Visual South Insights

Unintegrated field service management systems are costly

Visual South engages with many clients simply because these businesses recognize their non-integrated systems are costing them a bundle to manually integrate and maintain, and limiting profitable growth. Typically, companies use an accounting system, and some combination of Excel and small stand-alone, third-party applications to address immediate needs, but those “Frankenstein” systems are costly and limiting. It would be easy to say this is hurting the user’s field service management process, but in many cases, there are no firm processes to hurt because there is no supporting infrastructure. However, there are many non-related and redundant tasks performed to manually tie information together.

Focus on the Solution

I’m not a golfer. How do I know this? Because I tried to be. Practice, regular play, lessons – I tried it all. What I heard over and over again as a professional tried to correct my version of a golf swing was this: The swing I’m teaching you is going to feel funny at first.

Why Infor^TM CRM  

Customer relationships are essential to your sales success. Whether you're identifying new leads or staying current with existing customers, you need a complete view of customer interactions across your sales, marketing, customer service, and support teams. With these insights, your teams can collaborate more effectively and respond promptly and knowledgeably to sales opportunities and customer inquiries—both in the office and in the field.

Guidelines for when integration of your ERP with a 3^rd party application is appropriate

The upside to buying enterprise resource planning (ERP) that is not custom-written exclusively for one company is the economy of scale. Since it is written for the masses, the cost per user plummets. Microsoft Office certainly costs much more to develop than the few hundred dollars it costs to license. One of the other upsides is thousands or tens of thousands of users create a robust community that quickly flushes out weaknesses in functionality, helping the software become stronger.

Know what ERP can do for you

Every month, I talk with people looking to buy an ERP system; and I also talk with customers who have been using ERP for years and years. I am exposed to the entire ERP spectrum. At one end are potential customers who articulate the issues they are experiencing by not having an integrated ERP system; and what they want the new ERP system to do for them. On the other end are customers who have an integrated ERP system that is working very well for them. In the middle are customers who aren’t getting the most they could out of ERP because the users either don’t understand what ERP could do for them, or they don’t know how to set it up to give them what they want.

ERP and CRM integration benefits and issues

It’s not as simple as one may think for companies to execute an ERP and CRM integration. In many cases, there is no strategy as internal departments do their own thing. For example, accounting may adopt QuickBooks and production may use a non-integrated system or supplement QuickBooks with a plethora of spreadsheets. This scenario is one we commonly see.

ERP training does not end after implementation

During implementation, ERP training primarily focuses on how the company will utilize the software to perform its daily functions, as well as processes necessary to replace the current system. Key users and team members work with their implementation partner to develop a plan and define the training requirements for the new ERP solution.

Post-implementation ERP training is just as important as the initial training to achieve continued success. Every company needs an ever-evolving plan for continuous improvement. Ongoing ERP training should be a significant part of that plan!

Can a configure price quote software solution help me?

If you aren’t sure about what configure price quote (CPQ) software is, or you want to improve your baseline understanding, you can check out my other blog, “What is CPQ?”. If you are specifically looking for Infor CPQ software, you can read a review here.

There are a lot of benefits provided by CPQ software, but probably the biggest one is the ability to make it easier for non-engineers to correctly configure a complex solution. As simple as it may sound, a lot of companies struggle with the issue of salespeople, customers, resellers, and others designing a solution (a part or material) that engineering cannot create, and one that manufacturing departments cannot manufacture. When there’s no CPQ solution in place, it creates very long lead times, and complex back-and-forth discussions due to the difficulty in managing all of the emails, drawings, and conversations that have to take place before actual manufacturing can occur. 

What does CPQ stand for?

The software industry has no shortage of three-letter acronyms, so let’s get right to answering the question.  CPQ stands for configure, price, quote.  More specifically, CPQ is a category of software that helps enable the business processes of configuring, pricing, and quoting a product or service.

Inventory count is complete

So, you’ve done your annual inventory count and probably thinking you’ve survived another one. Write-offs weren’t so bad and the big bonus is that you ‘found’ extra inventory that you didn’t think you had.

But before you call this year’s count a wrap let’s take a moment to consider what your count is really telling you.