Some Good Advice for Mid-Size Firms on ERP

I ran into some good advice recently in a white paper entitled “The 2011 Focus Experts’ Guide To Enterprise Resource Planning”  that fits quite well with the advice we give to our own clients.  I’ll reprise some of their comments below, many of them verbatim (you can get the full report and many others about [...]

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How Satisfied Are Companies With Their ERP Systems?

In our prior post we looked at the results of a survey conducted by CIO Magazine (and CIO.com) of over 400 business IT leaders, from companies large and small.  We noted the singular importance of companies selecting an ERP system that is at least generally verticalized for their industry (i.e., manufacturing, or real estate, or [...]

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The Continuing Evolution of ERP (Second of Two Parts)

Today’s ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems embrace much more than the manufacturing projects that traditional MRP tracked.  The borders are becoming blurred.  Where does, say, CRM pick up and ERP leave off?  Is CRM a “module”?  Do I have to buy it? Truth is, it depends on the system you buy.  At this point at [...]

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The Continuing Evolution of ERP (First of Two Parts)

In a “Focus Brief” released earlier this year by Michael Dortch, I.T. industry analyst and Director of Research at Focus.com, points up some observations about the evolving state of Enterprise Resource Planning worth noting. As Dortch points out, the Gartner research group coined the term “ERP” in 1990, when it applied predominantly to manufacturing and [...]

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Software That Matters: Key Conclusions About ERP

Part 11 in a series… We started this series of eleven posts here.  You may want to review our logic along the way.  Our purpose was to set down in writing the fundamentals for how you know when you need an ERP system (or a new system)… its strategic importance… the key motivators in companies [...]

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Software That Matters: What Your Business Management System SHOULD Provide

Part 10 in a series… In the last post we looked at key performance indicators – the benchmarks a company uses to monitor how well they are turning information into action.  They are never the same across any two companies, though many companies do have similar needs. It all boils down to what your technology [...]

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Software That Matters: Key Indicators: Taking Action

Part 9 in a series… Our own experience with deploying ERP solutions dovetails nicely with a presentation I saw recently given by Alexandre Attal, an ERP executive from one of Sage Software’s many ERP solutions.  The topic was “How ERP Can Translate Information into Business Success” and Attal was addressing the area of performance indicators [...]

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Software That Matters: Start Small and Discrete

Part 8 in a series… Having deployed a couple hundred accounting or ERP systems over twenty years, our recommendations on the matter can largely be distilled down to one simple principle, summarized in our headline above. Prior to ERP purchase and deployment, the wisest course is always to engage in a discovery process (or needs [...]

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Software That Matters: More on ERP Costs (How Much, Part Two)

Part 7 in a series… In our last post, we noted an entry point price of about $30,000 for a complete financial and rather modest manufacturing (or distribution) software suite.  That’s for about 5 users.  If you figure roughly $4,000 for each additional user, you’ll have a pretty valid estimate of software costs.  Thus, at [...]

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Software That Matters: Two More Examples

Part 5 in a series… To a manufacturer, few things are more important than knowing your costs.  So our third success story involves a Midwestern manufacturer and distributor of paints, who proudly noted how after implementing their ERP system they were able to capture the true costs for every single transaction associated with a production [...]

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