Visual South Insights

What is Business Intelligence?

The software industry has no shortage of terms and acronyms, so before we talk about Infor’s Business Intelligence Tool (that’s called “Birst”), what is Business Intelligence (or “BI”)? Business Intelligence refers to solutions and processes that support the gathering, analysis, integration, and presentation of business information. Business Intelligence tools help companies understand their business better, and enable their employees to make better decisions because they have the information they need. At its most basic level, Business Intelligence is what is commonly referred to as “reporting”, like a bookings report, a purchase orders due for receipt report, for example. Business Intelligence solutions take reporting to the next level by making the data easier to consume for end users, easier to analyze, and easier to get answers to difficult questions.

What Is VISUAL Focus?

VISUAL Focus is an educational conference for users of Infor VISUAL. If you have never been, it is a fantastic event hosted by Visual South and Synergy Resources. Over the years, the conference has been in a variety of locations like Nashville, New Orleans, Orlando, Chicago, and Louisville. In 2022 it will return to Nashville.

The latest and greatest for VISUAL

Infor VISUAL 10 was released in December 2020, and quite a few features were added. There are many resources that go into great detail about the new functionality, including release notes, but here are the highlights we think are most important to know. If you want more details, go to the Visual South VISUAL upgrade page here.

What’s in a name?

Infor SyteLine has been around for over 30 years and has operated under a few different names and brands during that time. The product has been called Symix, Frontstep, and SyteLine. Most recently, Infor rebranded to CloudSuite Industrial, but the SyteLine name really never went away, so you will hear these terms used interchangeably among people who work with the product.

What are the ingredients in your cost of production?

For manufacturing companies, it’s critical to understand your production costs. If you know your costs, you’ll have better control over your profitability and make better business decisions. I’ve had conversations where companies thought certain customer orders were critical to their business, but after understanding their costs better, they decided to turn those orders away because they were NOT profitable.

To help you determine what your cost of production actually is (versus what you think it is), here are the four primary factors to consider:

What is an ERP system integration?

The way I define ERP system integration is it’s the process of making the ERP software “work” with related applications or solutions in an automated fashion. Integrating ERP with related applications is typically done after you are live on your ERP, unless the integration is mission critical to the success of the initial implementation.

Some background before we begin

I speak with lots of companies and many of those conversations revolve around ERP software evaluations. Recently, I’ve had quite a few conversations with companies that are running Sage 500, or any of the other Sage products. They ask me whether the rumors about a Sage 500 end of life are true and if so, what the future holds for their ERP system. To be clear, I represent Infor ERP and that is where my expertise lies. I am not an expert in any competitive solutions, but my views are shaped by what I hear from the people I talk with. In this article, I’ll give a quick rundown of what I think you should expect with your Sage 500 ERP.

A little background first…

I want to start by telling you a little bit about my background because I believe it will give some context to this blog. I proudly represent Infor ERP products and have been at Visual South since 2002. Five years prior to coming on board here, I was an SAP consultant. My specialty was the sales/distribution module, along with the variant configurator. I was part of many full implementations in a variety of industries, taught training classes, and helped with presales efforts. My first implementation was on R/3 version 3.1G and my last was on version 4.6.

A little background first

I have been in the ERP industry for close to 25 years, both as an implementation consultant and a salesperson. For my customers who have been using ERP for decades, as well as those looking for their first ERP, one of the most common discussion points is customization versus configuration. Let’s take a look at each approach, and I will tell you why we recommend one over the other.

A little background first

I have been in the ERP business since 1997. While I’ve been in a sales role since 2002, my first five years in the industry were spent as an ERP consultant. This hands-on experience has given me a unique perspective on what makes for good versus bad consulting. At Visual South, we believe consultants are as important as the ERP software you choose. If you are actively evaluating ERP solutions and are interested in learning why evaluating consultants is as important as evaluating software, you can read all about it in this blog. If you are interested in getting foundational knowledge on the basics of ERP consulting, then read on.