LawsonGuru Letter

September 2002

The LawsonGuru Letter is a free periodic newsletter containing provocative
commentary about issues important to the Lawson Software community.
The LawsonGuru Letter is published by-and is solely the opinion of-John
Henley of Decision Analytics.
Visit Decision Analytics at http://www.danalytics.com.
For subscription information, see the bottom of this message.
The LawsonGuru Letter is not affiliated with Lawson Software.
In this issue:
1. Welcome to the inaugural issue of The LawsonGuru Letter!
2. Focus: Are you process-driven?
3. DataBasics not good enough for Lawson-how about for Microsoft?
4. Will Lawson deny support for non-Lawson installed software?
5. Lawson tips & tricks
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1. Welcome to the inaugural issue of The LawsonGuru Letter!
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I'm often called upon by Lawson clients for Lawson and related
IT strategy consulting and advice. However, with my busy
consulting schedule, I just don't have time to visit with
as many Lawson clients as I'd like. I wanted to open up a
new communication channel and share some of my Lawson
insight (pun sorely intended!)
So, after months of internal debate, I've decided to give this
a try. If enough people continue to subscribe, I'll continue
this "experiment" until I run out of things to say (not likely!).
Without an official subscriber list, I'm sending this initial
issue to many of you in the Lawson community, including my clients,
colleagues, and others that I have met at CUE and the various
user groups. I've also included those of you I've corresponded
with and helped out on the topica.com message boards.
Some of you may be receiving this issue and would rather not. If that's
the case, send me an email at mailto:letter-unsubscribe@lawsonguru.com,
and I'll be happy to take you off the subscription list.
On the other hand, if you like what you read, please let me know.
Comments and topic suggestions are always welcome at
mailto:letter@lawsonguru.com. If you would like to provide
"guest commentary", drop me a line.
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2. Focus: Are you process-driven?
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I've been thinking and reading a lot lately about "process".
Michael Hammer, in his latest book "The Agenda" (ISBN 0-609-60966-1), spells out
9 concepts that companies will need to master in order to survive and thrive.
One of them is to transform your organization into a "process enterprise".
Business Process Management (BPM) software is about to become one of the hot
new trends. You probably don't believe it, but it's even getting its own dialect
of XML: BPML (Business Process Markup Language).
Understand though-"process" is not a technology-it's a mindset, a philosophy.
It's not XML, or Web Services. It's PB&J for business.
By the end of the decade, Hammer predicts, organizations that are not process
enterprises will be the exception rather than the rule. And the payoffs
are tremendous:
Hammer's firm surveyed dozens of companies that had adopted
a process approach to work and business. In order fulfillment,
cycle times decreased by 60 to 90 percent, and "perfect orders"
(those delivered on time and with no mistakes) had increased by
25 percent. The cost of performing procurement transactions had
been slashed by more than 80 percent, while procurement times had
shrunk 90 percent.
One of the keys to becoming process-driven is to use the processes and best
practices that you already have-you've got Lawson, right?
Hammer says that most ERPs failed because "these companies did not appreciate
the nature of ERP. Because its modules are so tightly integrated, an ERP
system is, in effect, a tool for supporting end-to-end processes".
Are you really using Lawson to its fullest potential? If you?re like
most clients I meet, you're probably only exploiting about 50-60% of
Lawson's functionality.
A lot of the "out-of-the-box" horsepower sits unused. Multi-step and recurring
jobs don't cost anything. Are you using them? Implementing value-added options,
like BCI and ProcessFlow Professional, costs less than one full-time IT analyst.
Sit back for 5 minutes and think about how you're using Lawson in your organization?
Do you:
- Automate routine processes using multi-step jobs and recurring jobs?
- Route processes using Lawson WorkFlow (or ProcessFlow)?
- Integrate other systems with Lawson (in real-time) with Lawson Business
Component Integrator (BCI)?
- Harness the power of analytics and dashboards so that you can monitor
processes before they blindside you?
- In Procurement, analyze stock-outs and adjust re-order points?
- In HR, use personnel actions to leverage your workforce?
- In Finance, use Allocations to drive costs efficiently?
- In IT, employ monitoring software so that you?re alerted before an
outage becomes a crisis?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The number of CIOs who report directly to their CEO
increased by 54% in 2002. Most used to report to the CFO.
Source: CIO Magazine, 9/1/02 http://www.cio.com/printlinks
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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3. DataBasics not good enough for Lawson-how about for Microsoft?
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A recent news item caught my eye--DataBasics has signed a developer
agreement with Microsoft. (See http://www.data-basics.com/news.htm).
If, like me, you've been following the saga of lawson.insight 8.0 and
the professional services vertical, you'll find this very intriguing.
DataBasics develops the TimeSite and ExpenseSite products, for
timekeeping and expense reporting in professional services firms.
A couple of years ago, Lawson signed an agreement with DataBasics, and
sold a few copies of the DataBasic's software along with Lawson's
then-forthcoming 8.0 (at the time it was v7.3) release of the
Activity Management (AC)/Billing & Revenue (BR) software.
The integration of the two products was very weak (like all Lawson
"integrations", it consisted of a bunch of CSV imports/exports).
The "functionality" of using this "integrated" system was laughable,
and both vendors took some heat from disgruntled clients. After
the requisite finger-pointing and hand-wringing, it appeared that
Lawson had jettisoned any future with DataBasics.

