February 2009 – Vjeko.com

How to prevent failure: project education

Post published:February 26, 2009
Post comments:6 Comments
Reading time:4 mins read

According to Standish Group, top causes of failed IT project are these:

lack of end-user engagement,
unclear specification,
changes in scope,
lack of management support,
lack of planning,
unrealistic and unclear goals.

I haven’t seen too many failed Microsoft Dynamics NAV implementation projects, but those that I did see fail, have failed precisely for a selection of these reasons.

Take a closer look at the list above. Doesn’t it seem that the blame lays mostly on the customer? But is it really customer’s fault?

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Microsoft Dynamics NAV events and webcasts

Post published:February 23, 2009
Post comments:1 Comment
Reading time:3 mins read

There is a fantastic website that I haven’t been aware of yet: Enterprise Resource Planning: Accelerate Your Business Toward Profit, on Microsoft’s Events and Webcasts portal. Thanks to Fred Mackie for bringing it to my attention.

The website delivers huge amounts of on-demand webcasts for all four Microsoft Dynamics ERP products for existing and prospect customers, but also some valuable content for Microsoft partners.

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Associazione Marittima di Sabioncello

Post published:February 19, 2009
Post comments:6 Comments
Reading time:6 mins read

A short story about maritime trading, steamboats and Microsoft’s Azure Services Platform in short to mid-term ERP and Microsoft Dynamics NAV perspective

This is a story of a business which failed, and it didn’t have to. It had all the capital and resources it needed to grow, it held a solid share in an expanding market. And yet, they failed.

Associazione Marittima di Sabioncello (AMS), or Maritime Society of Pelješac, was a shipping company founded in 1865 in Orebić, a small coastal town of southern Croatia. They grew to a fleet of 33 sailing ships, they shipped worldwide, their business expanded so much that eventually they built their own shipyard. Allegedly, they were one of the biggest and most prosperous maritime merchant companies in the Mediterranean.

And then an innovation came along, which ruined them.

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Why is add-on better than custom, any day?

Post published:February 16, 2009
Post comments:21 Comments
Reading time:6 mins read

Implementation is like marriage. For better or worse, you choose a piece of software, take it under your roof and commit to it for a long term, so help you God.

And as in marriage, if you want to live happily ever after with your new software, the my way or the highway attitude doesn’t help much—you must be open to compromise.

Last Monday, I argued for avoiding customizations if at all possible, an argument I stand by firmly. It’s like forcing your wife to color her hair pink. I don’t know about your wife, but mine doesn’t color her hair pink. If you like it pink, it’s probably something to think about before turning your yes in.

But NAV is NAV, isn’t it? It has what it has, and if I need it different, I have to customize it, right?

Wrong. You can compromise.

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Top 12 Microsoft Dynamics NAV features to defeat recession

Post published:February 12, 2009
Post comments:6 Comments
Reading time:8 mins read

There are three kinds of people: those who watch things happen, those who make things happen, and those who wonder what happened.

The world is in crisis. Some countries are hit harder than the others, some markets have sunk deeper than the others, but the effects of global economic recession are obvious, and if the crisis didn’t hit you yet, fasten your seatbelt—it surely will.

With the whole world wondering what’s going on, the winners will be those who learn to navigate the troubled waters and make things happen. This is much easier with a piece of good business management software, such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

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