Manoj Ranaweera Posts

I was hoping that I and others would get to know a particular accountancy software vendor better through their corporate blog, which was launched few months back. The articles on recruitment published by their CEO was great! But they seem to be talking more about Microsoft Products than their own company and their own product portfolio. I for one would like to hear about their product road map, various technologies they are looking at (e.g. web services, SOA, etc), financials, what’s hot within the company, how great the company is, their growth strategies, etc (whatever they feel comfortable letting others…

Sam Sethi has just launched the UK version of TechCrunch. TechCrunch has been influential in promoting new start ups and is widely read by many who is interested in new technology. Sam speaks about VC and Angel market in UK (I have first hand experience in attempting to raise VC funding – my impression is that VCs are as risk averse as the bankers! I know there are differing viewpoints especially from the VCs): A number of people, including myself, recently got together to determine if there was something we could do to resolve the situation or at the very…

ebdex Consulting is now able to provide independent consultancy services, helping organisations select the most appropriate e-invoicing, EIPP or document exchange solutions. Typically, a consultancy project starts with identifying the key drivers and challenges faced by client organisation, how they interact with their trading partners in addition to understanding the current processes and practises. Depending on the requirements and budget, the project can be extended to include analysis of the competitive environment with respect to technology adaptation. ebdex is able to provide unbiased advise on type of solutions available in the market place, and recommend solutions for further consideration. ebdex…

We had a strategic review meeting today, at which the decision was taken to allow companies to trial the on-line version of ebdex Document Exchange. Currently limited functionality is enabled, but we came to the conclusion that customer feed back is essential for us to move forward, rather than hold back until all functionality is available. We hope you would take this opportunity to try it out. You are under no obligation to purchase or sign a contract except for agreeing to our simple terms and conditions of usage (yet to be published with private policy) and to allow us…

In my opinion, the ideal customer is a company that has following four key characteristics: Suffers from one or more pains (challenges!) that ebdex Document Exchange relieves (no need to convince). Has a shorter buying cycle (quick result). Has high transaction volume with low number of trading partners (high revenue potential). Uses an accounting or ERP system for which ebdex has already developed an interface driver (rapid implementation). Now what about my previous argument with serving the smallest of the small company? We have a solution for them, which is quick to implement – a start up and scalable solution…

Have you read Ariba’s recent white paper titled "Increase productivity, not paper: The power of EIPP to enhance Accounts Payable Savings and Costs"? If not, it is well worth a read. It proves the points we are making, which are well known by CFOs for 3 decades, yet little progress has been achieved. There was a clue in my last article about the the key difference, and in the white paper. Have you guessed it? Let me explain. Ariba, OB10 and many others speak about supplier networks and accounts payables more and very little about the suppliers and accounts receivable…

Ariba‘s home page display the following statistics: No. of suppliers on Supplier Network: 120,000 Deployed on desktops:  Over 4m Customers sourced over: $250bn Spend categories covered: 450 Saved customers an estimated: $12bn Ariba is perhaps the largest provider of spend management solutions. In Ariba’s view, spend management consists of: Sourcing Contract management Procurement and expenses Invoice and payment Supplier management Visibility Ariba and ebdex – a possible future partnership (these are purely my views, and does not reflect view points of Ariba): Does ebdex compete with Ariba? Yes. Does ebdex provides spend management solutions? We are a niche player, bringing solutions…

Kiko has attracted a single bid at the asking price. What will the final price be? Place your bets now… Technorati Tags: Kiko, eBay

Recently Alex Fletcher interviewed Dave Stephens, CEO of Coupa. Here is the full interview – Director’s cut! Some weeks back I ran across an interesting open source company while I was surfing through various IT related blogs. I’ll typically stumble across or hear about at least one or two new open source efforts per week just during the course of reading, surfing/browsing, talking to others involved with the IT industry. However, when I happened upon Coupa, for the first time in a while I couldn’t name one other open source participant in their market (eProcurement). With my curiosity piqued, I…

Last week, I received a complementary copy of The AngelInve$tor – The Magazine for the alternative investor, published by Corporate Publishing Ltd from Brian Perry, Business Development Director. Brian is a serial entrepreneur turned angel investor and President of Corporate Acquisitions Inc. The Magazine is priced at £10 and the August 06 issue is full of articles that I considered as light reading (i.e. can be read from start to finish in a day easily). I was intrigued by the advertisements it carried – from Maybach (luxury car from Mercedes) to Edminston (luxury yachts), clearly indicating it is intended to…