WBSRocks: Business Growth with Enterprise Software and Digital Transformation

Send us a textDigital commerce initiatives require your product, channel, and customer data in order. Or they might not pay off as you might never get the desired results from them as you expect. While both B2B and B2C eCommerce efforts have their share of challenges, the B2B space experiences complex relationships and hierarchies that drive the process intricacies. These relationships could be because of how the relationships are set up, how contracts are structured, and how each of them are paid in the relationship.In today's episode, our guest, Jay Schneider, shares his insights into how B2B digital commerce processes differ from B2C. He compares and contrast B2B sales and marketing trends such as buying groups, marketplaces, and group purchasing organizations that have been on the rise. Finally, he provides insights into the product data and why it is important for B2B distributors to keep their house in order to be successful with the eCommerce initiatives.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 it comes to blanket orders, the business community has mixed feelings about whether they add real value to the business. But their implementation could be all over the place as well. The legacy systems that didn't support the blanket order functionality natively had to come up with creative ways of handling them. These creative ways might include canceling the lines and adding new ones as the quantity gets released. Or they could be as dramatic as creating a completely new order. Irrespective of whether you like it or not. You will end up dealing with blanket orders as they might be driven by factors such as commodity pricing or securing critical components needed for your supply chain. So, where do blanket orders make the most sense?In today's episode, we invited a panel of cross-functional experts for a live interview on LinkedIn who brings significant expertise to discuss the pros and cons of blanket orders business processes best practices. We covered many grounds, including the difference between contracts, regular orders, and blanket orders and whether the blanket POs should be used. Finally, we discussed several other concepts related to blanket POs such as blanket orders for commoditized products such as MRO inventory and for the critical items and for the items where price fluctuates significantly. 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 you look at the eCommerce fulfillment space, there are many options out there. And most of these options could appear very similar. In fact, sometimes it's very hard to spot the difference between a 3PL and an eCommerce fulfillment software, as both software might appear similar. Just because your Shopify can integrate with their 3PL software, it's not meant to be a replacement for your order management platform. It should not even be compared in the software category. It's just another channel similar to EDI or integration with a traditional 3PL. The newer breed of 3PL offers deeper software capabilities than your traditional 3PLs. So, where does ShipHype fit in the food chain?In today's episode, we invited a panel of cross-functional experts for a live interview on LinkedIn who brings significant expertise to discuss ShipHype’s capabilities. We discussed their strength and weaknesses and why they should not be confused with an eCommerce platform. Finally, we discussed their pricing, comparison with the traditional 3PL players, and the value they offer for the eCommerce merchants.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 it comes to ERP software designed for manufacturing, you will find dozen of options. But none of them come close to meeting the needs of complex manufacturers. Even the software that will claim to be designed for hybrid manufacturing and raved by their customers are really lean on manufacturing capabilities. One of the critical differentiators for most manufacturing software is their BOM and data model. Lose correlation of BOM data elements could have significant implications on your production data. This is especially true for complex manufacturing products. One such product is Epicor Kinetic, which is often one of the closest competitors of other manufacturing software such as Infor CloudSuite Industrial and Acumatica.  But how deep is Epicor Kinetic with its manufacturing capabilities? Can it support any manufacturing business model?In today's episode, we invited a panel of industry experts for a live discussion on LinkedIn to conduct an independent review of Epicor Kinetic's capabilities. We covered many grounds, including their cloud journey, features such as advanced search that most legacy vendors might lack, and their user experience limitations as with most legacy products. Finally, we discussed their deficiencies such as their materials and operations not connected in their BOMs, their depth with the company structure, and the ownership issues of their quality module.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 textOne T-shirt takes around 700 gallons of water to manufacture. This is how important the water industry is that not many people understand. The water industry also has a complex sales cycle with several handshakes in the process. And yet it has one of the most legacy processes for the aftermarket industry, with the majority of the sales processes not being digital. But is that changing? Would existing solutions in the market be sufficient for the water industry? If not, then what do we need? How different would be the digital commerce solution for the water industry? And how this industry can prepare for digital transformation? In today's episode, our guest, Noemi Kis, shares her insights into how the water industry works and how its sales cycle differs from other industries. She also provides some facts about the water industry and how many stakeholders will be involved in it. Finally, she provides her insights into buying groups, payment flows, roles and responsibilities of different players involved in the sales cycle, and supply chain. 