The EstesGroup Blog
Guidance that helps manufacturers, distributors, and professional services firms make sound decisions about the systems they rely on. Talk With Our Team
Total Cost or Total Loss: New Software, New Budget
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...
When Your Value Stream Begins With 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...
Custom Cloud: Public Cloud Choices, SaaS Challenges
What to Do When ERP Turns SaaS I once sat in at a sales conference for an ERP vendor and listened as the CEO explained sales strategy as it related to their ongoing movement to the cloud. He described the situation as one of configurability vs. customizability. There...
Hosted or SaaS ERP? Understanding the Differences
In the world of enterprise resource planning (ERP), companies spend a lot of time on the software selection cycle. Determining which application will best fit the needs of the business also brings deployment model questions to the table. Currently, many manufacturers...
A Business Automation Nation – How AI Helps Us Connect
The 2020 shift to remote work forced small to medium companies to increase business automation. To quickly become touch-less and contactless, owners used technology solutions managed by third-party suppliers to guide the new network of online business communication,...
Principles of Successful Supplier Relationship Management
A Shifting Landscape is Changing Supplier Relationships The past year underscored the impact and the importance of supply chains more than ever. For manufacturers and distributors, the criticality of a robust and flexible supply chain cannot be understated. Supply...
6 Steps When It’s Time for a Software Demo
STEP 1: Contact providers and arrange demonstrations A new day is here and you can finally start contacting potential suppliers for your new software. If you already have a short list to begin with, you can start right away. Software suppliers come in several flavors,...
Prophet 21 Event: Servers, Financials & Supply Chains
With summer in full swing, distributors are on the move, crossing docks, splitting shipments, and delivering goods by the truckload to a diverse array of customers. It is a time for expansion—of old trade routes of supply chains and of new opportunities as our...
Software & Vendor Selection: Where to Look
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...
Don’t Avenge a Cyber Attack – Prevent It
One cyber world story that captivated me as a youth was the character of “Ultron,” as depicted in comic books and in the movie adaptation of The Avengers. The character was a breed of artificial intelligence created with the intent of protecting the earth. But he...
Understanding the New Client Architecture of Prophet 21
Software development never stands still. I remember a time where I felt like I had finally come to understand DataSets, DataTables, DataRows and DataViews, only to have a much more experienced developer inform me that the System.Data namespace was old, antiquated, and...
Getting Selective with Software Selection
Begin by gathering both business requirements & software requirements After all that inward looking, it is time for some more inward looking. It's now time to set a basis for communication that will help keep current and future software projects on track. It's...
Manufacturing Cybersecurity by the Numbers
Old Cyber Risks, New Cybersecurity Rules Longtime NHL coach and living legend Scotty Bowman once famously claimed that “statistics are for losers.” For a game filled with numbers, that was a pretty bold statement. Around the same time, business author Peter Drucker, a...
How Manufacturers Can Prevent a Cyber Security Breach
Cyber security solutions are technological processes and practices designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from attack, damage or unauthorized access. Over the years, they have become a necessity in order for industrial firms to succeed....
How To Begin Your Software Selection
Toward a Simple Software Selection Process A very typical software selection process begins by clicking on “I am interested” after reading about a software product. Someone replies, and pretty soon a salesperson has you convinced their product will have you living the...