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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike 2.0 who wrote (6101)	2/24/1999 11:42:00 PM
From: Shane M	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78497

Mike, Y2K was a driver earlier, but it's getting late in the game to begin an implementation. Recent slower results from the majority of ERP players (PSFT, BAANF, and even SAP facing some difficulty) are attributable - at least partially - to Y2K. ORCL is bucking the negative trend, here, but it's one of the few. Future ERP growth will likely be slower (most companies admit this now), and this is working its way into stock valuations in the sector now. With SAP, I don't think their stock price fully reflects the slower growth prospects going forward - that's why I'm waiting to buy. Return on Investment from big ERP implementations is not what many companies were expecting so they're turning to other solutions with demonstrable returns. ITWO is one that I like in this vein if you're interested, but this is not the land of value stocks. Shane

To: Mike 2.0 who wrote (6101)	2/25/1999 5:39:00 PM
From: Allen Furlan	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 78497

Re: ERP systems. This is a far out question,but how would you evaluate a company's probable success in installing such systems? Specifically do you think it is possible to ferret out useful information from a company's IR director? Real life example. Nash Finch(NAFC) just pulled the plug on 38 million in development costs and essentially said the systems were useless. NAFC was a value play for me, a company with 240 consecutive monthly dividends, solid midwest company in the food distribution business. I was delighted two years ago when they announced that they were finally going to develop an improved system. Last year they announced a delay in completing their development because they had to concentrate on year 2K problems. That is when I said Oh OH and dumped the stock that I had held for 4 years. In the past month they dropped the bombshell about massive restructuring writeoffs including the never implemented system. Now this is a solid company with new management and I believe it fits the description of a value play. But the problem is I have no way to know if they are capable of developing strategies to implement systems which are absolutely critical to their industry, a la walmart. Any ideas?