WBSRocks: Business Growth with Enterprise Software and Digital Transformation

Send us a textThe larger the organization, the harder it becomes to roll out the implementation and truly reap its benefits. Also, the ERP implementation needs to be treated as a continuous improvement project as the context will change, and as you acquire more data from your ERP implementation, you will have more opportunities to improve your processes. If you don't share your inventory, customer, and vendor data across sites, you will not gain true cost-saving opportunities due to the siloed nature of your organization. Also, you need to analyze if there might be standardization opportunities available by utilizing similar equipment or processes.In today's episode, our guest, Bob Feathers, shares his insights and lesson learned from a multi-site ERP implementation. He also discusses their rationale for data sharing across sites, including customers, vendors, and items, and walks us through their selection and implementation process. Finally, he discusses the challenges they ran into in the post-implementation phase due to the lack of testing and commitment from users and why ERP implementations need to be treated as continuous improvement projects even after the implementations.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 evaluating ERP systems, one of the critical choices you will have to make is whether to go for ERP systems that are supported directly by the OEM vs. through partners. In the SMB space, most large vendors support their systems through resellers. But some vendors such as IQMS, QAD, and IFS don't have their channels as developed and support their products primarily through their professional services teams. Also, before its acquisition by Dassault systems, IQMS had a very interesting journey. They were growing very fast and had many solutions to support industry-specific functionality. So, where does IQMS stand as of today? And where do they win most?In today's episode, we invited a panel of industry experts for a live discussion on LinkedIn to discuss major stories in the ERP and digital transformation space and an objective and independent review of IQMS' capabilities. We covered several grounds, including their positioning in specific micro-verticals and their deeper capabilities than other manufacturing ERP software. Finally, we discussed their product roadmap, history, current cloud capabilities, and changes to their strategy because of the Dassault acquisition.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 textHow would you feel if you noticed the availability of your favorite shirt on a website, but when you walked to the store, it wasn't available there. How would you feel if the coupon provided on purchase from the website would not work on a mobile device because of the disconnected loyalty databases? The channels are increasing at an ever-increasing rate, and with that, the complexity of building omnichannel architecture increases exponentially. Omnichannel experience requires you to allow your users to switch between devices right within a transaction, ranging from e-commerce to POS and mobile. But how do you start on the omnichannel journey, and what is required to build a truly omnichannel architecture?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 strategies to enable omnichannel experience. We covered many grounds, including several stories where omnichannel and their architectural components. Finally, we discussed some of the live case studies on omnichannel experience, including how it differs from multichannel in different B2B and B2C situations.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 text48% of customers buy sooner when they have a coupon. And 37% of customers buy more than they normally would. These numbers could be a great tool to drive sales and results. Most people think of coupons as discounts but successfully implementing a good coupon strategy requires far more planning. The coupons require you to identify appropriate distribution channels so they get seen by the customers. The coupon also requires you to identify the right audience and have incentives for them that will drive them to make a purchase. Mastering the coupon strategy not only helps you increase your sales and help spread awareness of your brand. But how to follow a structured coupon strategy that will help with business results?In today's episode, we invited a panel of cross-functional experts for a live interview on LinkedIn who brings significant expertise to discuss coupon strategies for e-commerce. We covered many grounds in this episode, including the difference between discounts and coupons and how they differ for B2B and B2C. Finally, we also discussed several concepts such as distribution strategy, measurement techniques, applications, implementation guidelines, specific coupon types and use cases, and best practices for implementing coupons without losing money.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 textCreating consumer products that don't have a pre-existing category is much harder to sell and commercialize than you would think. You have to figure out how to go through procurement, who will probably not be very receptive to your product as they might get beat up by their management. You may also not have enough funding for advertising campaigns to create the kind of buzz a new product requires. What can you do? You need to think deeper. You have to find non-traditional ways to find your customers and convert them into champions to create a completely new market that your buyers start finding you as opposed to you finding them.In today's episode, our guest, Kara Goldin, shares her insights into how to develop non-traditional marketing channels for your new products. She also shares how she solved her initial product and supply chain challenges without any experience in the manufacturing or food and beverage industry. Finally, she shares how she prioritized with limited funding as she grew her company through inflection points and at which point she had the confidence that this was the right product category that could scale.