advanced analytics is transforming manufacturing today and will accelerate in 2017. Manufacturers with globally-based operations are piloting and using IoT strategies in daily operations today. A few are working with semiconductor manufacturers to design in their specific requirements at the chip level. Having real-time integration in place between ERP, CRM, pricing and services systems provides the scalable, secure foundation to build advanced analytics and IoT platforms that can scale over the long-term.
• Market leaders in manufacturing are designing in real-time integration to their connected products, enabling new sources of revenue. General Electric’s approach to monitoring jet engines in flight and providing real-time data to aircraft manufacturers including Boeing and airlines globally is an example of how integration is enabling entirely new business models. A global aerospace manufacturer who requested anonymity is working with integrated circuit developers Broadcom, Intel, and Qualcomm to create chipsets that can provide sensor-based data on an entire jet’s health in real-time anywhere in the world, anytime.
• Greater visibility and speed are coming to supply chains, enabling manufacturers the ability to take an accepted quote and turn it into build instructions in real-time. Automating the steps of taking a quote and turning it into a bill of materials, scheduling the best possible work teams, and orchestrating parts and materials all is becoming automated from quote approval. From a customer’s perspective, all they see is the approved quote and activity starting immediately to provide the products they ordered. By having this level fo real-time supply chain integration, speed becomes the new normal and customer expectations are met and often exceeded.

(c)iStock.com/Yuri_Arcurs

Integrating ERP, CRM, and legacy systems lead to greater manufacturing innovation, setting the foundation to move beyond business models that don’t stay in step with customers’ fast-changing needs. Bringing contextual intelligence into manufacturing that centers on customers’ unique, fast-changing requirements is a must-have to keep growing sales profitably. By integrating ERP, CRM, SCM, pricing and legacy systems together, manufacturers can provide customers what they want most, and that’s accurate, fast responses to their questions and perfect orders delivered.

Integration powers manufacturing innovation

Enabling a faster pace of innovation in manufacturing starts by using systems and process integration as a growth catalyst to profitably grow. There is a myriad of ways integration will transform manufacturing in 2017, and the top 10 ways are presented below:

