CODA2go almost ready to go
April 30, 2008
Yesterday I got a sneak preview of CODA2go, CODA’s on-demand solution that builds onto Salesforce.com’s force.com platform. It’s impressive. I’ve written a good amount of detail here but my take for this blog is somewhat different.
A bit of history - I’ve known CODA for more years than both of us care to remember. They pioneered the highly scalable world class, single ledger financial accounting system. While they’ve been through a few owners’ hands in the last 10 years, they’ve come out smiling and stronger. In Jeremy Roche, the company has a strong leader, always necessary for companies going through transition. They’re able to take all that experience and apply it to the new platform.
Anyone who has not seen business process deisgned into an application system will get something of a shock when they look at CODA2go. You don’t naturally enter through a ledger but into a process. In this case sales order to cash. CODA is picking up the accounting end of the process from the order point onwards. In other words it’s handling the transaction elements.
Since it is built on the force.com platform, there’s a lot of ’stuff’ CODA doesn’t have to do that other vendors would need to build. This means it’s cost to getting the service out to market is relatively low and has allowed them to develop in an incredibly quick time frame. It also means that the incidence of bugs should be much lower than a traditional Version 1.0 product. This is not a half baked solution. It’s the real deal, including the kind of reporting with which professionals will be familiar for both sales and the general ledger.
Just as important, CODA is going to build in support for its Excel products which already provide fine graimed control for reporting.
You really have to look at CODA2go in action to get a feel for what the service can deliver and to that end, they are offering free 30 days trials. That may seem odd when thinking about enterprise class software but it’s in keeping with the Salesforce.com method of going to market. It also means that professionals considering this approach can run some quick tests to get a feel for what they need to do.
I will be following this story very closely because for me, CODA is showing us a new way of business computing that holds the promise of low cost, easy to use, manage and control software. We’ve been craving it for years and this may just be the first iteration. I’m excited.
Once CODA has this bedded down, they plan on moving to purchase ledger. That will be a harder nut to crack because Salesforce.com is only handling one side of the overall transaction. However, if (or when) Salesforce.com understands the notion of vendor relationship management - which is really the flip side of CRM, then it will be onto something interesting.
Disclosure: CODA isa sponsor for this site. That doesn’t guarantee I’ll be nice to them.
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[...] There are techniques SAP could employ that would make life relatively easy. You only have to see how quickly CODA has managed to get out the gate with CODA2go to understand this. However, whether SAP has the appetite to embark on what for it [...]
[...] include some great pieces by well-known industry bloggers Dennis Howlett (here and here) and and Phil Wainwright, who penned an fairly meaty analysis of the financial implications of [...]