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September 2004 |
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Welcome to the September Fast Five Minutes! |
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Executive Insight - Putting a Name to the Silver Bullet |
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Optura Product Update - Non-PO Invoice Processing Comes to Vendor Invoice Management (VIM) |
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Optura in the News |
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Recent and Upcoming Events |
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Fast Knowledge Tidbits |
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| Welcome to the September Fast Five Minutes! |
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Are You Ready for the Fall? We can't believe its Fall already either! As our lives get progressively more complicated and busy with the kids going back to school, the end of Summer also spells the beginning of the hectic fall business season. Together they spell a stressful time for everyone and as you look for ways to better manage your business day perhaps you should be looking at Optura's software products. With proven return on investment delivered daily through process optimization, we make it a habit for company employees to see reduced workloads and stress - which is exactly the solution that we need to make it through the busy fall. See your Optura account executive soon so you can begin experiencing the same benefits.
About this Month's Fast Five Minutes. The September FFM includes a number of articles intended to help you better understand what is occurring in the industry and available to you and your organization. We have new product updates, insight on industry changes, and a special invitation for you to join Optura at the upcoming ASUG Executive Forum in Phoenix, Arizona, in late September. We encourage you to read, respond, and comment as we're dedicated to making the FFM your gateway to knowledge and insight on how you can reduce your process time - and return more of it back to you!
Enjoy your September FFM - we'll see you again in October!
The Fast Five Minutes newsletter is published monthly by Optura Inc. We look forward to providing you with this information via email regularly - please let us know if there are other things you would like to see included. Contact Bob Monio (rmonio@optura.net) with questions or comments.
Enjoy your Fast Five Minutes!
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| Executive Insight - Putting a Name to the Silver Bullet |
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I remember in the early 90's when Bill Gates unveiled the latest vision from Microsoft and laid claim to the strategy of "Information at Your Fingertips." It was a powerfully complex thought if you looked at its execution, yet it was stated in a very simplistic fashion. Even though many in the industry were skeptical that a relatively immature software company for PC's, and client server networks could delivery on such a strategy, it was a vision that invoked understanding and stuck in the imagination.
We've come a long way. The Microsoft vision was impressive 15 years ago and with the help of the internet and about $15 trillion in VC investment over the past 5 years information has been made available on people's desktops more than most people would like. But now we know it's not just about the technology of making data accessible. Things have shifted dramatically. Availability of data has been done. It's now about the human interaction around the data. Talking about "information at your fingertips" for PCs now is like a cell phone company announcing a vision of "Coast-to-coast Calling."
What we need now is information that is correct and usable. It needs to be accessible, sure, but then it needs to be looked at, it needs to be reacted to by the right people, and the responses to the data need to be evaluated, approved and decisions need to be made. And even the process of using the data needs to be evaluated for continuous improvement opportunities. This leads to more data being generated in the form of analytics, which then needs to be evaluated, it needs to be reacted to by the right people - basically, it's an information usability scenario that feeds on itself.
It's not about the data or the technology anymore. Like all technology visions these days, we need to focus on the business usage scenarios. It's about having the correct information and combining it with the correct business processes. Correct usage scenarios or business processes will reduce input errors, formatting errors -- eliminating dirty data. It will insure the correct data is made available and accessible when and where it's needed. It allows the sharing of correct information with the right people to make quality decisions.
The business benefits are enormous. Optimal business processes reduce cycle times around collaboration and decision making. It empowers people by providing more accountability for the decisions people make. And all of this leads to money savings by making organizations react faster to market conditions, and ultimately using capital more wisely.
Composite applications are a critical pay-off to these new business process strategies and visions of getting people effectively and efficiently working together. It's all about using company systems and the related data found in those systems to it's fullest potential. Composite applications grab information from existing sources of data within manufacturing systems, financial systems, imaging systems and brings it all together to support new collaborative processes so people are more efficient.
