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SAP

This tag is associated with 8 posts

Bootstrap Market Research: Master Data Management (Results)

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ December 17, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

As previously noted, I’ve been doing a lot of discussion and data crunching around “Master Data Management” lately – so I’ve “bootstrapped” a little market research project. It’s still a work in process – responses are trickling in – but I thought I might take some time to summarize what I am hearing to date. [...]

Bootstrap Market Research: Master Data Management (What, Who, How)

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ November 30, 2009 ⋅ One comment

I’ve been asked a lot of questions about “Master Data Management” over the past few weeks – what does it mean, who does it, and what are some tools and metrics that organizations are using to reign in this important aspect of ERP and analytics systems. I started reaching out to the folks in my [...]

A Company is like a Sphere

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ September 15, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Where do these great analogy ideas come from? Full credit – I got this one from a speaker at the SAP Research Center in Palo Alto, last spring.
A company is like a sphere.
As it grows, volume increases much faster than surface area, and the larger a company gets, more people get embedded and hidden from [...]

Who owns Master Data in your company?

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ May 30, 2009 ⋅ One comment

I’ve had to respond to this question, inside and outside of the company, in a number of different conversations over the past few days. It’s interesting, because this is one of those conversations where semantics mean a lot – what people say is just as important as what people don’t say. I only mean that [...]

Notes from SAPPHIRE 09

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ May 16, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Yesterday at work was “catch-up day” from a week at SAPPHIRE 2009, the annual user conference for SAP. As with the JDA/Manugistics conference earlier this year, there were concerns that attendance was going to be low, because so many companies are limiting travel expense. At the conference, I did hear that attendance was only [...]

Five Stages of Twitter Relevance

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ April 21, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

I’m already fielding internal (as well as external) questions about the application of Twitter in a manufacturing company, and I’m developing a reasonably good model, I think – one that will apply to the hard-core, salt-of-the-earth, manufacturing business leader that I’ve worked with at many organizations.
This “maturity model” approach has been used before; back in [...]

I Think I’m Learning SAPanese …

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ November 23, 2008 ⋅ One comment

Spent time at an industry conference last week (ain’t Boston great!), and heard the term SAPanese – that special language SAP users learn when immersed in worlds of Walldorf and their ubiquitous software. It’s not unique to SAP – lots of software companies develop their own vocabulary. Heck, IT “geeks” are famous for it – [...]

Politically Correct Euphemisms in IT – Translated!

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ May 26, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

I recently attended a professional seminar, and noticed a propensity for politically correct euphemisms to describe life in corporate IT. This was a typical group of IT professionals, representing a variety of companies – small and large, public and private. As with most group meetings, we started with a trip around the table; quick introductions, [...]

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