Supply chain management: More ways to cut costs on technology

For Modern’s August cover story, I took at look at something we called affordable innovation. The idea was simple: What are materials and information handling companies doing to put the price of innovation in reach of today’s slashed budgets.

Since then, I’ve been keeping my eye out for other examples. NetSuite, for instance, came up with a twist on the Cash For Clunkers idea, offering a discount for customers who turned in their old servers. 

More recently, I’ve come across two other ideas from software providers I thought I’d share.

The first is Infor Flex, a program from ERP provider Infor (No. 7 on Modern’s Top 20 Supply Chain Software Providers for 2009) that is designed to give Infor’s existing customers a clear, fast and cost effective path to adopt new technology. The company is providing a package of software, services and financing that allows customers to minimize license and transaction fees to upgrade or exchange applications, as well as fast reduced-fee implementation methodologies.

The second comes from SAP (No. 1 on Modern’s Top 20 Supply Chain Software Providers for 2009 and 2008). The world’s largest ERP provider is offering a fast-track implementation service geared for customers in the apparel and footwear, retail and wholesale distribution industries. A service that’s bundled with a customer’s software license agreement, SAP says it can reduce implementation times by 30 to 40% and the overall cost of implementation by 20 to 30%.

Let me know if you company is offering any deals to keep your customers coming back or make your solutions more affordable for new customers.