ERP Consulting Archives - Page 10 of 17

Manufacturing in America, Made in Colorado

by Brad Feakes | Sep 15, 2021 | Business Direction, Disaster Recovery, ERP Consulting, Manufacturing Innovation

Made by Colorado Manufacturers

Like many areas in the US, the Colorado manufacturing scene has been scrambling to adjust to the ongoing movement of the pandemic and its aftershocks. Changes in demand, fluctuations in labor, and radical shifts in supply and availability have resulted in new and unexpected challenges, and manufacturers across the state have, out of necessity, worked to devise clever solutions to a shifting array of problems.

Made at the NOCOM Manufacturing & Trades Show

The NOCOM Manufacturing and Trades Show 2021 conference, coming soon to the Larimer County Fairgrounds in Loveland, exemplifies one such clever strategy, which is actually an old methodology that we sometimes forget we have — in-person, mind-to-mind, heart-to-heart collaboration. It’s this type of energy that has not only kept the manufacturing industry afloat during the pandemic, but also allowed many of us to survive the seemingly endless virtual office hours.

At the recent P21 CONNECT conference, an in-person Epicor Prophet 21 user event, I realized how much I missed the benefits that come from being able to gather under the guise of a common association. There is a surprising amount of value that can be gained by the act of simple collaboration.

There are great benefits to sharing challenges facing one company (or an entire industry), and it often takes a community to surface the steps needed to prevail. Together, companies can work to delineate the quick and effective measures that can be taken and perform the actions required for mitigating risks. In the distribution industry, with community knowledge at the core, Prophet 21 consulting is largely revolving around supply chain issues, cybersecurity threats, and the shift from on-premise servers to cloud-based technology.

As we’ve seen in our preparation for NOCOM 2021, the manufacturing industry is facing similar challenges: supply and demand shifts, ransomware and malware threats, and cloud availability amid outdated technology trends.

So, what is your manufacturing strategy, and how has the pandemic changed community involvement in your business culture?

The sharing of the intellectual property of daily problem solving is something that just didn’t translate into online forums and Zoom calls. As we stagger back into some semblance of “normal” life, we look once again to share the value of in-person business meetings and socialization.

As we’ve faced together more than a year of volatility, we’ve learn that the solutions to problems in one industry might have applicability in another. We’ve learned that our problems may not be things that we have to bear on our own. In manufacturing and distribution, the ability to adapt quickly results in success.

There’s an old saying that goes “you are your friends” or “you are only as good as your friends.” In enterprise resource planning (ERP) consulting, we learn from our friends, so that we can adapt and succeed in our projects.

What can we learn from our friends as the Colorado manufacturing industry reopens?

The “Made in America” movement continues to find new applicability, as companies struggle to supply products locally, products that have been historically outsourced. The reactions are inconsistent — in some commodities, I hear of manufacturers and supply chain companies switch back to offshore supply as soon as it becomes available.

In other cases, I discover commodities that may remain in North America after the dust has settled. Increasingly, I stumble across products that have been crafted in Colorado, products new to the state. Colorado, like the rest of the nation, is learning to make things again, and this is one adaptation that you’ll see in the NOCOM community, whether you’re still following along from your virtual office or attending the in-person event this year.

Next week, EstesGroup will once again be returning to NOCOM in person. While we had fun at the virtual conference last year, we’re looking forward to the friend-to-friend interactions that can only be present while walking together, sharing dinner together, exchanging stories together. Providing cloud and IT services for manufacturers and distributors throughout the pandemic has taught us much about the resolve of the nation as we work with the companies as they reshape themselves to take on the needs of a reopening world.

If you are a manufacturer facing the challenges of reopening in 2021, 2022, and beyond, EstesGroup’s ERP and IT consultants would love to help you understand industry trends. Our team will be at NOCOM 2021 BOOTH 62 on September 23rd, and we’re hoping to see you there!

Are you a manufacturer struggling with cyberthreats? We fully support manufacturers remotely and in person! Our coast-to-coast consultants circle out from our Loveland office, supporting Colorado manufacturing and beyond, even throughout Canada!

