Send us Fan Mail Scaling eCommerce operations for a global business is hard. You have multiple challenges, such as different product mixes for different markets. You might also have completely different channels and customer journeys for each channel. But if you are a medical device business, the complexity of your operations will be at a different level. You have different regulations in each market and how you price and commercialize your products, with consumers still expecting an Amazon-like...
Mar 07, 2022•50 min•Ep. 267
Send us Fan Mail While many of you might think that SAP may have lost its momentum because of the newer cloud players, it is still the undisputed market leader and has the largest market share among all ERP companies. SAP's primary market has always been among large, global enterprises primarily because of its strength as the global financial solution. SAP also had one of the deepest enterprise-grade industry functionality in the on-prem model, which has been harder to replicate in the cloud wor...
Mar 05, 2022•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 266
Send us Fan Mail Order-to-cash (O2C) and Procure-to-pay (P2P) processes do the most heavy-lifting in a company operationally. While O2C gets the most attention due to its customer-facing nature, if you don't have your P2P processes figured out, there will be significant implications to your planning cycle and, as a result, on O2C processes. There has also been a significant advancement in the P2P processes, including specialized tools for Source-to-pay (S2P) processes and streamlining of invoice...
Mar 04, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 265
Send us Fan Mail A lot of you might feel that email is dead. That's not true at all, especially if you are talking about consumer-centric businesses for which engagement is key to staying on top of their mind, which may not be possible through other methods because they could be cost-prohibitive. It could also be true with some B2B businesses where cross-sell, and up-sell opportunities might exist. Also, you might not like the automation through bots because of impersonal interaction. But a bot ...
Mar 03, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 264
Send us Fan Mail The Southeast Asian market has been on an eCommerce boom due to the availability of technology and penetration of social media and the internet to remote places. The COVID pandemic has only fueled this boom. If you are thinking of capitalizing on this market opportunity, you need to understand how the market works and how you can set up your logistics and warehouse network to make sure you are able to compete with local vendors. In today's episode, our guest, Kevin Lee, shares h...
Mar 02, 2022•49 min•Ep. 263
Send us Fan Mail If you are a complex distribution business with manufacturing as part of your business model, your business processes are likely to be more complex than most traditional distribution and manufacturing businesses. It's even harder if you plan to penetrate digital channels along with selling through distributors. You have issues such as eCommerce not talking to your ERP. Then Issues such as consistent pricing need to be communicated across channels. Finally, you might have channel...
Feb 28, 2022•40 min•Ep. 262
Send us Fan Mail Cloud could mean different things to different people. Not all clouds are created equal. Even the ERP vendors claiming them to be a true cloud solution might not have all the bells and whistles required by a true multi-tenant system. Also, just because an ERP vendor offers consumption-based pricing or unlimited users, it doesn't mean that you will get a true flexible cloud pricing designed for scalability. One cloud-native vendor has always positioned them as true cloud and ofte...
Feb 26, 2022•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 261
Send us Fan Mail If you are exploring an ERP initiative, order-to-cash processes are likely to receive the most attention as they have a lasting impact on customer experience, cash conversion cycle, and profitability. The O2C process might get completed within an ERP. Or, it might extend to multiple systems handing off the process at each step. If you have a simplified business where there is always a 1:1 mapping between your orders, shipments, invoices, etc., then your problems might not be as ...
Feb 25, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 260
Send us Fan Mail A successful e-commerce strategy requires you to be able to dropship your products. This is especially true for newer brands that might not have access to the capital necessary to set up the distribution and logistics network required to meet customer expectations. Even the existing brands need to have it as part of their strategy for newer products and territories before setting up an expensive distribution network for untested ideas. But finding products for dropshipping is no...
Feb 24, 2022•59 min•Ep. 259
Send us Fan Mail The oil and gas industry is unique with its process complexity and its ad-hoc nature. Also, it's even harder for global companies when you might need to comply with global regulations in each country. If you were to implement an ERP for a large, global oil and gas company, you not only have to figure out which countries would be the right candidate to avoid implementation failures as well as cost overruns, but you also need to figure out how to standardize ever-changing processe...
