• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager
• BL Club
• Smartbuy

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth
• Events 2007

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

D. Murali

A major reason behind many an ERP (enterprise resource planning) failure is the underestimating of the complexity — be it in planning, development, or training, says Sanjiva Shankar Dubey in Innovation with IT ( www.tatamcgrawhill.com).

His first tip for success, therefore, is to prepare the people for change, lest they face surprises at every turn. In ERP implementation, the preparation phase is ignored in most cases, the author rues.

Another advice from Dubey is that it pays to select the package with both the present and the future in mind. A package that is closer to the current needs may not have potential for future additions or new features, especially if the vendor has limited vision or market reach. “Some other packages may have too many features, but will need more resources to run or customise.”

Looking at emerging trends, the author finds that ERP is now poised to embrace various communication technologies such as RFID (radio frequency identification devices), Web interfaces and enterprise data warehouse technologies. “The new form of ERP is known as ERM, or enterprise resource management, which covers all resources, such as human, capital asset (equipment and inventory), and IT asset.”

With RFID, enterprises can handle various types of asset management activities (such as accounting, auditing, and tracking assets), and by integrating Web technologies with ERP, managers will have easy access to mission-critical systems, Dubey explains.

Recommended read for the innovation-hungry.

When you are creating a Web page, the top 25 per cent of the page and the very bottom of the page are the most important, says Jon Smith in Get into bed with Google: Top ranking search optimisation techniques ( www.researchpress.co.in).

“Don’t, therefore, waste the prime real estate or the top of a page with a lengthy introduction to the site or the topic but get right in there — go straight for the jugular, and be conscious of the prominence and relevance you give to the keywords being quoted.”

Start selling the product — whatever it is — both to the user and to Google, urges Smith. “Let them all know that you mean business.” For instance, “if you sell trendy T-shirts then you need to be dropping in the brands that you carry, not a monologue about the importance of T-shirts or a history of the garment.”

The bottom of the page is equally important, the author urges. Does your page taper off with a couple of half-hearted links to the privacy policy and a copyright statement, he asks?

“Or does it include the pertinent navigational options repeated as text-only links that will add both to the user’s ability to continue navigating your site and to Google’s ability to notice yet another reference to a certain type of T-shirt, thus helping you to rise up the rankings because of relevance and prominence?”

Quick takeaways.

Lucy is quietly drinking tea but her mind is filled with riddles. “Now, it remained for her to convince them where the ‘pot of gold’ described in the last text — written by Diana herself — would be found. It was just a week ago, she explained to them, when she had been researching the background to Shakespeare’s poem, Venus and Adonis, on the Web, that she had first found mention of what she believed in her heart must be of major significance,” writes Titania Hardie in The Rose Labyrinth ( www.headline.co.uk).

Read on: “On the professor’s expensive notebook, she asked him to enter the relevant data, and they watched together as the images loaded: a magnificent contemporary painting of Shakespeare’s published work — the only one in existence, a ‘national treasure’ according to one enthusiastic source…”

And Hardie continues: “The data indicated that it seemed to date to the year 1600…”

Elaborate story in a racy style that can let you in on ‘a centuries-old secret, a dangerous revelation, the truth that can change the world.’

Technology-based applications are sometimes the only, or the most efficient, way to accomplish certain types of learning, write Tamar Elkeles and Jack Phillips in The Chief Learning Officer (Elsevier). “In situations involving safety and compliance, computerised simulation is the only realistic method for providing real-life training opportunities,” the authors add.

An example cited in the book is of the Panama Canal Authority, which uses a very high-tech electronic simulator for training pilots on how to manoeuvre ships through the canal. “Obviously, it would be too unsafe and costly to train on the job using real ships.”

Another example is of Banco Popular, a large Puerto Rica-based company, which had to train all of its 8,000 employees on a new software. “To make matters more complicated, these employees were scattered throughout several countries and the training had to be completed in three weeks. The only way to accomplish this was through e-learning.”

A book that the learning-avid may find useful for ‘driving value within a changing organisation through learning and development.’

Trying is just a noisy way of not doing something, chides Ken Blanchard in Smart Leadership ( www.jaicobooks.com). Many people are interested rather than committed, he rues. “They talk about trying to do something, rather than actually doing it. They make lots of noise, but fail to follow up.”

Blanchard uses a common example to drive home the difference: “An interested exerciser wakes up in the morning to rain and says, ‘I think I’ll exercise tomorrow.’ A committed exerciser wakes up to rain and says, ‘I better exercise inside’.”

Telling insights.

We have an opportunity to shift from an energy approach dominated by handouts and shortages to a post-carbon, energy-rich economy, avers Nandan Nilekani in Imagining India: Ideas for the new century ( www.penguinbooksindia.com). He finds it fortunate that the country is blessed with plenty of sun, wind, land and natural gas resources.

“The economy is at a stage in development where the big investments in energy infrastructure are yet to happen, and the emerging possibilities for distributed green power and for IT-enabled grid intelligence mean that we can create a whole new sustainable paradigm of energy generation, distribution and consumption.”

Towards the end of the book, in a section titled ‘where the power lies’, the author talks about Indian firms, big and small, innovating in business models and in products in a way that will have a greater impact on economic growth than routine increases in capital and labour utilisation.

He cites as examples the inexpensive solar lamps that Selco offers people in villages without electricity to help shops stay open longer and children study after sundown; and the community IT kiosks that businesses have opened in villages to enable people in the countryside to connect with India’s urban markets.

“The manner in which businesses are targeting consumers — with the Tata Nano car as well as the Honda City and Blackberrys and hundred-rupee mobile phones, one-rupee shampoo packets as well as high-end consumer products — points to a market that is expanding and touching an incredibly broad base of Indians.”

Engaging presentation of subjects on a wide canvas.

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line