One of my favourite films from the past is Minority Report, mainly because of the technology shown in these films, and not least because of the leading actor! It amazes me to think that Minority Report is already 11 years old. It seemed so far into the future at the time and yet today we are already seeing evidence of the technology used in Minority Report. Read more…
Developing ERP software is a tricky business, especially if the software is not being developed for any specific customer but rather for a range of customers, some of whom have yet to purchase your product. A software product needs to evolve, be constantly updated and advanced, if it’s not to fall into neglect and disuse, and that can happen all too often in the software market.
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As a cycling fan, I am excited by the start of each new season particularly spring time as the “Spring Classics” get underway and everyone starts to look towards the summer blockbuster, the Tour de France. This is also the season in which I start to seriously ramp up my training as I look forward to the Tour de France stage (Annecy to Annecy-Semnoz) I will be riding on 7th July. With this in mind, I will share what I consider similarities in learning the necessary skills to power tailor and customize SYSPRO, and training for such a gruelling endurance event.
You may have heard of the term ‘big data’ – it’s one of those technologies that some people are making a lot of noise about. It’s been written about in many publications, e.g., Harvard Business Review blog, Forbes, MIT Sloan Management Review, McKinsey Quarterly. However, as one analyst has commented, the hype about it is reaching “the levels of SOA in the early 2000’s, cloud in the late 2000’s, and social in the past few years.”
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Regardless of what business you happen to be in, the end of the year is a natural time to reflect on what’s happened in our lives, our organisations and around the world. Although the global manufacturing sector has shown erratic and generally slow performance this year, the economic powerhouses of the US and China managed to register slight improvements in manufacturing activity in October. However, many other economies around the world suffered further contraction or flat growth across their manufacturing industries.
During my 13 years at SYSPRO I have been involved in a range of software development projects, but have never tried my hand at implementation. Over the past few months I have been fortunate enough to work with the iPlan team on the SYSPRO implementation at the Mopani Copper Mines (MCM) in Kitwe, Zambia.
It’s fascinating to be living in a time where the world is not ruled by tyranny or dictatorship, socialism or capitalism, but instead by technology. The Arab Spring which began more than a year ago is a classic example of how technology (such as social media) is proving more powerful than any one government’s laws, or one society’s philosophies. The power being created here is happening through giving the man in the street access to a sophisticated mass communication mouthpiece, something that historically was the exclusive domain of the elite and powerful.
The frequency and the intensity of change in the business world, strikes me as similar to how we experience change throughout our lives.
Childhood and adolescence, for example, are both important and often frenetic phases in life, where any and every change dramatically impacts our development and invariably teaches us a lesson or two.
Later in life, as our experience of change grows, we either accept it, coming to terms with the truth that ‘change is the only constant’, or waste precious resources fighting to remain set in our ways.