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Don’t Be A Slave To Your Business EstesGroup BPR

Does your business ever get stuck in a rut and can’t figure out how to get out of it? You got people spending just tons of time every single day working 12-hour days, working Saturdays and Sundays just to try to figure out how to get themselves caught up, get ahead—on-time delivery shipments, quality issues, you name it.

I just spent the week here in DC, working with a client and doing a business process review and trying to figure out what’s going on within their business and how can we help them out. It’s not just from a software perspective, but how are their processes working? What can they do better? How can they employ industry best practices? How can they improve what they’re doing and be able to communicate better and hand off things and work together better as a team so that they can have a smoother operation?

I’m Matt Thompson with the EstesGroup. I’m out here in DC this week working with a client that definitely needed a little bit of help. What our business process review is designed to do is to be able to sit down and over the course of two to three days, take a really good deep look at a business from the production floor all the way through quote-to-cash, interviewing the people that are working on a daily basis, and understanding what’s going on inside of your business and your processes.

It’s not just designed to look at it and how can we utilize the ERP system better. That’s obviously part of it. We want technology to work for you and not you being a slave to it.

As I’m sitting here in DC and walking around and seeing all of these memorials and these sites, I couldn’t help but to reflect on what went on this week, what the client is going through and how they are very much a slave to the operation that’s their business today. They don’t have to be. There are some very simple things that in most organizations may take a couple of months to be able to fix and a lot of effort and a lot of discipline to be able to get there.

That’s kind of what it’s all about. If you want to be able to succeed in business, you have to have the tenacity to be able to go after it. You have to know what your goals are and what you want to go after and how to get there.

That’s exactly what our BPRs are designed to do—come in, sit down with you, sit down with the business, understand where your goals are—your missions—and be able to take all of that together. BPRs are designed to be able to find out what are the processes that are not efficient or what are the ones that are flat out broken and help you guys understand what are the steps that you need to be able to get to the successful efficient operations and then leverage your ERP system to be able to do that work for you so it’s working for you and not against you.

If you have any questions, get ahold of us. Find us on Facebook. Find us on Twitter. Facebook.com/EstesGroup. Twitter is @EstesGroup. We’d love to hear from you. Reach out and talk and, of course, estesgrp.com. On there, there is Ask an Expert. Contact us. All of those methods will reach me out there. We’d love to start a conversation and see what we can do to help you. Anyway, take care. This is Matt from DC. We’ll talk to you soon.

Stop letting your business run you! Click here to explore our unique approach to Business Process Reviews.

The 10 Principles of ERP Selection Success & How to Apply Them: Learn How To Analyze The Details!

The 10 Principles of ERP Selection Success & How to Apply Them: Learn How To Analyze The Details!

Goal #6 in Selecting Your The Best Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP) System: Learn How To Analyze The Details!
The 10 Principles of Success

We continue to review the 10 Principles of Success and how they’re applied to ERP Selection with the 6th Goal for Success: Learn How to Analyze the Details!

The 10 Principles of Success are:

1. How You Think is Everything! 

  • Always be positive.
  • Think success not failure.
  • Be aware of a negative environment.

2. Decide on What Your True Goals Are!

  • Write down what your specific goals are.
  • Write down a plan/time line in how to obtain your goals.

3. Take Action!

  • Goals/Plans are nothing without action.
  • Don’t be afraid to get started – “Just Do It”, it doesn’t need to be perfect to start, nothing ever is!

4. Never Stop Learning!

  • Get on-going training so use to better your organization.

5. Persistence and Hard Work Pay-off!

  • Success is a marathon, not a sprint.
  • Never give up on the goal/plan that you created in number 3 above, original or revised!

6. Learn How to Analyze the Details!

  • Get all the facts/input you can – Learn from your mistakes.

7. Focus Your Time and Money!

  • Don’t let other things and people distract you!

8. Don’t be Afraid to Innovate and Change – Be Different!

  • Following the way that it’s always been done is a sure way to achieve nothing.

9. Communicate and Deal with People Effectively!

  • Learn to understand what motivates the people you work with and what they need to be successful. No person is the organization or is indispensable.

10. Be Honest and Dependable!

  • Take Responsibility – Otherwise 1 through 9 above won’t matter.

As a disclaimer, these 10 Principles of Success come from Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) newspaper aimed at helping stock market investors understand what good growth stocks to invest in, based on what the current overall market conditions are.  EstesGroup believes that a company can apply these 10 Principles of Success to ERP systems; that is selecting, implementing and using them.
How does the 6th Principle of Success apply to:

Choosing the Right ERP System for Your Business?

Principle # 6:  Learn How to Analyze the Details!

