In a June, 2011 report "Innovative Technologies Will Drive Enterprise Applications and ERP to a Bight New Future", Forrester Research talked about seven technologies that will shape the evolution of ERP and enterprise applications:

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) Mobile Business process management (BPM) Usability Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) Social networks Elastic computing  According to the report, each technology will impact three key areas: Business process flexibility will be enabled, not restricted Cost of ownership will be more transparent and predictable Mobility and collaboration will accelerate process execution

One of the more interesting aspects of the new social web is blogging.  Now that we have decided to join the party, one of the first things I was tasked with was coming up with a URL for our blog.  Our consultants recommended using something like blog.accountingmicro.com or info.accountingmicro.com.  Howerver I just couldn't do that as it made it sound like this was going to be one more cookie cutter blog.  That we were going to go through the motions of adding a blog to our site just like everyone else hopping on the social marketing bandwagon.

To the contrary.  In thinking about it, I actually saw this as a great opportunity for I and my staff to finally have a forum to share all of the great information and ideas that we share among ourselves.  I feel that what we have to share is exciting, current and useful and as such needs to be conveyed from a forum much more exciting than something called a blog. 

Hence The Wire.  Anyone who has watched old movies can envision those scenes of the printing presses and the hot stories coming off of the teletype.  These were the hot stories coming to each newspaper, radio station etc, from the AP Wire, also known as the Associated Press.

We are pleased to begin publishing our ideas re ERP, CRM and a host of other IT trends and issues on The Wire.  I and my staff know and appreciate how difficult it is for a business technology buyer to navigate the large and often confusing body of information available from the web and other media.  We hope to help by providing in this blog our knowledge as experienced technology consultants.

As representatives of multiple, competing publishers including Sage Software, SAP, Microsoft, Epicor and others, we are qualified to provide objective assessments meets a businesses needs best. 

We are looking forward to adding interesting content to this blog from our experienced consultants.  Look forward to hearing from our experts in Manufacturing, Distribution, Project Accounting, Nonprofits, and more.

   Historically companies have prepared and presented formal financial statement monthly.  While this standard practice still has its place for formal reporting,  there is also a need for companies to give serious consideration to reporting much more frequently for informal internal reporting.  Up until now, the relatively infrequent monthly reporting was primarily due to the amount of time and effort it would take to prepare and distribute financial reports, often taking days or even weeks.

When considering CRM applications, one important consideration is the level of integration available between the CRM application and your other line of business applications, particularly your ERP.

The level of integration is extremely important when considering user efficiencies, validity of data, and application maintenance.

When considering CRM applications, terms that you are likely to encounter are Integrated and , less frequently, Embedded.  What is the difference?