Comments on: E.R.P. vs. B.R.P. or, is s.a.p. about to buy thingamy?

By: shel israel

shel israel — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 10:41:14 +0000

I know absolutely nothing about this as an SAP consultant, but I just love you possibly blowing the cover on a company you’ve invested in. I love it even more that Sig should have fun with it. Only Scoble could be more transparent.

By: Susie

Susie — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:16:30 +0000

What does “up in the alps” mean? Seems like coide for something boring or illicit or both.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:36:12 +0000

Actually, Sig has a good point. Most software products aim to automate processes that are easy to automate. The next level of value-addition will be in automating the processes that _need_ to be automated.
Think about an application like Documentum. Document storage is an ERP. For that matter, Document indexing and retrieval is an ERP. Workflow…the process of generating document from draft to deliverable…that’s more like a BRP, and actual implementations reflect that. Food for thought.

By: Ben Tamblyn

Ben Tamblyn — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 02:08:28 +0000

Can’t help but think that most BRP today is done in Office. This is really about addressing all facets of business intelligence. ERP systems and for that matter many LOB applications are common in that they’re able to address only a fraction of the information that we need to access to help us become more productive and make better decisions. They’re tied to the ERP system, the data warehouse, the different transactional systems that we have all over our organizations.
They’re hard to use—and harder to maintain, and are often restricted to a few people or groups in the organization. Why? Most often, the tools don’t reflect how we want use this information.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:56:36 +0000

mmm ok so what was the BRP to do with BRM.…:)…and we still need dreams.…but now we know what to dream about

By: sig

sig — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:56:34 +0000

Ho hum Steve!
It’s the P in BRP that is the crux — the activities have been there forever and email, office suites, wikis, Monday morning meetings, collaboration software etc runs them. Precious little process structure in those… and with that a bit of lacking accountability, danger of process falling into cracks (oops, forgot to answer mail), and without process capture a lost opportunity to build much of the knowledge needed to get better in what the organisation is _doing_!
And of course, MS is in consumer, hehe, duh-to-me etc. Think the quote should be more like “much of the “consumer” stuff is really “enterprise”, more than what the first impression is”… or something along those lines…

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 13:01:56 +0000

“I may be completely missing the point here though”
I pretty much feel the same way about ALL software, Steve

By: Phil Gomes

Phil Gomes — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 08:48:00 +0000

From my perspective, I’m just glad that enterprise software marketing has evolved from the “protection racket” messages of the mid-to-late 1990s.
It’s been a while (2002?) since I’ve been in that particular hunt, but I just remember that the sales pitch for enterprise software — always to the CEO — went something like:
Vendor: “Buy our software.”
CEO: “No. It’s too expensive and, besides, I’ll have to pay your consultants $3 for every $1 of software I buy.”
Vendor: “If you don’t buy our software, then we’ll just sell it to your closest competitor and, in just a year, they will absolutely crush you with the operational efficiencies that they will achieve using our seamlessly integrated, feature-rich, end-to-end, robust solution.”
CEO: “Ummm… Uhhh… Where do I sign? And is it customary to *tip* the consultants?”
Seems we’ve come quite some way since…

By: steve clayton

steve clayton — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 05:39:56 +0000

intriuging but as I read this I can’t help thinking BRP sounds a lot like Information Work(ers) which isn’t anything new.
also pretty sure that Microsoft is in *both* the consumer and enterprise software businesses
ho hum…I may be completely missing the point here though

By: phil jones

phil jones — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 03:53:19 +0000

That’s one hell of a rumour.
Seems like SAP are getting into some very cool things at the moment, but still looks like that’s around the edge … eg. encouraging new Wii/Flash widgets to interface to their back-end. (Very smart and sensible, of course)
But Thingamy wants to throw that back-end away entirely. Not sure if SAP could cope with that.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Sig’s a visionary, and I’m a fan. I’d like to see this all work out for him. But I can’t imagine that SAP could do anything with Thingamy at the moment.
My hunch would be that SAP (or IBM) would just put it in limbo. Microsoft would … probably try to integrate it with Sharepoint something.

By: sig

sig — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 03:14:49 +0000

Hehe. Even if I didn’t know anything, Hugh, I still wouldn’t tell you
p.s. Fact: Been invited three times by my friends there is right, although only as a mere tech blogger, alas…