4 Signs that you are Running on DiNOWare!
Now Serving DiNOWare!
"This one's for the team!" Brendan, the CFO for SugarFreePop, a health-conscious drink company, popped the cork of a bottle of champagne at the party celebrating the company passing yet another record in sales.
The company's sugar-free, vitamin-enriched drinks had taken-off during the lockdowns, and Brendan was enjoying not having a cash crunch situation anymore.
Tina, the company’s CEO, was also at the party and very proud of what her team had accomplished over the past few months.
They'd not only increased sales in the company's flagship drink, the Kombucha Kangaroo, but had developed several other promising drinks - and branched out into flavors of the world, like Tropical Pop and Sahara Pop.
SugarFreePop was growing quickly, hiring more people and distributing to more types of stores in an expanding number of countries.
Access to information remotely was critical – customer information, inventory levels, shipping status, payment management, and all the analytics around the business.
Tina needed timely information in all these areas, and she was not getting it. The reason? The company was running on really old software, the 'latest' version added 9 years ago.
Tina jokingly called it ‘DiNOWare.’ The systems were only understood and managed by a few senior employees, and the key person was close to retirement.
How was she to make decisions now that the market was surging? Decisions that required access to information daily!
Are you tired of using the same old software with the same old complaints and the same old limitations?
Step up to the 21st Century and take a look at what you could be served, instead!
Here are 4 SIGNS THAT YOU ARE RUNNING on ‘DiNOware’
1. Reporting is completely unfriendly!
Report requests take 3 weeks instead of immediately because of dependency on a programmer.
Standard reports take days to receive, if they are even accurate, because they are run in a batch mode.
No BI! Instant visibility into trends by SKU or by Region are impossible to get. Despite adding a third-party reporting solution, there’s no cool, real-time business intelligence options. Frustrating!
2. Customized features are now standard features! It is expensive to customize and more expensive to maintain the customizations.
Business is growing and the company is improving its processes. Yet, the company continues to process everything in a batch mode just like it was in the dinosaur era!
Many key resources are reluctant to change and insist on using the ways of the past despite showing them technology of the future.
New hires ask “What IS that software? How long ago did you implement THAT?"
3. So many cool add-ons that you can’t integrate because your software is DiNOWare
Integrating new modules for Warehouse, Manufacturing, Distribution, Payables, CRM, or HR with the existing ERP has become difficult.
Finding techies who can support the old system is a project in itself.
Departments are building their own solutions to work around your system limitations.
4. Remote Access is almost impossible. You are prisoners of the office.
Salespeople are asking why they can’t access the system from home or from the road.
Customer Relations want to work from home, too.
The CEO wants to view reports, dashboards, and the data anytime and anywhere.
Tina recognized the signs that the company's systems were outdated. She knew she would be running the company into the wall when demand would not wait for their dinosaur systems to catch up to real-time business. The way things were going, they would have to revert to walking into the warehouse to visually look and see if they had enough product.
Fortunately, sales had been so good that a project to upgrade the information systems was now affordable. Affordable, but still out of reach. No one in management could spend the time needed to manage such a project. Moreover, there were many ‘legacy’ procedures that the staff would not easily part with. Both of these realities were going to be impediments to bringing in better systems.
But that didn't mean Tina was going to wait for the IT staff to retire before bringing in some fresh ideas.
The time to start was now. The first step was to hire an outside talent, either a new employee or a knowledgeable consultant, to take the company through the process of assessing the current systems, helping with the selection of new systems, and guiding their implementation. The process would take time but would end up allowing the company to keep pace with the modern era.
Fast-forward a year later: sales are still strong and, with the new systems in place, the salespeople were making more sales with the retailers, and marketing was more in touch with consumer preferences. Financials were available quickly, and the daily dashboard was a view of the present.
If you look for these four signs, you will be super motivated to leave your DiNOWare and implement new software that lets your company glow and grow!
Are you about to start a systems project? We can help.
We can help you to select and implement the best system for your company so that your company can grow while we do for you what we do best.
Give us a call. We can be your ideal Project Manager to guide your Project Team to success quickly.
We excel in managing the project for ERP Systems Selection, ERP Implementation, finding the right solutions to overcome the impossible, keeping the project on-schedule, and creating a cohesive Project Team that will be the champions for the new system within your company.
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Rubenstein / Justman Management Consultants (RJMC) assists mid-market companies to evaluate, select, and implement ERP solutions including Financials, Manufacturing, Distribution, Warehouse Management, Supply-Chain Solutions, CRM, and Data Analytics. We are skilled and experienced consultants who provide the Project Management that gets the project done. To start the dialogue, give us a call at 310-445-5300
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