But ultimately, we need a new phrase. A handle. I don't know if we can come up with something as provocative in execution yet simplistic in expression as Information at Your Fingertips but we need to try. We don't need more terms like Data Integration. What we need is something like Data-Human-Interaction-Harmony. Or, Usable-Information-Supporting-People-Processes. Or maybe it's Getting-My-Job-Done-By-Getting-You-To-Respond-To-My-Needs-By-Providing-You-With-Enough-Information-To-Get-You-To-Easily-Help-Me-Out.
If you have any ideas, let me know.
Coleman Barney is a founder of SBI Group and the CEO of Optura. He can be reached at cbarney@optura.net.
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| Optura Product Update - Non-PO Invoice Processing comes to Vendor Invoice Management (VIM) |
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What is Non-PO Invoice Approvals about and why should I be interested? Simple - In addressing the complete lifecycle of invoice management for companies, Optura has increasingly become aware of the need for customer's to be able to extend the approval process for non-Purchase Order (PO) events. Vendors and other employees who are part of an approval process can play a significant role in the successful processing and turnaround of an invoice - therefore having this kind of functionality available in their Vendor Invoice Management (VIM) system is critical.
How does it work? Invoice Approval is a very important component of the complete lifecycle of invoice management. Companies employ approval processes to address business process issues, such as:
- Confirming the receipt of goods and services.
- Authorize the payment to non-PO invoices by the person with sufficient approval limits.
- Correctly allocating vendor invoices to internal projects and cost centers.
- And many more…
The new release of the Invoice Approval Components of VIM provides organizations with a rich set of functionality intended to help them further reduce costs and increase invoice approval collaboration. Features of this new release include:
- An intuitive and adaptive web-based user interface allows the approver to view the right amount of information. The web interface may be personalized by individual approvers.
- Invoices may be approved by SAP and/or non-SAP users.
- Approvers may enter the accounting information (G/L account, cost center, etc) or delegate to a CODER to enter the accounting information.
- Supports multiple approval paths - for example, each cost center listed on the invoice may be approved by different set of approvers.
- Integration with imaging systems - the original invoice image is just one-mouse-click away.
- Special Handling Instruction section for the Accounts Payable Processors.
- Tightly integrated with Existing IE workflow.
Here is an example of what it may look like for you:
Optura has made this additional feature available for existing customers as part of their regular maintenance plan and several large customers are already taking advantage of it. We designed it to serve as a seamless enhancement for customers and because of the open architecture involved around the workflow process, it can be plugged in quickly. Combined with very minimal training and a customizable user interface, invoice approvers immediately become part of the overall invoice management effort - thus further reducing costs and increasing management's control over the result. Organization's addressing Sarbanes-Oxley compliancy issues (we know you're out there), take note - this enhancement helps you achieve compliancy quicker and address those pesky SOX issues you're now facing.
How can my organization take advantage of this new update? If you haven't already spoken to your Optura Account Executive about the additional benefits of leveraging the new Non-PO Approval feature, let us know. We want your organization to take advantage of the benefits and ROI this enhancement can bring to you and your business. Also - if there are other workflow and integration features that you are interested in, let us know - our products are designed to mature as your business matures thereby continually to help you leverage the value proposition inherent in your business process and Optura software.
Kevin Yang is the Director of Application Development for Optura. As he works to improve the Optura product set, he would like to hear more from the user base on their needs and interests. Please feel free to contact Kevin at (kyang@optura.net) with your questions or comments.
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| Recent and Upcoming Events |
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Optura Continues to Demonstrate Industry Leadership - here are some events to take note of.
- September 19th - 22nd, 2004 - Optura is a key Sponsor for ASUG Executive ERP Forum being held at the beautiful Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort in Phoenix, AZ. Optura is presenting with World Kitchen the results of a case study on Best Practices in Imaging and Workflow for A/P Shared Services environments. For more details see: http://w3.asug.com/erp. The presentation will be on Monday, September 20th from 10:50am to 12:00pm - see the agenda for final details and look for a special mailer from Optura very soon! We hope to see you there!
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