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Consultants can be a great source of business information. They work with multiple companies and see lots of projects go from start to completion. Drawing on this kind of background, Bob Blanchette and Steve Bieszczat have published a helpful article on the Manufacturing Business Technology website detailing the top 10 best practices for manufacturers to follow when implementing an ERP solution.

They point out how an Enterprise Resource Planning system, whether its a new solution or the evolution of your current solution, needs to revolve around the parts of your business that are growing most rapidly. This helps ensure the system will be situated to support profitable growth. That may be as you are extending a current product line, rolling out a new product, or pivoting to pursue a business model that takes advantage of new opportunities. Bob and Steve recommend viewing your ERP solution as a platform for delivering value to new and existing customers.

Describing things from that viewpoint, they recommend that any organization preparing to implement an ERP system must have an intentional focus. This includes clarity on the plan, the accountability, and the ownership. When you prepare the stage with a focused business objective, implementation expertise, and a fluent knowledge of your unique niche and other technologies, you can feel confident that your ERP deployment will be successful.

To help you prepare for an ERP implementation, Bob and Steve share these ten best practices that you can apply in your company:

1. List business goals supported by metrics - These productivity numbers map out how beneficial the ERP solution can be. They're vital for helping the people in your company understand the need and the opportunity at hand.
2. Describe current operations - A clear knowledge of your processes today will help you get the most value from the configuration options in the new system tomorrow.
3. Stage-gate process to manage customization requests - You should plan on some customization for your new ERP solution; however, success demands that you have person clearly assigned to as a filter to separate vital adaptations from the nice-to-have changes that can be tweaked after the initial roll-out is complete.
4. Leverage experienced partners - Each of the people on your team is an expert on part of your business; getting support from an expert on software deployment can pay back dividends later.
5. Track communications and change management - Change always stirs up some resistance, but sharing information about what is going to happen and why it will be valuable to the company can help pave the way for a smooth transition.
6. Promote power users as a resource - Identifying the people already on your team who can be a resource for others also helps integrate the new tool into the company. Maximize the benefit here with a reward or recognition program for those who are adding this additional value.
7. Celebrate successes - Highlighting the good work people are doing and the progressive benefits of the new system will sustain the energy needed for the changeover.
8. Plan for project evolution - Continuous improvement is the keyword here. From the stage-gate owner mentioned above, at the conclusion of the initial deployment you will likely have a list of additional functionality that can enhance your business operations further.
9. Focus your operations software - To balance out Best Practice #8, be sure to keep focused on the most valuable upgrades, based on the metrics you've gathered and the new numbers your ERP system will be able to provide.
10. Stay informed about new technologies - Industry 4.0, IIoT, and MES can all benefit a company, but they come with a cost of expense and complexity. Stay alert for opportunities to leverage these ongoing technology evolutions.

Bob and Steve wrap up by reiterating the idea that an ERP solution cannot be seen as a project that just ends one day. The ERP data will feed back into your processes and your refined processes will make certain data more valuable. This needs to be the long-term picture you paint for the implementation team, the executives, and the people on the shop floor. When your entire organization is on the same page of continuous improvement, you're well on your way to avoiding the pitfalls and securing the ROI that a new ERP system can bring.

With a robust yet affordable ERP solution, aACE 5 can also support your accounting and CRM needs. Beyond this vital core functionality, aACE 5 is integrated with inventory tracking, order management, production processes, and shipping/receiving. Our goal is to give you 360-degree visibility on your operations plus time-saving automation. We help companies focus on the high-value strategic aspects that lead to accelerated business velocity and growth.

"I had the pleasure of working with aACE Software in developing and implementing a customized FileMaker system for my company — a mid-size, creative services agency. We needed a strong project management system with the capability of measuring costs in real-time, which could replace our old, fragmented database system without losing any of the valuable data that was stored there. Before we even started, the aACE team spent a lot of time with our agency leaders: from IT, to project management teams, to financial services, to the company principle — making sure all agency functions would be fully supported by the new aACE system. What came out of this involved consultation was not only a great system, but also vast improvements to streamline our process." ~ Richelle Rothermich, Vice President & Managing Director, The O Group

By 2020, some predictions claim, the most important factor for standing out from the competition will not be your high quality product. It won't be advertising budget. It won't be low prices.

The key factor: customer experience.

