s three stories. One spent half a million dollars on a $200,000 project. One spent all their budget and completely failed and one Project Leader lost his job betting on a big name.
.BREAKING NEWS - In this week’s episode of the ERPodcast, we examine a QuickBooks system that ultimately cost the State Department $657-thousand dollars. We’re reporting on a source document - a May 1 Department Of Justice Press Release, and additional reporting - links are attached below.Upfront Summary – many accounting teams choose QuickBooks, but lack of security features are an incredible risk, plus the unseen costs mean QuickBooks is ultimately more expensive than entry-level ERP software – examples to follow.So QuickBooks cost the US State Department $657-thousand dollars. And wait, you’re saying, QuickBooks software was available at Costco for like $300 just a year or two ago –QuickBooks is now mostly deployed Online, and the licensing price is around $120 a month, plus users.That’s the price.But Then there’s the Cost!Two different things. We talk about it today. I’m Gene Hammons, Founder and Managing Director of an ERP Consulting team called ProfitFromERP.Here’s the newsWe first started tracking this story after Fox News Evening Anchor Elizabeth MacDonald broke a Sunday a week ago about a US State Department Budget Analyst who embezzled over $657-thousand dollars in a two-year period. We confirmed the reporting through a half dozen sources, including the source document, a DOJ Press release - links below.According to all the reports, Senior Budget Analyst Levita Ferrer, pled guilty and admitted writing 63 checks to herself over a two year period March of 2022 to April of 2024. The checks totaled $657-thousand, three hundred fourty seven dollars and fifty cents.She did it with signature authority and standard access on the QuickBooks system used to issue State Department checks.Her particular M.O. was reported as her writing checks to herself, depositing them in her account, then going back into QuickBooks and changing the payee name on the check screen – deleting her name in this case – changing that to one of the State Departments’ regular vendors. And who would be the wiser. Hey – it’s another check paid to our regular vendors. It worked, for over 2 years.QuickBooks has long been known for allowing users to simply edit information. It’s built in as a feature, making it easy to use. No adjusting entries. Just highlight, delete, revise, change, - no audit trail, go wild. Apparently, Levita did.As we hear in the news these days, Government spending is wide open, oversight is lax, and everyone is playing very loose with government funds. According to Capital Hill News, there’s over 2,000 QuickBooks instances in use across different departments of the federal government. 2,000 situations where users can simply delete information they don’t want anyone to see. 2,000 situations where you can’t segregate duties what financial analysts can access – everybody has access to everything.But why would anybody use a QuickBooks system where fraud and deleting evidence is so easy?The truth is, millions of US small to midsized companies use QuickBooks because of it’s low purchase price, but they don’t realize the true cost. This isn’t the first ERPodcast to highlight some of the risks of Quickbooks, we’ve been talking about it for years.See, it can be a rational decision to pick Quickbooks, easy, simple, dirt cheap. ERP software starts at 50K, then there are implementation services, consultants charging $250 an hour.And we’ve seen some really stellar CFO’s say all they need is QuickBooks and spreadsheets, or Power BI or other outside tools to run a $50m corporation. And they’re right. They can make it workBut the reality is, while there’s prices you can see, there are hidden costs to QuickBooks. A lot of hidden costs.In this case, it cost $657k. But that’s only ONE of the costs.When your software can’t run a P&L (a profit and loss report) on each of your customers, you know you make money at the end of the month,
It's not another Top Ten ERP list, not a Top Five, not a shootout or comparison, but the Best ERP for Your Business.
E31 SuiteWorld 2023TimestampSubject5:36Sponsored by Acura MDX15:45Apple Never Introduced a Category Killer20:15NetSuite Keynote Coverage22:43The Hype that is AI26:01:00Suite Up31:30:00NetSuite New Releases35:08:00AI Becomes Real38:00:00Peak Outliers in ERP Marketing42:00:00Importance of ERP DevelopmentLinks of noteKeynote SuiteWorld 2023 Evan Goldberg, CEODetails on New NetSuite offerings, Gary Wiessinger's KeynoteGlobal Smartphone Market SharePFE Open/PFE MFX up and UnderOctober 2023. NetSuite is hosting SuiteWorld, the annual gathering of users, partners, developers, consultants, and anyone else affiliated with the NetSuite universe.It’s been a busy year in ERP in general, NetSuite in particular. There are now over 37,000 companies running on NetSuite – phenomenal growth. Around 2019? They had just broken the 18,000 companies on NetSuite mark – so the user community has doubled in 4 years, or 3 years plus a Covid timeout.Anyway – SuiteWorld attendance is critically important for top performing NetSuite-using Companies. Even more important for companies not yet using NetSuite.Why is that you ask? Why would you go to a users conference if you’re not a user. Here’s the story. New to ERP, clients are looking at ERP, considering which ones to select. User conferences in general are a great idea. I mean, everyone wants references – demos are really great, but not great reality. You want to see real-life examples. Well, there’s about 3,000 users at NetSuite you could talk to.Does NetSuite really work as advertised? You’re going to see lots of companies, who, at one time were exactly where you are. How does this work? And the answer is two-fold – it doesn’t work like you think it would, and two, if you follow the process, just like these 3,000 folks did, you too will get there.Is it worth it? The majority of the folks at SuiteWorld will tell you they wished they’d started sooner. The rest got into NetSuite as a startup – mostly because they’d used it at a former employer already.Another critical thing we’ve learned from past clients. About a third of ERP failures can be attributed to implementation fatigue – and we’re talking the entire system up and running but features they expected and wanted, well, doesn’t really work. Truth is, It gets hard at the very end of an implementation and it’s been a long haul to get there, and the internal team often quits at the 5 yard line – says something like ‘well, the software really doesn’t work like it did in the demos’. When the issue is, yes, it does work, but not the way YOU’RE trying to do it. So having the opportunity to actually see the intended functionality working for other companies – your internal team will realize that yes, we can do this if they did it – there is a way. And they take the ball from the 5 and push it over the goal line.If you’re already running NetSuite, then it’s even more important to get to SuiteWorld.You’ll find out first-hand all about the new developments being released this year. Even get a chance to see demonstrations and some hands-on labs working with new features.Plus there’s the best-in-class Presentations. Other companies who use NetSuite, who have seen tremendous results, telling you exactly how they did it. You can ask them questions, take notes, get handouts, follow up with the product leaders from NetSuite – why they designed it that way, how it works best.Then there’s everything else. All the affiliated software products, apps, programs, platforms, portals – everything that works with and around NetSuite. Might not be something you’re doing this year, but you learn about it and next year, when Management tells you your department needs to...
E30 CFO Leadership Conference West 2023 E30 CFO Leadership Conference West 2023ERPodcast Episode 30.2Intro MFXThis week in ERP….(or at least my week in ERP)Hey Folks – Gene Hammons, Director of ProfitFromERP with Episode 30 of the ERPodcast…Interesting week however you look at it - locally, here in AZ, Tempe to be specific, the CFO Leadership Council held CFO Leadership Conference West 2023 - thanks to my friends at Oracle NetSuite and Avalera (the tax guys) they were able to sneak me into the Networking Event held poolside at one of the local mountainside Marriott Resorts. And fortunately, fall came to the desert three days prior to the event and it was a great evening under the stars. A week earlier and it would have been 103 degrees with the smell of roasted CFO’s wafting across the desert.Got to talk to a lot of different CFO’s from lots of different companies all across the country. I’d say attendance was in the 200-400 range, but that’s a guess on my part. A lot of the sessions were on technology for finance, using automation in driving better data and how data driven organizations had clearer and faster reads on how their specific company was performing in a wildly fluctuating market. It goes without saying that we’re dealing with challenging market conditions these days. Makes me wonder if it goes without saying, why do I keep saying it.We’re beginning to see real functionality with AI in finance software – more on that next week – Many CFO’s report their staff spending more time on accuracy than analysis, and the focus here was using automation to drive the accuracy, AI to report anomalies and staff can concentrate on analysis to provide real service to the rest of the organization.Many of the CFO’s were with companies already using NetSuite - and the new numbers are out, NetSuite is now over 37,000 companies using the Suite. I remember 2019, not that long ago, when they were ecstatic at breaking the 18,000 companies mark. The conventional wisdom at the time was NetSuite had seen 30% growth year after year but driving 30% increases of a 10k customer base is a lot easier to achieve than pulling off 30% growth on a base of 18,000 customers - so surely there was a ceiling coming soon. Execpt it didn’t….and here’s a few reasons whyThe Oracle Boost – I don’t know if you know the NetSuite history, initially, Larry Ellison Oracle Founder and CEO, provided once Oracle employee now NetSuite Founder CEO Evan Goldberg with initial funding to start a cloud based business software – so Larry owned a good deal of the stock in NetSuite. Oracle, for reasons we’ll cover other places, wasn’t a big player in cloud technology, but as NetSuite grew, Oracle could shortcut it’s way into cloud technology by acquiring NetSuite – which turned out to be really great in many areas.Going Global2019 I also was at a NetSuite Suite Success Training in Denver . We heard that Oracle, was driving huge development dollars into the NetSuite platform. I first saw NetSuite really take off in our customer base around 2014, back then, NetSuite was a US market product.As I met my fellow Suite Success team members in Denver, I met other students from Japan, Indonesia, Australia, Ireland, London, Paris, Germany, Thailand-I think, India, Sri Lanka - and that’s the ones I remember. That kind of illustrated the global impact NetSuite was starting to have in foreign ERP providers and global markets with Oracle-backed development rolling out NetSuite versions specific to other countries, localized to tax and legal issues of those particular markets - that was part of the new development Oracle was providing - driving new markets globally, so NetSuite could replicate the tremendous success they’ve had stateside and start serving a worldwide market. And that’s just some of the huge expansion of NetSuite capabilities and functionalitesActually that turned out to be pretty fortuitous on my part The ERPodcast,
ERPodcast Episode 29 The Perfect Time for ERP
MFX/Intro
Welcome to the ERPodcast Episode #29 – The Perfect Time for ERP – that’s the title and theme of today’s examination of just that - when should a growing company undertake an ERP project?
