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| Backblog—Rebecca Gill |
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| Website |
http://erp-etc.blogspot.com/
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With over a decade of experience, Rebecca Gill has a wide range of professional expertise in companies ranging from the SMB market to Fortune 500 corporations. Her depth of knowledge includes the areas of operations and accounting, sales and marketing, as well as enterprise-based business management systems. In her current capacity, she serves as vice president for Technology Group International, a developer of ERP software solutions for the small to mid-market. In addition to her blogging activities, she created TGI’s Software Selection Tool Kit and has published a wide range of articles for technology, financial, and industry-based publications.
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The Golden Rule for ERP Software Vendors - Use What You Sell and Sell What You Use
A recent article prompted me to pause and sit in bewilderment. To my surprise, not all ERP vendors use their own ERP software to run their internal operations. No, I thought, it cannot be true. But it is true. And if you are as shocked as I was, well, join the club of disbelievers.
Since we began developing our software back in the early 90’s, TGI has used Enterprise 21 to run our own operations. From CRM and project management to support call resolution and year end financial statements, Enterprise 21 is all we use internally. Quite frankly, it is all we need.
Honestly, I really did not believe that other ERP software vendors were any different. I suppose I suspected vendors of very vertically focused software may use a different software package than they sell, but honestly, I had not put much thought it. The idea of an ERP software vendor not using the same software they develop and sell simply seemed ludicrous to me. I just did not believe an ERP developer would use a competitor’s software package. But alas, it is true. It does occur and probably more often the naive blogger in me would think.
I will say this loud and clear. Internally at TGI, we use what we sell and we sell what we use. We do so, because we believe in our ERP software. It is not focused on a small vertical market. It is a strong horizontal solution that can efficiently and effectively manage the operations of an entire organization. In particular, it manages our operations. We use our Enterprise 21 package everywhere to manage everything.
So I will end with this thought. If you are a project manager or consultant in the midst of a software evaluation project, ask each vendor on your short list what software they use internally. Based on my recent discovery, the answer may surprise you just as much as it surprised me.
Rebecca Gill
ERP ETC.
Are You Looking for a Horizontal ERP Software Package or an Industry Specific Solution?
A few years ago I performed an onsite ERP software demo for a small manufacturer. It was a good demonstration, the people were nice, and it seemed like a good functional fit. I left feeling positive about the day and positive about the company. The company eventually purchased our ERP software, implemented, and they are now part of our user base. During the implementation process one of our executives asked the decision makers why they selected Enterprise 21. The answer was that we demonstrated an industry solution, not just software. And that instead of arriving with a generic demonstration, we provided examples and terminology for their industry and their business.
This makes me question the value of a solution based ERP offerings. Most tier one and two ERP software products are not industry based. They have vertical markets in which they focus and excel, but certainly they are not considered an industry specific package. And while my software definitely has a stronge presence in several industries, it is also not an industry specific package.
On the flip side of this thought, I often hear prospects say they are “only looking for an industry specific solution”, which is code for I only want to consider packages that sell specifically to my vertical market. These statements completely and totally confuse me from a logic standpoint. If I am leading a software selection project and I limit my options to such a small segment of an otherwise large product mix, how do I really know if I am finding the right solution?
From my own personal experience, I believe companies and/or project managers who focus solely on industry specific packages fail to fully document and articulate their requirements, as well as even understand their true requirements. They focus on a smaller segment of requirements that are very specific to their industry and make that limited set of criteria their benchmark. They limit themselves from understanding the true depth and operational range that quality ERP software solutions offer.
Why would I have this opinion? Because I have performed software demonstrations for these same companies and their requirements list always appears to be very limited. The companies thought this limited list was all that was needed in their new software package. When I’ve asked about other criteria or functionality that may be relevant, the answer is many times “Yes we need that too but we’ve not thought about it yet.” Therefore it was not part of their original requirements list and most likely will not make it on their list.
I believe they have not thought of these items yet, because they have forced themselves into a small box that is limited to the existing knowledge of software specific to their industry.
While I do not believe my theory translates to every industry, I do believe it applies to many industries. And along these lines, I also do not believe every package is suitable for every industry. There is something to be said concerning process-based manufacturing software and how these packages differ from discrete-based ERP solutions. There is also something to be said for installing a software package weak in engineer-to-order functionality in a company that operates in an environment that is 80% ETO. It will not work and the relationship is destined for failure.
While there is real value in reviewing packages designed for a specific industry or operational footprint, I see little value in segregating a search to only industry specific software unless an industry is so unique that there is in fact no other choice. Unfortunately, I do not believe it is always easy to make that distinction when it is your company and your industry.
Rebecca Gill
ERP Etc.