What does that mean? According to Customer Experience Futurist Blake Morgan, it means that your customer's perception of your brand IS the reality of your brand. If they feel you offer everything they need, then you ARE the best company.

Daniel Newman provides even more support in his article on Forbes.com — Want Better Customer Experience? Combine CRM and Customer Feedback:

• 86% of buyers value a high-quality experience
• Finding new clients costs 6 times more than retaining current clients

So how do you get to the point of pleasing and retaining these customers? The short answer is customer feedback. Establish a company culture where listening to your clients happens continuously. Then get the information your staff gather to the people who need it.

For this aspect of the solution, your CRM system is the go-to resource. It's already designed to store and distribute and act on customer interactions. The bulk of Newman's article focuses on reasons why you should maximize use of your CRM in order to improve customer experience.

First, he touches on how data organization is a core feature of CRM tools. Each client record is an ideal gathering point for the insight that client shares with you. And additions to each growing relationship record can be routed to the right group in your organization. Whether it's a support issue, a comment on recent marketing efforts, or input about your website, the information can be directed to the people who can respond best.

Next, Newman discusses the trends and patterns that will help you make strategic choices for your business. It's hard for regular folks to process the amounts of data that will highlight these openings. But with some computer assistance, your staff can recognize where customers are leaning into your brand and where they're tilted away from you. Numbers are the easiest to crunch of course, but the spoken and written feedback can be just as important for a more clear understanding of why your customers are doing what they're doing.

Finally, the article concludes with a warning to not underestimate any client feedback. This goes back to the customer-centered culture you need to establish. Part of this mindset needs to be that even if the person who receives the feedback doesn't see the value, they still record it in the CRM system. Going farther, even if no one sees the value right now, the feedback might be useful to identify new projects or initiatives. In essence, clients who will tell you what they think are an invested think-tank for your company's long-term growth.

Whether you have an expensive CRM package, a home-grown solution, or if you're considering the best routes to upgrade your CRM tech, there's always a way to capture customer feedback. Taking advantage of that knowledge will help you improve customer experience and rise above your competition.

aACE 5 takes customer feedback seriously. Not only was our product developed based on this kind of user input, but it also features robust functionality for recording customer interactions — from anywhere in the system. Likewise, emails and attachments can be automatically linked to the relevant records. Your sales team can access these materials, as well as the goal setting, schedule planning, and quote preparation tools. All the facets of your complex relationships can be tracked in the aACE 5 CRM module. Learn more today.

"aACE Software helped us visualize our information in a way that we did not have available to us with our prior ERP/CRM system." ~ Daniel Peleg, Exec. VP of Operations and Business Development, Consumers' Choice Awards

Success in your business is a balance between people and tools. Smart, hard-working staff make a huge difference. And if you have technology in place that supports them, it will amplify their efforts.

Sometimes, though, that's a big "if".

The people who make software and hardware don't always pay as much attention as possible to the needs of people who use it. And they rarely know your company's specific processes, let alone base their development decisions on them. So unless you've got a citizen developer on your team, it can be hit-or-miss as to whether a given upgrade is actually an improvement.

In fact, some new and/or improved technology tools may actually make it harder for your team to get work done. It might be as small as a redesign that moves important features to new places on the GUI. Or it could be as large as an expensive purchase that included all the bells and whistles, but doesn't have functionality vital for your staff.

Martha Bird, writing for Entrepreneur.com, discusses this dilemma. She identifies three vantage points you can use to help evaluate technology options. Use them to make sure your team and your company get the best benefit from each purchase.

1. Does the technology blend in with the way your people work?

Some tools complicate processes in an attempt to stand out from the crowd. But an interface that stands out isn't necessarily a selling point. Instead, the people who use the tools get the most advantage when the tools fade into the background. When software makes things so easy that you don't even notice it's happening, that's a well-made system. Whether the underlying code is simple or complex doesn't matter. The key point is whether it helps your team get things done.

2. Does the tech help your team focus on human-work?

One of the primary purposes of technology is to make things easier, not for the sake of easiness, but in order to address more valuable needs. Automation can handle some tasks better than people, freeing those people to do work that computer tools cannot accomplish. Look for software that can be customized to work the logic-based, repetitive aspects of your company. As a business grows, smart entrepreneurs always notice better and better ways to do things. The technology should support this kind of growth. And this lets you redirect your team's attention onto strategic, creative, and relationship-centered assignments.