ROI of ERP: Software Money Games & Executive Moves

by EstesCloud | Sep 1, 2021 | ERP Consulting, ERP Implementation, ERP Selection, Software

Once you calculate ROI (return on investment) of ERP software and determine that a new system will result in new profitability, the most important step appears: your software selection decision. But who should make this final and most important decision about the future of your organization?

Every business has a minimum expected return on investment (ROI) of ERP projects. They have some threshold that allows a potential investment, whether in software or another asset, to even be considered. It takes a balanced software project leadership team to determine if a vendor is providing an enterprise solution that will ultimately result in solid ROI.

Imaginative visual of business people and financial firms staff. Concept of human resources, ROI of ERP, enterprise resource planning ERP and digital technology

Who are key players and who are “extras” in your ROI journey?

Software implementation team:

An enterprise-level software implementation is complex and takes a strong pool of talent. ERP (Enterprise Resource Software) implementation poses high risk to your business if your team doesn’t execute projects with exactitude.

External stakeholders:

We live in an outsourcing world and third-party solutions build external networks of trustworthy stakeholders. Advisory boards and partnered firms will be affected by your software of choice, so be sure to entertain their insight in selection decisions.

Fellow CEOs, CIOs, CXOs, and the like, might have nuanced experience that will give you valuable insight into how a new system will change your company culture. Deployment decisions can also affect external stakeholders. If you move to the cloud, will your new infrastructure support your third-party integrations?

Internal support and project management teams:

Don’t simply play “follow the leader” when it comes to software management. Choose the talent that matches the task, and build a team that works well together. A complete software implementation can take years with all configurations and customizations in consideration and can significantly alter every aspect of your culture. Deploy a team that could handle any ERP deployment necessary, and your project will be a success.

IT experts – internal or external:

EstesGroup assists clients on a daily basis with seemingly “simple” technology decisions. In the ever-changing cyber landscape of ever-increasing cybersecurity threats, it’s critical that the people informing your software project leadership team are highly skilled at both soft IT skills and “hard” hardware skills like cloud migration and data center relationship management. Tech-savvy consultants tend to be gifted at ROI calculations. They can help ensure that your initial investment results in cash flow.

The inclusion of IT experts is especially pressing in an increasingly cloud-centric world in which consumption-based modeling can save you thousands upon thousands of both dollars and hours. Make sure to not only consider current infrastructure needs, but also entertain how technology could change. Will the vendor alter your software and force change? Consider Epicor’s Prophet 21 new client architecture updates of 2021 as an example of vendor interference.

Cloud experts and cloud migration experts:

Even if you choose an on-premise solution, it’s important to get a cloud migration analysis, assessment, and report. Make sure your software selection and implementation teams understand the differences between public cloud and private cloud deployments. Choose the best platform for your future needs, even if investments costs run higher than your ERP software budget had pencilled in. Project plans should adapt to new information. A few extra dollars now for a high rate of return later most likely won’t break your ROI formula.

Independent enterprise resource planning consultants:

It’s important to find someone who isn’t vested in the software vendor and can therefore give an impartial review of your business needs. Enterprise resource planning software firms are everywhere. Look for one with excellent customer relationships. Testimonials are your best bet for understanding the team members you’ll add by bringing in an IT or ERP consulting firm to help in your software selection process.

Who will complete your system analysis?

You and your software implementation team have analyzed the data and prepared your findings. Now you must make a presentation to your executives for a decision. Regardless of the findings in your analysis, the decision must be made at the executive level. They know this software acquisition is under consideration. Even if the return on investment is low, let the executives make the decision.

Their choice might be to ask for further analysis or more data and the analysis returns to your group. They could ask for some reduction in cost from the software providers or possibly a review of whether some costs could be deferred. At the end, they will let you know whether to request the final purchase documentation or to let your contacts at the software provider know you have chosen not to go forward.

Who will determine executive support?

This executive decision is probably required by the rules your business follows and only this group is authorized to make significant financial decisions. There are practical values, too. If you move on to acquire your software, there will be stresses on people and resources and resistance to change. Unless your executive team fully supports the changes required, you will not have the full support of others in departments and functions around your enterprise.