My Eight Year Old Is Green and So Is My ERP Software
Back in college I was once referred to as a “tree hugger”. I remember thinking this comment was a bit strange, because although I’ve always been conscious about how my actions altered the physical world around me, I’ve never been a fanatic about saving our environment. I thought back to this comment a few weeks ago when my eight year old daughter came home from school and tried to educate me with her new found knowledge on our environment. For five minutes I listened to a much less eloquent version of Al Gore speaking in my kitchen. When she finally came up for air, she was pleasantly surprise to hear our family recycles, we use energy saving light bulbs, and we have timers on our lights, our furnaces, and our air conditioners. I, of course, failed to mention the fact that we also own a hot tub, a ski boat, and a few gas guzzling SUV’s. All of which are horrible for energy conservation. As any good parent knows, you pick and chose the information you share with your child.
This week I read an article discussing data centers and their energy usage. It made me think back again to my daughter and made me ponder our usage of ERP software, our reliance on computers, and if this really helps or hurts our environment. While there has been some discussion surrounding the energy it takes to support our love of technology, I cannot believe this energy consumption overrides the benefits we derive from ERP systems.
My thoughts returned to a position I held shortly after college. It was for a company that had recently purchased an ERP software package. And it was the beginning of my love affair with technology and the tremendous value it provides to our lives. As my new employer progressed through the first 30 days of their software implementation, they validated their existing paper-based processes to the ERP software’s online records. This validation process was not due to a concern over the ERP software, but due to a concern over the employees who were very unfamiliar with computers. It was designed to ease everyone’s concerns that the ERP software really worked and it would replace the oodles of paper they used each day. I found the amount of paperwork staggering and even back then I thought to myself, “Enough paper. Can we please save a tree?!”
This scene took place more years ago than I’d like to admit. That being said, it left a lasting impression on me. It showed the value of technology and put me on a career path that is focused on technology. If you are going to spend forty plus hours per week working, it should be with something you enjoy and believe in. I believe in technology and in particular, ERP software.
Although I certainly cannot vouch for every ERP software package on the market today, I can vouch for my own ERP package, Enterprise 21. I know it helps reduce the unnecessary usage of trees and gasoline, as well as reduce emissions. Below is a comparison between a typical distributor’s paper process and a streamlined process within Enterprise 21.
Paper-based Process
Manila folder of sales notes, call activity, and quotations
Glossy paper folder of product literature and brochures mailed to customer
Hardcopy quotation mailed or personally delivered to customer
Hardcopy sales order received via mail or fax
Hardcopy purchase requisition printed and signed
Hardcopy purchase order printed and faxed
Hardcopy purchase order acknowledgement received via mail or fax
Paper picking ticket
Hardcopy invoice printed and mailed
Hardcopy aging report for accounts receivables personnel
“Missing” invoice reprinted and mailed
Hardcopy invoice received from vendor via mail
Hardcopy aging report for accounts payables personnel
Hardcopy check printed and mailed
Enterprise 21 ERP Software
Online CRM module for tracking opportunities, pending calls, notes, and associated documents
Online document storage and email transmission of literature to customer
Online sales quote sent to customer via email
Sales order received via internet, EDI, or email
Online purchase requisition and electronic approval
Online purchase order sent via EDI, web, or email
Purchase order acknowledgement received via EDI
Directed picking through RF device
Online invoice sent via EDI, email, or web
Online collection call listing, call log, and notes
“Missing” invoice sent online via email
Online vendor invoice received via EDI
Online aging report and online matching to PO
Online check and funds sent via EFT
The list above is long, but in actuality, I just touched the surface of the reductions in paper and transportation usage. There are many more areas of efficiency improvements beyond the simple list I provided above.
How can anyone claim technology such as ERP software is detrimental to our environment? Frankly I would not have believed it years ago and I do not believe it today.
Just as our family aspires to be green, so does my ERP software. The difference is that my ERP software is green every day of the year.
Rebecca Gill
ERP ETC.
How Small Is Too Small When Purchasing ERP Software?
A friend recently came to me and asked for assistance in selecting an ERP software package. Since I do work for an ERP software company, this in itself is not strange. What you may find strange is the fact that my friend is the owner of a small company that employees a total of three people. Now let me add two additional points of information. He is a developer of residential custom homes and that he lives and works in Michigan.
Now I have your attention. What on earth would a small builder, in Detroit of all places, want with an ERP package? Everyone has heard how troubled Detroit’s local economy is right now and we’ve all been warned of Detroit’s bleak economical outlook. My friend wanted growth, process sophistication, and the opportunity to succeed. He wanted to be able to understand his true costs, to be able to customize quotes and building material options, all while responding to his customers quickly. He wanted what virtually every business owner wants for their own company. Being the smart man that he is and having a great since of vision, he knew a quality ERP package could help him achieve his long-term goals.