Feb 23, 2022•43 min•Ep. 258
Send us Fan Mail While most businesses think that a website is important for their businesses, they very rarely understand the user experience issues that can affect the conversion rate. The issues run way deeper than we realize. And these issues might be as insignificant as color or messaging that can have a huge impact on consumer psychology. Unless you have a deep understanding of these issues and the toolset to provide you with the data that you need to discover these issues, you might not k...
Feb 21, 2022•45 min•Ep. 257
Send us Fan Mail There are two ways to grow an ERP company. Either you build the product from scratch or acquire several products to gain market share and then figure out your product strategy. Both approaches have pros and cons and implications for customers. But there comes the point in the company's lifecycle when you need to consolidate your product portfolio. Or you can't sustain it. Also, no one commercializes the idea of micro-verticals as much as Infor. But are they really deep in these ...
Feb 19, 2022•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 256
Send us Fan Mail Marketing teams typically drive the overall market penetration strategies. They could also drive your strategic priorities in key market segments and transform the customer experience. Also, while they use a lot of tools and technologies to be efficient with their day jobs, they very rarely are part of the operational core. So what are the systems that marketers need in their roles? And do they need to interface with the enterprise systems such as ERP? How do you accommodate the...
Feb 18, 2022•58 min•Ep. 255
Send us Fan Mail Traditional media has been a master of offering relevant content based on users' locations. And while digital media has far more traceability, brands typically struggle to deliver location-based content to their visitors. Then you have location-centric businesses that only target specific neighborhoods and cities. You might have products relevant to the specific locations as other locations might not care for that. Location-based marketing requires a comprehensive review of your...
Feb 17, 2022•59 min•Ep. 254
Send us Fan Mail If you are a seasonal CPG business, you may have grown due to word of mouth to this point in growth, primarily through B2C channels. While B2C has its nuances for planning and procurement due to the unpredictable consumer demand, the drivers and consequences are not as severe as B2B once you have landed a few large enterprise customers. Also, if you want to have fast growth, you will need to sell through marketplaces and large retailers. While onboarding them could provide susta...
Feb 15, 2022•51 min•Ep. 253
Send us Fan Mail Traditionally manufacturers didn't have to worry about software development or release processes as the only software they utilized for their business processes was packaged software. But with Industry 4.0, manufacturers are utilizing more and more software in their OT environment. This requires their software lifecycle to be controlled. And it needs to be compliant with any changes in the hardware. But how? Well, that's where DevOps can help. Utilizing DevOps practices can redu...
Feb 14, 2022•43 min•Ep. 252
Send us Fan Mail Most people think of ERP as a manufacturing or distribution solution. And if you are not a manufacturing company, they feel that ERP systems add very little value to operations and become limited to just finance. While that might be true for some companies such as professional services firms or marketing agencies, companies that are very heavy in assets and field service such as MRO, telecom equipment operators, utilities, and energy companies have different needs. These needs r...
Feb 12, 2022•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 251
Send us Fan Mail Sales teams are typically known to be completely disconnected from the organization. But if you have a smart sales team, they understand the importance of technology and what it can do to the sales process. The sales technologies have also come a long way. There are so many tools out there that can help with each step of the process. But what are the systems that need to be part of the enterprise architecture to help with each sales role inside the organization? In today's episo...
Feb 11, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 250
Send us Fan Mail For every one second it takes for your website to load, your conversion rate goes down by 10%. But how true is that? Well, speed is a huge factor in ranking on Google. In fact, even if you have mastered the Desktop speed, you might still not rank well if your mobile speed might not be as good. But what are the issues that cause a site to load slower? Are these issues related to hosting provider, site design, # and size of the imagery, or bloated themes? What do you need to do to...
Feb 10, 2022•59 min•Ep. 249
Send us Fan Mail Time series data is all about continuous monitoring of your machines to detect trends with your batches. If you don't collect and analyze the data, you might feel that you don't have capacity to meet customer demand and might be forced to acquire additional capacity or facility if you don't miss the opportunities. But the additional capacity might be right there within your facility and existing machines. Just because you may not have enough data points to draw conclusions from,...
