WBSRocks: Business Growth with Enterprise Software and Digital Transformation

Send us a textThe debate about whether a platform should be more business vs. developer-friendly is classic. Even the platforms that might claim to be friendly for business users might struggle with aesthetically pleasing interfaces. But Episerver takes a very different approach with their rich CMS that is already integrated with several ERP platforms popular in the industrial space. The B2B space also has very different needs with customer-specific pricing and the availability of products for specific customer groups and divisions. So how is Episerver positioned among other headless vendors and the enterprise-grade platforms such as SAP, Salesforce, and Oracle commerce cloud?In today's episode, we invited a panel of cross-functional experts for a live interview on LinkedIn who brings significant expertise to discuss Episerver Digital Commerce/Optimizely’s capabilities. We discussed their strengths and weaknesses and why they have one of the friendliest CMS for B2B mid-market companies. Finally, we discussed their evolution, acquisition journey, their limitations compared to other enterprise platforms, and how their A/B testing might be different.For more information on growth strategies for SMBs using ERP and digital transformation, visit our community at wbs.rocks or elevatiq.com. To ensure that you never miss an episode of the WBS podcast, subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform.

Send us a textMost people might think of the distribution business as buy-and-sell. But distribution really gets really complex in the industrial space. You have challenges such as price and rebate management, buying groups, rush orders, and millions of SKUs. Unlike manufacturing, you might have very different planning for your warehouses, including push and pull-based replenishment. The bin structures are so complex that they may contain layers and layers of information to ensure that the warehouse crew is able to manage their operations smoothly. So what do industrial distribution businesses need to know about selecting software? Also, how do industrial distribution software such as Epicor Prophet 21, Epicor Eclipse, and Infor CloudSuite Distribution SX.e differ?In today's episode, we invited a panel of industry experts for a live discussion on LinkedIn to conduct an independent review of Infor CloudSuite Distribution/SX.e's capabilities. We covered many grounds, including their strength in the industrial distribution space and why it is purpose-built for certain micro-verticals of industrial distribution industries. Finally, we discussed their capabilities such as universal search, push, and pull-based replenishment, rebates, order types, and bin structure.For more information on growth strategies for SMBs using ERP and digital transformation, visit our community at wbs.rocks or elevatiq.com. To ensure that you never miss an episode of the WBS podcast, subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform.

Send us a textWhether to go for iterative deployment or the big bang is always subject to debate. But one factor that is often missed is the number of issues you might get on the day of deployment. As well as, the number of resources that you may require to avoid and control the impact of business disruptions. Most consulting companies would often advise against massive rollouts. The smaller the deployment, the more manageable it is. But that may not always be possible due to the system architecture. And the amount of additional temporary overhead that may be required to support a phased deployment.In today's episode, our guests, Nate and Jess Schisler share their insights on Lululemon’s case study of a massive rollout of their ERP and WMS. They also discuss the specific decisions that led to them opting for the one-weekend rollout despite their system integrator advising otherwise. Finally, they share details about the architectural considerations and resulting inventory issues that required months of hyper-care post-deployment.For more information on growth strategies for SMBs using ERP and digital transformation, visit our community at wbs.rocks or elevatiq.com. To ensure that you never miss an episode of the WBS podcast, subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform.

Send us a textWhat comes to mind when you think of RMA? Well, for me, I always feel that I have a fundamental right to return any product as I so please. However, if you think about the people and businesses that have to enable processes such as store credit, refund, sending the shipping labels, and getting the merchandise repaired,  you might no longer feel like returning a product. Each of these processes could be so involved that it might require its own ERP systems for each area. Also, RMA processes could have an impact on your profitability. And most issues with RMA can be traced back to engineering or production. So what are the best practices of RMA processes?In today's episode, we invited a panel of cross-functional experts for a live interview on LinkedIn who brings significant expertise to discuss RMA best practices. We discussed the nuances and best practices of RMA processes and how they might vary in different industries. Finally, we discussed the overlap and boundaries of RMA processes across systems and functions.For more information on growth strategies for SMBs using ERP and digital transformation, visit our community at wbs.rocks or elevatiq.com. To ensure that you never miss an episode of the WBS podcast, subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform.

Send us a textWhen people think of SAP Hybris, they are definitely not thinking of the modern stack such as React, headless, or PWA. But SAP Commerce has come a long way in its capabilities and stack. While it might not be as headless as some of the newer breeds of the tools, not many tools can match the enterprise-grade infrastructure capabilities of SAP Commerce Cloud. SAP Commerce Cloud has one of the most robust B2B features that other platforms can hardly match. And it is also a nice blend of headless with enterprise security in mind.In today's episode, we invited a panel of cross-functional experts for a live interview on LinkedIn who brings significant expertise to discuss SAP Commerce Cloud, SAP Hybris, Detailed Independent Review. We discussed their strengths and weaknesses and where they might fit in the eCommerce architecture for both B2B and B2C business models. Finally, we discussed their different approach to headless and why that may be slightly more sensible way of approaching headless due to the cybersecurity concerns of the modern stack, as well as for the regulated industries.For more information on growth strategies for SMBs using ERP and digital transformation, visit our community at wbs.rocks or elevatiq.com. To ensure that you never miss an episode of the WBS podcast, subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform.

