Let’s go straight to the news…

• SAP Unveils Accelerated Cloud Strategy
• LeanLogistics Introduces On-Demand TMS® SuiteApp For NetSuite’s SuiteCloud Computing Platform
• FedEx Closes in on Vehicle Fleet Fuel Efficiency Goal Years Ahead of Schedule
• FMCSA Releases New Shipper, Broker, and Insurer Resources
• USDOT Proposes Groundbreaking Rule to Prevent Rollover Crashes for Nation’s Large Trucks, Buses
• Free-Trade Deal Begins Between Colombia, U.S. (Wall Street Journal)
• Facebook and Twitter Postings Cost CFO His Job (Wall Street Journal)

Another week, another user conference, another cloud strategy announcement. This week it was SAP, which announced an “accelerated cloud strategy” at SAPPHIRE NOW. You can read the press release for all the details, but here are some of the key points:

• Lars Dalgaard, the founder and CEO of Success Factors, which SAP acquired in February 2012, will lead a newly formed Cloud business unit with more than 5,000 people “dedicated to designing, building and delivering beautiful cloud solutions that enable people to love work again and perform at their best.”
• The Cloud business unit will focus on four solution areas: HR, Financials (SAP Financials OnDemand), Customers (SAP Sales OnDemand), and Suppliers (SAP Sourcing OnDemand).
• “SAP plans to deliver its multitenant cloud solutions as a loosely-coupled suite of best-of-breed applications. The company plans to offer customers the choice and flexibility to adopt these applications at their own pace, as their business needs evolve. When used together, these applications aim to offer the value of a single solution with a consistent user and customer experience, process and data integrity.”
• The Cloud Solutions will be built with a “Social, Mobile, and Analytics-First” approach. On the social front, SAP hired Sameer Patel to drive “the development of the next-generation social strategy at SAP. The goal is to combine the company’s broad footprint in systems, data management and business processes with SuccessFactors’ leadership and knowledge of cloud solutions to deliver social and collaborative capabilities in a way that accelerates process and business performance. SAP plans to announce further details in the coming months.”

I haven’t had time to fully digest all of this information (especially the part about “beautiful” cloud solutions and helping people to “love work again”), but it’s clear to me that SAP finally realized that its SAP Business ByDesign solution/strategy was not meeting its objectives. Is the company pushing the pendulum too far in the other direction now? Also, with the exception of SAP Sourcing OnDemand, it appears that supply chain and logistics solutions, such as transportation management and warehouse management, are not part of SAP’s cloud strategy at the moment. I haven’t had a chance to speak to anyone at SAP about this announcement, but I’m curious how supply chain and logistics solutions fit into the company’s cloud strategy…

…which brings me to a related announcement by LeanLogistics, which has partnered with NetSuite, a leading provider of cloud-based financials/ERP software suites, to build the On-Demand TMS® SuiteApp on the NetSuite SuiteCloud computing platform. Here are some excerpts from the press release:

The SuiteApp will allow customers to price compare from their existing carrier network, as well as have access to one of the largest carrier networks. The On-Demand TMS SuiteApp plans to provide complete multi-modal transportation management functions to help NetSuite customers achieve freight spending savings and ROI.

 

The partnership looks to provide NetSuite customers with the On-Demand TMS SuiteApp (via SuiteScript Managed Bundles) to ensure standardization and upgrade-proof integration to NetSuite’s Order-to-Cash and Procure-to-Pay ERP processes.

I view this partnership as another step toward the “Software-as-a-(Self)-Service” vision I wrote about a couple of years ago. The main objective is to provide small and midsize businesses with a relatively easy, quick, and cost-effective way to deploy software in a low cost-of-sale model for the vendor. Tapping into an existing network of companies using a cloud ERP solution and offering your application in an “app store”-like environment is a promising approach. Earlier this year, for example, Agile Network released AgileShip SE, a parcel and LTL shipping solution that integrates with QuickBooks and users can download and enable directly from the Intuit App Center.

In short, when it comes to cloud computing, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy and model. I expect software vendors to continue experimenting with a variety of deployment models, partnerships, and pricing models in the weeks and months ahead.

Moving on to transportation, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program continues to generate a lot of discussion and debate in the industry. The FMCSA released two factsheets and a PowerPoint presentation for shippers, brokers, and insurers “in response to feedback from safety stakeholders.” As described in the press release, “One of the factsheets identifies and clarifies all three of FMCSA’s publicly available data sources and the other factsheet offers important facts about CSA’s SMS. In addition, the PowerPoint presentation gives an overview of FMCSA’s publicly available data sources that includes screenshots from each of those source. All three resources can be found at this link.”

Our friends over at CH Robinson and Transplace (both are Logistics Viewpoints sponsors) provide some interesting commentary on CSA. See “Update: CSA Changes Coming Soon” by Jason Craig at CHRW and “Don’t Use CSA/SMS Data to Select Carriers” by Tom Sanderson at Transplace.

News this week that the chief financial officer of fashion retailer Francesca’s Holdings Corp. was fired because he “improperly communicated company information through social media” is an important reminder that companies must have clearly defined and documented policies around social media use, along with training and a governance structure, and that executives must exercise common sense when using these solutions.

Finally, as you probably know, Donna Summer died yesterday. Every time I listen to her songs, I’m transported back to my tween years, back to Brooklyn, boom box on the stoop, hot summer days, and dancing, lots of dancing. Donna Summer defined an entire decade of music, and her songs are on the soundtrack of my youth. It’s a shame she’s not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but she’s in mine and we’ll keep dancing that last dance forever.

(Note: SAP and LeanLogistics are ARC clients)

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