Since I work for an ERP software supplier he hoped I could provide some guidance. Building materials is a vertical of my company, but we do not focus on the actual building of homes, so I had to do some research. While I was reviewing my sources, my friend was off performing his own due diligence and research. Surprisingly enough, we both came back with relatively the same short list of software packages. After multiple remote demonstrations, proposals, and rounds of negotiations, my friend purchased his new ERP software. Much to his wife’s dismay, he jumped into the vendor’s training program and was very entrenched in his new project. He wanted to learn how to define tables, run transactions, build reports, and so on. He wanted to know his new software inside and out. He embraced this opportunity will all the bravado and gusto he could muster.
I have known this friend for well over ten years. He and his wife are literally two of my all time favorite people in this world. One of the reasons for this is his ability to see today and look into tomorrow. He focuses on what is important. Since I’ve know him, he has always had a five year and ten year plan for both his personal and professional lives. He has always been objective and clearly reviewed and planned for what lay ahead.
In all actuality, my friend is not the lone visionary. As a small to mid-market ERP provider, we are seeing more and more companies move from packages like QuickBooks and Peachtree to a full ERP systems. This is especially true for companies that need additional assistance with such requirements as FDA compliance, bar-coding, or EDI transactions. The packages designed for start-up or small companies do not typically have enough functional breadth to manage a food or pharmaceutical based recall. It is these companies that we see move the quickest from say QuickBooks to a tier II ERP software package.
Ten years ago only the most tech savvy small business owners would consider purchasing and installing an ERP system. Now the small business segment is embracing ERP software and seeing significant benefits. Increased automation, paperless environments, complete audit trails, online graphical reports, and detailed cost information are just a tip of the benefits small businesses are receiving from their newly installed ERP systems. As ERP developers, we are becoming more focused on the small business segment. Whether it be an ASP, SaaS, or onsite models they adopt, companies from small builders to growing food manufacturers are learning that ERP can help foster growth and secure a profitable future. And as ERP developers, we are taking note of this paradigm shift.
Rebecca Gill
ERP Etc.
ERP Software Practices Can Even Help Manage Girl Scout Cookies
Winter is here, cold weather abounds, and Girl Scout cookies are in plentiful supply. My daughter is a Girl Scout and much to my surprise, I am the cookie mom for the second year in a row. Last year my daughter and I were completely clueless on the process. She thought we were actually baking the cookies and I thought it would be a piece of cake. We were both wrong in our innocent assumptions.
This year I hoped and prayed we’d do better. The Girl Scouts provide a mass of paper and forms, which of course, I conveniently ignore. I have my trusty spreadsheet ready and I calculate all the sales on this only to transfer final figures to the official submission forms due to council. I thought my experiences from last year would help ease the cookie pain this year. What I didn’t expect was that ERP software would actually help me too.
As I sat surrounded by cookies in my SUV and prepared for the journey home from the cookie pick up, I contemplated what lay ahead for me and my trusty cookie companion. With hundred of cases of cookies, the sorting process could take hours. I found myself trailing back to ERP software and what would I do if this was one of our Enterprise 21 software customers? What would I tell them to do if they had out of control operations? I realized I would tell them to get their warehouse in order and to use a computer system to help manage their inefficiencies.
Taking this new thought into account, my mind ran through last year’s troubles and where we went wrong. We brought all the cookies into my garage and literally dumped them in the middle of the floor. We proceeded to do a very weak form of zone picking, where three of us started grabbing cookies for a given order or scout. This zone picking was unstructured and an absolute mess. This was just not the right environment for zone based picking. We had mistakes and confusion and ended up recounting the same order four times to finally get an accurate count.
This year I thought we would start off right. This year we were putting solid warehouse management practices into place. We were going to work smarter, not harder.
Instead of mass chaos like last year, this time we brought all of the cookies into a receiving area and I performed a dock to stock transfer. I defined primary locations for each type of cookie. Then, instead of zone picking like last year, we switched to a pick by order methodology. One by one we selected the cookies and completed an individual girl’s order. Once we completed all the orders, we ran through a quick cycle count to verify the left over boxes matched our anticipated number. Surprisingly enough, it actually worked. With the exception of my husband stealing Tagalongs to satisfy his cookie craving, our cookie inventory tied out. We finished much faster than last year and we had much less angst over the process.
So the moral of my story is this – it doesn’t take a fancy computer system and millions of dollars to improve overall operations. It takes solid business practices and procedures, which in my case, was mimicking my own ERP software.
Rebecca Gill
ERP ETC.
Dear Online Merchant - What ERP system do you use?
It’s the holiday season, so I’m focused on buying gifts and hopefully spreading some holiday cheer. For some demented reason, this of course, makes the propeller head in me return to ERP software and usage.