And it’s not a simple question. Any ERP project is massive, whether you’re a $12m annual revenue company going from Quickbooks to Sage Intacct or a $200m company replacing DynamicsGP with a new cloud-based ERP.
ERP is an intensive project, needs a ‘all hands on deck’ approach and the stakes are high. There’s legendary stories of Hershey’s Chocolate almost losing the company when a failed SAP effort meant they couldn’t ship product in the middle of the peak Halloween to Christmas season – not good – and there’s also scores of those types of stories from lesser known and more private companies.
So when is, The Perfect Time for ERP?
We’ll talk about 3 real world examples of recent ProfitFromERP clients and the drivers behind those examples.
There’s also a world of opinion in the world of startups – do you do the ERP project Pre-IPO to show potential investors solid financial controls and operational efficiency? Do you wait until the next round of funding to be able to afford the higher end ERP’s with related SEC reporting tools to make sure of compliance needed by a public company?
Then there’s the staffing balance – we’ll have more people on board next year so we can spread the ERP implementation workload across more resources….but if we had ERP already installed we’d need to hire fewer people for the same size operation.
Here’s the conundrum – most of us don’t hire for excess capacity. It’s more like we’re not really sure of the data, it’s coming from disparate spreadsheets, running late, last minute– but the staff is working overtime and Saturdays – if we just had one more person to chase down the data… which is a good solution, but by definition, a growing company continues to grow and we keep adding one more person just to keep up, pretty soon there’s 22 desks in the business office and we’re looking for more space because everyone’s working overtime and Saturdays.
Putting things off til some magical ‘some day’ only gets us from complexity to mass complexity.
Then one day we wake up and we realize ‘WOW - it would have been a lot easier to implement ERP when the business was simpler and we could have managed growth in a lot more systematic method’. Plus, instead of rolling out training to 50 people all at once, we comprehensively train the first 10 and teach each onboarding employee the exact steps using the new software specifically for their job duties. And maybe even start hiring people who’ve already been using the same ERP we just implemented.
So what’s The Perfect Time for ERP? Let’s look at some real-world examples. Stories of companies that took a leap at different stages and how that all turned out. I’m your host, Gene Hammons, Director of ProfitFromERP, our business consulting firm helping clients actually create Profit, From their ERP projects. Right back after this!
Stinger out.
Hey – a word about sponsors. Putting together the ERPodcast is a labor of love, it’s often our first introduction to new clients, we also think it’s about giving back to the community, sharing stories of real world ERP projects, how the market works, things we’ve experienced over the years and so on. .
As long as there are still ERP projects that fail or have huge cost overruns or don’t do what the demo looked like it did – as long as there’s a bad project out there, we’ll keep pushing out the know-how to avoid those situations
But – running a growing company ProfitFromERP – just like any other emerging company, there’s a lot to do. Time is critical.
And if we’re going to allocate the time to the ERPodcast – well, we need to do it as more than a net loss leader – so we have sponsors.
The easiest way to get podcast sponsors for a podcast...
It's Crazy Out There! We can't control the outside world, but as Uncertainty reigns externally, Business Equilibrium results when we create better data certainty within our businesses. See how other leading companies have managed the raging seas of uncertainty in the boat of Cloud ERP
ERPodcast - Ranked #3 in Top 15 ERP Podcasts!
Recently - Feedspot.com a digital content aggregator assymbled a Top 15 ERP podcasts list - and the ERPodcast came in at #3 - Unfortunately, we dropped in the recent rankings and today's episode contains the original recording we posted on LinkedIn when the original rankings came out - apologies for any confusion!
About today's ERPodcast
MIsaligned incentives - budget shortfalls - tight implementation timelines - How do you conquer the most common pitfalls leading to a failed ERP implementation? The ProfitFromERP methodology bakes in best practices so you end up watching company goals and, like we say, ProfitFromERP, our clients make ERP PAY!
E28c ERPodcast - Certainty in an Uncertain World MFX up and under (but louder than last time) It’s the ERPodcast Episode 28 – The official podcast of ProfitFromERP.com and I’m the Director, Gene Hammons, Over the past 18 months, we’ve helped about a dozen companies get through challenges we never thought any of us would face. If you’ve listened to earlier ERPodcast Episodes, you know what a huge advantage digital companies had dealing with a world gone virtual. The #1 Issue? Uncertainty. The country, the workforce, supply chains, inflation, is covid up or down? Opening up or locking down? - - There’s a world of uncertainty out there - - - if we’re going to maintain the right business equilibrium we need to create more certainty within the four walls of our businesses. We can’t control outside uncertainties but we can surely affect the internal workings That’s Our ability to respond. That’s response – ability – and here’s how some of our clients define business responsibility today. One big uncertainty is in today’s workforce. How do we deal with the changes, what are the technology issues that can even stop top talent from joining your firm? So let’s talk about how can technology help us get more done with the fewer people we actually do have on staff We’ll examine that. Supply Chain issues? Overseas shipments are bringing back the old phrase Slow Boat from China – which many of you didn’t even know was a phrase – tech can’t help get your boat unloaded. But we can use demand planning to anticipate shortages long before your ship is just offshore with the parts, raw materials and goods your customers are already waiting for – never mind the trucking Creating certainty in an uncertain world comes down to the Information in Information Technology – just in case you forgot what IT stood for. Is your information good enough, timely enough, informative enough? You may be running a traditional ERP system that wasn’t ever giving you the reports you need. Or you may have a great baseline ERP but operationally, there’s no accurate way to gather data. Or FP&A modeling – can you project your profit margins when gas goes to $5 a gallon? Sometimes it’s modular additions to your technology stack – Sometimes it’s a complete Digital Transformation – a total software overhaul of your company. Here’s what real world ProfitFromERP clients are doing to create certainty for savvy CFO’s and operational teams. Item One – having a hard time finding enough people? Maybe your old technology is keeping today’s workforce away - - Item Two It’s the end of JIT,
Digital Transformation What don't you know about ERP? Industry secrets, mis-aligned incentives and drivers of behavior all impact your final result - Today's ERPodcast let's you get a handle on some of the largest pitfalls threatening your project before you start.
LinkSources
ERPodcast E27
CEO/CFO Report 2021 Links
Links mentioned in today’s Episode 26 of the ERPodcast
SaaS Success Series - an online seminar series brought to you by Sage Intacct. Register for this week's sessions and find links to previous panel appearances by Gene Hammons Here ERPodcast Episode 24 and Episode 25 Is a case study on one company, Nice Link Home Furnishings, who implemented the Cloud ERP Acumatica in the middle of the pandemic – here’s the link to the ERPodcast ERP News Page.
About today's ERPodcast
MIsaligned incentives - budget shortfalls - tight implementation timelines - How do you conquer the most common pitfalls leading to a failed ERP implementation? The ProfitFromERP methodology bakes in best practices so you end up watching company goals exceeded and, like we say, ProfitFromERP, our clients make ERP PAY!
E27 – What They Don’t Tell You About ERP
(but you soon find out anyway)
MFX up and under
It’s Episode 27 of the ERPodcast, What They Don’t Tell You About ERP (but you’ll soon find out anyway). I’m your host, Gene Hammons the Director of ProfitFromERP - a business consultancy revolving around software, it’s uses and misuses – and as we like to say, Our Clients Make ERP Pay – pay for itself, pay off, pay back, break even and we even have the cash flow analysis to prove it.
But all that aside. What’s this about what they don’t tell you about ERP? Who are they? And Why are they so hush-mouthed about important ERP situations? We’ll get to that in today’s episode, what they don’t tell you, but more importantly, what’s their motivation, what’s their incentive and how are we going to shift incentives both for the software vendor, but also shift incentives for your internal team - all so that your company comes out on top in your next ERP project.
But here’s the Number One Thing they don’t tell you – most ERP projects fail. Some are small fails, like, the software wasn’t live on time. Some are big fails like, we went over budget. By double. And some are epic fails, like, this doesn’t really do what we saw in the demo. But we’re stuck. And some fails are Ed’s fault. Ed ran the selection committee that got us into this mess in the first place – he’s not here anymore so we pretty much blame it on Ed-ware instead of software. So today we’ll even tell you how to keep your job if someone walks into your office and says, “We need a new ERP system and we want you to run the project…say, your middle name isn’t Ed is it”? – all that and more – right after this word from our sponsor – It’s Episode 27 of the ERPodcast What they don’t tell you about ERP.
(break)
Endorsement – SaaS Success Series
Sage Intacct
Much has changed in the Business world over the last year - - don’t need to tell you that. While we don’t gather in large groups, conventions, presentations, business meetings – have moved online and I have to say the webinar content has improved dramatically.
I know for myself, instead of my normal speeches at various conventions, I’ve avoiding airlines, hotels, overserved networking parties and have still appeared on a few panel discussions over months past – most recently, the SaaS Success Series by Sage Intacct – which is still ongoing the week we release this podcast - but even better...
Digital Transformation 2020 saw companies who's approach to digital transformation allowed them to quickly pivot - oftentimes capturing entire markets before the competition could respond. 2021 shows an increased demand for new market technologies - we talk about who did it and how you can too.
LinkSources
ERPodcast E26
CEO/CFO Report 2021 Links
Links mentioned in today’s Episode 26 of the ERPodcast
ERPodcast Episode 24 and Episode 25 Is a case study on one company, Nice Link Home Furnishings, who implemented the Cloud ERP Acumatica in the middle of the pandemic – here’s the link to the ERPodcast ERP News Page.
