AMR session at SAPICS 2008

The last session at the SAPICS 2008 conference was by Kevin O’Marah of AMR Research. He is a very smooth speaker, with the suit and haircut to match, drops references like an MBA from Stanford Business School, and uses words like ‘delta’ instead of difference.

What he spoke about was very interesting, starting off with the Carlota Perez thesis about the dynamics of bubbles and the subsequent golden age. He then related this to the evolution of supply chain management, from the practices based on the ‘old’ industrial age to the current practice that AMR advocates - Demand Driven Supply Networks.

At the gala dinner, this presentation was given the Terry Smee award for the best paper.

SAPICS 2008

I am at the SAPICS 2008 conference in Sun City as an exhibitor showing our project software. SAPICS is the Association for Operations Management in SA.

The last time I was here was in 2002. Its been nice to meet up with people I haven’t seen in several years.

Another story about complex systems

Following from an earlier blog, yet another story of a big complex system that has been delayed beyond its plan - SAP Business By Design delayed by 18 months.

The next Windows killer app

The argument over the next ‘killer app’ for Windows may have been answered.

According to an AMR report (login required) Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) has become hugely important for Microsoft. The product is now in its third version and, according to AMR, ”is the fastest-growing product in Microsoft’s history, gaining more than 100 million client access licenses in a few years; that’s roughly one-fifth of the legally licensed Microsoft Office installed base.”

Watch out for the third-party add-ons and specialised apps to start appearing.

SA shutting down for a week

Next week, South Africa has only 2 working days in the week. Many of the companies we do business with have decided that its probably not worth starting up the manufacturing plant for just 2 days, so they will not be operating.

The reason for this strange week is partly historical and partly a government/trade union decision. 27th April is a public holiday to celebrate the first open free-and-fair election in SA in 1994. Because the 27th falls on a Sunday, the law says that Monday is a public holiday. 1st May is also a public holiday mainly because the ANC government of SA wanted to appease its trade union and Communist Party allies, and so we have Workers’ Day on Thursday.

That should have meant that Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday were working days. However, 2008 had a very unusual date for Easter, Easter Friday was on 21st March. 21st is also a public holiday to commemorate the Sharpville Massacre in the early 1960s. The trade unions pointed out that in the national Constitution there are a certain number public holidays stated, but because of the overlap on 21st, the number of holidays was reduced. So they complained to government, who then decided to make Friday 2nd May a public holiday.

Why analysts don’t know what’s going on in SA

When I read analyst reviews of what’s going on in various markets, I often get the feeling that none of it applies to South Africa. Now I understand why.

In a recent AMR note about Oracle in Africa and the Middle East, Bruce Richardson made the telling comment that AMR hadn’t visited SA in 11 years.

11 years ago I was the Alliance Manager at Digital Equipment SA responsible for, among others, 10 ERP players. In the hardware vendor market, there were at least twice as many players as there are now. In South Africa, we still had Nelson Mandela as president, and there had been only one open general election. The local IT environment had developed significantly, and we aren’t so dominated by international players.

Shame on you AMR. South Africa has changed hugely in 11 years, and you haven’t even bothered to update yourselves.

Tenacious SYSPRO

Yesterday I attended a presentation by SYSPRO to its resellers in Johannesburg. One of the sessions featured Kay Nash of Yellowwood, a company described as a ” leading specialist marketing and brand strategy organisation”. Looking at their client list, they must have some special talent.

Kay has been working with SYSPRO for some years, and her talk covered the work she has done to develop and position SYSPRO’s brand. The key word she used to describe that brand is “tenacious”.

As she said, the ERP world is fiercely competitive, and dominated by really big international players (SAP, Oracle, Microsoft), but SYSPRO has managed to not only survive for 30 years but also thrive, in South Africa, as well as US, Canada, UK, and other places. She is obviously pretty impressed with what SYSPRO has done.

In my opinion, the tenaciousness of SYSPRO shows a particular South Africa trait to push through. From the early settlers of the Cape, to the Boers trekking north, to the diamond mining in Kimberley and the gold mining on the Rand, South Africans just had to get on with things because we were so far away from anyone, and could not rely on someone else to quickly come and help.

SYSPRO’s strength is in the small-medium business (SMB) space, and its ability to deliver value to business managers and owners led Yellowwood to come up with a tag line for SYSPRO -
“simplifying your success”.

For me it’s a pity that the major analyst groups are US or European, and don’t seem to have grasped the significance of a major ERP player ”down in Africa”.

Innovation from Africa

This is something I hope Vinnie will put on this New Florence Innovation blog - essentially, an electronic bulletin board that operates without cables or custom software.

Here is where to read more about the Big Board project at the University of Cape Town.

South African Internet and mobile status

An interesting blog from the New Media Marketing conference gives a status update on where SA stands in relation to its Internet and mobile adoption.

For fixed line we are still behind the times (thanks to Telkom) but seem to doing OK on the mobile side.

What is Microsoft’s commitment to Dynamics?

Josh Greenbaum commented on how the Microsoft Dynamics division was doing - Microsoft Dynamics Revenues: Is More Really Less?

There has been a lot of management change in the Dynamics organisation, and we have seen that recently in SA with partner account managers leaving.

My director friend at SYSPRO said four years ago that Microsoft would not understand the ERP business, and would eventually leave it. From what Josh says, if Dynamics’ growth doesn’t improve that prediction might come true.