Back in the middle part of November I placed an online order at very popular candle manufacturer’s website for about $150 worth of glass holiday candles. These were gifts for my staff and the variety of Girl Scout leaders and teachers I need to deliver gifts to over the next few weeks. The online order I placed never returned an order acknowledgement. I found this strange, but assumed my spam filter grabbed it and I just didn’t notice it.
Let’s move forward two week when my candles still do not arrive. A quick visit to the manufacturer’s website indicates they are experiencing delays in shipping orders. This is their statement, not mine. When used, their toll-free phone number gives a rapid busy signal. At this point my heart goes out to their customer service department, because they must be receiving an overabundance of angry calls from customers. Left with only email as a method of communication, I send an email inquiring about my order. No response after days of waiting, so I send another email. Again I receive no response.
At this point I give up. I assume my order was never really transferred through their server and that I, in fact, had no order placed. I rally my husband for a trip to the very busy mall so we can purchase candles and haul them home. I distribute my gifts and receive great reviews over the holiday scent I offer my recipients.
Let’s move forward to yesterday. To my utter surprise, the UPS driver arrives and drops off two boxes from the merchant. Had he not dropped and dashed, I would have refused the delivery. After all, what am I going to do with an extra $150 worth of holiday scented candles? I open the boxes to find the packaging slip. Sure enough this is my order placed back in the middle of November. This equates to a one month delivery time, even though their website informed me that all of the items on my order were in stock prior to placing my phantom order. My available options are to call the merchant, obtain an RMA, and ship back my candles at my own expense. Since these are candles in glass jars, this is not going to be cheap. I am less than pleased.
I try to reach the merchant via phone, but alas, I am unable to get through after multiple attempts. As the consumer, what are my options? I have way more candles than I could possibly use prior to their shelf life expiring. I cannot communicate with the merchant, and I cannot just ship the product back and in hopes of receiving a credit. Their poor shipping department is already overwhelmed with outgoing shipments, so obviously an unauthorized inbound return will surely have significant troubles getting processed.
Let with no other recourse, I call my credit card company. I absolutely hate doing this as I do not like stopping payment unless it is 110% necessary. My credit card company concurs that stopping payment is the appropriate action and this will force the issue of communication. The very nice customer service agent searches for the charges. Over the thirty day period since I placed my order online, my card was never processed. Even after shipment and transit time.
Well now I’m really at a loss. I am left to wait until Christmas passes and the staff at the candle company recovers. I am left to hope for an RMA number and for the merchant to accept the charges for return freight. I am left to sit and think.
This leads me to the point of my blog entry. Being the pajama shopping technology junkie that I am, I start to think about the operational issues the merchant must be experiencing and I wonder what ERP package they are using. I wonder what operational or system issues have caused such a great company to spin out of control during the holiday season.
Honestly this is where my husband would call me a geek. I find myself running through their “potential” operational issues that I encountered for just one sales order.
These include:
- Inaccurate available to promise data
- Inability to process and send order acknowledgements
- Inefficient customer relationship management system
- Bottlenecked manufacturing
- Inefficient warehouse picking and fulfillment
- Unattended email and unanswered customer correspondence
I haven’t given up on the merchant for seasonal items. I still love their product and I wish them a quick turnaround for their current woes. But I can’t help but wonder what ERP system they are using, what on earth is going so wrong for them this holiday season, and can I please sell them my ERP software package?
I work for a tier two ERP software developer. Ten years ago I was a real user of our software and now as an employee, I continue to use our product, Enterprise 21, daily. As with other ERP packages, Enterprise 21 is not a perfect ERP application. But I do believe in it and I know it is robust. I know my ecommerce module actually transmits order acknowledgements, my production planning and scheduling process will help relieve bottlenecks, my available to promise and capable to promise truly works, my CRM module helps customer service departments be more efficient, and my warehouse picking capabilities include options for zone, wave, cart, or order based picking. I am confident in my ERP software and I know it works great when implemented properly.
Knowing my software and believing in my ERP software, my heart goes out to the staff at the candle manufacturer. So much so that I will stay loyal to the company for my seasonal products, should they fix this current fiasco. And if they do, I’ll be happy to blog about it and sing the praises of their loyalty to customers such as myself.
A few weeks ago, my sister saw my blog and asked “what’s erp?” I informed her it is E-R-P and not erp. I explained ERP to her in a non-technical way. She had no interest. Okay many people are not interested in ERP software, ERP implementations, or ERP usage. Had she realized how a good or bad implementation could really impact her life, such as in this example, she may have been a bit more interested. Okay, maybe not. I love her and know she is more interested in her eBay account than my ERP product. But in reality, a company’s business management software does alter their customers’ lives. The software does impact those outside the company employees. It can help bring in or drive away customers.
Rebecca Gill
ERP ETC.
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