My new Samsung i560

I bought my new mobile phone a few weeks ago now - a shiny new Samsung i560.

What appealed to me was the Symbian OS as I knew it was a widely used operating system, allowing me to install a wide variety of software.

The phone also came equipped with a GPS - a gimmick. It just goes to show I'm not immune to them. :)

I haven't had any success with getting the GPS unit to work and now my 14 day software trial is all over. I don't feel inclined to spend about 40 euros on purchasing the software to drive it.

I've also been disappointed with software availability - there are clearly different installation packages for S60 devices depending on the device. As I use Google Calendar and GMail heavily, I wanted mobile clients for these. To my dismay, they're not available for the i560, though they are for other S60 3rd edn. devices. I'm presently looking for alternatives.

I also use Remember the Milk for tasks and EverNote, for which I'm unable to get clients either. I can tolerate those but I'd love to see Symbian / Java clients. So I'm reserving my disappointment for Google. They're a big company and really should be able to support my device. Though Google isn't part of the Symbian consortium and is developing their own mobile phone OS so maybe they're sulking over it.

Anyway, I'm going to sulk. :(

Thoughts on implementing Enterprise Systems

First up a disclaimer: my only experience with ERP is SAP and it presently amounts to about 6 weeks. So please SAP, don't sue me for defamation.

For me the jury's out on the value of ERP.

One of the major issues with SAP (and similar) is that can force a business process to change to match the software's built-in (ahem!) "best practices." Best practice is a marketing term that helps to sell things. A more accurate term would be "sound practice."

While there are often many things in common between businesses (especially within the same industry), there are going to be differences. Perhaps these can be because of a business's culture. Culture isn't just an overlay; rather it's at the core of a business and it affects the way a company goes about its business.

In the case of ERP systems like SAP, they are flexible to an extent in how their business processes can be configured but ultimately, the business will have to flex too.

Before starting my masters, I thought that if IT gets in the way of the business process, then the IT is wrong. I think I need to revise it, adding that the business process must contribute value to the business or the business process is wrong.

So let's revise this: If IT gets in the way of a sound business practice that contributes value to the business, then the IT is wrong. It will be interesting to see how this view changes over time. As the semester is progressing, I'm finding that this is the key problem that I keep returning to.

So what would be my advice to someone looking to implement ERP? It would be that implementing ERP won't magically turn the Titanic into the QE2. If your business is heading full speed towards an iceberg, ERP won't save you. It will however, give you a real-time picture of your ship being smashed to a pulp by that little old iceberg and will probably give the duly appointed administrator a decent head-start on salvaging the wreck. I would add that the scope of an ERP implementation is so big it's scary and that you need to evaluate carefully whether there is value in abandoning sound business practices for the practices that an ERP system will impose. The extent of the process changes will have a bearing, possibly a large bearing on the short term hit your business will take in the wake of go-live.