WBSRocks: Business Growth with Enterprise Software and Digital Transformation

Send us a textGetting in front of more customers is typically the response of most manufacturers that might have sales performance issues or ambition to grow their sales. But you need a formalized sales process and a deep understanding of why you might be losing your current deals or how to find the next cohort of customers that might be similar to the ones you currently might have to be successful. Also, unless you have a well-adopted CRM for your sales team, it's hard to formalize the sales process and get the insights that will be meaningful for your sales leadership to create strategies that will help them get the desired results.In today's episode, our guest, Josh Curcio, shares his insights on CRM onboarding best practices for manufacturers in the metal industry. He also discusses why most manufacturers don't have visibility into their sales performance problems unless they have a formalized sales process and collect data that is meaningful to create a feedback loop for the sales process. Finally, he discusses the specific CRM process and data issues for the metal industry.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 more regulated a business, the harder the requirements for regulatory compliance. Pharma distribution might feel like a straightforward business, but it has several requirements related to lot and serial number tracking that only exist in this industry. They also have unique channels and how their sales and purchase orders need to be processed in order to be compliant with the regulatory bodies. Utilizing a vanilla ERP for a pharma business may be a harder lift due to the unique process development requirements on top of a vanilla ERP, which might be more expensive than buying an ERP designed for the pharma distribution industry.In today's episode, our guest, Darren Myher, shares his insights on the unique nuances of the pharma distribution business. He also discusses why vanilla ERP would fall short when it comes to the needs of pharma distributors as they have specific tracking requirements such as having a lot and serial numbers both on the product packaging. Finally, he discusses the data elements and information that need to be exchanged across the Supply Chain to comply with regulatory bodies.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 manufacturers started their businesses as they were good at making parts. They grew primarily because of word of mouth with very little investment in marketing and automation. They might be sitting on a pile of inventory and legacy machines due to their lack of understanding of how to invest in modern technologies and processes. They might also lose on the opportunities if they might not be able to meet the consumer demand due to the limitations in their capabilities. But why are manufacturers so afraid of innovation? Is the fear real or is it primarily because of their unwillingness to move out of their comfort zone?In today's episode, our guest, Tony Gunn, shares his insights on what manufacturers need to do to move out of their comfort zone. He also discusses how the iterative process to replace legacy machines with the new CNC machines can result in tapping into newer designs for consumer-centric industries. Finally, he discusses the need for innovation even for companies that might not be in the consumer-centric 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 textAmong most software, #ERP systems have always traditionally been the most hated. Each new ERP system that comes to the market seems to claim how they can either expedite the implementation time, increase the adoption, or change the ERP industry. Also, most new systems target smaller niches such as job shops. But the deeper your ERP system is in a specific niche, the less friendly and agile it will be as your business model expands. Specifically, the smaller job shops have a hard job meeting regulatory requirements imposed on them if they sell to verticals such as Aerospace or Medical. In general, they need IT capabilities more than ever before. But most shop owners or their executive teams don't have formal IT, finance, or procurement leadership to understand how to take advantage of an ERP system. Also, there is a fundamental misunderstanding in the machining community that you only have opportunities on the shop floor. While the shop floor plays a major role with most shops, you need to balance all your departments equally, whether finance, procurement, or operations with growth. One of the newer systems that seem to be making a significant buzz, especially in the machining community, is ProShop ERP, which has been positioned as game-changing. But is the system genuinely game-changing, or is it just marketing hype?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 ProShop's capabilities. We covered several grounds, including their marketing claims, especially about their transparency to their customers and underlying technical deficiencies that may not be entirely clear to the customers. Finally, we discussed how these technical limitations might end up costing way more in data restructuring and process alignment with the mainstream ERP systems once ProShop customers outgrow QuickBooks or Sage 50, and how this uniqueness will be a huge red flag for inventors considering to include ProShop customers in their portfolio.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 textA warehouse is a critical component to drive operational efficiency, especially if your company moves a lot of goods. The warehouse is also the area, which is typically the start of the automation, and if you operate your warehouse without barcodes, it might take forever to deliver the goods. Also, with ASRS systems and robots, the sky is the limit with what you could do to treat the warehouse the way it deserves. But without the foundational information architecture and connected systems, it's very hard to gain the efficiencies you expect. Sometimes poor implementations or poorly connected systems cause implementation failure of large Robotics or ASRS systems. What do you need to make sure you have a solid foundation for your warehouse to automate your warehouse 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 warehouse information architecture. We covered many grounds, including stories related to the information architecture for warehouse processes and the considerations that businesses need to keep in mind while designing the architecture, including WiFi availability, interactions with 3PL, the need for robotics, and the number of sites. Finally, we discussed how newer technologies such as multi-shuttle systems, AMRs, and drones that can cycle count are driving the need for refined architecture.