Arizona Coyotes NHL Hockey
In the Wall Street Journal’s recent 2020 Review, journalist Tom Vanderbilt cites his new book, You’re Never Too Old to Become a Beginner.
Fender Play
The Software Eats World blog of Andressen Horowitz. In a recent article The CFO in Crisis Mode: Modern Times Call for New Tools
2014 Blogpost from GeneHammons.com – genesis of the Component ERP Strategy
SAP Stock Valuation loses 30B EU in Single Day From Computing
The Digital Transformation Series of ERPodcasts here.
Here We source several articles from trade papers
Controllers Council notes the trend of technological innovation in the Finance office Link.
CFODive reports there’s a trend towards a return to Zero Based Budgeting –Link.
Auditoria CFO Corner – recorded 5 minute Zoom videos featuring leading CFO’s
Item Next – Digital is OK for those guys, but won’t work for me.
Book a hair appointment
Play Golf
Keep Score with Hole 19
Track your Road Bike Mileage with Strava
Controllers Council talks about innovation in the Financial Office
Again the Wall Street Journal reports covid spawned business changes that would have taken years unfolded in months – it brought 2030 to 2020. Link.
Final example, Here comes Forbes with an article on Copart –Link.
About today's ERPodcast
The uncertainty when Covid hit in the spring of 2019 resulted in a year's long effort to find out how clients could react and survive. Studying the market winners, it was determined that many sectors were beginning to thrive almost immediately after the lockdown. Was it because they were well ahead in technology and used cloud based software to quickly pivot to new market opportunities? Or was it the most forward thinking companies tend to be more adventuresome in their approach to new technologies? The fact is, more and more companies are utilizing technology for competitive advantage and those clients naturally gravitate to firms like ProfitFromERP. Here's how 2020 advances can help your company do the same.
ERPodcast E26
CEO/CFO Report 2021 Cloud
Episode 26 of the ERPodcast –
MFX Up and Under
It’s the CEO/CFO Report 2021 - on the Top 10 Top 10 Lists for 2021. Two things – one, as you may know, when we do a CEO/CFO Report we topload the info – listen to the first 90 seconds of the podcast and you’ll be exposed to all content – with the detail to follow. Also, as a busy C-level exec, you can find links on the ProfitFromERP website to learn more. And secondly, saving you even more time, every year end and the start of every new year, you get lists - Top 10 things that happened, Top 10 Trends for the new year…– so we’ve waded through all of the year end/year start lists and pulled out the best when it comes to business, business software, business efficiency, business productivity – we read through it all so you don’t have to - the best information when it comes to ProfitFromERP.
Acumatica, The Cloud ERP Cloud ERP creates incredible opportunities for integration - with internal apps but more importantly with outside vendors and customers - Through EDI and digital connection, Nice Link was able to open sales channels with Wayfair, Costco, Overstock.com, Macy's and many others - Find out how interconnected sales channels can work for you.
Net at Work is not only an Acumatica reseller, but with experience in multi-channel distribution, warehousing, and the accounting behind it all, it's more than simply implementing software - it's implementing best practices, lean staffing functionality and cost effective operational integration, with the end result, Nice Link Business Performance - Unleashed!
About today's ERPodcast
As Covid hit the US in February, Nice Link, a furniture distributor saw order cancellations flood into the business office. Jay Carlson, President of Nice Link had projects underway to upgrade the backend software of his US based business. Quickbooks couldn’t handle the inventory, warehouses or manage the volume of digital sales orders Nice Link was anticipating. Yet, despite the uncertainty they pressed on. Acumatica, the Cloud ERP was well underway being implemented and would go live in June. Simultaneously, as the American workforce shifted from office based to home based, online furniture sales exploded. Today, we see the success that was Nice Link’s forward-thinking strategy and Acumatica’s tactical application – creating connections with retail furniture outlets, smoothing the bumps in eCommerce and handling a workload that would have necessitated an expensive staffing upsurge to manage in a manual business software setting. It’s a story of enduring Entrepreneurship. It’s a story of cloud ERP functionality. It’s a story of Net at Work’s distribution experience. It’s an American Success Story of Profit From ERP – this week on the ERPodcast
E25 – Nice Link Part Two Jay Carlson Believe it or not, it’s Episode 25 of the ERPodcast MFX up and under Today’s episode is Part Two of our conversation with Jay Carlson, President of Nice Link Home Furnishings – if you caught Episode 24 you’ll remember Nice Link implemented and launched Acumatica, the Cloud ERP in June, right in the middle of a certain pandemic you may have heard something about – and as is with all ERP, especially critical during times of market disruption, Nice Link automated, so they didn’t need so much labor and so many spreadsheets. The connected digitally with their customers, so they’re taking sales orders that someone else is paying to input instead of hiring more folks internally. They got control over 7 national warehouses with a pretty complex sales model. They expanded eCommerce, with items appearing on other eTailers websites opening new channels and new market shares. Did all this just happen by ERP magic, No – it’s hard work and you need help from implementation partners such as Nice Link’s go-to, a firm called Net At Work – who if you know ERP you’ve heard of Net At Work over the years as a leading ERP implementation partner – of course ERP is something most companies pay attention to once or maybe twice every decade – but take my word for it, Net At Work is a major player – Jay will speak about them on today’s Episode. Nice Link Home Furnishings was at the right place at the right time when home furnishings kind of took off.
Acumatica, The Cloud ERP Cloud ERP creates incredible opportunities for integration - with internal apps but more importantly with outside vendors and customers - Through EDI and digital connection, Nice Link was able to open sales channels with Wayfair, Costco, Overstock.com, Macy's and many others - Find out how interconnected sales channels can work for you.
Net at Work is not only an Acumatica reseller, but with experience in multi-channel distribution, warehousing, and the accounting behind it all, it's more than simply implementing software - it's implementing best practices, lean staffing functionality and cost effective operational integration, with the end result, Nice Link Business Performance - Unleashed!
About today's ERPodcast
As Covid hit the US in February, Nice Link, a furniture distributor saw order cancellations flood into the business office. Jay Carlson, President of Nice Link had projects underway to upgrade the backend software of his US based business. Quickbooks couldn’t handle the inventory, warehouses or manage the volume of digital sales orders Nice Link was anticipating. Yet, despite the uncertainty they pressed on. Acumatica, the Cloud ERP was well underway being implemented and would go live in June. Simultaneously, as the American workforce shifted from office based to home based, online furniture sales exploded. Today, we see the success that was Nice Link’s forward-thinking strategy and Acumatica’s tactical application – creating connections with retail furniture outlets, smoothing the bumps in eCommerce and handling a workload that would have necessitated an expensive staffing upsurge to manage in a manual business software setting. It’s a story of enduring Entrepreneurship. It’s a story of cloud ERP functionality. It’s a story of Net at Work’s distribution experience. It’s an American Success Story of Profit From ERP – this week on the ERPodcast
E24 – Nice Link Jay Calrson MFX up and under lEpisode 24 of the ERPodcast – Nice Link Home Furnishings – a distribution story of Digital Transformation in the Age of Covid… if you’ve been listening to the ERPodcast for any time, we’ve been telling stories of how resilient companies are using cloud software and digital transformation to survive, and in some cases even thrive in the covidian economy – this week, It’s Jay Carlson, President of Nice Link talking about how their business turned to Acumatica, the Cloud ERP, as well as Acumatica Partner Net At Work, - - - initially to save money - - as Jay will put it, ‘he couldn’t keep throwing labor and spreadsheets at the problem’. Later Nice Link would find entire new lines of business made possible by simple digital integrations – so it’s a real life story of taking on an ERP project at the height of covid, and having the project succeed wildly – allowing Nice Link to actually Profit From ERP – see how I slipped that one in there. This podcast is not wild claims of how ERP is an end all - but how a growing company can use ERP to better connect, to extend sales options, to process orders electronically – and go from QuickBooks and spreadsheet inventory to 7 shared warehouses nationwide with complex cross selling all integrated into the system. Then getting closer to their customers with electronic integration into Wayfair, Costco, Macy’s and others – and how when the pandemic had everyone working from home,
The Truth of ERP Cutting through Conventional Wisdom isn't hard for experienced ERP Selection Consultants - using tried and true methods instead of what 'everybody knows' can save time, money, even the project manager's job - How to reach the goal for companies looking for Profit from ERP.
ERP software comes with many different features and modules. It also comes with huge expectations, false understandings, simplifications, over-promised results and undersold concepts --- But the Truth of ERP is....
About today's ERPodcast
Episode 23 The Truth of ERP – Post Election Edition MFX Up and Under Welcome to the ERPodcast Episode 23 – the Truth of ERP and a Newsbreak – the Post-election Edition – I’m the Director of Profit From ERP Gene Hammons and your host for the ERPodcast. So – what’s up in the ERP world, well, like so much else, 2020 has changed a lot of things –
Item – Cloud Software is booming as the pressure cage of the pandemic accelerates change Item – Some things never change – listening to customers is key – even if it’s digitally collected data delivered to the managers via iPhone – companies that listen and react are booming Item – A lot of the conventional wisdom of ERP has been shown to be a lie – truth is, we’ve always run ProfitFromERP based on proven truth rather than nebulous marketing spin
So we’re going to talk about the Truth of ERP – over the past few months, I kept getting reminded about an old Winston Churchill quote – a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get it’s pants on. I thought a lot about that as it relates to the ERP world – and realized half of our ERP Consulting work is swimming upstream with the truth on our backs – truths learned the hard way – truths proven time and time again – but implementing these truths is sometimes the hardest part of a software implementation – all that and more after the break on the ERPodcast… Alliance of Excellence Software Coalition Today’s ERPodcast is brought to you by ProfitFromERP’s Alliance of Excellence Software Coalition – here’s the thing – you can’t be all things to all people so at ProfitFromERP we’ve put together an alliance of some of everyone. When it comes to ERP, you may need help going through the selection and evaluation process. Millions of dollars in profit can be on the line – even with ERP platforms costing a fraction of that – the profitability of your business for the next several years can be dramatically affected. And you may say, Gene Hammons, you’re the expert here, we want you to run this project. Great. You also may say, Gene Hammons, we need 7 people to cover 28 national locations and three countries – OK, we can do that too. We have Alliance of Excellence Partners who are some of the best, independent, non-affiliated selection consultants on the planet. Then you may decide you need NetSuite – which is fine, we have 6 different NetSuite Partner companies who handle implementations – each has a very specialized approach – so one ERP software, 6 different focuses -which if you’re in a very specialized industry can really be critical. But it’s not just NetSuite. There’s three Acumatica partners, 2 Intacct Partners, a Microsoft shop with 14 offices, Infor partners, QAD resources, Zoho, US, Canada, onshore, offshore – teams that do development – and right now, about 20 trusted third party providers when those services are needed. Folks, it all adds up to a small army of highly specialized, extremely experienced teams that we’ve worked wi...
