An interesting discussion on ERP social media was raised on a webinar the other day. The topic of the discussion was how companies are building out their knowledge bases for their constituent communities. Specifically, how do you share captured knowledge to people external to an organization?

This lead to a discussion of the methods of communication that people use now. These methods, as you know, are typically through portals, email, and more-and-more are focusing on social media, such as Facebook and Twitter.

Most 18-year-olds today do not use the phone. Rather the prefer to only use text or Instant Message (IM) as their way of communicating. Customer service and help desks need to accomidate these new technologies. ERP and CRM tools needs to evolve to support the move towards social media as a communication channel. There is suddenly a wave to move towards a socialization of business communication, as well as business to consumer messaging.

ERP Social Media is happening now

There are now cases where entire companies are losing their email system in support of a social media style of communication. It is instant, open, secure, and adds value beyond traditional email. Can you imagine email being called a legacy application? Well it is becoming one.

Software such as Salesforce.com (a cloud based CRM) is now focusing heavily in social media as the conduit for business communications. Their Chatter tool is a secure, internally facing, twitter-like application that provides instant user communication and notification on key business events from data updates. Users can choose who and what to follow.

Businesses are moving to ERP Social Media tools. Companies such as Bank of America are using twitter as a support desk tool, with twitter feeding their case management solution and replies posted on the case show up as direct messages to the twitter user. This is one example of how public and ERP social media tools are merging together.

With the use of open APIs (interfaces), Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and other types of ERP based applications can be merged with ERP Social Media.

For example, an HR department could use Linkedin as a direct source for their candidate recruitment efforts and pull date directly into their HRMIS solution.

Moving from Legacy to ERP Social Media

With most mainstream ERP software solutions, the source of the data is human data input. EDI, once the method of electronic communications to a Purchasing system are so out of date, yet persistently remain. Eventually we may likely see it evolve to some sort of XML SOAP message initiated by a user perhaps even in the form of a Tweet.

Most output is in the forms of reports or perhaps an email to a user. ERP business systems will need to be udpated to include posting a tweet or a similar ERP Social Media message to notify users of business events.

ERP solutions need to quickly move to this new messaging format. Most traditional ERP systems do not use text messages as a data source, much less even a Twitter post.

This needs to change quickly to support the next generation of students and users. Kids entering college will graduate in four short years. When they enter the workplace, they will find creative ways to make ERP Social Media work for them, with or without the support of the ERP software vendors.

We welcome your comments on this topic as it will soon become a real issue in enterprise business software.

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Infor, one of the major players in ERP software, announced today that it has teamed with Micosoft to utilize their Azure platform for SAAS based computing and is offering several cloud based solutions on the Azure Platform.   This is a significant move on their part and shows how larger ERP Vendors are moving to cloud computing.

Leading their ERP charge is Syteline, a powerful ERP solution for manufacturers.  Taking this to a cloud solution will allow companies without the base infrastructure to utilize this software without the headaches of maintaining application and database servers.

Cloud based ERP should also shorten the implementation timelines of implementations. Using a cloud platform, you have taken the infrastructure questions out of the equation and are now strictly focused on processes and configuration.

You can read the press release here: Infor Launches Infor24 Cloud Initiative and Selects Microsoft Windows Azure as Preferred Cloud Platform.

What do you think of larger ERP solutions moving to the cloud?

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Infor Launches Infor24 Cloud Initiative and Selects Microsoft Windows Azure as Preferred Cloud Platform is a post from: ERP and More!

Anyone who works with SAAS products probably saw this coming:

Microsoft sees end of Windows era
Midori aims to uncouple its software from the hardware it runs on
Microsoft has kicked off a research project to create software that will take over when it retires Windows.

Called Midori, the cut-down operating system is radically different to Microsoft’s older programs.
It is centred on the internet and does away with the dependencies that tie Windows to a single PC.
It is seen as Microsoft’s answer to rivals’ use of “virtualisation” as a way to solve many of the problems of modern-day computing.
Read the story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7540282.stm

I have a client who has about 60 employees, running two different business units. They are using Salesforce.com to manage their clients, partners, vendors, constituants, and others.

They are now looking at adding issue management through Salesforce.com’s Case functionality and using the force.com platform to develop a timesheet and expense tracking system.

All of this is done “in the cloud”. What is Cloud Computing? This video will help explain it.

Google is building Chrome, the new web browser. Reading the comic book that Google has published that explains all the features, it is apparent that Google is creating a platform upon which all of it’s new applications can run upon. Hmm. Sounds like an operating system of sorts.

People are commenting and comparing this new browser to Firefox. To me though it is a lot more. It is the platform upon which all new Google apps will run. It is the true starting point of a web based operating environment for the masses.

Taking it a step further, I sat down and listed out for myself all the competing apps that Microsoft and Google have. If Google looks at the Internet as its operating system (actually it also has G-OS), then Microsoft is a target competitor. There are many new Google, web-based apps, that have a direct competitor in the Microsoft world. Here is my list. Comment below and add any I might have missed.

So with the Internet as the base platform, and Chrome as the system, then all the other applications just run within Chrome. There you go, a fancy new operating system. Combine this with all the other Software As a Service (SAAS) and Platform as a Service (PAAS) offerings, such as the Salesforce.com and Google combination, you are now building not only an operating system, but a complete platform to run your business on.