  • Get all the facts/input you can – Learn from your      mistakes.

How does one go about getting all of the facts about an ERP system while you’re in the Selection Process?  A great start to knowing all of the good, bad or indifferent detail of an ERP system is to befriend the salesperson who is trying to sell you the system.  If that sounds like a counter intuitive statement, it’s really not.  If you’re up front and honest with the salesperson in regard to what you want your company to accomplish with the purchase of an ERP system, they will be open and honest with providing you the detail information you need to make a proper decision.  Believe it or not most ERP software vendors don’t want to sell you their software if it’s a bad fit for your business.  Bad ERP fits, mean bad implementations, which means negative customer feedback, which means potentially lost sales from company’s that are a good fit for the ERP software.  Therefore, providing the salesperson with what your ERP software/service budget is (upfront), your timeline for purchase as well as who from your company will be participating in the review of the system will go a long way for you getting the detail information you need to analyze.  Schedule time for everyone on your review team to introduce themselves to the ERP salesperson, including upper management.  This is where your company will establish the needed relationship with the ERP vendor for future success as you implement and use the ERP system you select.   So the 6th Principle of a successful ERP selection is to first get all of the detailed information you can, before you sit down to analyze it.  It’s the ERP salesperson who can provide you with that information or should be in a position to allow you access to other people within their organization to provide you the necessary information to make a knowledgeable choice.
So what detailed information should you be analyzing in the selection process?  The list below, should be a good start:

  1. Detailed module documentation – for each module of an ERP system you’re looking to purchase.
  2. Detailed Demonstration Script and Agenda – this should be a step by step guide of showing you and your review team how the system will work for your business, highlighting “Best Practices”using a sampling of your data.
  3. Detailed Demonstration – typically allow a total of 8 hours for each ERP system.  This does not have to be done in one day.
  4. Detailed Price Quote, showing each module’s price. Including on-going maintenance costs.
  5. Software License Agreement – the ERP vendor of choice will ask you to sign this document at purchase.
  6. Master Service Agreement – this document basically describes the details of the “Scope” of your ERP system implementation.

Need help analyzing the detail of the detailed documents listed above and then compare that to the 3 to 5 ERP vendors you’re receiving this information from? EstesGroup can help!  We’ve been providing this type of information to our customers for years.  Our ERP system selection knowledge and our honesty on your behalf is what makes us different.

We would love to talk with you about HOW to “Analyze the Detail” in your ERP selection process. Pick up the phone and call 1 888 300 2340 and together we will:

Simplify Technology, Improve Operations, and Gain Efficiencies…

Learn From Our Experts:
Access Our Epicor 10 Out Of The Box ToolsVideo Series.

Download our “Get Ready For Your Epicor 10 Upgrade” Worksheet.

The 10 Principles of ERP Selection Success & How to Apply Them: Be Persistent and Work Hard!

The 10 Principles of ERP Selection Success & How to Apply Them: Be Persistent and Work Hard!

Goal #5 in Selecting Your The Best Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP) System: Be Persistent and Work Hard!
The 10 Principles of Success

We continue to delve into the ERP Selection process with the 5th Goal for Success: Persistence and Hard Work Pay Off!

The 10 Principles of Success are:

1. How You Think is Everything! 

  • Always be positive.
  • Think success not failure.
  • Be aware of a negative environment.

2. Decide on What Your True Goals Are!

  • Write down what your specific goals are.
  • Write down a plan/time line in how to obtain your goals.

3. Take Action!

  • Goals/Plans are nothing without action.
  • Don’t be afraid to get started – “Just Do It”, it doesn’t need to be perfect to start, nothing ever is!

4. Never Stop Learning!

  • Get on-going training so use to better your organization.

5. Persistence and Hard Work Pay-off!

  • Success is a marathon, not a sprint.
  • Never give up on the goal/plan that you created in number 3 above, original or revised!

6. Learn How to Analyze the Details!

  • Get all the facts/input you can – Learn from your mistakes.

7. Focus Your Time and Money!

  • Don’t let other things and people distract you!

8. Don’t be Afraid to Innovate and Change – Be Different!

  • Following the way that it’s always been done is a sure way to achieve nothing.

9. Communicate and Deal with People Effectively!

  • Learn to understand what motivates the people you work with and what they need to be successful. No person is the organization or is indispensable.

10. Be Honest and Dependable!

  • Take Responsibility – Otherwise 1 through 9 above won’t matter.

As a disclaimer, these 10 Principles of Success come from Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) newspaper aimed at helping stock market investors understand what good growth stocks to invest in, based on what the current overall market conditions are.  EstesGroup believes that a company can apply these 10 Principles of Success to ERP systems; that is selecting, implementing and using them.
How does the 5th Principle of Success apply to:

Choosing the Right ERP System for Your Business?