Acumatica, The Cloud ERP One of the early made-for-cloud ERP offerings - Acumatica - has long been included in Profit From ERP client software evaluations. A favorite of consultants from it's initial release, Acumatica has matured into a more feature rich offering and is winning more and more client selection processes.
The ERPodcast welcomes a new sponsor, Net at Work, an ERP and Technology leader with over 6,000 clients since 1996. Net at Work has been a go-to resource in Profit From ERP evaluations for their leading Sage x3 practice for several years, besides Sage, they offer NetSuite, Acumatica, HRMS, CRM and eCommerce - all geared toward their tagline - Business Performance Unleashed.
About today's ERPodcast
On today’s episode, we’re get to go behind the scenes with Net at Work – one of the nations’ leading ERP and technology firms and we’ll talk to Stuart Blumenthal, a friend of the program for 20+ years, although we didn’t actually start the ERPodcast until 24 months ago – but we’ve known Stuart since the turn of the century – back then he was a leader in the Sage channel of accounting and ERP software and he’s not slowed down since. Net at Work has HQ in New York as well as other locations all over the country – we’ll catch up with Stuart in Dallas today. Net at work has ERP practices in the Sage channel, NetSuite and now Acumatica. Of course we covered a great deal about Acumatica, the Cloud ERP in last week’s ERPodcast - so you might want to go back and listen to that one first if you missed it – but today, Stuart will talk about what it takes to make a great implementation partner for getting started with Acumatica and what it takes, and how it works when ‘you do it right.’ Stay tuned after the interview we’ll get into how Profit From ERP and Stuart’s Net at Work Acumatica Practice works together to make sure you get everything you pay for out of your next ERP Project – it’s all here, on today’s episode of the ERPodcast
Stuart Blumenthal Acumatica Practice Director
Episode 28 Certainty in an Uncertain World
Nov 9, 2021It's Crazy Out There! We can't control the outside world, but as Uncertainty reigns externally, Business Equilibrium results when we create better data certainty within our businesses. See how other leading companies have managed the raging seas of uncertainty in the...
E27 What They DON’T Tell You About ERP
Feb 23, 2021Digital Transformation What don't you know about ERP? Industry secrets, mis-aligned incentives and drivers of behavior all impact your final result - Today's ERPodcast let's you get a handle on some of the largest pitfalls threatening your project before you start. ...
E26 – CEO/CFO Report 2021
Jan 19, 2021Digital Transformation 2020 saw companies who's approach to digital transformation allowed them to quickly pivot - oftentimes capturing entire markets before the competition could respond. 2021 shows an increased demand for new market technologies - we talk about who...
E25 Nice Link Home Furnishings Part 2
Nov 25, 2020Acumatica, The Cloud ERP Cloud ERP creates incredible opportunities for integration - with internal apps but more importantly with outside vendors a...
Acumatica, The Cloud ERP One of the early made-for-cloud ERP offerings - Acumatica - has long been included in Profit From ERP client software evaluations. A favorite of consultants from it's initial release, Acumatica has matured into a more feature rich offering and is winning more and more client selection processes.
The ERPodcast welcomes a new sponsor, Net at Work, an ERP and Technology leader with over 6,000 clients since 1996. Net at Work has been a go-to resource in Profit From ERP evaluations for their leading Sage x3 practice for several years, besides Sage, they offer NetSuite, Acumatica, HRMS, CRM and eCommerce - all geared toward their tagline - Business Performance Unleashed.
About today's ERPodcast
There are hundreds of ERP software companies - nearly every one of them has some type of cloud-like ERP offering. That's an effort to compete with 3 or 4 made for cloud ERP products that have revolutionized the ERP industry. among them Acumatica, Sage Intacct and NetSuite. Our new sponsor, Net at Work has practices in two of the three cloud ERP leaders, Acumatica and NetSuite. Today we look at the advantages Acumatica brings to the table as a second generation cloud ERP offering.
Episode 28 Certainty in an Uncertain World
Nov 9, 2021It's Crazy Out There! We can't control the outside world, but as Uncertainty reigns externally, Business Equilibrium results when we create better data certainty within our businesses. See how other leading companies have managed the raging seas of uncertainty in the...
E27 What They DON’T Tell You About ERP
Feb 23, 2021Digital Transformation What don't you know about ERP? Industry secrets, mis-aligned incentives and drivers of behavior all impact your final result - Today's ERPodcast let's you get a handle on some of the largest pitfalls threatening your project before you start. ...
E26 – CEO/CFO Report 2021
Jan 19, 2021Digital Transformation 2020 saw companies who's approach to digital transformation allowed them to quickly pivot - oftentimes capturing entire markets before the competition could respond. 2021 shows an increased demand for new market technologies - we talk about who...
E25 Nice Link Home Furnishings Part 2
Nov 25, 2020Acumatica, The Cloud ERP Cloud ERP creates incredible opportunities for integration - with internal apps but more importantly with outside vendors and customers - Through EDI and digital connection, Nice Link was able to open sales channels with Wayfair, Costco,...
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Cloud ERP Explodes The Covid Pandemic caused a slight pause in digital transformation and cloud technology adoption by businesses...then we packed two years' conversion into the last two months!
The ERPodcast welcomes back Mark Lee, CPA and former Deloitte consultant to examine industry trends and cover RISK - especially the greatest risk, the RISK OF DOING NOTHING
About the ERPodcast
ERPodcast Episode 20, we’ve titled this episode Cloud ERP Explodes and DecisionPoint Digital – it’s a cloudstrike changing the way businesses are approaching the market, the tools, the reporting, the workflow, efficiencies - and if you’re not on board, well, it’s not a level playing field now is it? That takes us to DecisionPoint Digital, the point where you make the decision to join the cloud revolution and the risks involved, including that ‘risk of doing nothing.’ It covers a lot but here’s what we know –
Recently, Forbes Magazine sponsored a webinar on Breakthrough Digital Transformation Stocks – the stock prices of companies that have boomed during the past few months with investors seeing the huge revenue spikes from customers hopping on the digital bandwagon – Salesforce.com, Zoom, cloud ERP firms – even stories like Disney, they had to close the theme parks due to Covid – but because of their ability to pivot digitally, they were in a position to go to market in a expedited move with digital movie downloads a strategy that created revenue to more than cover the closed park losses –all those $200 admissions and $8 sodas they’re not selling – can your business pivot that quickly? It’ helps with fully digital platformed business tools…
We’re also seeing Cloud ERP companies showing 30% and 40% Growth rates. NetSuite partners are reporting record August 31st software sales closings.
So we continue to look at what we’re calling DecisionPoint Digital – when you make the decision to re-engergize your company to respond to a new economy. The end result is, if your business is ‘waiting to see’ how the new economy is shaking out, well, we’re beginning to see a digital steamroller and it’s headed your way. More on all this in today’s episode.
Gene Hammons, MBA Director ERP projects are both a software project and a business consulting project. Profit From ERP brings the experience of over 400 ERP implementations into a methodology of best practices - the practices that high adapting companies employed to really drive success with technology projects. We marry that with a network of Affiliated Partners in every ERP technology and a breadth of different industry expertise to create the ultimate ERP selection, implementation and optimization team.The end result is lower risk, lower cost, no surprises ERP projects with defined payback, attainable corporate goals and avoiding cost overruns. It's why we say, Profit From ERP, our clients make ERP PAY!
Episode 28 Certainty in an Uncertain World
Nov 9, 2021It's Crazy Out There! We can't control the outside world, but as Uncertainty reigns externally, Business Equilibrium results when we create better data certainty within our businesses. See how other leading companies have managed the raging seas of uncertainty in the...
E27 What They DON’T Tell You About ERP
Feb 23,
Evaluating ERP is more than grids and diagrams. You need a bit more depth to create the right results.
Stories From the Jungle Digital Transformation - the Case Studies - how, what and why the pandemic reset to Digital is saving companies and doubling revenue increases. Here's concrete examples of companies who's Digital approach is yielding early results. Along with who, how and what Digital Transformation can mean for your company.