• Real-time visibility across selling, pricing, product, manufacturing and service improves the speed of customer response and makes planning easier. By integrating legacy SAP ERP systems with CRM, pricing, product catalog, Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and service, telling customers in real-time the status of their orders is possible. Having real-time data on manufacturing operations provides planners with the visibility they need to optimize production schedules, including fine-tuning Material Requirements Planning (MRP). By orchestrating these areas of manufacturing more efficiently, customer satisfaction increases, the potential of upselling and cross-sell improves and less order fulfillment errors turn into higher profits.
• Making analytics the fuel manufacturing needs to move faster, attaining time-to-market goals and exceeding customer expectations. One of the quickest ways manufacturers are going to use integration to fuel greater growth in 2017 is by using analytics to measure operations from the customer’s perspective first. From quality management to order fulfillment and meeting delivery dates, every manufacturer has the baseline data they need to begin a customer-driven analytics strategy today. Integration is the catalyst that is making this happen. Making quality a company-wide focus begins with real-time integration of quality management and broader IT systems. enosiX has taken a unique approach to real-time integration, streamlining quality inspections and inventory control for beverage equipment manufacturer Bunn.
• Improving new product success rates by integrating CRM, pricing, product catalog, service, and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems are enabling manufacturers to create new product lines that drive new business models. For consumer electronics and high-tech products manufacturers serving B2C (business to consumer) and Business to Business (B2B), speed and time-to-market are a core part of their business models. Capitalizing on the speed of customers’ changing requirements is more important to stay ins type with than competitors, however. To do this, manufacturers capturing feedback from service and PLM systems and then putting it into context using CRM systems can innovate faster than competitors who track each other instead of customers.
• Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) will continue to be one of the most effective strategies manufacturers can use for accelerating sales in 2017, made possible by the real-time integration between ERP, CRM, pricing and manufacturing systems. Winning new customers and closing deals often comes down to being faster than competitors at delivering accurate, complete quotes and proposals. By integrating CRM, ERP, and pricing systems manufacturers can trim days and in some cases weeks and months off of how long it takes to produce a quote or proposal. CPQ will continue to accelerate in 2017, gaining momentum as more manufacturers move beyond their manually-based methods of quoting and opt for more integrated approaches to excelling at this vital selling activity.
• Industry 4.0’s many advantages including creating smart factories are dependent on the real-time integration of traditional IT and manufacturing systems increasing production speed and quality. Engraining greater contextual intelligence into every phase of manufacturing increases shop-floor visibility. It also makes planning more efficient and customer-driven. The key to revitalizing existing production centers and getting them started on the journey to becoming smart factories depends on the real-time integration of IT and manufacturing systems.
• Personalizing pricing strategies by customer persona and segment using real-time integration between CRM, pricing, accounting and finance systems to optimize profitability. Manufacturers doing this today also have propensity models that define which customers are most and least likely to accept up-sell and cross-sell offers. For many manufacturers, this level of pricing precision is possible today with greater systems integration. By having pricing strategies defined by persona and segment, measuring just how much speed and time-to-market matters to each is possible by measuring sales rates of new products and services.
• IT system security companywide improves with tighter real-time integration as long-standing legacy systems are updated to enable greater connectivity with newer systems. When manufacturers choose to pursue a more focused, urgent strategy fo systems integration to improve manufacturing performance, system security often improves companywide. It’s because longstanding legacy systems, often the most vulnerable to unauthorized use, get re-evaluated at the operating system and integration levels. The result is company-wide IT security improves when real-time integration is attained. For manufacturers where 70% or more of their materials and costs are from outside their owned production centers, this is more important in 2017 than ever before.
• Sensor data generated from the Internet of Things (IoT) combined with advanced analytics is transforming manufacturing today and will accelerate in 2017. Manufacturers with globally-based operations are piloting and using IoT strategies in daily operations today. A few are working with semiconductor manufacturers to design in their specific requirements at the chip level. Having real-time integration in place between ERP, CRM, pricing and services systems provides the scalable, secure foundation to build advanced analytics and IoT platforms that can scale over the long-term.
• Market leaders in manufacturing are designing in real-time integration to their connected products, enabling new sources of revenue. General Electric’s approach to monitoring jet engines in flight and providing real-time data to aircraft manufacturers including Boeing and airlines globally is an example of how integration is enabling entirely new business models. A global aerospace manufacturer who requested anonymity is working with integrated circuit developers Broadcom, Intel, and Qualcomm to create chipsets that can provide sensor-based data on an entire jet’s health in real-time anywhere in the world, anytime.
• Greater visibility and speed are coming to supply chains, enabling manufacturers the ability to take an accepted quote and turn it into build instructions in real-time. Automating the steps of taking a quote and turning it into a bill of materials, scheduling the best possible work teams, and orchestrating parts and materials all is becoming automated from quote approval. From a customer’s perspective, all they see is the approved quote and activity starting immediately to provide the products they ordered. By having this level fo real-time supply chain integration, speed becomes the new normal and customer expectations are met and often exceeded.

(c)iStock.com/narvikk

Shipping giant Matson made news back in November with its major migration to Amazon Web Services (AWS). Matson’s recent announcement to go ‘all in’ with AWS is another example of large enterprises realising the intrinsic value of the public cloud.

But merely getting set up on one of the large cloud providers is now table stakes – everyone has a pilot. True cloud success is another matter.

It took years to complete this migration at Matson, according to its CIO in the news coverage; so it’s not surprising that many companies are wary. In a 2016 Rightscale survey, companies ranked “lack of resources/expertise” as their greatest cloud challenge, even more than security. While that signifies an evolution in attitudes toward cloud, it also foreshadows new challenges. One important topic Matson’s CIO raised is something all enterprises need to consider when embarking on their cloud journey – cloud provider lock-in.