Principle # 5:  Persistence and Hard Work Pay-off!

If no one has told you selecting an ERP system is hard work.  To choose the right system your company’s selection team needs to be doggedly persistent; believe me your hard work will pay-off.
“How You Think”, “Establishing Goals”, “Taking Action” and “Learning” are all important Principles to successfully choosing the right ERP system, but Working Hard and being Persistent in your review of ERP systems is equally important.

Remember an ERP system will touch every facet of your business, so it becomes critical that an ERP review team is focused on sharing their knowledge on an on-going basis with one another on how the operation functions today and how they want it to function when you start using an ERP system.  Upper management needs to consistently sit in on this review process and provide on-going feedback to the team to stay on task.  The hard work and persistence comes in scheduling and attending weekly ERP meeting discussions with other review team members.  The hard work and persistence comes in attending/actively participating in all day ERP system demonstrations.  The hard work and persistence comes in taking detail notes as the ERP demonstration is being done and then writing them up to share with the other review team members.   As with most team functions, your company will have stronger team members than others.  The hard work andpersistence for upper management is to provide the review team with the needed encouragement to not take short cuts through the review process and to do the hard work it takes to make the right ERP selection for the company.  Oh yes, upper management also needs to set an example by showing up for planned ERP review meetings and actively participating with their thoughts as well.

The hard work and persistence involved in selecting the right ERP system means you show up early for work and leave late.  The pay-off in selecting the right ERP system is your company runs more efficiently and effectively which typically means you ultimately make more money as well as you can get your work down as you grow, in a normal 8 hour workday.

Need help doing the hard work necessary to select the right ERP system, let EstesGroup help, we’ve been doing this type hard work for years.  Our business experience, industry knowledge and our work ethic sets us apart from all other consulting firms.

We would love to talk with you about HOW to take the right action in your ERP selection process. Pick up the phone and call 1 888 300 2340 and together we will:

Simplify Technology, Improve Operations, and Gain Efficiencies…

Learn From Our Experts:
Access Our Epicor 10 Out Of The Box ToolsVideo Series.

Download our “Get Ready For Your Epicor 10 Upgrade” Worksheet.

Epicor 10 Tricks To Make Your Life Easier Quicker and More Efficient

Hey, folks. It’s Matt Thompson here with a real quick video for you all. I’m just going to show you some tips and tricks in Epicor 10—how to get around. There are a couple key features here that a lot of folks don’t know about. I just want to be able to make sure everybody kind of has an idea.



 

I’ve pulled open a real quick dashboard tracker here that’s showing our year-to-date sales. It’s got some nice buckets. It goes all the way across the screen here with a lot of information. So, I want to show you some things.

A lot of folks want to be able to take this out to Microsoft Excel and be able to massage that. Well, anywhere you see this grid view it’s no problem. You can right-click, copy to Excel. Then it’s going to open up Excel and dump everything in there for you and you can be on your way.

A lot of folks want to be able to see and massage the data a little bit. They can still do that. So I can right-click and say show group by. Now I can bring my cust. ID up here. I’m showing where I’ve got my customers grouped into these nice neat buckets. I’ve got that information now dissected so I can look at things a little bit more clearly. In addition I can right-click here and say show me my filters. I’m going to filter this down to only show and say Boeing. Now I’ve got only the Boeing Company’s information that’s actually here in front of me.

That’s all fine and dandy. Those things are great for filtration and everything. Now let’s say I still want to massage it in Excel. If I right-click copy to Excel, it’s actually going to fire this thing up. I can see that it brings it over, and it still has my group-bys automatically brought over into Excel. Then I can expand and see my data column sets. That’s really cool and a really neat function here with Epicor 10.

In addition to this, I got a lot of information rolling out to the right. Maybe I want to be able to lock my screen or freeze panes. This is a little hidden gem that a lot of folks don’t know about. Anytime I see this scroll window in a grid view whether it’s horizontal or vertical, on the capstone here, I see this little rectangle. When I roll my mouse over it, my cursor changes. I can click and drag that guy right over to where I want that to freeze. It essentially just made a mere copy on both sides of the same dashboard data.

Now as I scroll, I have the effect of freeze panes right here in my window. I can actually scroll across, see my year-to-date totals while still keeping my name in check here without having to change and manipulate where I’m dragging and dropping different columns. It’s a really nice feature there to be able to see very quickly how your data looks, feels, forms and everything else.

Then in addition, the one last one here, you can show summaries. That will give you the ability to do summarized totals here within the different column sets. You can actually see some aggregate sums out there as well. I hope this is definitely helpful for you. There are some tips and tricks that a lot of folks just don’t know about. Make sure to start a conversation with us—estesgrp.com/ask-an-expert.

