Business Management Software

• SCM stands for supply chain management. This is what you use to manage your inventory. The SCM should help you control how the goods get to you, how you store them and/or turn them into your product, and how you get the finished goods to customers. This part of the business management software will help you deal with suppliers, manufacturers, your retail stores, wholesalers, warehouses, distributors and other steps that wind all the way down to your end user or customer.
• PRM signifies partner relationship management. This term is used to describe a business strategy whereby a company works very closely with vendors and other business partners to increase supply chain efficiency.
• ROI is return on investment. This is a mathematical equation that helps companies determine if they should make an investment, or what the return on an investment has been. This equation estimates the financial benefit of spending (or spent) money.
• SME indicates small to medium enterprises. These initials are used to indicate all small to midsized businesses that will generate less than $100 million per year.
• SSL is used to describe the secure sockets layer. This data format was developed by Netscape. It is used to transmit private documents over the internet.
• TCO or total cost of ownership is a monetary equation used to figure the total amount of a system. This would include the cost to implement and maintain the system over its entire life. When utilized within the computer industry, the costs might include annual support fees, hardware and software upgrades, hardware repairs, and training. It might also include hiring a person or two to manage the equipment and training for you.
• VPN is a Virtual Private Network. This is how users would connect to a private network or an ISP, remotely. In other words, at work you may have dedicated access to your business database, but while you are at home there is a way for you to log-in remotely and access the work database. This would be accomplished by using a VPN. Utilizing a VPN establishes a secure connection.
• WAN stands for Wide Area Network. This is a data or data and voice network that connects separate locations. Often a business will be able to utilize a company dialing plan over the WAN. This means that you could dial, say four digits, to reach locations in other cities or states. Besides tying the voice systems together, it also allows the data network to be connected.
• XML or Extensible Markup Language is a language used to author or build websites or applications used on the web. It is used to design the appearance of and signify the relationship between data. There is speculation that one day XML will replace HTML as the standard language used on Web applications.
• Bandwidth is used to describe the amount of data that can be transmitted during a specified amount of time. Usually the time is expressed in seconds, for instance - kilobits per second. This term is normally used to refer to the transmission speed over dedicated circuits, networks, or dialup phone lines.
• Best of Breed is used to describe the best is a defined category.
• Database Replication is a process that allows multiple copies of the same database to be distributed across several servers on a network. This is often done for backup or disaster recovery purposes. It can also be used to speed up processing.
• Data Mining is a term used to describe the practice of extracting information from a data warehouse. This is done to analyze relationships or trends.

Summary