When you get the go-ahead from your executive team, more work is ahead of you and your team. Begin that work with some communication. Let your employees know the decision was made and tell what will begin to happen. You will start forming work teams. Your expected completion date is some approximate future time.

Between now and then there is a rough outline of work to accomplish, and you know everyone will do their part because there are benefits for all. It can be helpful to make a list of those benefits.

Who will predict and measure ERP implementation success?

Is the software a good fit for your business?
Are your current business processes ready for change, or are you in need of a business process review?
If the software is complex, like Epicor Kinetic or Prophet 21, do you have an implementation plan that will guarantee good ROI?
Do you need legal advice to help you negotiate a solid contract with your software vendor?

Cold hard IT fact: In the current climate of Internet of Things (IoT), one of our contacts was hacked through his refrigerator. The ROI of ERP implementation can quickly diminish when ransomware infects your system.

Is your cybersecurity solution protecting your remote workers from their toasters? Chat with us now to get a free technology assessment today.

Total Cost or Total Loss: New Software, New Budget

by EstesCloud | Jul 30, 2021 | Business Direction, ERP, ERP Consulting, Software

The cost of a software budget

Software selection can be a lot like car shopping. You do a few test drives. You talk to happy drivers. You ask for the price and then ask for a better deal. You begin to investigate how much this new vehicle is going to cost. One part of the software budget is easy: that it’s going to cost you something. You might already have a quote from your prospective supplier. You might have more than one quote addressing different ways to acquire your new software or ERP system. But how can you predict the total cost of ownership?

African Professional Chartered Accountant Woman Budgeting For Enterprise Software

Initial installation costs

One option for a new software or ERP system is an on-premises installation, complete with your own hardware to support the platform. In the past, this was the only option. A business would pay money at the beginning and obtain the software to install on a company-owned computer network. Ongoing costs would include financing the staff required to maintain support, manage future upgrades, and navigate bug fixes.

Many software acquisitions today use software as a service, or SaaS, as an option. This is commonly known as the cloud, but it is the most public of the multitudes of cloud-based solutions available to businesses. SaaS requires an agreement to pay a fee monthly for some years into the future. Software as a service usually involves low or no upfront cost since the profit for the vendor is based on long-term commitment to the software subscription. Salesforce is a common example of SaaS. Implementation costs are low to none, as the software and related data are loaded on a vendor-maintained system somewhere outside of your corporate walls. Initial costs vary for SaaS, but generally they’re the deal that opens the door for a more lucrative future for the vendor, rather than an early expenditure for the purchaser.

Project management costs

Acquiring and implementing enterprise-level software of any kind is a major project that can require several years to complete. One of the first considerations is that you’ll need someone to manage the overall project. Some companies will hire a specialist who has managed similar implementations successfully with the intention that the job will be limited to this one project. Others might choose to challenge an up-and-coming person already employed with the company to transition into a position of management of the ERP or software project. The intention here is often to develop that person’s skills and groom them for future promotions. There are other options, of course, but the bottomline is that managing your enterprise software project will cost money. Even using an already-employed person has a cost, as someone will need to be hired to perform that person’s job in the interim.

Most businesses will form a steering committee that will act as a board of directors over the project. The project manager and senior executives will fill this committee and help keep the project on track, leading to completion on a schedule that will most benefit the company.

Real costs will come from the defined implementation group. This group can be made from currently employed people, but all of them, while working on the project on a part-time or full-time basis, will need replacement personnel to fill previous roles. One or more software consultants from the software provider will have roles in this group, and all of them will cost money. Likely there will be specialist consultants required to fill roles and perform tasks when the business is in need of additional resources.

Data conversion costs

Extracting data from legacy systems and converting that data to the formats required by your new software is one of those specialist roles. Most of the cost will come early in the project, but some expenses will certainly be ongoing, as new needs and corrections are found during the testing of the new software.