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The 10 Principles of ERP Selection Success & How to Apply Them: Never Stop Learning!

The 10 Principles of ERP Selection Success & How to Apply Them: Never Stop Learning!

Goal #4 in Selecting Your The Best Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP) System: Never Stop Learning!
The 10 Principles of Success

We continue to delve into the ERP Selection process with the 4th Goal for Success: Never Stop Learning!

The 10 Principles of Success are:

1. How You Think is Everything! 

  • Always be positive.
  • Think success not failure.
  • Be aware of a negative environment.

2. Decide on What Your True Goals Are!

  • Write down what your specific goals are.
  • Write down a plan/time line in how to obtain your goals.

3. Take Action!

  • Goals/Plans are nothing without action.
  • Don’t be afraid to get started – “Just Do It”, it doesn’t need to be perfect to start, nothing ever is!

4. Never Stop Learning!

  • Get on-going training so use to better your organization.

5. Persistence and Hard Work Pay-off!

  • Success is a marathon, not a sprint.
  • Never give up on the goal/plan that you created in number 3 above, original or revised!

6. Learn How to Analyze the Details!

  • Get all the facts/input you can – Learn from your mistakes.

7. Focus Your Time and Money!

  • Don’t let other things and people distract you!

8. Don’t be Afraid to Innovate and Change – Be Different!

  • Following the way that it’s always been done is a sure way to achieve nothing.

9. Communicate and Deal with People Effectively!

  • Learn to understand what motivates the people you work with and what they need to be successful. No person is the organization or is indispensable.

10. Be Honest and Dependable! 

  • Take Responsibility – Otherwise 1 through 9 above won’t matter.

As a disclaimer, these 10 Principles of Success come from Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) newspaper aimed at helping stock market investors understand what good growth stocks to invest in, based on what the current overall market conditions are.  EstesGroup believes that a company can apply these 10 Principles of Success to ERP systems; that is selecting, implementing and using them.
How does the 4th Principle of Success apply to:

Choosing the Right ERP System for Your Business?

Principle # 4:  Never Stop Learning!

As you are going through the ERP selection process “Never Stop Learning” about each system you’re reviewing so you ultimately find the right one.  Paying attention to the small details of each ERP system your company is thinking of purchasing to help you run your business will truly make the difference on making the right choice.  So what’s does that specifically mean “Never Stop Learning”.

It means you need to ask the hard questions of each of the ERP developers you’re reviewing, so you truly learn what each system’s Pros and Cons are before it’s bought.  Questions such as:

  1. What’s the cost of your annual Maintenance?
    What’s Maintenance based on, modules purchased, users or both?
  2. Learn in detail each module of the system your thinking about purchasing to make sure you really need it.
    Request a detailed demonstration of each module the software developer says you need to learn and understand it.  Take detail notes of the module that are being demonstrated as the developer is showing it to you.  That will be valuable information to refer back to when you’re making your final decision, as well as when you implement it and use it.
  3. Learn how the developer (or their partners) plans to implement their system into your environment.
    This should be a detailed task list with realistic dates; that you and your implementation team understand!
  4. Learn if any of the pieces/modules of the system you’re reviewing are developed by third parties.  If so, how does this impact:
    System updates
    Maintenance
    Training
  5. Learn from each ERP developer what hardware/operating environment they’re software operates on.
    On-Premise
    Hosted
    SaaS
  6. Combination of all three above.  Is this good or bad?
  7. What’s the best for your company?

Whether you are doing the review of ERP systems on your own or your working with a consulting organization to help you through the ERP system review process, you need to make sure you and your review team are engaged taking detailed notes as well as you’re truly learning from the software developers how their ERP systems are going to help your company through the “Best Practices” they’ve incorporated in their system, function better.  If you don’t learn that detail through the review process, you most likely won’t learn that through the implementation and use phase of the system either.

EstesGroup understands what “Best Practices” of an ERP system are.  The key of how to incorporate ERP “Best Practices” into your facility are related to what your company’s income streams are (i.e. Value Stream Scripts).  If you’d like to learn more about what we mean by this and how it truly makes the difference in changing your company’s implementation/use of ERP, let us know, we can help!

We would love to talk with you and learn together what the next step is for you in your ERP ERP selection process. Pick up the phone and call 1 888 300 2340 and together we will:

Simplify Technology, Improve Operations, and Gain Efficiencies…

Learn From Our Experts:
Access Our Epicor 10 Out Of The Box ToolsVideo Series.

Download our “Get Ready For Your Epicor 10 Upgrade” Worksheet.