Here are some things to think about as you do your search:

1. Understand your requirements! What do you need the system to do and why?

2. What industry are you in and what regulations, standard practices, etc. do you have?

3. What documents do you need to manage, how critical are they and how complex are your document management requirements? E.g. there is a huge difference if you are working with marriage certificates vs. handling complex engineering drawing and permits for a large public works project.

4. Research the vendors and their core competencies to determine which are the best fit for your requirements and your industry. E.g. some vendors excel at managing complex contracts and other legal documents, while others are more like an electronic file cabinet. Do they have experience with your applications and industry? What are their staff credentials?

5. How critical is it for you to access your documents, to have work flow, to have audit controls, check-in/check-out controls, version control, etc.? If it is important, you should go with an established vendor with out-of-the-box functionality and a proven track record doing what you need to have done.

6. If low cost is the main criteria, you may have to settle for an emerging vendor. You can often negotiate an excellent price and contract terms, but be careful of the risks. They may be easier to deal with because they are small and really want your business, but do they have sufficient capital to sustain themselves, will they be acquired, do they have the necessary experience to do what you need, do they have sufficient resources to support you or are you pretty much on your own, etc.?

7. Do you need a system that is highly flexible that you can tailor every time you change your processes? The trade-off may be that you have to do all of the design and development work. If you don’t have skilled professionals doing the design or if you don’t keep good documentation on what you’ve done, you may have major problems in the future.

8. What other systems does the document management system need to interface with? Does the system you selected work with your other systems, does the vendor develop and manage the interfaces for you, does the vendor have pre-developed interfaces with your systems, etc.?

A lot of organizations are using Microsoft’s SharePoint to handle their document management and collaboration requirements. It’s an excellent tool that Microsoft has been enhancing and there are an increasing number of SharePoint developers. The challenge is that it’s not an out-of-the box solution for specific applications as other solutions are. You have to design it to fit your needs. As one of our customers noted, “I love it, but I remind people that it’s like Excel. A great tool, but you have to figure out all the formulas, charts, pivot tables, etc. to meet your business needs. There may be off-the-shelf solutions that already do what you need that are well-tested and meet all regulatory requirements.

Infor is facing a lot of competition from large companies such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, and “up and comers” such as Workday. But don’t write them off; a lot hinges on how CEO Charles Phillips leads the company in the next couple of years. On board only since mid-2010, he’s already invested a lot of money in software development and integrating Infor’s portfolio of software applications.

It appears that Phillips is rolling out a strategy that is similar to what Oracle did when he was Oracle’s president. In late 2011, Infor unveiled Infor10 ION Suite, a middleware technology that will be built into applications with open standards and used to make integrations easier, simpler and more reliable. It will enable new and existing Infor and non-Infor applications to work as an integrated solution.

Infor also unveiled Infor10 suites targeting specific industry applications: Aerospace and Defense, Automotive, Chemicals, Distribution, Equipment Services, Maintenance and Rental, fashion, Food and Beverage, General Manufacturing, Healthcare, High Tech, Hospitality, Industrial Equipment and Machinery, and Public Sector.

Infor10 Workspace is designed to deliver a new user experience incorporating relevant information, workflow, tasks and alerts, business intelligence, social media, event management, and business activity on a user’s screen.

1. The economic downturn was a challenge for them, with many of them laying off employees. We saw things start to turn around for the vendors last year as companies started investing in software solutions that they had delayed for several years. As a result, those vendors with good momentum have had their resources stretched thin trying to meet increased sales activity and new implementations.

If you’re buying a new system, be sure you get experienced implementers who have a lot of experience implementing the system that you’re buying, whether it’s cloud-based or premises-based. The vendors with momentum are hiring and we’ve come across several whose key staff have been on board for less than 6 months.

2. Vendors with deep pockets have grown through acquisition the past few years, but be careful because these new acquisitions are often bolted on. A red flag is if the vendor has to bring several different people to demonstrate their solution or if you have to speak with several people to get your technical and functionality questions answered.

3. There were a lot of acquisitions in the past two years, and this will continue in the future. You need to be thinking about how this may impact the solution you are using or are thinking of purchasing, and start planning how you will identify contingencies and negotiate your contracts to mitigate your risks.

4. Was your vendor recently acquired? What is your customer support like? What new rules and guidelines are being imposed? Are you being required to sign a new agreement? Is your solution going to be discontinued? It’s a good time to start shopping around to see what options you have before making a commitment to the new vendor!

5. Look at the vendor’s new sales last year to get some clues. SAP and Infor did well, but Oracle’s applications software sales lagged. (It was hard to determine performance of Microsoft’s applications software, but it was probably fairly strong.)

For Oracle, we suspect that companies are concerned about the long-term viability of Oracle’s current solutions (e.g. PeopleSoft, e-Business, and JD Edwards) because of the development of its new Fusion product, and the fact that Oracle has not been willing to commit to good product assurance guarantees for protection of the company’s investment. At the same time, we’re seeing a number of companies replacing their Oracle systems with less expensive solutions from Microsoft, Epicor, Sage and Infor. Expect to see more acquisitions and aggressive sales from Oracle this year.

At the same time, keep an eye out for new vendors entering the marketplace; e.g. start-ups founded by experienced people who left Tier 1 vendors, existing vendors in niche areas that are expanding their footprint (such as ADP), and non-traditional vendors such as Google. This could make for some interesting times as they compete head-on!

6. Expect to see increasing international expansion. Be careful that you do your due diligence on who their customers are and where they are located. Is this a fit with your requirements? Have they developed localized solutions to meet the different country requirements? How do they handle multiple currencies? Can they report in the native currency and retain the books in the native currency? How do they consolidate reporting for multi-national companies?

These vendors are also facing fierce competition from SaaS/Cloud HCM provider, Workday, whose co-founder, Dave Duffield, founded PeopleSoft (now part of Oracle). Workday has grown rapidly since its founding in 2005 and has proven to be a formidable competitor in the large market space.

As we discussed in an earlier blog, expect to see a lot of mergers and acquisitions as SAP, Oracle, Infor and others try to acquire as many key cloud solutions vendors as they can. Keep an eye on the leading privately held vendors because in the next year or two expect to see them get acquired or go public (IPO).

So, what do you do if you’re looking for a new HCM solution? Hang on to your hat because it could be a wild ride!

Acquisitions can be very difficult for a company and its customers in terms of technology, integration, processes, culture clashes, resources, support, organization changes, turnover, knowledge transfer, etc. And, it’s not any easier with an IPO as resources may be diverted to support IPO activities and repercussions. Disclosure requirements, shareholder requirements, legal issues, stock options, and SEC compliance have a big impact on standard operations, employees and customers.

It’s critical that you plan how you will mitigate the risks in this turbulent environment. Stay tuned because we will be blogging with tips to help you successfully navigate these rough waters.

In its simplest form, GIS is the mapping of geographical and spatial data. These systems allow organizations to create “layers” to the maps that provide additional information different segments of the map.

As GIS technology has evolved, so too has the demand for the types of information that can be added as layers on the maps within the system. Within the last couple of years, we have seen software demonstrations of several Permitting and Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) software systems that have either architected their product to be “GIS-centric” or are working closely with leading GIS vendors to integrate systems. One advantage of these systems is the ability to provide added layers of metadata on the map that can be accessed even to external users (e.g. citizens, stakeholders, contractors, developers, etc.).

We expect to see GIS-centric systems continue to gain market share as municipalities look to upgrade their current permitting and EAM systems. Many organizations have GIS departments, often as a sub-set of their IT departments. These departments will become more and more important as technology continues to trend toward an enterprise focus.