Technology negotiations are different from other business deals and this has not changed much in spite of the increased digital literacy of our business colleagues. As Lawrence Susskind wrote in a 2006 Harvard Business Review article, four problems routinely crop up in digital technology negotiations that are not as likely…
In my last post, Crossroads of Control vs. Digital, I said would discuss the next logical questions for an IT leader. The first of which is “How do you embrace this “new world order” without having everyone in the business do their own thing, with little consideration for overall company mission…
“The technology for digital business is stateless and loosely-coupled, not stateful and closely-coupled like IT.” This quote from Andy Mulholland, VP & Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, caught my attention because it captures a paradigm shift that most IT leaders struggle to embrace. There is a sense of security in…
We enjoyed reading about Woodgrain’s continued success with the Transportation Management solution we helped them implement and how that solution is helping them manage their current growth spurt! SAP News Article – Woodgrain Millwork: Delivering the Poetry of Architecture by the Truckload You can watch videos about their use of…
No matter how much one tries to minimize customization in an SAP system some volume of custom business logic is usually unavoidable. Historically this meant introducing custom ABAP syntax in various user-exists, enhancements, BAdI\'s and custom programs. Given the complex and interdependent nature of an SAP system, it becomes imperative…
In the last few weeks, I’ve seen several articles about the challenges with and for CIOs: How CIOs are the obstacle to the missions of business executives; how CIOs and CMOs need to learn to work together; and even articles asking ‘Whose business is IT?’. Examples include these posts by Michael Krigsman: “CIO…
One of the requests we often get at BestXperts from companies interested in learning more about SAP Transportation Management is whether they can provide us with some sample order data and have us run it through SAP TM optimization. This is especially relevant for companies that operate their own fleet…
You know that Beatles\' song, Drive My Car?Sure, on the surface it\'s about one person\'s dream of fame - but at heart it\'s about taking risks.You can go ahead and hit the road with your vision - and maybe a driver - but you don\'t have to get bogged down by planning…
I\'ve been following Mike Vizdos @mvizdos on Twitter for quite some time now. His popular web site implementingscrum.com mixes a healthy dose of cartoon humor with some very practical and handy advice on utilizing Scrum. So when Mike tweeted about being in Sacramento for the week we reached out and…
In one of our previous posts we talked about the core roles and basic team structure in an agile SAP implementation. We are now ready to take a look at one of the first steps in planning the implementation and assessing the work that will need to be done by each team…