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 textCannabis has become a booming industry, with several states legalizing the use of cannabis in their states. And the industry is also becoming complex with the ever-increasing applications of Cannabis products and their by-products. The companies need to comply with the state requirements, but there might also be additional process overheads due to federal limitations. While the Cannabis industry has some similarities with other industries such as manufacturing, food, or tobacco, there are also significant differences due to the unique traceability and processing requirements.In today's episode, our guest, Dave Crysler, shares his insights into the nuances of the cannabis market and value chain. He also discusses the customer groups of each of the players involved in the industry and their licensing structure. Finally, he discusses the manufacturing, warehousing, and inventory processes of the cannabis companies and their compliance requirements.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 textGenerating demand for new products is super challenging. But the challenges would be at a different level if you had to generate the demand for product categories that didn't exist and if you had to go through procurement. Luckily, today's technologies allow you to target specific roles in a given account, so they can relate with your logo and brand before you visit them. The manufacturers who would have wasted millions of dollars in the generic marketing strategies such as trade shows without any tracking can know what is happening with each of the impressions, who is looking at your content, and if you are heading in the right direction with your investments.In today's episode, our guest, Daniel Englebretson, shares his insights into the demand generation strategies for new product development. He also shares several stories about his work where he successfully penetrated the market where there was not even a category for that product. Finally, he shares his challenges working with procurement and how he broke into these accounts through innovative targeting strategies that are only possible through the technologies available in the market.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 textOpen-source is not a term you will hear when it comes to ERP systems. But there are a few open source ERP systems such as Odoo. While their claim of being open-source made them super popular in the development community, are they truly open-source? Well, if you look under the hood, the open-source pitch is really to grab developers' attention as the core component of ERP, such as the accounting module,  is not really open source. But developers still love it. That's probably the reason why Odoo is majorly used by the IT and development community and primarily used by E-commerce companies as they tend to be development heavy. But where does Odoo stand as of today? Where do they win most?In today's episode, we invited a panel of industry experts for a live discussion on LinkedIn to discuss major stories in the ERP and digital transformation space and an objective and independent review of Odoo's capabilities. We covered several grounds, including the features available in their open-source edition and whether there are any tangible advantages of it being open-source. Finally, we discussed the pros and cons and different cost components that need to be considered while evaluating an open-source software versus a commercial package.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 start your business, you will do whatever you can in your power to survive. You might sign up any customers that might have any amount of money in their pockets. You might sell an offering that you might not have on your menu. Again, we as entrepreneurs have figured out how to survive. But the same entrepreneurial spirit fires back when you are trying to scale your business. Once you reach an inflection point, you will likely have the most complex product mix, manufacturing, and inventory processes resulting from ad-hoc survival or incomplete customer and vendor data driving unnecessary manual processes. At this point, you have two choices, either live with the processes that might not be relevant anymore for your business. Or, start with a clean slate and draw every process out there and simplify as much as possible.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 strategies for business simplification prior to implementation. We covered many grounds, including why simplification matters and which business objects you should prioritize for simplification. Finally, we discussed several stories related to chart of accounts, sub-accounts, work centers, inventory part numbers, paper-driven processes.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 you may get tons of traffic for your e-commerce website, if your users don't find your content interesting, they might not stay on it for very long. And this is where the KPIs around sessions are critical. It will help you understand what's happening after the users land on your pages. It will also help you understand how long they stay on each page and how many pages they visit per session. The session KPIs are helpful when you might have a lot of traffic but not as many conversions. But how to optimize the content and journeys to improve your KPIs related to sessions?In today's episode, we invited a panel of cross-functional experts for a live interview on LinkedIn who brings significant expertise to discuss session optimization strategies for e-commerce. We covered many grounds in this episode, including why the session matters and the pitfalls associated with reading session KPIs. Finally, we also discussed several stories where the session optimization strategies resulted in tangible results for the business and which platforms have higher accuracy for session data.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.