Feb 09, 2022•57 min•Ep. 248
Send us Fan Mail If you are in the custom machinery business or building a custom machine using control systems from scratch, you have several challenges. While you might have previous experiences in building similar machines, each job is unique. The materials and the process may vary. The tooling required may be completely different. And then, you need to keep calibrating the interaction of materials, tooling, and variables using data gathered through your control systems until you get the desi...
Feb 08, 2022•52 min•Ep. 247
Send us Fan Mail Most manufacturers relate eCommerce as the B2C experience and swiping the credit card for pre-paid customers. But digital commerce is more than that, especially in the B2B setting. Also, in most cases, most people relate eCommerce as the engine for generating revenue through net-new customers. And they miss the point that digital commerce is about enabling and tailoring the experience for each persona to create the sticky effect that can create a much superior competitive advant...
Feb 07, 2022•44 min•Ep. 246
Send us Fan Mail If you are a small custom manufacturing shop switching off from spreadsheets or QuickBooks, you will likely come across GeniusERP. It is probably the only small ERP that can work with complex assemblies and BOMs in the small ERP category. In the small ERP segment, most ERP systems don't support hybrid manufacturing. And in most cases, they will be able to support a couple of manufacturing processes. In the case of GeniusERP, they target custom manufacturers geared toward ETO pro...
Feb 05, 2022•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 245
Send us Fan Mail If you are responsible for managing operations for your organization, you will find yourself caught in the middle. On one side, you have a sales team that may not commit to driving predictable sales, but they will not allow you to miss even one delivery, even if it may be out of your control. Then on the other side, you have unpredictable factors such as workers not showing up on time or truck drivers not meeting their commitments. Finally, you need to make sure you can plan fac...
Feb 04, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 244
Send us Fan Mail How many shoppers do you know will buy the first time they visit a store Very few, right? It takes some time before we can trust a brand. The same goes for e-commerce. The percentage may be even higher for e-commerce due to low barriers to exit from a site and go to the next one. In fact, more than 95% of the people that visit a website for the first time are not ready to buy. They need more than one interaction before they can make their mind. That’s where retargeting comes in....
Feb 03, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 243
Send us Fan Mail Sales and operations planning is a dark art, and most organizations typically have a very ad-hoc process of forecasting due to its nature. But it's critical to be directionally correct with your plan. Or you might end up missing opportunities or losing customers. Also, planning is more than just creating a model on a spreadsheet. It requires you to come up with estimates and iterate until every external or internal stakeholder agrees with the plan. In today's episode, our guest,...
Feb 02, 2022•52 min•Ep. 242
Send us Fan Mail Launching a business model could provide a revenue engine and competitive advantage that will be unmatched. But launching a marketplace is not easy. In fact, it's a chicken and egg problem. Your suppliers will ask you to get the customers first. And your customers will need a decent product and vendor mix before they can choose your site over other stronger brands such as Amazon. Also, the technology investments required to launch a marketplace are substantial. But at least now,...
Feb 01, 2022•51 min•Ep. 241
Send us Fan Mail If you have been thinking about incorporating robotic processes or industry 4.0 controls into your facility, you will have a choice whether you would like to buy the control systems directly from the vendors or program the robotic arms and control systems until you get the desired results from the manufacturing processes. Therefore, irrespective of whether you are a system integrator or the end consumer of the robotic process, you need to make a key decision whether you want to ...
Jan 31, 2022•47 min•Ep. 240
Send us Fan Mail There are two ways to grow an ERP company. Either you build products from scratch like SAP, Acumatica, SYSPRO, and NetSuite, etc. Or you acquire several products until you have a solid market share to create a product strategy like Infor, Epicor Software, Sage, and Appian Corporation. While Infor and Epicor were very aggressive with their acquisition strategy in their early days, they have realized how bad having too many product bases could fire back. One of the challenges that...
Jan 29, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 239
Send us Fan Mail If you ask any manufacturer, they will tell you that the Shop floor is where you make money. You need to make sure you have the right material and the right operator at the right machine. Wasting machine or machinist time is equally expensive. But then your margins may be tight, and you need to make sure you are profitably able to produce the job by optimizing the cycle time. You also need to make sure that you service your equipment at the right time, or you have the risk of di...
Jan 28, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 238