The perils of cloud lock-in

Concerns about getting ‘locked-in’ to a public cloud provider are not just about contracts, pricing or negotiating leverage. CIOs also worry about migration costs, unavoidable provider outages, redundancy and disaster recovery. They hear about innovations from one cloud provider that aren’t available with another and shifting performance metrics. Many buyers have unpleasant memories from lock-in scenarios in the mega-vendor and enterprise resource planning (ERP) heyday. In the age of the cloud, we want and expect choices

That’s why many companies are thinking about how to architect a multi-cloud strategy, across multiple public cloud providers, even if they may not be planning to implement it anytime soon. Risk-averse companies want to hedge their bets, innovators want lots of flexibility and many still aren’t certain which cloud provider is best suited for their needs.

But companies struggle with exactly how to adopt services in the public cloud – especially for big data. Lock-in concerns are particularly worrisome with analytics and data management workloads because it’s not just about vendor or infrastructure lock-in – it’s more than that.

Built-in or lock-in?

Cloud providers increasingly offer their own components for data warehousing and big data, alongside marketplaces of third-party solutions and services. For example, AWS offers Amazon Redshift for data warehousing and Amazon EMR for big data and Hadoop workloads. Similarly, Azure offers the Azure Data Warehouse and HD Insight. Compared to DIY, the built-in components can seem like a simple option. But they also represent a strategic step with long-term implications.

That’s because companies often need to make significant investments in custom tooling to integrate existing data flow with these built-in services. This makes it challenging later to move workloads to another cloud provider without duplicating the investment. This is a big deal for big data with a ripple effect on costs, related processes, data sources, tools, etc.

If an organisation is reliant on the cloud providers’ built-in services, they are making a long-term platform bet with high switching costs. And, when we’re talking about enterprise data – potentially huge volumes – that’s a much a bigger deal than say, switching smartphone platforms and even that seems a little painful, doesn’t it?

Multi-cloud services emerge

Fortunately, thanks to the rise of multi-cloud managed services, enterprises can now get the most out of the cloud’s capabilities while minimizing lock-in challenges. Services are emerging for a variety of cloud functions, including big data. Using services that work across cloud providers is a prime example of a multi-sourcing or dual-sourcing strategy. It also supports high-availability goals, making it easier to move workloads to a different provider and region as needed.

Migrating to the cloud unlocks incredible agility and productivity gains, and multi-cloud managed service providers can make things easier. Don’t get locked out over fears of lock-in.

(c)iStock.com/narvikk

Shipping giant Matson made news back in November with its major migration to Amazon Web Services (AWS). Matson’s recent announcement to go ‘all in’ with AWS is another example of large enterprises realising the intrinsic value of the public cloud.

But merely getting set up on one of the large cloud providers is now table stakes – everyone has a pilot. True cloud success is another matter.

It took years to complete this migration at Matson, according to its CIO in the news coverage; so it’s not surprising that many companies are wary. In a 2016 Rightscale survey, companies ranked “lack of resources/expertise” as their greatest cloud challenge, even more than security. While that signifies an evolution in attitudes toward cloud, it also foreshadows new challenges. One important topic Matson’s CIO raised is something all enterprises need to consider when embarking on their cloud journey – cloud provider lock-in.

The perils of cloud lock-in

Concerns about getting ‘locked-in’ to a public cloud provider are not just about contracts, pricing or negotiating leverage. CIOs also worry about migration costs, unavoidable provider outages, redundancy and disaster recovery. They hear about innovations from one cloud provider that aren’t available with another and shifting performance metrics. Many buyers have unpleasant memories from lock-in scenarios in the mega-vendor and enterprise resource planning (ERP) heyday. In the age of the cloud, we want and expect choices

That’s why many companies are thinking about how to architect a multi-cloud strategy, across multiple public cloud providers, even if they may not be planning to implement it anytime soon. Risk-averse companies want to hedge their bets, innovators want lots of flexibility and many still aren’t certain which cloud provider is best suited for their needs.

