With the current enviroment, has it been noticed that Manufacturing is suffering even though the economy is apparently booming.

Is this leading to a slow down on the investment of IT. Being in the consultancy business, there has been a noticed slowdown in the amount of work around.

Is this due to the slow down in spending due to the excessive spend of the 'Millenium bug' or is it just down to the lack of possible requirements.

I would be interested in hearing peoples views on this subject.

I always thought that the old and classic economic stronghold of the manufacturing business has been giving way to a booming service business. I think world-wide economies are shifting from 'industry'-based to 'service'-based, although you do wonder where all these tangible goods are coming from

For myself I have not detected any slowdown in work, on the contrary. But then again, I am not a consultant who constantly has to look for new deals.

True, there is a more service orientated enviroment today. But that only appears to have thinned the waters. As with any form of industry, with more than enough to fill the needs, everyone can be happy. But there has been an influx in the marketplace of people offering Baan services and in the past, there has been the work. Now there appears to be a slowing down of investment into the IT industry (which appears to be the easiest way for business to thin out the amount of money spent on the company as a whole)

This in turn leads to a race for the work. I suppose its just my way of saying that when you get that call, its just some guy doing just what you are doing, his job.... So try to be nice.... :)

It was just that during a conversation, I raised the issue that there was less spend due to the amount of money used to 'save' us from the Y2K problem and now was the time that managers and accounts are reminding the IT guys how much they got to spend. As with most things, the mention of the sales guys cars and home offices don't get a look in, and for god sake, don't bring up the business of the new machine put into the shop floor. Its more about the amount that was spent on the Y2K and nothing happened. Its viewed as though, because nothing happened it was a waste of time and effort (I know, I was a IT guy at the time and after working solidly for 6 months to make sure everything was sorted, I was greeted with the phrase 'See I told you nothing would happen' by the factory manager on the first day back, of course that was the first day back for him, I'd been in work for 2 days checking everything was still working,... still you can't get perfection by accident)

So with that, it appears that many IT guys don't have the spending power that they once had and it appears the IT budget is one of the first things to go, is that currently the case?

I definatively agree where the money cuts are concerned. Y2K had and still has a backlash on money IT budgets. I wonder actually how companies are not completely 'rolled over' by the EURO conversion. All the Y2K money that was allocated which was in vain, whilst EURO conversions are a real thing for most EC countries and a real nightmare too.

And about that call: I am always nice ;)

Of course, that stands as a good point. As the EURO gets nearer to being the currency for business, more people have to update thier systems to run the EURO system.

Having worked on a few EURO projects so far, this is not an easy job and should not be done by your average finance bod. But with less money in the kitty to pay for the work required, time will eventually run out on the projects. You then have to weigh up the options, complete all the other tiny things require or talk your finance department into funding its own development and implementation into EURO. And do you want your finance department running that?

The technical bias that hinders this site strikes again.

You appear to have an issue with finance people running a project that has its major impact in the finance area. Projects succeed when its big players take the lead.

IT people, (including myself now, although not Technical) are there for support and technical guidance and not for project control or direction.

IT lead projects always struggle to get the buy in from the rest of the business, it is only a support function of business and not the business itself.

We need to remind ourselves this sometimes.

Hi abennett,

Some comments:

The idea of this site is to help and serve all Baan people, not just the techies. If there is a larger amount of technical issues raised, it may be due to the fact that technical people take a greater interest or more quickly resort to an online community - like Baanboard - for answers. But this shouldn't stop anyone - technical or not - from participating.

Secondly, about the project crontrol and drive. I think all parties should be involved. Any project where only one 'arm of the body' is involved is doomed to end in nowhere land. Finance people need technical input for project content and technical people need finance people for project control and guidance. Hand-in-hand is best I'd say!

Hi:

I agree with Patrick, that´s the only way to work. But we have to elarge this concept to hand-in-hand-in-hand with the client to.
Sometime you don´t have any problem with the BaaN Solution, but for your client the things don´t work.
For instance in the intercompany invoicing in BaaN Multi-site, i have mencioned in an other thread, the fact that you have to plan taxes provision....

No problem for BaaN, but sometime a big problem for a large company.



Bien le bonjour
Marcel

I would also second Pat's opinions. This site is not "techie" biased, it is simply that there have been more technical posts. I'm sure that over the coming weeks/months more distribution/manufacturing/finance people will make their voices heard. :)

As to project management & drive I also believe that this has to be "owned" by the business in general with involvement from all areas. IT spend may indeed be signifigant but a sucessful implementaion will rely on a concentrated team effort on the part of the business and consultants / implementaion partner.

I obviously did not express my point very well.

The particular commenth that I took exception to was

"And do you want your finance department running that?" in reference to a Euro conversion project.

My answer to that is Yes, with SUPPORT from IT, but certainly not led by IT. I obviously upset all you techies out there, but WE need to understand our roles in life is to support business not run it. Although not a techie, I class myself as IT, and I understand my role in life is to support business - I think more people who work in IT need to do the same.

I agree that more techies use the boards than functional people. And some of these techies are have very good functional skills. But still the projects should be worked as a team.

As far as the original statements about a slow down in manufacturing - I am not seeing that here in the US. Our workload has been steady with increases the next couple of years. What I have seen around here is a collapse of the dotcoms and a flood of IT people hitting the market. With this flood of IT people I have heard that some companies are now hiring full time employees rather than using consultants. Since I am not a consultant I am not sure about this.


Mark