The price of testing

Testing the new software to ensure all transactions and reports yield the results required actually work will be an ongoing cost throughout the project. Some tests will be completed and changes to processes or data will be made and then the test will be made again until the results are satisfactory. Set aside money and time for a testing phase. This is a critical step and should have substantial representation when you’re developing your software budget.

The savings found in training

Your users will need training so that they can work with the new software immediately. Whether you hire training specialists or develop your own training process, there will be an investment here that will result in a lot of savings and profitability for your company.

The budget for hardware and networks

Your new software has the most up-to-date technologies. Likely you will need upgrades to hardware and networks to enable those technologies. Your legacy hardware probably could use some upgrades anyway if your systems were bought years ago. To create an accurate budget for hardware and networks, add up all the incremental costs and make a time-phased list of those costs. You can now compare the costs in each time bucket against the benefits you expect in each time bucket.

Looking for help developing a software budget reflective of your company’s needs and capabilities?

Get a business process review today. Our experts can assist you with full-circle enterprise resource planning, managed ERP hosting, and managed technology. EstesGroup has helped manufacturers and distributors for more than 17 years, and we have specialists for everything from Epicor Kinetic to Prophet 21.

Software budget? Software savings! Let's talk!

When Your Value Stream Begins With Software

by EstesCloud | Jul 19, 2021 | ERP, ERP Consulting, ERP Selection, Software

Stay in the Flow: Estimate Your Software Value Returns

Businesses are supposed to earn a profit. New software can quickly lead to debt. Before you commit to a new software acquisition, know if your new possibilities will also be new expenses. If one of your customers wants to open up new product channels and your legacy systems will not work to meet development needs, the software selection process begins. You want to keep the good relationship you have with your customer, and you also want the new business. If you’re a small business, this means exploring the greater world of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

Software Value Stream Mobile Device Cloud ERP

Can you forecast the revenue stream for this incremental product or channel?

Your customer will have their estimate. You might also be able to increase sales to other customers with the capabilities the new software brings. Is there new business you can develop that did not exist yesterday? Maybe you can win some business from your competitors using your new capabilities. Incremental revenue will also have an incremental cost of sales. The additional margin is what you need to estimate for this analysis. Some of the new sales might replace existing orders and, if this is your case, subtract the forgone revenue associated.

All You Need to Know About the Savings Game

During the meetings you and your team hold for developing software requirements and talking in general terms about this new software, you will hear excited thoughts about sales orders moving faster into production. People will talk about how you can manage inventory much better. Another one might suggest that you could produce the same level of product with half the personnel in a department.

Some “software value stream” thoughts will make it to your software selection requirement list.

Here’s a potential thought stream surrounding value potential, especially when considering adding or upgrading an ERP software.

What can I do to enable a 25% reduction in inventory levels?
How can I ensure that all new sales orders will be in production or shipping within four hours of receipt of the order? Can I achieve this using only one support person to handle exceptions? Can I do this if I reduce staff to one from the current level of five people?

With new software, value can now be seen everywhere in your company’s future. Other potential savings are not requirements but remain as expectations. You know that you and your team will benefit from this software. Develop your list of savings and describe those savings in monetary terms divided into time phases. Remember that reducing your sales order support staff as described in your requirement only counts when you actually reduce staff.

Downstream From Your Software Value Stream: Ensuring Future Business

Often some of our software requirements enable us to meet new demands such as a new compliance regulation that our legacy system cannot support. When our new software allows us to meet that compliance, we cannot say we increased revenue or reduced cost. But we can continue in business so that there is a clear value. We could say the cost avoided is the loss of any margin that comes from an entire product line, so the loss would have been significant.

Your Total Value Stream

Evaluate all of your cost savings and incremental revenue and any other measurable improvement related to your new software. Lay these objective benefits out in time buckets over the next several years. You will probably be able to name other benefits that are not easily measurable. An easier user interface will be valuable to your employees, but there might not be any cost savings related. Keep your benefits simple and only use those that you can measure. When in the selection process and considering your software value stream, get your costs of acquisition and usage defined, so that you can compare these benefits directly with your costs later.

