Goal #9 in Selecting the Best Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System: Communicate and Deal with People Effectively
We continue to review the ten principles of success and how they apply to ERP selection, focusing on the ninth goal: communicate and deal with people effectively.
The 10 Principles of Success
1. Weekly Meetings with Upper Management Involvement
Always include a meeting agenda so participants know what to expect.
2. Written Reports
Document potential ERP system candidates.
Include demonstration dates and reasons for each candidate’s consideration.
3. Track Pros and Cons
Regularly update a written list of each ERP system’s advantages and disadvantages.
4. Individual Tasks and Updates
Assign specific tasks to team members, with weekly updates on progress.
5. Accountability and Responses
Require team members to report their completed tasks weekly.
6. Upper Management Inclusion
Ensure management participates in tasks and receives updates on progress.
7. Timeline Updates
Communicate progress and upcoming tasks weekly.
8. Address Incomplete Tasks
Politely remind team members who haven’t completed tasks to ensure accountability.
9. Schedule Demonstrations in Advance
Communicate demonstration schedules well in advance. Attendance is critical.
10. Follow-Up Calls with ERP Vendors
Assign team members to follow up with vendors post-demonstration and share findings with the group.
It’s time to begin. You can put these ERP principles in action beginning now.
By over-communicating and keeping all team members engaged, you can ensure a smoother ERP selection process. Understanding that most people are apprehensive about change is key. Be positive and clear when discussing potential impacts and benefits.
If you need expert guidance on effectively communicating during ERP selection, EstesGroup can help. Simplify technology, improve operations, and gain efficiencies with our expertise.
ERP Principles at Your Service: EstesCare ERP
Building on this principle, EstesCare ERP emphasizes the importance of clear communication and collaboration throughout the ERP journey. With a focus on understanding the unique needs of every organization, EstesCare ERP provides tailored solutions that bring teams together, ensuring alignment and confidence at every stage—from selection and implementation to ongoing support. By fostering open dialogue and addressing challenges proactively, EstesCare ERP helps businesses streamline operations, improve efficiency, and achieve long-term success with a system designed to adapt to their evolving needs.
The Network Administrator’s Dilemma: Balancing Performance and Security
In today’s digital landscape, network administrators face an increasingly complex challenge: maintaining smooth operations while ensuring robust security. It’s a balancing act that becomes more demanding with each passing day.
The Daily Juggling Act
Picture this: You’re a network administrator trying to keep your digital ecosystem running smoothly. Your to-do list includes:
Deploying critical security patches
Managing firewall configurations
Provisioning new servers
Maintaining antivirus protection
Handling user access and permissions
Responding to urgent support tickets
Setting up new employee accounts
And just when you think you’ve got it all under control, an account lockout or security alert demands your immediate attention. Meanwhile, threat actors are constantly probing your defenses with increasingly sophisticated attacks – from ransomware to social engineering schemes.
The Reality of Modern Network Management
For many organizations, especially small and medium-sized businesses, the challenge isn’t just technical – it’s about resources and time management. When faced with choosing between keeping systems running smoothly and implementing comprehensive security measures, immediate operational needs often take precedence.
Consider these common business technology scenarios:
Postponing server patches to avoid user disruption
Rushing through security audits to handle urgent tickets
Delaying documentation updates in favor of immediate fixes
Pushing back firewall reviews to handle day-to-day operations
The truth? In most companies, network administration inevitably trumps security administration. Why? Because users (and management) notice when systems don’t work, but security breaches aren’t apparent until it’s too late.
The Fundamental Conflict
Here’s the core issue: Network administration and security administration are inherently different disciplines with competing priorities:
Network Admins focus on accessibility, performance, and user satisfaction
Security Admins prioritize protection, compliance, and risk management
While larger enterprises can afford dedicated Chief Security Officers (CSOs) and specialized teams, smaller organizations often struggle to maintain this crucial separation of duties.
Take the Next Step
Ready to transform your IT operations and ensure both network performance and security receive the attention they deserve? EstesGroup can help you develop a comprehensive approach to network and security management:
Responsibilities: Distinct teams handle network operations and security administration
Coverage: Both aspects receive the attention they deserve
Standards: Regular audits, documentation, and compliance checks
Goal #8 in Selecting Your The Best Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System:
Don’t be Afraid to Innovate and Change! The10 Principles of Success
We continue to review the 10 Principles of Success and how they’re applied to ERP Selection with the 8th Goal for Success: Don’t be Afraid to Innovate and Change!
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 8th Principle of Success apply to:
Choosing the Right ERP System for Your Business?
Principle # 8: Don’t be Afraid to Innovate and Change!
Following the way that it’s always been done is a sure way to achieve nothing.
In my opinion the ability to Innovate and Change is the cornerstone of why your business would want an ERP system to begin with. As a business Innovation and Change is the lifeblood of you continuing as a business. If your business is going through the process of trying to Select an ERP system based on what your current system(s) allows you to do today without a close examination of why, what, when and who’s doing it you’re doing your company a big disservice. Selecting a new ERP system or your first ERP system is a great opportunity for your company to innovate/invigorate your business by learning what “Best Practices” the new ERP system has to offer and how it will positively impact your business. As I mentioned in my last blog, a good, tightly integrated ERP system will touch every aspect of your business (i.e. from how you handle a sales lead to how you maintain your facility/equipment as well as everything in between).
