Visual South Insights

You need a plan that outlines how to choose an ERP vendor and system

It may seem relatively easy to choose an ERP vendor—just pick the one that offers the best technology and customer support, right? But it’s often not that straightforward because many companies do not have a plan when evaluating vendors. I’ve been involved in enterprise application sales for over 25 years and there is little consistency on how organizations evaluate vendors like Visual South. What I can tell you is that organizations are happiest with their choice of ERP vendor when the evaluation team has a logical process in place to assess the ERP system’s functionality and the vendor’s services.

What is SyteLine?

Infor SyteLine ERP software (also known as Infor CloudSuite Industrial or CSI when deployed in the Amazon cloud) is Infor’s ERP offering for small and medium-sized manufacturers and distributors.

Use these links to jump to a specific section of our SyteLine review:

• What types of companies use SyteLine?
• Deployment options
• SyteLine and the Infor OS
• What’s included
• On-premise offering
• Cloud offering
• Extensible products
• Summary

For more than 30 years, SyteLine has been used by manufacturing-centric companies for managing their business activities. SyteLine scales from as small as a 15-user single site up to hundreds of users across multiple sites, divisions, and multiple companies.

Infor vs. SAP

SAP is arguably the most recognized name in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, and it is ranked number one in ERP revenue. Its ERP product is designed to serve the Tier 1 market. The best way to define the Tier 1 market is to think in terms of a Fortune 1000 company. The revenue of a company that makes this list is defined in billions, not millions. In 2020, the company that ranked last on the list was Liberty Oilfield Services, with revenue of $1.99 billion.

Infor is arguably the least recognized name in ERP software. At one point its marketing campaign used the tagline, “The largest ERP company you never heard of.” Large it is—its annual revenue is $3 billion making it the third largest ERP company in the world. It serves customers in the Tier 1, 2, and 3 markets.

CMMC compliance for DoD manufacturers

The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) is a Department of Defense (DoD) program that outlines the cybersecurity standards and best practices required for government contractors. CMMC compliance for manufacturers in the DoD supply chain involves meeting specific cybersecurity standards and best practices

The good, the bad

I’ve been involved with manufacturing and ERP for over 30 years. During that time, I’ve learned a lot about the interaction between a manufacturing organization, their goals, and their ERP (or lack thereof). I’ve seen companies who have a good plan for choosing ERP; I’ve seen companies that don’t. I’ve seen companies that use ERP well; I’ve seen companies that don’t. I’ve seen companies admit they weren’t using ERP well and then work towards fixing that problem. I’ve seen companies admit they weren’t using ERP well and then lose interest in using it better. I’ve also seen a common thread between the companies who excel in selecting/using ERP, and those that don’t. The ones who excel have the expertise to develop a good strategy and execute it, or they admit they don’t have the expertise and they get help. They view the cost of getting help as an investment that has a payback. The ones who don’t excel aren’t aware they don’t have the expertise, so they never get the help they need. They view the cost of getting help as an expense.

Contents

• Introduction
• Chapter I – How to Run a Successful ERP Comparison
• Chapter II – 5 Characteristics of a Successful ERP Implementation
• Chapter III – 5 Characteristics of ERP Implementations Failures
• Chapter IV – Post ERP Implementation: How to Keep It Running Well
• Epilogue

Introduction

Buying ERP is a big deal. I know because I’ve done it. I was a Plant Manager in the mid-90s, and we were running production with a homegrown system that could not be modified because we didn’t have the source code. It was better than nothing, but not by much. We were not managing our capacity, our scheduling consisted of pushing product through the plant day in and day out. It was exhausting, and our on-time delivery range fluctuated from OK to bad. The results we got did not reflect the work we put into it.

Infor is the third largest ERP solutions provider in the world. The two main Infor ERP solutions we (at Visual South) help manufacturers implement are Infor CloudSuite Industrial (Infor SyteLine) and Infor VISUAL. In this guide, we'll take you through everything you need to know about Infor and its ERP software options. Click the links below to jump to specific chapters.

• Chapter I: Do You Need ERP?

• Chapter II: Deployment for Infor ERP Systems

• Chapter III: Infor ERP Product Review

• Chapter IV: How to Run an ERP Selection Process

• Chapter V: How to Implement ERP

Manufacturers have made the move to cloud-based ERP systems

It seems like just yesterday that the concept of cloud-based ERP for the manufacturing industry was far-fetched. But today’s reality is manufacturers are choosing cloud deployment over on-premise deployment virtually every time. That is a paradigm shift for those of us who have been working with enterprise applications in the manufacturing sector.

A big decision

If your company is evaluating ERP solutions, you already know that choosing the right system is a big decision. The evaluation process is not straightforward, or something that companies do on a regular basis. Selecting a new ERP is typically a “once in a (business) lifetime” decision, because if you land on the right solution, your company will extract value from it for decades.

A big decision that you want to get right

If your company is thinking about getting or actively evaluating new ERP software, then you’re probably in a quandary about how to balance priorities and needs. Selecting the right ERP system for your company means finding one that’s not the most basic, not the most complex, not the cheapest, not the most expensive…. you get the picture. It can be tough to determine which one is a perfect fit. And to complicate matters, an ERP solution is typically a generational decision. Ideally, your company will use it for decades to come, so choosing the best ERP means being able to extract benefits from it now and way down the road.