So, about a year ago, Lawson goes out and acquires Account4,
which has its own time and expense entry/reporting. Lawson
promptly re-brands it as "Professional Services Automation (PSA)",
and has been touting it since as the Holy Grail.
I have yet to see a firm that is successfully using PSA in a fully
integrated manner with the AC/BR modules, have you?
So why is DataBasics' agreement with Microsoft so intriguing? If
you're not aware, Microsoft, with the purchase of Great Plains,
has been making great in-roads into the small/medium enterprise
(SME) ERP space. Now, with a viable time/expense solution,
they look to be a formidable competitor in the PSA market.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A study by Meta Group ranked Oracle 9i in the "leader"
Category for databases, based on technology, services, and
execution. IBM UDB [DB2] and Microsoft SQL Server 2000
were ranked as "challengers". Sybase ASE was a "follower".
Source: Infoworld, 8/26/02 http://www.infoworld.com/printlinks
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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4. Lawson denying support to non-Lawson installed software?
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Heard through the grapevine that Lawson is getting tougher
with its customers when it comes to getting support.
Seems that the Lawson support policy, revised in July 2002, dictates
that support will only be provided for software when "A Lawson-certified
installer has installed the product". (For more details, see http://support.lawson.com/coe/globalsupport/manual/scope.PDF).
I don't know, but I think this is very exclusionary. Who exactly are
"Lawson-certified installers"? Well, Lawson's consultants, I guess.
Probably some of the top-tier Lawson partners like Analysts
International (AIC) and Digiterra.
Can independents be certified? No, only if they are certified while
working with Lawson or a certified partner.
Can customers get certified? Nope.
So, does this mean that the customers themselves can't install the software?
What if they install a service pack or a patch? Does that undo the certification?
Maybe it's for the best. The Lawson 8.x Environment, including all
of the Logan/IOS/Tomcat/RMI/Web Server house-of-cards, is so cantankerous,
it's probably best left to a Lawson-proclaimed "expert". At least that's
one way to ensure recourse when it doesn't work.
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5. Lawson Tips & Tricks
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This issue's tip is for users of the Lawson XML User Interface. Most everyone
who uses this interface knows that the URL http://<host>/lawson/xcs will load
the interface.
Did you know that you can enter a specific form on the URL to take you
directly to that form?
Try this: http://<host>/lawson/xcs/?_TKN=<form>&_PDL=<productline>
where the value of _TKN is your token or form that you want to load
and _PDL is the productline.
Example: http://lawson.mydomain.com/lawson/xcs/?_TKN=CU01.1&_PDL=PROD

This can be useful if you want to add a link to a particular form to a
website, such as the Lawson Information Office.
The LawsonGuru Letter is a free periodic newsletter containing
provocative commentary about issues important to the Lawson Software
community. The LawsonGuru Letter is published by--and is solely the
opinion of--John Henley of Decision Analytics.
Visit Decision Analytics at http://www.danalytics.com.
To subscribe, send an email to: mailto:letter-subscribe@lawsonguru.com
To be removed from the subscription list, send email to:
mailto:letter-unsubscribe@lawsonguru.com
The LawsonGuru Letter in whole or in part as long as copyright and
attribution are always included.
Decision Analytics is an independent consultancy, focusing on Lawson
technical projects, and specializing in customization/modification,
data conversion, and integration/interfaces (including BCI & Mercator).
Please visit http://www.danalytics.com for more information.
Decision Analytics. Integrating Lawson in the Real World.