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by Jeff Moad, MA Editorial Staff   | Abstract: | Using enterprise manufacturing and business software may not be as easy as eating a forkful of your favorite pie, but vendors of these products have recognized that they must improve not only user interfaces but the entire user experience if they are to expand involvement with their systems. |
George Stelling has a dream. Stelling, the chief information officer at graphics semiconductor maker Nvidia Corp., wants to enable just about everyone at the $3 billion company to become a confident and productive user of the company's increasingly strategic SAP ERP system. Stelling's goal — which he has identified to his organization as a key objective for 2007 — is not surprising. Like many manufacturers, Nvidia has spent the past few years investing heavily in the ERP platform by expanding its footprint inside the company to encompass supply chain management, supplier relationship management, customer relationship management, business intelligence, and human resources management, as well as traditional finance and materials management functions. It's gotten to the point, Nvidia officials say, that 70% of tasks and decisions at the Santa Clara, CA, company rely on information and transactions managed by the SAP system. The problem is that while the ERP system has become more pervasive and important, a large percentage of Nvidia's employees would rather eat worms than log onto SAP for even the simplest task. Why? "Accessing data is just not that easy," says Mouctar Diallo, Nvidia's senior director for IT architecture and development. "The look and feel isn't intuitive, and it takes too many clicks to find what you are looking for. Many people hate using it." [Click to continue] |