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 textRetaining customers is easier and cheaper than acquiring customers. But unless you continuously acquire, you might have growth challenges. You can't simply rely on word-of-mouth channels. Customer acquisition is especially critical for e-commerce. For your customer acquisition to work effectively, you need to master your ideal customer profile and the messaging that will work with them. You also need to master strategies that are going to be uniquely applicable to your customers and channels. Finally, you will need to figure out how to continuously measure and keep improving until you hit the desired KPIs for your funnel.In today's episode, we invited a panel of cross-functional experts for a live interview on LinkedIn who brings significant expertise to discuss customer acquisition strategies for e-commerce. We covered many grounds in this episode, including the process and steps of customer acquisition and stories related to customer acquisition strategies. Finally, we covered how to improve customer acquisition metrics by having deeper understanding of customer needs and refining the targeting strategies.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 textAs you grow, you will be getting a lot of offers to get acquired. You might also be acquiring the companies, especially if you might not be able to meet your growth plans through organic channels. Whichever side of the M&A process you might happen to be on, you will only get value from the transaction if it is successfully executed. The most common reasons why acquisitions fail is because of the misunderstanding of the market and focusing solely on the financial models on the spreadsheets than really understanding what has really worked for the company that may be acquired.In today's episode, our guest, Kison Patel, shares his insights into the importance of people-focused M&A transactions and why buyers and sellers must understand the market deeply than simply relying on spreadsheet models. He also describes the success and failure rates of M&A transactions and what works for companies that have successfully executed the transaction. Finally, he shares why integration is the most important step of the M&A transactions.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 social proof is becoming real, especially for B2C and FMCG brands with the advancements in social media and influencer marketing concepts. Also, with the increased competition, it's becoming harder to get placed at shelves in high-traffic areas. Even so, there are several newer technologies out there, such as mass customer mobilization, that can help get visibility for your brand inside the store through non-traditional methods. In today's episode, our guest, Ben Searcy, shares his insights into the importance of customer advocacy and mass customer mobilization. He also describes how customer advocacy differs for B2B and B2C brands. Finally, he describes how the mass customer mobilization could increase sales at low-performing stores and how the advocacy could increase the revenue for B2B brands.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 could you do if your business were not able to break through and grow as expected? What would you do if the close rate were extremely low and you couldn't do anything about it as your channel controlled the sales process? While there are several options to help with this issue, including going DTC, the path is extremely risky, especially if you might be taking this path for the first time on such a massive scale. But careful planning and a well-thought-out process beforehand can save you a lot of headaches during the project phase.In today's episode, our guest, Phil Coerper, shares his insights into executing on DTC strategy. He also describes how to determine whether your business should be pure distribution-led, pure DTC, or hybrid. Finally, he shares his journey of building the business case, getting approval from the board, and the challenges he faced to ensure that the project remained on time and on budget.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 textTraditional IT required you to stress test programming languages, databases, and server farms based on your expected workload. You designed the system based on the size of your organization. If you are buying an ERP system, you obviously don't have to go through the testing and measurement process as you assume that ERP vendors and salespeople must sell to the right-sized organization. Unfortunately, most ERP salespeople neither have ERP implementation nor an IT background.To be fair with them, their providers never provide them with the technical sheet (or technical education) of the system's limitations. Instead, they only have access to the functional sheets. Would you not expect a technical sheet if you were buying a piece of machinery as the OEMs are legally required to provide for the products that might be life-threatening? Then why not for an ERP? This makes the process for selecting an ERP system fundamentally flawed as just because a corolla may have similar functionality as an SUV or a truck. A corolla is not supposed to be doing the same heavy lifting if your organization has grown to require an SUV. Because of this issue, most companies end up defaulting to the system they already trust, such as SAP, or they might be making extremely unfair comparisons, such as Oracle NetSuite vs GlobalShop. But if you asked them to explain why they chose a specific system, they would rarely have an answer. Each ERP system is designed for a specific stage of a company, and you will be sitting on a financial and legal risk if you don't understand that you will get the real taste of ERP after you have signed a multi-year contract and started loading all of your data. Let's dig under the hood to underhood how to evaluate Desktop apps such as GlobalShop. More importantly, where does GlobalShop 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 GlobalShop's capabilities. We covered several grounds, including their marketing claims, especially about their transparency to their customers and underlying technical deficiencies that may not be entirely clear to the customers. Finally, we discussed how these technical limitations might drive the admin costs and challenges in running even a decent-sized manufacturing organization with more than 100 SKUs.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.