Visual South Insights

As someone who has spent decades helping manufacturers evaluate and implement ERP systems, I know how difficult it is for companies to sort through competing vendor claims. Every ERP vendor has a polished website, compelling demos, and a long list of features. What most manufacturers really want to know is simple:

If you are in the market for a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, don’t just focus on the software’s functionality. Limiting your search criteria to just the ERP is like shopping for a new house and not factoring in the location. Not paying attention to or discounting the importance of other critical factors can narrow your choices, but increase your chance of being unhappy with what you ultimately choose – whether that’s a nice house in a bad location or new ERP that isn’t working for your company. The good news is this can be avoided. In the case of ERP, it comes down to closely evaluating the ERP implementation consultants you’ll be working with just as much as evaluating the ERP itself.

Power BI is an incredibly powerful tool, but only if it’s implemented properly. That means more than just connecting it to your ERP system and publishing a few dashboards. For manufacturers, the difference between "just reporting" and true business intelligence comes down to process, ownership, and purpose.

Manufacturers don’t need more data, they need answers. That’s why Power BI dashboards, when properly designed and integrated with ERP data, are a game-changer.

This article is part of our CloudSuite Industrial Feature Focus series.

This article is part of our CloudSuite Industrial Feature Focus series.

This article is part of our CloudSuite Industrial Feature Focus series.

This article is part of our CloudSuite Industrial Feature Focus series.

This article is part of our CloudSuite Industrial Feature Focus series.

This article is part of our CloudSuite Industrial Feature Focus series.