2008 April Edition

A Message from Doris: Understanding Software Competition

There are good and bad ideas. In my opinion, a single software resource for any vertical industry is bad for a number of reasons. Price tends to go up, quality can go down and diversification stall. A loss of checks and balances.

The federal government has laws to protect consumers against monopoly and unfair trade practices. The Sherman Antitrust and the Clayton Act. But, you have to “prove it”. You also need to understand what constitutes breaching our antitrust laws to warrant complaint.

If you didn't know, the Department of Justice lost the most important part of the Microsoft case. They were unable to prove monopoly, whether through acquisitions or collusive price strategy. MS proved you can seek alternatives solutions and that there are market alternatives. Thus, don't lose sleep thinking the consolidation in the mid-range accounting software products via merger-acquisition strategy is on our government radar.

If lack of regulatory interest or involvement bother you, and despite what seems to many businesses as a squeeze to buy more and get less, you can do something: BUY SOMETHING ELSE, there are software companies that want your business and what they have to offer IS competitive.

My experience is that firms are willing to pay more for existing accounting upgrades to avoid change. They will look at other options, sometimes if at all, but become afraid to change. Then surprise and frustration sets in. Blindly, paying 2 and 3 times on upgrade costs is not a great idea, sorry, likely a bad idea. If what you need NOW doesn't match up with the offering or price then wait and look for new options.

We, at DMC, are supporting and hosting alternative companies into the Boston area. We understand the vertical accounting industries we service and want change for firms that need something different.

How does one know what to do? Here is a list of what NOT to do, this too can propel you into action:

• A year to year one million dollar service firm paying more than $10K-$15K to purchase and implement accounting software. Payback will be tough if your not in the growth mode.
• Being afraid to change software because of your bookkeeper and staff hold off on change. Now is the time to aggressively seek out talented individuals that will help you build your company for the long haul, not drag you into inaction.
• Buying software and never meeting the implementer. Implementation often makes or breaks success, the sales person only approach is passé.
• Buying software and not gathering the full cost of the upgrade. IT, implementation and ongoing maintenance fees are additional.
• Ignoring software company warnings that they will not support your software in the near future. Is your software on a termination path (i.e. reduced over the next two years).
• Accepting price increases year after year and not reviewing other reliable options.

There are alternatives, we have made a deliberate effort here at DMC to invite Companies in an introduce them to our service based markets. We have previewed each vendor’s offering and feels as though we have made good faith effort to present qualified alternatives that meet needs.

A single software provider to a single industry erodes the good checks and balances that need to be in place for competitive markets. The consumer should drive needs, value and price. Look for our events, they are complimentary and a great way to meet colleagues and peers. Despite the chaos in the financial markets, there is a silver lining, we still have choices.

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Axium Releases New Business Development Feature for the PORTFOLIO Software Solution by AXIUM

Axium (www.axiumae.com), a leading provider of accounting and project management software, announces the expansion of the PORTFOLIO’s capabilities with a new Business Development (BD) component. BD is completely integrated with PORTFOLIO and provides a centralized, real-time database with access to the information needed to plan and manage potential new business. It allows easy tracking of opportunities through the various stages and provides visibility to a firm’s opportunity pipeline to forecast future revenues as well as project workloads and resource schedules.

BD is accessed from the Project Command Center and its seamless integration eliminates barriers to entry and provides easy firm-wide adoption of the advance functionality. BD’s functionality allows for easy distribution of responsibilities through task management and also promotes accountability with assignments recorded directly to the project record. As tasks and activities are completed they build a rich historical record of contact allowing firms to build better relationships when working to secure new business. Further, PORTFOLIO’s BD tracks a firm’s win/loss rate to determine the effectiveness of securing new business. The vast information that can be garnered from BD in conjunction with its flexibility, customization and ease-of-use allows for the integration of project managers and principals into BD and marketing efforts.

PORTFOLIO Business Development is an integrated solution that merges BD, accounting and project management, allowing firms to streamline processes firm-wide. It provides firms the ability to capture and properly track the actions involved with BD efforts for historical analysis which will assist in future contacts and actions.

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Technology Brings Data Access to Age. by AXIUM

A/E firms today use and analyze data to review past trends and obtain perspectives for strategic business decisions. To gather the information a firm needs, they usually have to go on a “data mining” expedition - a long and difficult but necessary process. Most accounting and project management software’s effectively collect data but fail to harness the power of technology and fail when it comes to organizing and displaying the data. This lack of visibility and structure greatly limits efficiency and productivity.

To extract pertinent information for decision making, firms rely on standard reports with limited views of the information needed. Customized reports can often be costly and time consuming, yet because standard reports often do not provide the necessary information, many firms rely on custom reports for their data analysis needs. Custom reports, however do not always provide all the answers and are often missing critical information thus leaving the firm with inadequate results. Another downside to custom reports is that they require a great deal of time and programming knowledge of languages like SQL, Crystal Reports or MSRS. Further, the information needed to reach decisive conclusions is often a result of interpolating data from several custom and standard reports.

Easily accessing data is usually limited to only a few employees who have the expertise within a firm. This limitation greatly reduces the timely accessibility of critical information for those who need it. This is common among legacy systems that are obsolete because of their rigidity, difficulty to use, and inaccessibility to all in a distributed manner.

Almost all systems are capable of collecting massive amounts of data but the organization and access to that data is what many systems fail to manage. Firms need to be able to quickly and easily gather data, analyze and use it to provide the answers to their day to day needs. Simply put, to improve decision making, a firm’s software solution should provide the following features or capabilities for data accessibility:

• Centralized, real time database providing easy access to all of the data within the software
• Customized (not just configurable) views and the presentation of data quickly and cost effectively
• Analyze data through custom formulas
• Eliminate barriers to entry – easy to learn and use
• Generate custom workflows for different roles and functional area needs leading to greater productivity, efficiency and ultimately profitability

To grow and succeed in today’s A/E industry firms need to adopt a software solution that allows users to view financial and project information instantly on their screen. The immediate visibility increases access to key information that is pertinent for better business decisions. When investing in a new software solution, firms should require comprehensive access to the information stored in the database and an intuitive interface that allows users access to an unlimited array of possibilities.

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