beyond438

It’s easier to do business in Saudi Arabia than in South Africa

Posted by on Feb 15, 2008 in Business, South Africa | 0 comments

The World Bank has very interesting indicators regarding doing business in different countries. Use this interactive Google Map to slice and dice indicators like Starting a Business, Taxes, Dealing with licenses and much more.The top ten countries according to the World Bank regarding “Ease of Doing Business Rank” are:

  1. Singapore
  2. New Zealand
  3. US
  4. Hong Kong
  5. Denmark
  6. UK
  7. Canada
  8. Ireland
  9. Australia
  10. Iceland

…and South Africa is ranked 35 behind Saudi Arabia at number 23.Update 2/20/2008: I also found the World Economic Forum‘s Global Competiveness Report for 2007-2008. On this list South Africa is #44 and Saudi Arabia is number 35.What’s your view on this?

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100 Ways to Succeed and Make Money

Posted by on Feb 8, 2008 in Business, Entrepreneurship, Leadership | 0 comments

Tom Peters is always interesting and unconventional. I found his 100 ways to succeed and make money and interesting read. It’s similar to Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” .Here are some of my favorites:

  • Number #3: Write thank you notes.
  • Number #4: Make the difficult call NOW!
  • Number #6: Make today count — legacy. Similar to my principle of making each moment count.
  • Number #14: Read (and act on) these 3 books. You’ll have to read the manifesto to find out.
  • Number #17: He/She who has the Best Story wins!
  • Number #23: Design means you.
  • Number #29: Get the story! – everyone is important and has a story.
  • Number #33: Out-read ’em.
  • Number #47: Just drill – drill more wells than the next guy.

This is from the first 50 found on ChangeThis.com. I’ll list my favorites from the rest next…

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Global South Africans project

Posted by on Jan 24, 2008 in Entrepreneurship, South Africa | 0 comments

The Global South Africans (GSA) project recently launched their website. Quoted from the Welcome page:

GSA is a growing network of talented and successful South Africans who live abroad but still feel deeply attached to the country and want to contribute to the country’s growth and success.The initiative is being spearheaded by the International Marketing Council of South Africa, a public-private partnership dedicated to increasing global support for South Africa’s young democracy and for the continent of which South Africa is a part.There is a supply and a demand side to the GSA project. On the supply side, the idea is to empower network members to contribute in ways that suit their talents and desired level of engagement. On the demand side, we are marketing GSA as resource to South Africans who could benefit from the extraordinary range knowledge and connections the network represents.In coming months, we will be launching a more formal website. In the interim, we will use this blog to talk about how things are progressing, stimulate discussion and linkages and, we hope, generate a growing list of network contributions.A word about that word contributions. GSA isn’t about passing the tin cup. As we hope this blog will elucidate, it’s about knowledge transfer.

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SAP HCM Consulting companies

Posted by on Jan 17, 2008 in HCM, SAP | 8 comments

I’ve had numerous requests from business partners for a comprehensive list of SAP HCM consulting companies in the USA. My aim in this post is to give you a comprehensive list — let me know if I missed one.Pure-play SAP HCM companies:

  • EPI-USE: EPI-USE America, based in Atlanta, GA, is my former employer and one of the best SAP HCM consulting companies in the world (ok, my bias). Magnisol represents EPI-USE in Europe. EPI-USE has offices in South Africa (the parent company), Mexico, the UK, and Australia. EPI-USE has some world class complimentary SAP HCM products.
  • Symphony Consulting: Symphony is based in Charlotte, NC and partners with Ariston Consulting to implement full SAP ERP projects. They recently became an SAP Public Services partner.
  • AspireHR: Formerly ERP Solutions is based in Dallas, TX. They provide SAP HCM services and they’ve developed a number of interesting products. I assume AspireHR of the UK is not a related entity. They seem to have a strong relationship with SAP’s development group in Palo Alto.
  • Exaserv: A number of former Arinso employees started Exaserv a couple of years ago. They are based in Atlanta, GA with offices in Luwembourg, Dallas, and Walldorf Germany. They have unique products for HIPPA and Pension plans.
  • Insight Consulting: Insight is based Cincinnati, OH and Insight’s managing partner is on the HR Expert advisory board.
  • Emeritis: Emeritis has operations in the US, Belguim, Thailand, and Brazil. They claim over 200 SAP HR implementations. I don’t think that they have a strong presence in the US anymore.
  • Arinso: Arinso is one of the first and the largest SAP HCM consulting company in the world. Last year Arinso was acquired by UK-based Northgate. Arinso US is based in Atlanta, GA and has 25 offices around the world. In 2006 Arinso acquired OpenHR.
  • Worklogix: Worklogix is a niche SAP HCM consultancy. They are based in Texas, New York and Canada. Their strength is SAP Performance Management. They wrote the book!

Some full service SAP ERP consulting companies have a significant SAP HCM practice. These include:

And then the big boys:

Did I miss one or more? — let me know…Update July 1, 2008: Yes, I did… ROC.Update August 25, 2008: Axon will soon be part of HCL.Update May 1, 2009: ROC Acquires Towers Perrin SAP HCM Practice in North America.

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tumblr – My tumblelog http://beyond438.tumblr.com/

Posted by on Jan 9, 2008 in Blogging, Technology | 0 comments

I’m using tumblr.com to blog about interesting web items. These are typically a link with one or two sentences of text. Do you have a tumblelog? How do you use it?

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