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Digital Transformation
NetSuite
Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
Life Sciences
Replacing QuickBooks
Proven Methodologies
Your Road to Success
The ERPodcast e18 Digital Transformation Part Three - Case Studies
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Digital Transformation – while once an aspirational IT goal, COVID 19 created an environment in many companies where Digital Transformation is survival itself
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Digital Transformation Part Three sees us highlighting some of the first responders to the pandemic lockdown - the companies that sprang into action day two and determined 'we're not taking this laying down'. It's mid-August and the results are rolling in. Last week, a LinkedIn study showed companies that attempted a digital response to the Covid Lockdown showed revenue growth of 2x that of the companies who adopted a 'wait and see' stance. An amazing statistic unless you rephrase it. What that really says is that companies who invested in innovation and business process improvement saw results. It says companies who adapted their approach to the new reality did better in the new reality than those who didn't attempt to adapt. It says companies who replaced outdated systems with the latest cloud-based digital software and refocused on customer interactions fared better than those who stuck to their 'good enough' systems. So this '2x revenue growth' shouldn't surprise anyone - it just makes sense. And with the baseline of companies hesitant to respond to the new marketplace we now find ourselves in, well, that's a pretty low bar numerator to double. But these are still early returns. And here's the stories of actual clients, restaurants, distributors, manufacturers, B2B and B2C businesses - all who adopted a Digital Transformation framework to innovate and prosper. While Profit From ERP’s selection consulting and moving to cloud based ERP is part of Digital Transformation and included within, Get Digital Velocity specializes in C-level strategic consulting on a digital approach to transform companies along with fractional CIO services to help companies elevate IT and technology approaches to meet the requirements of a changed world.
Today's Interview
We go to the ends of the earth to bring you the stories to avoid in your journey through the world of ERP.
escape covid in the cloud Keeping the company alive while the pandemic rages.
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Digital Transformation
NetSuite
Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
Life Sciences
Replacing QuickBooks
Proven Methodologies
Your Road to Success
The ERPodcast by Gene Hammons | Episode 14
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Digital Transformation - while once an aspirational IT goal, COVID 19 created an environment in many companies where Digital Transformation is survival itself
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Digital Transformation Part One was recorded in June 2020. What we were seeing was companies responding to the Covid 19 Lockdown – First, dealing with the disruption of a distributed workforce upon traditional business systems highlighted weaknesses in traditional systems previously considered ‘good enough’. Secondly, market disruptions meant doing business with customers required a new approach – if companies were to remain viable in a post Covid world.
Obviously both factors did more to push digital responses and prompt moves to cloud-based software than any single event in the last decade.
While companies did not have the appetite for a new, huge IT budgets in response to Covid, it was apparent that for many companies, shifting whatever available resources was key to remaining viable – regardless of the form or size the company might emerge from the pandemic lockdown.
While Profit From ERP’s selection consulting and moving to cloud based ERP is part of Digital Transformation and included within, Get Digital Velocity specializes in C-level strategic consulting on a digital approach to transform companies along with fractional CIO services to help companies elevate IT and technology approaches to meet the requirements of a changed world.
Today's Interview
We go to the ends of the earth to bring you the stories to avoid in your journey through the world of ERP.
Bhushan Parikh
Bhushan is Principal and Co-founder of Get Digital Velocity. His specialty is delivering extraordinary business success on global platforms through digital transformation.
With over 30 years of experience with large Enterprises in multiple Industries, Bhushan has worked in a variety of roles including SVP IT, Operations, Supply Chain and Digital Transformation. His previous employers include: Avnet, Johnson Controls, Johnson & Johnson, and Nike.
Episode 28 Certainty in an Uncertain World
Nov 9,
Hidden Dangers Over the years, more and more companies are growing far past the design point of QuickBooks. Risk, Staff Inefficiencies and simple lack of features all add up to hidden costs far in excess of what it would take to upgrade to ERP
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Digital Transformation
NetSuite
Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
Life Sciences
Replacing QuickBooks
Proven Methodologies
Your Road to Success
The ERPodcast by Gene Hammons | Episode 17
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A rotisserie Chicken, 75 pounds of Dog food, a 350 pack of tortillas, a copy of QuickBooks for the new Garage Startup...well, at least the Chicken was good.
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Years ago, it was very uncommon to see any company over $100k in annual revenue using QuickBooks. Intuit, the maker of QuickBooks has certainly improved the product and some of the entry level accounting packages have suffered from a mass consolidation of the local VAR’s and resellers who once served the emerging company market.
Today, there’s a point – say a $5m company, where QuickBooks becomes extremely cumbersome – lack of inventory, project based features, retail and ecommerce, the list goes on – sure – there’s lots of add ons and 3rd Party products – but features in these follow on products are limited because no one is going to pay $10k to add onto a $300 program – so you can only develop and deliver so much on limited budgets. Yet companies go forward, developing workarounds and it’s not uncommon to see $50m and $60m companies running on good ol’ QB.
Risk is an issue. Later versions of QuickBooks have added things like keystroke logs and segregation of duties protocols – but these are seldom set up early in the company, when a single user is making all the entries, why would you need a record of who did what? You know.
Today’s episode is an interview with Mark Lee, CPA and Principle behind Maui Tax. Mr. Lee started his CPA career with Deloitte and worked with or ran major CPA consulting operations based in Texas, New York City, London and even an exotic posting in Dubai for a few years. Throughout, he encountered companies large and small running QuickBooks and his primary advise revolved around the ‘false sense of security’ that developed. Companies believed they were running a professional accounting package when the initial impetus for QuickBooks’ creation was ‘bookkeeping software for people who don’t understand accounting.’
Topics covered in today’s podcast include:
Risk – with QuickBooks at the center of dozens of forensic accounting cases involving embezzlement due to lack of adequate controls in place
Waste – Labor associated with excessive manual data entry and moreso on the dozens and more spreadsheets needed to attempt adequate reporting
Functionality – limited reporting prevents full visibility of basic business operations with many add on modules not ...
Welcome to the Jungle! There's a lot of noise out there. Talk of technology hype, near misses, the new next-big-thing, and marketing fluff--which means a lot of unrealized dreams. Then, there's the stories we live. Stories of profit and business achievement.
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Digital Transformation
NetSuite
Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
Life Sciences
Replacing QuickBooks
Proven Methodologies
Your Road to Success
The ERPodcast by Gene Hammons | Episode 16 https://content.blubrry.com/erprofitthepodcast/Episode_16_NetSuite_Thru_the_Lockdown-6_29_20_6_58_PM.m4a
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This is where we talk about it. That means indepth examinations of a complex process; the transformation of your business. Whether it's replacing an outgrown accounting software or complete digital transformation to touch-free customer interatcions, hear from the top industry voices and leading software providers.
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
When the Coronavirus closed offices and sent workforces into virtual lockdown, of course a cloud-based ERP like NetSuite was a definite advantage. But there was more to the story, as Oracle NetSuite’s Angela Kavanaugh reports from her portfolio of customers. “I’m so glad we’re at least on NetSuite” were common reactions in the early days of the pandemic. While traditional technology-based offices were scrambling to roll out VPN’s and secure protocols to get workers back up and running, NetSuite users were rolling out business process changes to better connect and serve their customers. This flexibility highlights the real power behind digital companies, uniquely positioned to react to a market none of us had seen coming. With a PWC background before joining NetSuite, Angela also covers some interesting market research on how companies are re-purposing IT budgets to invest in better systems, convert to cloud and plan to come out of the Covid-19 shutdown stronger than when they went in. As we covered in a recent podcast, NetSuite is very popular in demos to prospective users. But the real value of NetSuite isn’t initially apparent to many new users. It seems after a company has been on the platform for some time, customer satisfaction skyrockets as users become more familiar with all they can accomplish using NetSuite. Thus, Angela’s portfolio of existing NetSuite-based companies brings this veteran perspective to light as we learn how these companies faced an extremely challenging and rapidly changing marketplace. Join us on this week’s ERPodcast for all this and more
About the ERPodcast
While marketing sings the praises of successful ERP implementations, they never really get behind the story of what drove that success.
escape covid in the cloud Keeping the company alive while the pandemic rages.
Success!
Subscribe
Digital Transformation
NetSuite
Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
Life Sciences
Replacing QuickBooks
Proven Methodologies
Your Road to Success
The ERPodcast by Gene Hammons | Episode 15 Pt. 2
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Digital Transformation – while once an aspirational IT goal, COVID 19 created an environment in many companies where Digital Transformation is survival itself
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Digital Transformation Part Two was recorded in June 2020. By this time in the pandemic, we were starting to see quick moving companies react with digital speed and talked about some of the winners in early results. More important, we began to delve deeper into the digital mindset, trying to introduce the concept of thinking digitally and reconsidering the approach to serving customers. We also continued to marvel at how some companies would tell us they were ‘holding onto their cash’ and ‘waiting to see how this Covid thing turns out’ while others were reacting in real time to enhance business opportunities in the current setting, with plans to come out of the lockdown stronger than before. As we now know, the lockdown conditions wouldn’t clear as soon as we initially thought – which means the digital speed companies are still enhancing the approach to customer service and our thoughts go out to those companies who were ‘holding onto their cash.’ While Profit From ERP’s selection consulting and moving to cloud based ERP is part of Digital Transformation and included within, Get Digital Velocity specializes in C-level strategic consulting on a digital approach to transform companies along with fractional CIO services to help companies elevate IT and technology approaches to meet the requirements of a changed world.
Today's Interview
We go to the ends of the earth to bring you the stories to avoid in your journey through the world of ERP.
Bhushan Parikh
Bhushan is Principal and Co-founder of Get Digital Velocity. His specialty is delivering extraordinary business success on global platforms through digital transformation. With over 30 years of experience with large Enterprises in multiple Industries, Bhushan has worked in a variety of roles including SVP IT, Operations, Supply Chain and Digital Transformation. His previous employers include: Avnet, Johnson Controls, Johnson & Johnson, and Nike.
Episode 28 Certainty in an Uncertain World
ERPodcast – The Post-Covid Digital Future
Episode 13 – Unlucky for Traditional ERP
MFX Up and Under
Late May 2020, as the business world emerges post covid-19 – what are the lessons we take forward – what are the initiatives for an uncertain future – where do we find the tea leaves, the tarot cards, the stock tips, the market whispers – where do we go from here? Given this production is named the ERPodcast from Profit From ERP – you can imagine what direction we’ll take the topic….
