Once the proof of concept that Exact e-Synergy could be a business process management (BPM) enabler had been made, Exact realized that the technology could also provide an edge to its enterprise resource planning (ERP) product lines. It hopes that Exact Globe 2000 and Macola ES will give user enterprises a greater reach that extends beyond a selected few power users traditionally situated within financial or manufacturing departments. The successful and quick integration of e-Synergy with the Macola back-office solution to create Macola ES was impressive, delivering more information to desktops across the enterprise, and better managing customer service.
For background information on Exact Software see Exact Software Continues with Its Share of Judicious Acquisitions. For a discussion of e-Synergy and BPM see A Single Software Solution That Enables Business Process Management.
Part four of the Exact Software Continues with Its Share of Judicious Acquisitions series. This series will resume January 16.
Traditional enterprise systems typically touch only about a quarter (at best) of an organization, while bundled tools offered by e-Synergy could virtually reach every employee, bringing all employees into the process and tying them more closely to the company's business goals. Though traditional ERP systems cater to the core processes of service- and manufacturing-oriented organizations, there has long been a gap of workplace processes within an organization that yearns for some serious streamlining. For example, IT supported process optimization used to organize internal meetings, including note taking and minute distribution, and managing ensuing tasks has not been tackled. Managing processes for the internal orders of indirect goods and staples or managing and reconciling staff vacation plans, etc. are also areas that can benefit from streamlining. These processes have been neglected because they are not recognized as revenue generators. They are, however, cost generating processes can accumulate to a substantial total cost each year, and are therefore worth addressing.
Macola ES may differentiate itself from most peer ERP products through its native "closed loop" workflow management capabilities, which prevent events and tasks from "falling through the cracks". In other words, while most traditional ERP solutions are task-driven, Macola ES is process-driven, and adds structure to processes that are typically handled inconsistently or manually. The software lets users define business rules, processes, and exceptions as an integral part of their distribution, manufacturing, and other operational activities.
To that end, the embedded Exact Event Manager engine is not a mere alert producing application. It lets users define both the event and the outcome (action). Prescribed actions that are not taken within defined guidelines are escalated, so crucial tasks are neither left undone nor unattended. For example, e-mails will no longer drift into "cyber heaven" where they will be left unattended.
Some worthwhile examples of how Macola ES defines business rules include alerting the buyer when goods do not arrive on time from the supplier, and escalating alerts to the vice president of purchasing if the proper corrective action is not taken by the buyer. Macola ES manages exceptions, for example, by generating a workflow task/step to sales personnel when a particular customer stops buying, or alerting a customer service representative, via a workflow task, when credit is rejected on an order, which can allow an alternative payment method such as cash on delivery (COD) or prepayment to be arranged. This real time exception reporting eliminates the need to generate costly and time-consuming batch paper reports that are created after the fact.
The ease of creating workflows and mapping core business processes may distinguish Macola ES from its peer small and medium business (SMB) ERP products. Sure, many traditional ERP solutions will tout some BPM capabilities, but after scratching the surface, one will typically find the workflow to be a mere document routing application, where the components of content management, process execution, and connectivity are lacking. While secure role-based portals, single sign-on, event management, document management, and BPM features are now becoming a "matter of course" for tier one ERP solutions, most smaller ERP providers have yet to introduce these into their software suites, particularly in an integrated and closed-loop manner.
By automating these tasks, e-Synergy represents a broad suite of products, which may still only be a figment of its direct competitors' imagination. Rather than being a typical enterprise application that "crunches" transactions using a relational database, e-Synergy goes a bit further to support longstanding processes within and outside an enterprise that involve synchronized collaboration and document management. Therefore, the suite may indicate an emergence of a new category of software that tackles enterprise relationship management, groupware/workplace collaboration management, and so on. Some leading analysts place this type of collection in the nascent smart enterprise suite (SES) category (see Mid-market Getting the Taste of Some Emerging Technologies).
This is because extensible markup language (XML) and other, related Internet standards have given a semi-structure to the traditionally unstructured data environment, making it more agreeable to IT support. Nowadays, document management and enterprise content management (ECM) systems can store and retrieve unstructured data (see Enterprise Content Management: It Is More Than Just Web Content Management). Other technologies that should be credited for the emergence of similar enterprise systems include portals, search engines, and categorization systems that allow users to access any given information. Integrated report generators allow users to view and report any data from structured and unstructured data source.
