Do You Agree With Harry?

Lawson’s CEO Harry Debes certainly isn’t afraid to speak his mind or do what he wants. I’ve seen Harry take on some thorny issues before.  And, I did hear from some clients that his “lap dance” with a Marilyn Monroe lookalike at CUE 2008 was a little, shall we say, ill-advised. But Harry’s latest remarks deriding [...]

LWSN Expands Support Options as SAP Narrows

Over the past year or so, Lawson has been expanding their support offerings.  It used to be that you had just one option: “Maintenance and Support”.  This meant that everybody (presumably) was treated the same, had the same response time, etc.  Now Lawson offers four tiers of support as part of its “Total Care” package: Bronze: [...]

The Art and Science of Troubleshooting

“How do I fix xyz?” Thinking about how to troubleshoot reminds me of trying to fix my leaky shower. I want an “instant fix”.  My plumber knows better, realizing that you have to go through a systematic process of analysis.  In the end, of course, he is right. And after eliminating some of the variables, we indeed [...]

The Bendable Work-Week

Consider an organization which, up until now at least, has had 7-hour workdays.  And, not for all employees, but for most administrative staff, except IT.  To justify the exclusion of IT, they say “IT workers make too much money already”. Gee, how appreciative. But anyway. Most admin folks (like the Finance staff) get an 9:00-4:30 day, [...]

Pondering an Age Old Question

I think it goes something like this: “’tis  better to have loved and lost, or to never have loved at all?” To put a twist on it a bit, is it better to have competed and lost, or never to have competed?  That is the question. You see, I have a running banter with Eric Tu. You’ll [...]

LWSN: It’s Time (to Reinvest)

Yesterday, Lawson released their fourth-quarter and fiscal year 2008.  To just read Lawson’s press release (http://www.lawson.com/wcw.nsf/pub/new_3CABF3), you can see that (according to Lawson, at least) everything’s rosy: “Company posts more than $100 million increase in annual revenues”. But, you then comes the Wall Street spin, which is, frankly, amusing: I’ve highlighted some of these, just to give you [...]

Oh, So This Is Why P-Cards Aren’t a Good Idea?

P-Cards are always a love/hate topic.  Some people swear by them as an easier-than-easy way to purchase goods and services without a lot of paperwork and process.  Others despise them as a way to bypass the entire purchasing process.  And as an invitation for fraudulent use.  Witness this gem: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/24/AR2008062401198.html In this case, a worker with the [...]

Oh, so now you’re an expert, huh?

Can’t you just envision this as being a perfect line of Alice Kramden dialogue from an episode of The Honeymooners?   Ralph is contriving some plan with Norton, purporting to be “the expert” on whatever scheme is being cooked up.  And in steps clear-headed Alice, to utter the deflating question that brings it all back into [...]

LWSN: Watch Your Back!

For several years now, I’ve been telling Lawson (and anyone else who’s been listening…) that Microsoft–not SAP and not Oracle–is the competitor that Lawson needs to watch out for: In articles and discussions over the past several years (for example, see Lawson’s Road Ahead: Smooth Ride or Rocky Terrain? and The LawsonGuru Letter Interview: Dean Hager), [...]

One Of My Hats: "Application Architect"?

A recent CIO magazine article (http://www.cio.com/article/187350/Hot_Jobs_Applications_Architect/1) made me think about some of the roles I fill for my clients. When describing my own consulting business, I really have a hard time, since I’m what is called a “specialized generalist” according to the taxing authorities. I provide a number of consulting services to Lawson clients, such as: Installation, configuration, [...]