Send us a textSage 300, also known as Accpac, is the household name for many companies when they think of an ERP system. It has always been a powerful accounting package, especially for SMBs. It has also been very strong with construction, real estate, and field service verticals. Especially very deep functionality for unions, cost codes, retainage, submittals, and commitments. While most people might think that any package that might have project-centric functionality may be suitable for construction. That's not true at all. So, would Sage 300 be any different than most construction packages?In today's episode, we invited a panel of industry experts for a live discussion on LinkedIn to conduct an independent review of Sage 300's capabilities. We covered many grounds, including their strength in the construction and real-estate industries. Finally, we discussed their construction-specific functionality such as union reporting, retainage, submittals, and transmittals.For more information on growth strategies for SMBs using ERP and digital transformation, visit our community at wbs.rocks or elevatiq.com. To ensure that you never miss an episode of the WBS podcast, subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform.

Send us a textIt’s very hard to pinpoint the real cause of ERP implementation failures due to the number of moving pieces involved. Some people would always blame the software vendors while others would blame the system integrators. In reality, these factors might not contribute to the ERP implementation failure as you would think. But one factor that has a much higher chance of firing back is the customization of the software. The more you customize, the more cans of worms you will be opening for yourself. The open-source software is more customized than its commercial variants. And because of that, they also have a much higher failure rate. In today's episode, our guest, Nick Foy, shares his insights on the reasons for ERP implementation and adoption failures based on his team’s experience in saving Odoo implementation. He also discusses why technical teams shouldn’t think of over-customizing an ERP solution just because they can. Finally, he discusses why the business analysis of each software feature and customization is equally important even when you might be buying an ERP software.For more information on growth strategies for SMBs using ERP and digital transformation, visit our community at wbs.rocks or elevatiq.com. To ensure that you never miss an episode of the WBS podcast, subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform.

Send us a textCommitted inventory and allocation are perhaps the most complex processes to master in the ERP world. But they are critical after a certain point in your growth. If you don't have committed inventory processes figured out, you might not be able to reserve for key customers. Every department may create ad-hoc arrangements to preserve its inventory. And that might result in inventory accuracy issues. But for the committed inventory processes to work, you must have your inventory in order. So, where do you start in your journey of committed inventory? And how to get it right?In today's episode, we invited a panel of cross-functional experts for a live interview on LinkedIn who brings significant expertise to discuss Committed Inventory and Allocation best practices. We discussed why commitment is inventory and how the commitments might vary in different industries when the inventory may be allocated at the lot or style level. Finally, we discussed complex inventory allocation processes such as available to promise, reallocation, and disassembly after allocation.For more information on growth strategies for SMBs using ERP and digital transformation, visit our community at wbs.rocks or elevatiq.com. To ensure that you never miss an episode of the WBS podcast, subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform.

Send us a textThe whole idea of eCommerce and the web have always been making IT and programming easy for marketers. So easy that they don't need to learn coding to run eCommerce operations. But the world of headless seems to be taking the opposite approach. So is every vendor treating headless as the same? Not really. Also, should the headless experience always be based on React? Probably not. Why should a technology trend be biased toward a specific tech? Also, React is not the only way to write Javascript-based apps. Oracle Commerce is often criticized for being monolithic and Java-based. But that's perhaps not true. They are one of the easiest and most customizable without requiring the clunkiness of headless. So is there only one way of doing headless? If a tech is achieving the same outcome conceptually, then it doesn't really matter whether the tech is headless or not.In today's episode, we invited a panel of cross-functional experts for a live interview on LinkedIn who brings significant expertise to discuss Oracle Commerce Detailed Independent Review. We discussed their strengths and weaknesses and where they might fit in the eCommerce architecture for both B2B and B2C business models. Finally, we discussed their different approach to headless and why their platform may be friendlier for the marketers with their unique changeset functionality.For more information on growth strategies for SMBs using ERP and digital transformation, visit our community at wbs.rocks or elevatiq.com. To ensure that you never miss an episode of the WBS podcast, subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform.

Send us a textBefore Microsoft started migrating all of their customers to Microsoft Dynamics Business Central and F&O, they had a similar strategy as Epicor or Infor, with several products in their portfolio targeted to specific industry verticals. In fact, they still sell products such as Microsoft SL. While they have announced the end of life for the SL product, some community members feel that the deadline is likely to be extended. They claim this as, in their opinion, Business Central might not be the best migration path for SL customers. And they are perhaps accurate in their assessment. This is because Positioning a product designed for FMCG distribution may not be the best fit for companies primarily in the project business. So, where does Microsoft SL stand as of today?In today's episode, we invited a panel of industry experts for a live discussion on LinkedIn to conduct an independent review of Microsoft SL's capabilities. We covered many grounds, including their strength in the construction and project-centric industries. Finally, we discussed why companies might have a hard time migrating to MS Dynamics Business Central once SL reaches its end of life in 2028. And why Microsoft may end up extending the deadline.For more information on growth strategies for SMBs using ERP and digital transformation, visit our community at wbs.rocks or elevatiq.com. To ensure that you never miss an episode of the WBS podcast, subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform.