Blog

Whether you embrace new and existing technologies whole-heartedly or with a sense of dread, the need for reliable IT support simply comes with the territory. For some manufacturing and distribution companies, the question then boils down to the type of support you need: in-house staff or remote, outsourced services?

Historically, the decision-making process for SMBs was more difficult, more carefully weighed. That’s been especially true for small firms who have had a hard time making the mental leap from handling everything in-house to having it managed remotely. But today, more companies seem to be accepting the notion that remote managed services are today’s new norm. Here are three significant factors behind this shift—and why they bring about good news for manufacturers.

1 – More Complex, Global IT Environments

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Guest blog by Jonathan Kall, CEO, Vecco International

So you’ve just learned that there’s good news… and there’s bad news. First, the good news: your sales for a specialty item manufactured in-house are through the roof. In fact, they’re way over forecast.  

Now, the bad news. You’re short on production orders. And raw materials. And coordinating your global supply chain in a timely manner to meet your customers’ needs feels like an even taller order. 

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Guest blog by John Hamel, Principal, TurningPoint Systems

Prolonged downtime is every manufacturing firm’s nightmare. Even companies running the highly-reliable IBM i OS recognize they need some sort of disaster recovery plan in place to protect their business from major disruptions. 

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This article has been updated after original publication in 2016.

It’s been close to three decades since IBM launched the AS/400, and in the technology industry, that may just feel like an eternity. But for people wondering about the marketplace for the AS/400’s progenies (Power i and IBM i) — and where things are headed in the future — there’s good news: there are plenty of signs that serve as reminders that IBM ensures this platform truly is built to last, and here to stay.  

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A friend of mine, Rob, has been complaining for years that corporations have not been making capital expenditures. Rob has a forklift resale business, and by his measure, this has been the slowest economic recovery ever from a recession. Rob’s not alone, either. Many would agree that the past few years have marked a definite collapse in long-term business investments. 

However, in recent months, both Rob and I have noticed an uptick in capital expenditures. At first, we figured it may be a momentary blip. But we’ve found more and more signs that this may truly part of a larger trend. Only time will tell to be sure — but in the meantime, here’s a look at some of the evidence to suggest that the tides are turning on capital spending. 

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After a recent announcement, the word is slowly rippling through the IBM user community: IBM will be discontinuing support for IBM i 7.1 on April 30, 2018.  

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Cloud technology is now so prominently established that it seems as if it’s been around forever. But it wasn’t too long ago that its adoption was characterized by a cautious wait-and-see attitude, rife with perceived risks and unknowns.

Today, along with the development of so much new functionality in the cloud, there’s been a dramatic shift in thinking for most organizations — and that’s essentially changed the way manufacturing companies can approach the concept of “best of breed.”

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So much has changed in the past decade with enterprise software. As enterprise software vendors strive to keep pace with current trends and technological developments, they are adding new features and functionality that reflect the evolving business needs of manufacturing organizations everywhere. Following is a short list of the ERP trends that we expect will continue throughout 2017.

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If disaster strikes, how quickly can your business get up and running again? IBM Power Systems running the IBM i operating system (OS) have a solid reputation for uptime of nearly 100 percent. While this is good news for many organizations running the IBM i OS, it can also be dangerous when it leads to complacency. Having the right disaster recovery plan — one that ensures your mission-critical applications are available, no matter what — is as critical as your applications themselves. That may be why High Availability (HA) solutions are growing in popularity. Here, we’ll take a quick look what recent trends tell us about HA solutions —  and what they add to your disaster recovery plan that you may not already have. 

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For major projects like an IBM i system upgrade, most companies will readily recognize the need for specialized, outsourced services. In many cases, this means seeking out a traditional managed service provider (MSP) to handle the system essentials – from performing the upgrade, to troubleshooting system problems, to ensuring stable OS performance. For the same project, that same company may also need application expertise and support — in other words, an additional resource to perform the application upgrades that are required to stay compatible with the upgraded OS.  

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