For a discussion of the cautions and caveats associated with the emerging BPM market, see Business Process Management: A Crash Course on What It Entails and Why to Use It.
For background information on Exact Software see Exact Software Continues with Its Share of Judicious Acquisitions. For a discussion of e-Synergy and BPM see A Single Software Solution That Enables Business Process Management.
Part four of the Exact Software Continues with Its Share of Judicious Acquisitions series. This series will resume January 16.
Traditional enterprise systems typically touch only about a quarter (at best) of an organization, while bundled tools offered by e-Synergy could virtually reach every employee, bringing all employees into the process and tying them more closely to the company's business goals. Though traditional ERP systems cater to the core processes of service- and manufacturing-oriented organizations, there has long been a gap of workplace processes within an organization that yearns for some serious streamlining. For example, IT supported process optimization used to organize internal meetings, including note taking and minute distribution, and managing ensuing tasks has not been tackled. Managing processes for the internal orders of indirect goods and staples or managing and reconciling staff vacation plans, etc. are also areas that can benefit from streamlining. These processes have been neglected because they are not recognized as revenue generators. They are, however, cost generating processes can accumulate to a substantial total cost each year, and are therefore worth addressing.
Macola ES may differentiate itself from most peer ERP products through its native "closed loop" workflow management capabilities, which prevent events and tasks from "falling through the cracks". In other words, while most traditional ERP solutions are task-driven, Macola ES is process-driven, and adds structure to processes that are typically handled inconsistently or manually. The software lets users define business rules, processes, and exceptions as an integral part of their distribution, manufacturing, and other operational activities.
To that end, the embedded Exact Event Manager engine is not a mere alert producing application. It lets users define both the event and the outcome (action). Prescribed actions that are not taken within defined guidelines are escalated, so crucial tasks are neither left undone nor unattended. For example, e-mails will no longer drift into "cyber heaven" where they will be left unattended.
Some worthwhile examples of how Macola ES defines business rules include alerting the buyer when goods do not arrive on time from the supplier, and escalating alerts to the vice president of purchasing if the proper corrective action is not taken by the buyer. Macola ES manages exceptions, for example, by generating a workflow task/step to sales personnel when a particular customer stops buying, or alerting a customer service representative, via a workflow task, when credit is rejected on an order, which can allow an alternative payment method such as cash on delivery (COD) or prepayment to be arranged. This real time exception reporting eliminates the need to generate costly and time-consuming batch paper reports that are created after the fact.
The ease of creating workflows and mapping core business processes may distinguish Macola ES from its peer small and medium business (SMB) ERP products. Sure, many traditional ERP solutions will tout some BPM capabilities, but after scratching the surface, one will typically find the workflow to be a mere document routing application, where the components of content management, process execution, and connectivity are lacking. While secure role-based portals, single sign-on, event management, document management, and BPM features are now becoming a "matter of course" for tier one ERP solutions, most smaller ERP providers have yet to introduce these into their software suites, particularly in an integrated and closed-loop manner.
By automating these tasks, e-Synergy represents a broad suite of products, which may still only be a figment of its direct competitors' imagination. Rather than being a typical enterprise application that "crunches" transactions using a relational database, e-Synergy goes a bit further to support longstanding processes within and outside an enterprise that involve synchronized collaboration and document management. Therefore, the suite may indicate an emergence of a new category of software that tackles enterprise relationship management, groupware/workplace collaboration management, and so on. Some leading analysts place this type of collection in the nascent smart enterprise suite (SES) category (see Mid-market Getting the Taste of Some Emerging Technologies).
This is because extensible markup language (XML) and other, related Internet standards have given a semi-structure to the traditionally unstructured data environment, making it more agreeable to IT support. Nowadays, document management and enterprise content management (ECM) systems can store and retrieve unstructured data (see Enterprise Content Management: It Is More Than Just Web Content Management). Other technologies that should be credited for the emergence of similar enterprise systems include portals, search engines, and categorization systems that allow users to access any given information. Integrated report generators allow users to view and report any data from structured and unstructured data source.
For a discussion of the cautions and caveats associated with the emerging BPM market, see Business Process Management: A Crash Course on What It Entails and Why to Use It.
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