I’ve been in literally hundreds of manufacturing/distribution companies over the 30+ years I’ve selling/servicing ERP systems and what I feel that’s really missing from the ERP selection process, from a business owner’s perspective, is understanding how and what needs to change in their organization to be better. Business management gets locked into the mindset of “this is how we’ve always done it and we’ve been in business for 50 years, so I guess we know what we’re doing”. That’s true to a certain degree, but if you really are trying to determine how a new ERP system can help you change and innovate your business when selecting an ERP system (instead of when you’re implementing or using the system you purchased) you should be interested to know from the ERP Vendor what they can tell you about how their system will make your business better. If the software vendor knows his system, knows your industry then they should be able to tell you, create a list for you and then show you specifically how their system can make your business better. On top of that, the ERP software vendor should be able to identify gaps in your current business processes Vs “Best Practices” of their system and then be able to clearly show/tell you how to change your current business mode to take advantage of their new innovative ideas.
So what are a few ways a manufacturing/distribution business can change and innovative themselves with an ERP system?
Let’s start with Marketing! Are you tracking the marketing dollars you’re spending to specific marketing campaigns that then identify the leads that are generated from those marketing campaign, that turn into sales quotes? That then turn into orders?
At the time your company completes the manufacturing of a part(s) are you able to clearly understand what parts, product lines or customers you’re the most profitable doing work for based on what you initially quoted?
How many times do people in your organization reenter information into your current system(s) in order for you/them to understand where things are at (i.e. quotes, orders, jobs, purchases, receipts, shipments, invoices, etc?)
How often do you experience unplanned machine down time?
Are you scheduling your manufacturing shop with a whiteboard?
Are you still mailing your customers their invoices?
Are you manually reporting labor time on cards and then collecting those labor cards for input the next day?
Do you allow your customers the ability of entering their own orders on your website or do they have to call in to get the status of their business with your company?
How many Excel spreadsheets do you have and use throughout your business to pass information from one department to another?
Are you reentering shipping information into your shipping providers systems or manually filling out Bill of Ladings and Packing Slips?
There are literally hundreds of more examples I can provide you in what changes you should be looking for when you’re company is going through the selection process of choosing an ERP system.
If you’d like to learn more of what and how an ERP system can help you innovate and change your business prior to buying it, give EstesGroup a call, we can help! We’ve been providing this type of help to themanufacturing/distribution industry for years.
We would love to talk with you about HOW an ERP system can Innovate and Change your business to be better. 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.
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 7th Principle of Success apply to:
Choosing the Right ERP System for Your Business?
Principle # 7: Focus Your Time and Money!
Don’t let other things and people distract you!
Everyone has heard the old saying “There’s only so much time” and “There is only so much Money” to get things accomplished. Truer words were never spoken as they relate to selecting your company’s ERP system. Just as you need to establish a budget for the purchase and implementation of an ERP system you also need to establish a budget of time and money you’re going to use to select an ERP system. So what are the Time & Money elements you need to budget to the ERP system selection process?
The overall timeframe budget for ERP selection is about 3 to 6 months. This will vary somewhat from organization to organization, but if you string this process out to long, I guarantee you the employees on the ERP Selection Review Team will lose their Focus and the time and money you spend will be for naught.
Breaking down the 3 to 6 month overall timeframe to hours becomes an exercise in how many people (including upper management) you’ll have on your ERP Selection Review Team and then knowing how many hours per week they should devote to the ERP system review/selection.
ERP Review Team Members typically are, one person from the following areas in your company:
6 hours/week/person – Internal Project Leader – 15 hours/week on average should be devoted to ERP system selection.
That is:
(20 weeks x 6 hours x 7 people = 840 to 1000 hours -including project leader time on average)
Note: If this sounds like a lot of time, please remember selecting the right ERP system for your organization is probably the most critical thing you as a group will do; because the system touches every aspect of your organization. In addition to this, it’s also important to know that the employees above will be the leaders of these areas or the person that knows the most about how their area interacts with the rest of the company. If you apply the hourly cost of each of these people to the number of hours you’re budgeting for selecting an ERP system, you’ll have a pretty good estimate of the money you’ll spend to select an ERP system.
Consulting costs if you’re not going to go it alone or you need a professional consultant to lead your company’s ERP selection process.
20 weeks x 15 hours/week x $175.00/hour (on average) = $52,500.00Note: You’ll still need to commit the employees time listed above to the ERP Review Team. A number of company’s feel that once they make the decision to hire a consultant to lead the ERP selection project the other employees get a pass on being involved. This is 100% false. The consultant is hired to organize the project review/information and provide feedback to upper management based on the involvement of the team, not make the ERP system selectionfor you. The consultant isn’t going to use the ERP system after they leave your company is.
Travel Costs of the consultant and of your internal team should be budgeted for (if necessary).
Based on the Money and Time involved of an ERP system selection it’s critically important to Focus on the task at hand and get it done in the designated timeframe you’re allowing.
EstesGroup can help! We’ve been providing this type of help to our customers for years. Our ERP systemselection knowledge and our honesty on your behalf is what makes us different.
We would love to talk with you about HOW to “Focus Your Time and Money” on bettering your ERPselection 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.