But companies struggle with exactly how to adopt services in the public cloud – especially for big data. Lock-in concerns are particularly worrisome with analytics and data management workloads because it’s not just about vendor or infrastructure lock-in – it’s more than that.

Built-in or lock-in?

Cloud providers increasingly offer their own components for data warehousing and big data, alongside marketplaces of third-party solutions and services. For example, AWS offers Amazon Redshift for data warehousing and Amazon EMR for big data and Hadoop workloads. Similarly, Azure offers the Azure Data Warehouse and HD Insight. Compared to DIY, the built-in components can seem like a simple option. But they also represent a strategic step with long-term implications.

That’s because companies often need to make significant investments in custom tooling to integrate existing data flow with these built-in services. This makes it challenging later to move workloads to another cloud provider without duplicating the investment. This is a big deal for big data with a ripple effect on costs, related processes, data sources, tools, etc.

If an organisation is reliant on the cloud providers’ built-in services, they are making a long-term platform bet with high switching costs. And, when we’re talking about enterprise data – potentially huge volumes – that’s a much a bigger deal than say, switching smartphone platforms and even that seems a little painful, doesn’t it?

Multi-cloud services emerge

Fortunately, thanks to the rise of multi-cloud managed services, enterprises can now get the most out of the cloud’s capabilities while minimizing lock-in challenges. Services are emerging for a variety of cloud functions, including big data. Using services that work across cloud providers is a prime example of a multi-sourcing or dual-sourcing strategy. It also supports high-availability goals, making it easier to move workloads to a different provider and region as needed.

Migrating to the cloud unlocks incredible agility and productivity gains, and multi-cloud managed service providers can make things easier. Don’t get locked out over fears of lock-in.

SYS-CON Events announced today that Linux Academy, the foremost online Linux and cloud training platform and community, will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 20th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. Linux Academy was founded on the belief that providing high-quality, in-depth training should be available at an affordable price. Industry leaders in quality training, provided services, and student certification passes, its goal is to change lives by teaching Linux and cloud technology to the tens of thousands of students that learn at the Linux Academy.

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The unique combination of Amazon Web Services and Cloud Raxak, a Gartner Cool Vendor in IT Automation, provides a seamless and cost-effective way of securely moving on-premise IT workloads to Amazon Web Services. Any enterprise can now leverage the cloud, manage risk, and maintain continuous security compliance. Forrester’s analysis shows that enterprises need automated security to lower security risk and decrease IT operational costs.
Through the seamless integration into Amazon Web Services, Raxak Protect automates security for any workload running on traditional IT, private clouds, and public clouds. A line of business user with no security experience can now provision a VM on Amazon Web Services with a CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) defined security profile (e.g., PCI-DSS, HIPAA, FFIEC, FISMA).

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In the next five to ten years, millions, if not billions of things will become smarter. This smartness goes beyond connected things in our homes like the fridge, thermostat and fancy lighting, and into heavily regulated industries including aerospace, pharmaceutical/medical devices and energy. “Smartness” will embed itself within individual products that are part of our daily lives. We will engage with smart products – learning from them, informing them, and communicating with them. Smart products will accumulate information and data wherever they go and will be able to recount this information on command when needed.

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Like the daily newspaper that many thought would be dead by now, on-premise business process management tools are probably here to stay for the foreseeable future because a lot of enterprise IT directors are not convinced that their enterprise data is ready to transition to the cloud. Many enterprises prefer on-premise BPM software because it is tangible, visible, and exists within the enterprise boundaries. IT leadership feels that they have to have datacenters within their ‘jurisdiction’ in order to keep their corporate data safe.

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