Learn about managed application hosting

Software & Vendor Selection: Where to Look

by EstesCloud | Jun 7, 2021 | Business Direction, ERP Consulting, ERP Selection, Software

The Best ERP Software Begins with the Best People

At every step, from software selection to ERP implementation, people are always your best resource.

Back-feed your software & vendor selection script with experiential feedback.

Now that the internal part of the work is done, you can start contacting people outside of your business to help with your software & vendor selection process. Before you call any vendors or developers, there is another step. Peer and expert help is a good idea, especially when considering new enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

Where to look for feedback and ideas

Advice from industry peers and other groups will help you understand your software application options. Cloud-based ERP education is easy to come by, but it is important to have a trusted person explain the fine print. ERP solutions are often sold in a pure SaaS (Software as a Service) deployment, and this might not be the perfect fit for your business. You might be a small business looking for your first ERP software solution, or you might be a complex manufacturing company looking for the real-time flexibility of a cloud hosted ERP system.

We all have friends from previous jobs and alumni groups that we can lean on when making big business decisions. The internet is full of advice and much of it is useful. Chase answers, seek multiple views, and engage in a business process review if you’d like an assessment of where you’re at before adding anything new to the mix. An ERP vendor will give you one perspective, and those near and dear to your internal business processes might have different opinions.

Keep your search organized

Develop a questionnaire. This will help keep the members of your team unified when they begin gathering information. The questionnaire also keeps the questions useful. For example, the question “Did you like the software?” is not a very powerful question. Instead, use questions such as, “What was the primary requirement you wanted to satisfy?” Then you might follow up with a related question like, “In what specific ways did the software satisfy that requirement?” The final value of your questionnaire is that you will be able to compare and relate responses from a variety of sources to each other. You will also be able to develop a value scale that can allow you to have an objective scale to compare the responses and their value to your business.

Talk to people

When trying to choose ERP software, it is helpful to contact people from industry and trade groups. These will often be businesses that are similar to yours and their input can be useful in helping you make your decision. Use a little caution and avoid sharing where your next growth is expected and understand these businesses will be wary of sharing anything that might allow you to become a better competitor.

Your CPA and other resources that you have can benefit you as well when selecting software. Other clients that your CPA has might have been through a software search of their own. At this stage, you are not ready to take action yet and your CPA probably is ready and willing to act as a consultant helping in your search for a fee.

Use the internet for software & vendor selection research

The internet can provide examples of other businesses who have experience with software selection. Often you can find these businesses on the fifth page of your Google search and once you find them, even a quick phone call will frequently yield a person who directly participated in their selection and software implementation and has useful experiences to share. Many people are more than willing to help if you ask them.

Now take action

Once you have done your research, you might first decide to re-evaluate your requirement list. You might find some listed requirements to be of less value than originally considered or have found a point from one of your sources that should be added to your requirement list. Through this research, you probably learned of a software provider, previously unknown to you, that was highly recommended. You certainly learned new ways that others found that helped in their search or even helped their business operations after their implementation. You also learned of search actions others would have done differently if there were an opportunity to make their search again.

Now you can develop a list of only a few software providers or brands that likely will be beneficial to you. An internet search might list a thousand systems, which are too many to evaluate. Focus on your short list and begin contacting those few. The goods or services you offer will greatly benefit from new solution, whether you’re adding a third-party business intelligence platform or a new accounting software to your resource pool.

Remember that people are your best resources for ERP and more

Mid-sized manufacturing and distribution companies are especially vulnerable right now to supply chain management issues. Make sure you have the in-house human resources it takes to ensure that warehouses managed during a pandemic are restored to pre-crisis stability. If you need help with inventory management, enterprise risk management, cloud migration, or other critical business operations, EstesGroup offers you a one-stop-shop approach to operational optimization.

Are you ready to talk to a software & vendor selection expert? Let’s begin a conversation today.

Ask an IT or ERP expert a question now.

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Five Ways to Ensure ERP Satisfies Financial Compliance

by EstesCloud | Apr 5, 2021 | ERP, ERP Consulting, ERP Implementation

Every business has financial compliance requirements from many sources. ERP is your primary tool — helping you prepare the required reports easily, timely, and consistently.