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 eCommerce companies can't survive without dropshipping. They might not have the funds to carry the inventory or build fulfillment centers to support customers in every location. But dropshipping is not as easy as building the website, finding the vendors, and start collecting cash. Incorporating dropshipping processes as part of your operational and financial workflow is even more challenging. And if your ERP system doesn't have dropshipping processes built as part of the system, it might feel unnatural. And you might build ad-hoc processes to support them. Also, dropshipping could mean different things to different parties. If you are a dropshipping vendor fulfilling the dropshipping orders, your processes could differ from a manufacturer sending the order to their dropshipping vendor for specific SKUs. So what are the best practices for incorporating dropshipping business processes into your business model and selecting an ERP system designed to support these 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 the pros and cons of dropshipping business processes and best practices. We covered many grounds, including how dropshipping works and the architectural nuances of enabling this business model. Finally, we discussed the challenges associated with cross-border dropshipping, fulfilment and logistics architecture, and why accounting shouldn’t be an afterthought for eCommerce businesses and dropshipping business models. 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 it comes to the options available for eCommerce merchants in the QuickBooks ecosystem, there is no shortage. In fact, we have so many options that sometimes it might be a project in itself to find the right tools and use them for the purpose it was originally designed for. There are inventory tools that might also play the role of a PIM. There are other inventory tools that might also have multichannel capabilities. Then there are inventory tools that might also function like a WMS system. This almost seems like a startup where most people play multiple roles. But there comes the point when you no longer can afford to be a startup and need clarity with your organizational structure. Systems work the same way. Ordoro is one such tool designed for inventory control for QuickBooks-sized customers. So is Ordoro wearing multiple hats as well, just like their competitors?In today's episode, we invited a panel of cross-functional experts for a live interview on LinkedIn who brings significant expertise to discuss Ordoro’s capabilities. We discussed their strength and weaknesses and where they might fit in the eCommerce architecture. Finally, we discussed their journey, the product strategy and roadmap, and their inventory and manufacturing capabilities compared to the other inventory solutions present in the QuickBooks ecosystem.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 textThere have been several attempts to segment manufacturing processes such as make-to-order, make-to-stock, engineer-to-order, and project-based manufacturing. Some segment it based on discreet vs. process manufacturing. But the reality is that the manufacturing industry is so broad that each micro-vertical could be unique with its processes. For example, one of the biggest differentiators from the ERP process perspective is the lead time and complexity of the manufacturing processes. A product that might take two months to build is different from the in-and-out products, such as with a lead time of fewer than two days. These two categories follow very different operational and supply chain processes and have different needs for an ERP system. When it comes to meeting the complex needs of an OEM with a large number of SKUs for each product, they need an ERP system that is designed to do the heavy lifting at this scale. So, where does Infor CloudSuite Industrial (Syteline) fit when it comes to manufacturing?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 Industrial's capabilities. We covered many grounds, including its depth in mixed-mode manufacturing and its capabilities to produce complex products. Finally, we discussed their design methodology, cloud-nativeness, and the markets that will be most suitable for their product.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 textWhile the products get the most attention in a manufacturing company, the packaging is equally important when it comes to the CPG world. Also, the systems and operational needs are completely different when we compare different players in the packaging industry, starting from packaging suppliers, packaging R&D organizations, and consulting companies. They all might require multiple systems in the architecture to ensure that the ERP systems are not being overengineered and the specialized systems can talk seamlessly.In today's episode, our guest, Megan Gamble, shares her insights into building the systems for the packaging industry. She discusses various players and stakeholders involved in the packaging industry and their roles as it relates to process collaboration in the packaging industry. Finally, she provides her insights into the process differences of R&D vs. manufacturing and different systems that might be part of the enterprise architecture for a packaging company. 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 textNot many businesses understand how to capitalize on the synergies of truly globally integrated organizations. They struggle to bring all the departments together from one plant. Bringing together all the entities and sites in one system is a much harder lift than you would think. Sometimes you may be lucky to be forced into it as your customers might be requesting centralized order processing or consolidated invoicing. And then, you might be distributing them from locations most financially feasible for your supply chain. Centralized order entry requires you to share your master data across entities with deep intercompany and intersite functionality. And if you also have challenges such as omnichannel or complex eCommerce architecture, it could be even more complex. So what are the differences between centralized and decentralized order processing?In today's episode, we invited a panel of cross-functional experts for a live interview on LinkedIn who brings significant expertise to discuss the pros and cons of centralized vs. decentralized order entry best practices. We covered many grounds, including what centralization and decentralization mean in different industries and how these businesses might be able to take advantage of synergies offered by these strategies. Finally, we discussed several stories where centralization and decentralization strategies resulted in financial and customer experience efficiencies.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.