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Don’t think outside the box-make your box bigger!

11/22/2011 at 11:35 am by

I’m a strong proponent of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) as a means to business agility, improved insight, and streamlined processes-what we call transformation. (See my last post here). We repeat the mantras of this perspective-”keep everything within the system” and “one version of the truth.”  And yet, one of the challenges of taking such a holistic view of ERP is, exactly how do you accomplish this?

Thinking outside the box-now you’ve got two boxes to maintain!  

The message today is not to think outside the box! I don’t mean to ignore creative solutions. But I do mean to expand your box, your ERP system, to encompass all those functions that are critical to supporting the kind of business transformation you are looking for. In days gone by, this meant “bolting things on” like CRM and business intelligence. Best of breed was the phrase. I’m here to say that best of breed is a recipe for failure for mid-market customers. They have neither the time, money nor skill set to be successful with the best-of-breed approach.

The bigger box-with everyone (and everything) in it!

To be successful, you have to expand your box. Do this by working with software vendors who are large enough and successful enough to have the pieces you need under their roof and their control, and the resources to integrate them for you. Oh the IT folks will go on and on about how this or that feature in a standalone CRM system makes it the only one to buy and then build an interface to your ERP. Don’t fall for this. Functionality has improved, and integration is the key. In my years of doing ERP, I have yet to find a situation in which the value of a particular feature outweighed the benefit of a proven, integrated solution. So look to Sage and the solutions Sage offers. If you’re a Sage ERP X3 user, like most of our customers, this means focusing on Sage SalesLogix as the CRM of choice. You can count on integration that will move forward as your software does and spend more time getting value out of your box than worrying about the duct tape holding it together!

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About the Author

Paul Sita, Ph.D is president and a principal of Innovative IT Consulting. Paul is a frequent writer, blogger, lecturer and contributor to industry groups and associations.

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