Set up ERP to produce the reporting needed.

The first step toward financial compliance is a complete understanding of what your financial compliance requirements are. There are national requirements such as those from standards boards and, in the US, GAAP, or generally accepted accounting principles, is one. Income taxes and securities exchange reports build on GAAP.

Financial reporting goes well beyond national requirements. States and provinces have their own requirements for any business operating within their boundaries. Other requirements at various local levels can be easy to miss, as they come from cities, counties, regional districts, and an assortment of commissions. These have the force of law behind them and require compliance and reporting. Sales and value-added taxes are in this category along with property taxes. Don’t forget trade unions that want reports of payroll and hours by work categories.

Regulations from this wide variety of sources have a common denominator in the requirement of documented processes to collect data and issue reports consistently.

Understand how data is created in ERP and where it is kept.

Once we determine what reporting is required, we move to figuring out how to get the data needed for those reports. ERP systems are based on finance and accounting and many data elements will be there ready to use. ERP is made up from thousands of tables, and some data will be available, but some effort will be needed to find it and extract it for use.

You might find some required data simply is not built into your ERP, but you already collect it in some other database. Here you might be able to create a user-definable field to store that data within ERP where it can easily be combined with other data from ERP. You might also need to integrate some other system with ERP to make the data available.

Ensure that your accountant is part of your ERP selection and implementation teams. Their role is to understand reporting requirements and make sure the ERP you implement satisfies those requirements.

Document the source of your required data and the processes that develop that data. Develop and save reports you design to collect your data for financial reporting. At the same time, develop reporting to satisfy any future audit requirements from the authorities.

Use ERP to manage the data trail.

Data for your reporting will be a combination of static and dynamic data. The static data largely is field names such as ‘date’ and ‘amount’. Dynamic data is that coming from all of your transactions. Your ERP includes many built-in tools to capture normal transactions like sales invoice amounts and purchase order payment amounts. Your unique ERP configuration settings might modify those built-in tools. For example, you can value inventory as LIFO or FIFO, and that setting will modify your inventory valuation, as well as cost of sales.

Since data is the result of all the transactions performed over time, any steps you can take to reduce errors will enhance the accuracy of your reports. Training, self-validations, and management supervision all help improve accuracy. Another method of improving accuracy is to automate as many repetitive steps as possible. When a transaction is automated, once the coding is complete, the results of the transaction will never vary.

Analyze your ERP data and use it for advantage.

You took advantage of the built-in tools available in ERP and you have automated and secured many of your transactions. Now your accountants are free to analyze. Look carefully at the data collected and check it again. Does it best show the results required by financial compliance? How can you improve the report? Is there a message to your management that was hidden but can help improve your business? These are your data; the data do not belong to the agency requiring compliance.

Build an analytics team and use this team to mine your data, seeking ways to help everyone. Your CFO needs a dashboard that displays all of the key metrics in a way that enables fast, informed decisions. Build dashboards to enhance decision-making at every level where any decision is made.

Report consistently across the globe.

Because the data for all financial compliance reporting comes from or through your ERP data, consistency is always maintained. Much compliance reporting is publicly available so that auditors from one agency can easily verify that consistent data was reported to another agency.

Even where comparisons cannot be made, you know the reporting is consistent. A compliance report filed in France is derived from the same data as a similar report filed in the USA. Only the filters are changed.

Because the reports are centralized and accessible anywhere, the headquarters can run a report intended for a compliance agency anywhere in the world.

Every business has financial compliance requirements. ERP will enable us to meet those requirements without undue burden. At the same time, ERP enables consistent reporting wherever we have requirements and provides tools we can use for our own benefit too.

Are you concerned about more than financial compliance?

Compliance can be challenging, especially in regard to ever-evolving cybersecurity regulations. Sign up for a security audit today to see if your systems are compliant in regard to data management & privacy laws. Not ready for an assessment? Watch a video interview with EstesGroup’s CEO, Bruce Grant, to see how ERP & IT consultants can help manufacturers stay on top of industry rules & regulations. Read our article on cGMP compliance & ERP to get more insight into how regulatory organizations affect your business.