WBSRocks: Business Growth with Enterprise Software and Digital Transformation

Send us a textYou might not worry about vendors until one day your production line stops because you didn't realize that you had a single point of failure with your processes. You might also make a strategic choice to simplify your processes by choosing just one vendor for most of your components. But while you might not have issues as of today as you may have had reliable vendors supporting you for a long time, it doesn't mean that you will never face issues because of a single source of supply. What if the vendor gets acquired? Or they have management changes that might not provide the same service levels that you expect.In today's episode, our guest, David Chavez, shares the nuances of outsourced contract manufacturing. He also discusses several stories where the outsourced vendor processes and supply chain were a major cause for production breakdown and significant financial loss and missed opportunities. Finally, he discusses the process for evaluating global vendors and how to ensure that they are not retaining control that could be a financial risk to your business.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 large enterprise customers rarely look for an ERP solution outside of SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft as they offer comprehensive global solutions with localizations in most countries. This allows you to use a truly global solution without requiring a country-specific solution for the countries where non-global solutions fall short. When it comes to a truly global solution, some industries have specific supply chain management needs, including global trade management, transportation management, and supplier collaboration. These industries include Automotive suppliers that need to collaborate with their suppliers and perform integrated business planning. This planning helps them meet the needs of demanding customers such as GM and Ford while still meeting their costs expectations in an ultra-competitive market. Enter QAD. They are truly unique with their capabilities to support the needs of specific micro-verticals of global enterprises.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 QAD' 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, financial risks, and changes to their strategy because of the private equity 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 textBuilding information architecture for e-commerce companies is not easy. Most e-commerce companies serve B2B and B2C, so they need customer-facing websites along with an ERP. But then, with the blurring business models, e-commerce companies, especially those that are DTC, are expected to do a lot more, including managing their complex warehouses and sometimes their fleet for the last-mile delivery if 3PLs may not be as cost-effective or might not be able to meet the lead time requirements of the customer. In addition, these fleets might soon need IoT devices and GPS to appropriately track the driver compensation and provide the tracking to compete with the likes of Uber Eats, which will increase the complexity of the architecture further. Also, just like Google started creating partnerships with big-box retailers to provide the product and store experience, more e-commerce companies will start creating similar partnerships or open their experience stores, complicating the architecture further.In today's episode, we invited a panel of cross-functional experts for a live interview on LinkedIn who brings significant expertise to discuss implementing systems for e-commerce companies. We covered many grounds, including several e-commerce stories and the role of the PIM system in the E-commerce architecture. Finally, we discussed several scenarios to handle e-commerce architecture challenges, such as when multiple ERP systems feed a single website vs. multiple brands sourced from a single ERP system.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 is so much talk about marketing automation. But, is marketing automation about automating the entire marketing, so you don't have to hire anyone in the marketing department? Or is it about predicting and creating engagements through content at every step of the way as buyers move through the funnel? How much investment does marketing automation require? Are there any best practices on what to automate and what could be overkill? How important is technology to achieve marketing automation goals? And how important is tracking? Are there any specific KPIs that matter? Are there any industry-specific KPIs that might be relevant?In today's episode, we invited a panel of cross-functional experts for a live interview on LinkedIn who brings significant expertise to discuss marketing automation strategies for e-commerce. We covered many grounds in this episode, including what marketing automation is and why it matters. Finally, we covered several stories related to the best practices of marketing automation and KPIs relevant for marketing automation.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 ERP systems have come a long way with their capabilities and faster time-to-value, these investments still take a long time to deliver value to your business, even if you may have gone live within 90 days. Also, you will uncover real issues with the ERP system once you start running your business on the new system due to the lack of interest from most stakeholders during the testing and implementation phase. Finally, the post-implementation phase may cost you more than the pre-implementation phase, but if you pull the plug after investing for many months or years, cleaning it up and upgrading to the new system may be even costlier.In today's episode, our guest, Matt Dietrich, shares his insights on why ERP implementation projects must be treated as a journey instead of a one-time deal. He also discusses the importance of a fully connected ERP system even for commercial decision making and how to spot an old vs. newer ERP system with deeper capabilities to drive the decision-making. Finally, he outlines why committing to a platform and continuous investment is more important than upgrading it every couple of years.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 textIf you are a warehouse manager, your goal will be to get as many shipments out of the door as fast as possible. You might also be tempted to compare your ratios with other similar warehouses or the warehouses of your competitors. But as each business is different, each warehouse and its ratios will be different as well. So while you need to consider the warehouses and inventory as part of your continuous improvement plan as you learn more about your business and processes, you can't compare them with anyone else. In today's episode, our guest, Jeff Lem, shares his insights on optimizing dock-to-stock ratios of a warehouse. He also discusses the various component of the dock-to-stock ratio that drives the overall ratio including time to receive the product against a purchase order and put away in suitable locations. Finally, he discusses the nuances of the labeling process, part #, and where and how vendor part number should be used to avoid tight coupling with your vendors while still providing end-to-end traceability.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 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.