Most of the information we’re given these days emanates from the Pandemic Panic – and as any good economist knows, the numbers can lie and often do - - - especially when our source of information is a media rewarded for sensationalism for sensationalism’s sake - - – so we need to look deeper, find the success stories, actual business cases, find the moneyball concepts, the underlying economic theories that we can bring into our daily business lives – so today, On the ERPodcast we’ll take a look at one of the greatest supply chain stories our national media ever ignored. In the software consulting world, we’ve been working non-stop gathering information to guide our clients. Nationally, Thousands of companies experience in today’s market has been compiled. Regionally, hundreds of client companies have added input - that mirrors the research we’ve done through our Profit From ERP website. Let’s breakout a few of the winning strategies - It’s the ERPodcast and I’m your host, Gene Hammons, telling you nothing you don’t already know, just in a way, you might not quite have thought of it before.
The Alliance of Excellence
Today’s Podcast is brought to you by the Alliance of Excellence Software Coalition – a loose federation of software resellers, partners, consultants and resources who share one thing in common. They’re all really good at what they do.
You know, I’ve been in the ERP business for a long time - seen a lot of things and people come and go. When I’ve worked on a very successful ERP engagement – the kind where the software pays for itself in short order? I remember those folks – the partners who implemented and did such a good job and I look forward to working with them again and again. So today, with Profit From ERP, we’re not selling software, we’re not doing implementations – we’re simply helping make sure our clients get the Profit, or the return from their investment in ERP. We don’t sell the software, we don’t sell the services, we simply sell the Profit from ERP – so we have to work with the best in order to give every engagement the potential to work. And another thing about ERP – there’s a great fit for nearly every ERP platform, Infor, Sage, Microsoft, NetSuite, Acumatica, Intacct – I could go on listing for a while. But the point is, with our clients, whatever ERP they need, we’ve likely got an Alliance of Excellence company to work with. .
How does an ERP partner or reseller join the Alliance of Excellence Software Coalition?
There’s only one way. Personal Experience with Gene Hammons and past Experience with Profit From ERP clients. If it sounds exclusive, it is. But it means you end up with the best.
Our job is to connect clients who are planning to improve their business through ERP with the right partners, the right ERP platform. Different industries, different sized clients, different budgets – the fit is the thing. It really doesn’t matter which software you pick, unless you have a good partner, well, there’s a lot of reasons the industry sports an 80% failure rate. So if you’re thinking about a successful ERP project, connect with us at Profit From ERP, and when it’s time to pull the trigger, make sure one of the members of the Alliance of Excellence Software Coalition is right there with you. You’ll be halfway there already.
Welcome back to the ERPodcast . In a massively successful supply chain operation,
Fear - Uncertainty - Doubt - all killers of business.
But how do we react with the uncertain information we're dealt? - Here's what Real World companies are doing.
ERPodcast Episode 10 Step by Step DIY ERP ERPlanner (Will the ERPuns never stop?)
Hey – it’s the DIY- Do it Yourself - Profit From ERP with the ERPlanner
(MFX Up and under)
So, the secrets behind Profit From ERP – how do we do it? Well, we’ve collected the winning methodology from over 400 ERP implementations over the years. From our first ERP project where a company that quote – totally embraced change – unquote had half the staff quit because change…wasn’t what they were expecting - - all the way to the on demand manufacturer who paid for their ERP system many times over within three months.
There are lessons to be learned in all of them.
I’m Gene Hammons, Practice Director for Profit From ERP and host for ERPodcast and today we’re going to give you a step by step checklists of the steps you should take, to Profit From ERP on your own – it’s a checklist - what we’re calling the ERPlanner which we’ll tell you how to download the template and exactly how to follow each step on your road to Profit From ERP as you select and implement an ERP system on your own.
Now the disclaimer – we can tell you the steps and give you a whole podcast’s full of coaching – and you might say, well, Gene, if you tell everyone all the steps, why would anyone hire you as an ERP selection consultant in the future? Your secrets are already out of the bag.
Well, here’s the thing. If you follow these steps, you’ll do just as well, probably better than I did on my very firstERP project – some 25 years and 400+ projects ago. You’ll do better than 95% of the companies who go about selecting ERP as if it were a capital purchasing effort.
But things happen in ERP projects – things you, I, the software vendors – things no one anticipated. Crazy unrealistic deadlines, massive underestimation of how much effort a ERP project demands, massive under-budgeting – then twists and turns – your business model has a little twist that similar businesses don’t do – and this little twist is what differentiates you, makes you cost less or have better service, or better quality – and there’s no ERP product on the market that anticipated your secret sauce. Crazy things happen – and that’s when our expertise really shines – that’s why companies hire us to consult during the entire process.
And I’m afraid that’s not in the checklist.
But – we hear from many companies all the time – usually smaller firms, who don’t have much budget for consultants and even less budget for software – and if this sounds like you, this podcast and the ERPlanner are perfect for you.
A – they’re both free, the ERPodcast and the ERPlanner.
B – It will give you an important leg up and put you ahead of the game.
Even if you’re not a smaller business, these are the same steps we’ll recommend to a global multinational company looking for a new ERP – of course there’s more detail, and instead of one guy with a clipboard walking around your office it’s a team of business analysts, software architects, project planners – but it’s the same proven methodology that’s worked now hundreds of times.
Of course the Do-it-yourself version not going to revolutionize your business like a full blown digital transformation and mobile cloud company-wide connectivity – but it’ll at least get you on the road to growth – and in a couple of years, after your company has implemented it’s first ERP and grown some more – you will be in the market for a full blown digital transformation – and you’ll be back with the budget to really take things stratospheric – with Profit From ERP
MFX out
Eide Bailly Endorsement V 2.0 Under Budget
Today’s Podcast is being brought to you by Eide Bailly Technology Consulting –
If you’ve been listening to the podcast for any time now, you know that an ERP project is bigger than a plug and play software implementation.
There’s planning, business analysis, business consulting, project valuation, and all that happens up front.
ERPodcast Episode 11
NetSuite for Pharma/Life Sciences
It’s the next generation of Profit From ERP for Pharma, Life Sciences, BioTech, and Medical Device
MFX Up and Under
So a few years back, around 2014 NetSuite started becoming very popular in the ERP industry – as the first made for cloud ERP. And through our software consulting practice, we did dozens of ERP evaluation projects – analyzing the client company requirements, bringing in the usual ERP suspects – ummm I mean vendors, doing demos and really kicking the tires.
More times than not, NetSuite would be the client’s first choice. It was clear that the ERP world had changed, and more than anything else, NetSuite was driving that change – - - in an attempt to compete, the rest of the ERP world reacted - So much so, that today, you can’t find an ERP program that’s not offered in a cloud version – which is not the same as made for cloud, but it demonstrated the ERP industries’ response to the popularity of NetSuite.
The truth is, there are reasons different ERP systems were first developed. Some were developed to run on an IBM AS/400 Server, a solid machine in it’s day. Some were developed with an idea to utilize the latest Windows 32 bit technology. NetSuite was written to take advantage of cloud technology – made for cloud.
And while there may be a few AS/400’s still running somewhere and 64 bit replaced 32 bit – the cloud is still with us – it’s an internet world.
So with a modern software architecture designed for today’s technology, with our clients evaluating ERP, NetSuite was more often than not, the top choice.
We had clients in everything from professional sports teams to services and engineer to order companies and the list goes on.
Only NetSuite wouldn’t work in the pharma and life sciences industries for a couple of reasons… and we were still having to use older, more established, and more expensive ERP solutions for those clients….until just recently.
We were able to pioneer a strategy to use NetSuite with Contract Manufacturing pharma groups – closely integrating to outside vendors to monitor the supply chain – but last year, some real development in validation protocols has opened up an entire new options. We’re able to deploy Netsuite in pharma, but also life sciences, BioTech, medical devices - - -
And that opens up some new cost saving options and productivity drivers that are especially welcome in emerging Life Sciences companies - it’s a whole new world
We took some Contract Manufacturing companies onto the NetSuite platform in late 2017 – it was kind of lonely in that space at first– but the results were great for our client companies.
2018 saw NetSuite has opening up in full blown pharma manufacturing environments
Today will talk with one of the leading innovators using NetSuite in the life sciences industries, Mike Kelly. Mike was behind one of the leading NetSuite resellers in Southern California, a firm called Tactical Cloud – which recently joined Eide Bailly – our podcast sponsor.
We’ll talk to Mike and get a handle on what’s going on in the world of Life Sciences and the expansion of NetSuite as whole new industry verticals move into Profit…From ERP
Today’s Podcast is being brought to you, in more ways than one, By Eide Bailly Technology, a division of Eide Bailly CPA.
You know, Eide Bailly has a 100 year history - and while the technology division is somewhat newer – you don’t get to be a 100 year old company without some solid management excellence.
And that excellence is what they bring to the NetSuite practice.
Growing the practice both organically and through acquisition, Eide Bailly has already developed a history of ERP excellence – people I knew and worked with back in 2001 – they were ERP leaders then, and today,
It really happened….Profit From ERP
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Welcome to the Case Studies Series Level 3 Audio Visual Part Two – actual clients using real ERP and getting real results – Today we’re back with Level 3 Audio Visual’s CEO Jeremy Elsesser as well as Doug Spencer, CFO – for the second of a two part episode on how Vaco Consulting’s Selection Process and Eide Bailly’s NetSuite Implementation project impacted the phenomenal growth and played a huge role in the development of a multinational business.
I’m the Practice Director for Profit From ERP and Vaco Resources Software Selection & Implementation, Gene Hammons
It’s well and good to speak of how ERP mighthelp your company – but it’s also instructive to see how it reallyworks in the real world – and occasionally, here on the ERPodcast we take a look at a past client to see how everything worked out.
Last week we detailed the complexity of an Engineer to Order environment where L3AV creates and deploys some of the world’s best AV systems in boardrooms, conference rooms, auditoriums, healthcare, government and education, including some of the most high tech learning centers in existence.
For all the details, check out last week’s episode One for the full background. It’s kind of like Spiderman 5, you can still jump right in but it’s better if you’ve seen Spiderman 4. Or so they tell me – I’m way too involved with exciting ERP projects to keep up at the cinema.
In any case, this week we’re going back to the original $5m Cost Revenue Model – we projected it – did L3AV achieve it? L3AV also had some pretty impressive whiteboards and dynamic spreadsheets driving process – was NetSuite able to move them past that? The Quoting spreadsheet was a many-tab work of art – and what about managing resources when you have a crew in Chicago and another in Rhode Island? Project Management, CRM and Exactly what do ERP Selection Consultants do…let’s find out in Part Two of the Case Study Series Level Three AV - - - it’s the real world, where those ERP Selection Consultants help clients actually Profit, From ERP
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Today’s Podcast is being brought to you by Eide Bailly Technology.
In a recent podcast, I mentioned that there were 1,000 NetSuite Partners around the country – actually the correct number is over 500 NetSuite Partners in 80 countries worldwide.
It’s my email inbox with over a 1,000 messages from NetSuite Partners - - well, that’s an exaggeration too – but with all the different software providers and projects, it’s not too far off.
But I tell you what, whether there’s 1,000 or 500, the one NetSuite Partner you wanthas been named Worldwide Partner of the Year multiple times and now picked up The Americas Partner of the Year last week in Las Vegas – that makes 4 years in a row. That’s Eide Bailly Technology
Worldwide Partner, partner of the Americas – Just think of it like a big Final Four bracket starting with 500 teams and Eide Bailly moving thorough and ending up on top. And the team can only score when they make you’re project successful -
They’re my pick when it comes to NetSuite – even back in 2014 I’d been working with them for some time and that’s why we called them in to the Level 3 AV project.
As you’ll hear in today’s Part Two, they were instrumental from the beginning and are still helping develop the ERP environment at L3AV – that’s the kind of ongoing support you want from your ERP software partner.
And believe me, I know. my email inbox is full of messages from software partners of all stripes and sizes – we see the difference every day, different software for different companies - because NetSuite doesn’t absolutely fit every company everywhere – but when NetSuite is the right ERP, Eide Bailly is the right partner. Contact them today at Eide Bailly.com – that’s E I D E B A I LL Y.com
Welcome Back to the ERPodcast - the Case Studies Series - Level 3 Audio Visual Part Two
So let’s talk about Profit From ERP in the real world
(MFX)
The year was 2014 – it was a full ERP evaluation – NetSuite was selected and the project goal was for the ERP system to save $5m over 3 Years
Welcome to the Case Studies Series Level 3 Audio Visual – actual clients using real ERP and getting real results – Today we welcome Level 3 Audio Visual’s CEO Jeremy Elsesser as well as Doug Spencer, CFO – for the first of a two part episode on how Vaco Consulting’s Selection Process and Eide Bailly’s NetSuite Implementation project impacted the phenomenal growth and played a huge role in the development of a multinational business.
I’m the Practice Director for Profit From ERP and Vaco Resources Software Selection & Implementation, Gene Hammons
It’s well and good to speak of how ERP mighthelp your company – but it’s also instructive to see how it reallyworks in the real world – and occasionally, here on the ERPodcast we take a look at a past client to see how everything worked out
Today we’re going to look at Level 3 Audio Visual or L3AV – we first got involved with L3AV back in 2014. A bit about the company – so you’ve no doubt seen a conference room or auditorium where the technology just rocked – video conferences where you could actually hear and see the participants – screens that connected quickly and cleanly – great audio – sharp video - just an exceptional experience.
Well, L3AV is the company you call to make that happen.
L3AV might trick out your boardroom or conference room – they’ll also handle huge educational learning classrooms, and when it’s really important – L3AV goes into the nation’s leading hospitals – managing things like surgical suite technology – so the surgeon in LA can conference in the specialist from Boston, where we’re overlaying the patient’s vital signs across a surgical scope projected on a screen – it’s cutting edge technology delivered where failure’s not an option.
Back in 2014, L3AV chose to go with NetSuite – for a lot of reasons – Today we’ll take a look at why, how that worked out and how L3AV continues to drive efficiencies and productivities using NetSuite. And together we take a real-world lesson, on how to Profit From ERP
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Today’s podcast is being brought to you by Eide Bailly – the same Software consulting team who helped create the success that led to the case study on Level 3 Audio Video. Thorough Vaco Consulting, I was the lead ERP Consultant helping manage the selection process, the Eide Bailly/NetSuite team was chosen.
Back in 2014, the team was under the True Cloud banner, one of the leading NetSuite partners in the country. Last year, they combined with the Eide Bailly Technology team – And it must be going OK, because back to back years, Eide Bailly has picked up the Oracle NetSuite Americas Partner of the Year award.
In my consulting practice we end up with lots of different software selected by different clients and when it comes to implementation, one of the most very critical success points in any ERP Project, it’s sometimes painful to watch a project start and stumble, lurch and jerk around.
But I’ve been doing this a long time and we work hard to help keep implementations on target.
It can be something you worry about – but not with Eide Bailly – an Eide Bailly implementation will face challenges, every implementation does – but the EB team is ready, willing and expecting to handle anything that comes up. More than once the Eide Bailly team has forecast an issue before anyone else – and I know from experience to listen.
They help keep everything as smooth as humanly possible while implementing ERP – and as you’ll see today, they really keep with it and stand behind a project till it’s completed – no matter what the assignment.
So like I said, different software for different companies and NetSuite doesn’t absolutely fit every company everywhere – but when NetSuite is the right ERP,
Podcast – How to Select an ERP Consultant.
Time for Profit From ERP
(MFX)
Today It’s the big one – you’re thinking about ERP – processes in the office are overwhelming and it seems like everyone is chasing their own tail 110 percent of the time – there has to be a better way.
And given all the choices, and the long lines at the ERP store – oh, wait, there’s no ERP store.
How do you go about getting a new ERP for your business?
Well, for reasons we’ll talk more about later, many companies turn to ERP Consultants.
So the next question, are the lines long at the ERP Consultant store – oh wait, there’s no ERP Consultant store – so what to do?
Well, you’ve come to the right place at the right time – as we’re going to guide you through the world of selecting an ERP Consultant – who are they and what do they do? How do they fit in and what do they cost? Where to start and what to look for at the finish line.
I’m Gene Hammons, Director of Profit From ERP and the host of ERPodcast – and besides being ERP Consultants, we’ve also seen quite a few others over the years – so buckle up your headphones and hang on for the ride as we look at the world of ERP Consultants and how to best find your fit and truly, Profit From ERP
Today’s ERPodcast is brought to you by Eide Bailly Technology – purveyours and partners for NetSuite, Salesforce.com, Sage Business Software and more.
You know, once your ERP Consultant has recommended likely ERP programs – the next big leap is finding the right partner for that ERP product.
If you think NetSuite might be your solution, then it’s a fair bet Eide Bailly should be your partner.
Eide Bailly started out over 100 years ago as a CPA firm – trusted by businesses large and small – and that continues today in the Eide Bailly Technology Group. They’ve been leaders in NetSuite consulting from the early days of cloud ERP and now, with nationwide reach Eide Bailly is recognized as Partner of the Year, National Partner of the Year and even Worldwide Partner of the year by NetSuite themselves.
That’s a reflection of the depth and breadth of talent on the Eide Bailly Team.
And it’s also why when I have a client looking at NetSuite, I’m calling in Eide Bailly. It’s sort of because of my likes and dislikes.
For instance, I dislike explaining to my clients why a project ran into cost overruns.
Eide Bailly brought my last project in under budget AND met a totally unrealistically short client deadline for go live – that I like.
I dislike complex and confusing software implementations
Eide Bailly has so much experience, they’ve highly streamlined the implementation delivery so everyone is on board with the same goals and objectives – I like that.
I just generally like working with Eide Bailly and I think you will too. You know NetSuite doesn’t absolutely fit every company everywhere – but when NetSuite is the right ERP, Eide Bailly is the right partner. Contact them today at Eide Bailly.com – that’s E I D E B A I LL Y.com
Welcome back to the ERPodcast – I’m your host Gene Hammons and today, it’s How to Select an ERP Consultant. My primary goal here is not to sell you on signing on with Profit From ERP – my goal is to educate you on the ins and outs of ERP consulting, because the more you know, the better we’re going to look – and at very least – you can avoid the most common pitfalls in the ERP Consulting area.
First of all, Why do you need an ERP Consultant?
Here’s the deal, ERP Software is expensive, the stakes are high and the failures are more common than successes. Done right, ERP can drive 3-5-7 percent more profit to your bottom line. Done wrong – well it’s generally accepted that over 8 of 10 ERP projects fail when you measure them by
1) Time to go-live 2) Cost overruns, or 3) Expected Functionality
1) Time to go-live – are you trying to hit July 1 go-live to run FY 2020 books on the new ERP? Well, it’s April,
ERP 2.0? Zoho Open Product Review
Ever had an emerging trend sneak up on you? How about one that snuck up on 45 million users worldwide - what’s it mean to you? Could be big changes in how you Profit From ERP - - I’m Gene Hammons, Practice Director Software Selection and Implementation….
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Welcome to ERPodcast, the small business edition – but even huge multinationals need to know – there’s a change in business software deployment – we’ll discuss.
We’re going to be taking a look at Zoho, if you don’t know, they started with a free CRM model and soon developed apps or modules extending functionality into other departments - From a 2001 initial launch into the Japanese market, Zoho has expanded worldwide and
by 2014 – 15 million worldwide users, 20 million two years later by 2019, a reported 45m worldwide users. That kind of exponential growth means you should probably start paying attention
Not technically ERP, but a Business Operating System – as they refer to it, for predominately small to medium businesses. We’re not replacing SAP ERP with Zoho anytime soon.
But there’s a new approach we’re referring to as the Cloud Deployment Model – not just cloud based software, but how you implement cloud based software - Instead of teams of 200+ dollar onsite software consultants we’re seeing online business coaches, videos, tutorials and implementation exercises. We’ve seen this same model emerging in Project Management with WorkFront, in construction apps with BuilderTrend– and now some of the Microsoft resellers are picking up on it – it’s a huge change in both costs and approach to deploying business software.
So while you’re current ERP system still has a few years of life in it, you need to know that sooner or later, you’re more likely going to be deploying some types of business software using the new Cloud Deployment Model – one way or another the cloud deployment model is coming your way.
We’ll take you out to a recent Zoho Roadshow
But today is not just about entry level business software – it’s about the same theories you’ll follow whether your company just passed the 1million dollar revenue mark, the 10 million or the 100 million dollar signpost.
So no matter what your business size, you can continue to Profit, From ERP.
MFX Out
Sponsor Break
MFX Live room montage
It’s Thursday at the Phoenix road show for a software called Zoho – you may have seen them as a free CRM product a few years back – well, things have developed since then.
Zoho is a worldwide software provider with over 6,000 employees across the globe. Headquartered in India, with US HQ in Pleasanton California, Zoho started out 22 years ago as a free CRM product and they’re now in 180 countries with a reported 45+ million users. I’m always a little suspect of user counts from software companies – but the amazing thing with Zoho is the doubling of total users within a 2 year period. So even if they’re cooking the numbers – the same recipe that cooked up 20 million a couple of years ago is now cooking up 45+ million – and hey, since it’s all cloud based, they may be totally accurate.
The free starter model of CRM was popular with a few software publishers – you start out for free with basic functionality, and slowly as you grow and become more enamored with the software, and especially as you start making more money via better customer contact and service, you graduate to a paid version and become customers for life.
Zoho started with this model, as did Bitrix24, Hubspot,Pipedrive,Agile and several others.
In any case, Zoho developed a pretty nice CRM offering – and they didn’t stop there. They moved into a project module, webpage building, hosting, social media management – and by about 2011 even launched a financials package.
Then we started hearing the references saying “Zoho ERP” – now that...
Below is the transcript to this week's ERPodcast - prior to alerting us to each grammatical irregularity, please recognize it is written for the spoken word, not text, and with a conversational tone, while not always grammatically perfect - the audience tends to understand quicker.
Let’s go for Profit from ERP (MFX)
Welcome to this week’s episode of ERPodcast - I’m your host Gene Hammons and this week we’re going to the Mailbag!
So, what is the Mailbag you ask, well, there’s a popular website called Quora.comQ-U-O-R-A .com and the idea is, if you want to talk to an expert on any topic, you can go to Quora.com and ask the expert.
I don’t really know how they define who’s an expert … but over the years, I’ve found answering questions on Quora about things I deal with all day every day has been helpful to folks who don’t actually live-breathe-eat-sleep ERP software.
In 2018 I was named a Top Writer by Quora, with the #1 Ranking in the ERP software category, as well as top 5 rankings from time to time in SAP, Microsoft,Sage, Intacct,NetSuite, Ross,Lawson and Infor– which are all categories of ERP publishers if you’d not guessed.
By the time you’re hearing this, my viewer count will top the 1 – million reader mark. I remember when I called my wife in to show her that 40-thousand people had read my answers because that sounded like a big number. But 1 Million readers. As they used to say, THAT and a dime will get you a cup of coffee. Of course they didn’t have Starbucks when they were saying that.
Anyway.
We’re going to pull up some of the ERP related questions people from around the world are asking and go over how we answered those questions – Maybe you have some of the same questions. Maybe you can’t believe someone asked that question. Maybe there is such a thing as a stupid question.
We’ll find out today – Hey a million readers can’t be wrong – at least not all of them at the same time – It’s the Mailbag episode of the ERProfit podcast – right here in our endless quest to help you - Profit From ERP.
MFX Post and Out
The Podcast is brought to you by Eide Bailly Technology– you know it’s relatively easy to become an expert in social media – you can even label yourself a ‘guru’ or better yet, a ‘product evangelist’ Since I run the Profit from ERP website, I can call myself a Prophet of Profit – you know like a prophet- with a PH - like prophet of old, talking about financial profit – I guess that’s all in the PH balance if you get those sorts of jokes.
But Eide Bailly is not like that – they earn their labels the hard way – by doing the actual work.
Eide Bailly is a 100+ year old CPA firm – not many companies have that kind of track record.
The Eide Bailly Technology Group is a NetSuite reseller, Salesforce.com partner, they handle Sage Business Software and much more.
And they don’t have to label themselves a ‘guru’ when others are recognizing them for more impressive accomplishments like NetSuite top 5 Global Consulting Partner and NetSuite Partner of the Year for several years running – even the coveted Worldwide Partner of the Year – now that covers some ground.
And while I might be a so-called social media Expert, when it comes to consulting for my client companies – if they need NetSuite, I turn to Eide Bailly – because I want realexperts working for myclients.
NetSuite is great – it’s one of the hottest ERP’s on the market and there’s a ton of resellers and implementation partners all across the nation – but I want the best – so I go with Eide Bailly and you should too.
You know NetSuite doesn’t absolutely fit every company everywhere – but when NetSuite is the right ERP, Eide Bailly is the right partner. No gurus. No evangelists. Just experts. Eide Bailly – that’s E I D E B A I L L Y.com
Now onto the podcast
ERPodcast Episode 4 – 2019 The State of the ERP Address
Time for Profit from ERP (MFX)
It’s ERPodcast the verbal musings of the Director of Consulting Services at Profit From ERP, Gene Hammons – Today it’s The 2019 State of the ERP Address - We’ll talk about new efficiencies driven by cloud ERP, increasing pressure on internal corporate teams taking on a new ERP projects, ERP platform diversity which means something for everyone, and we’ll cover the strategic impact of ERP and the core competency to be a technology driven company instead of an M&A target
If you Google ERP related queries, you’ll find a world of information – most of it written from the perspective of someone who’s trying to sell you their ERP software. Which, while that is informative to a point, it’s not always the point you were looking to answer.
So, our perspective.
We help client companies analyze, select, and implement ERP software as well as related operational software and mobile apps. Granted, software selection expertise does not translate into an accurate general overview of the entire ERP industry – what we do have is a specific, laser focused, examination of real world results from actual working companies.
We do selection/implementation again and again, for client after client. In a variety of industries, business lines and verticals. The commonalities of our clients are they’re already successful and growing, usually they’ve outgrown or outpaced the current system.
It’s gotten to the point where regardless if the cost seems huge, they know the effort needs to be undertaken –
Our consulting practice is designed to turn that around.
Instead of approaching the project as a huge cost, we look to the efficiencies – the productivity gains – the cost avoidance – the labor savings – the revenue increases – and we measure it all, as increased Profit – Profit From ERP.
Profit is the goal. ERP is the tool.
And while it’s not exactly a Congressional Proclamation, it’s definitely a real world perspective, it’s the 2019 State of the ERP address –
-Break-
Welcome back to the ERPodcast, the 2019 State of the ERP Address – before we jump into today’s content, a bit of backstory.
Yes, I know there’s always a bit of backstory with me – but just this morning, I saw a pull quote from noted economist Thomas Sowell, who said “One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and time again.”
So we don’t want to be angering Economists and we have a general policy of avoiding disasters – so let’s understand history driving today’s trends.
Trend #1 Cloud Computing Driving Efficiencies
In the early days of ERP, everything was modular to the extreme – you could buy a General Ledger or GL system from one company and tie that to an A/P or Accounts Payable system from another company. Today, all these modules have long been incorporated into different views from the same relational database, so any modern ERP will contain fairly complete financials.
Now if you’re working with a consulting firm that’s put together an RFP to send out to ERP providers, and on the front page of that RFP are questions that ask if the ERP package contains a GL, AP, AR, Purchasing and the like, there’s only two reasons – One, they’re using an old RFP form from the 1986 era of extreme modularity or two, they’re sending it out to ERP softwares that they have no idea or have never used that ERP – both big clues – take a hint.
The common model is completeness of base financial functions within a single database.
In the old model, only huge companies had the IT resources to keep all these different codebases integrated through upgrade roadmaps and changes in features – and with the changes to a single relational database,
When a company grows rapidly, and suddenly QuickBooks is not enough - there's a huge leap from accounting software to ERP and it requires a huge mental leap as well. In this episode, we look at a very common mistake - implementing by business office, when actually ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning - and it truly calls for the entire enterprise to contribute and reap the benefits.
Find out how to manage this tricky implementation without the $100,000 pitfalls so many others have tripped over.
Emerging Pharmaceutical Manufacturers face many challenges - going public, commercialization - there's CMO's and 3PL's controlling the supply chain, quality - and spinning up an infrastructure from 0-60 in a flash calls for intelligent software investments for ERP, CRM, financial tracking of stock options, FP&L, HR, the list is not short.
How to approach the spin-up in a tried and true manner - even if you've never tried this before - Our clients have - so take a few tips from a team that's done this a few times and you'll be ahead of the game from the start.
Selecting & Implementing ERP is a huge project for any company - much less taking on this gargantuan task for the first time. Profit From ERP takes the best practices from over 400 ERP projects and brings the best practices to you. We'll save you money in the short term, avoid risks of huge cost overruns and make your company more profitable in the long term. Don't go it alone, risking your company, your job and your sanity. Today's episode tells you all about our methodology, our approach and your success.