3. Does it help your staff collaborate in their work?

Part of that human-centered work your team can do will be working together. Not only does this lead to better results, but it brings the fringe benefit of strengthening the team. Powerful technology will enable these kinds of interaction, promoting awareness, cooperation, and cross-pollination between different groups in the company. This synergy can be enhanced when you find tools that make it natural for people to combine efforts.

Insightful business people will recognize the exchange here — time invested in evaluating tools will pay dividends when you actually purchase. Like the old fable, a deliberate pace will help you progress better than quickly jumping at every new technology release.

Among business operations software, aACE 5 stands out as one of the few systems designed based on the end users. Our development was driven by feedback from initial users, and now you have the opportunity to benefit from their recommendations. Our ongoing effort to meet each client's needs is one reason why simple and effective customizations are mentioned so frequently in testimonials about our product. Contact us today to learn how aACE 5 can integrate, automate, and accelerate your business processes.

"Michael and his team have customized their aACE FileMaker system to fit the needs of our business model. Because we work in the alcohol industry, government regulations are very strict and mandate how we must track and record data; they also require us to file numerous operation-related reports on a monthly or semi-monthly basis. Because of the peculiarities of our business, no stock program would have done the work that we needed it to do, nor helped us to reach our goal of reducing manual recording/reporting on a repetitive basis." ~ Jasmine Crandall, Midwest Custom Bottling LLC

The psychology behind making choices shows that we don't do really well when there are too many options. And when it comes to eCommerce hosting solutions, there are a lot of options.

As Lucinda Honeycutt points out in her article for Entrepreneur.com, all these eCommerce hosts might make it easy to assume that they're equivalent – and that it won't matter too much which one you select. But if you only use one criteria to filter through the web hosting crowd, you need to at least consider the speed and reliability you'll be getting for your online store.

When you can have customers shopping 24/7, even a little trouble with access can translate into notable revenue loss.

The first aspect to consider is speed. How quickly or slowly your eCommerce site loads has a direct impact on user experience. We can all relate to that. You know the feeling of sitting quietly, staring at a buffering circle. It doesn't take too long before we decide to do something else. Your potential customers are the same. Some of them won't even hang around for more than two seconds.

Lucinda points out that a one-second delay in load times could add up to a seven-percent cut into your conversion rate. And the consequences for slow web sites are aggravated by the fact that search engines also rank you on speed, so those delays might put your site farther down on the results page. You can directly control some of the speed-related details on your site (e.g. optimized images and coding), but obviously this factor deserves some attention when you're shopping for an eCommerce host.

The next major factor is uptime – in a given year, how much of the time will your web site host have your site available for customers? Any business owner, whether for a company that's small, mid-sized, or large, would love to know their online store would be open 100% of the time.

However, most hosting services won't make that impressive claim. Instead you're left to choose how many 'nines' you want after the decimal place. That might sound like a detail too small to worry about. But the time difference between a site that's up 99.9% and 99.99% is about 40 minutes per month. Compare that to how long it takes an average user to make a purchase on your site, and you could be losing a number of sales each month.

And again the consequences ripple out from the direct impact. When one customer can't access your eCommerce store, the difficult experience could easily affect their next purchasing decision, as well as the informal reviews they share with friends and family. The uptime that a hosting service can guarantee is a significant detail for you to consider.

Your company's growth is going to be ongoing and steady. So you need to plan for what's going to happen when you go from 100 orders a month to that many per week. If your eCommerce host can't keep up with the demand from your customers, it could trip up your progress. Switching your entire store to another host is possible, but can be dangerous too. So make your initial decision with the long-term plans in mind.

Lucinda ends her article with some well-deserved attention to the actual costs of a eCommerce hosting solution. The monies needed to set up your store and keep it running all day, all year are a definite concern. Those costs range high and low, and they're also charged in different ways. Some platforms charge based on bandwidth you use, the number of transactions you complete, or the number of products you advertise. Others assign a flat monthly fee or simply take a percentage of each sale. While this factor may seem like the most direct impact on your decision, keep in mind that some of the features mentioned above actually can have a larger impact over the year.

Use these areas to create your own ranking system and bring a clear order to the wide assortment of eCommerce hosting providers. With due diligence and hard work, you'll be able to find the solution that will take your company where you want to be.

With integrations offered for some of the most popular eCommerce hosts, aACE 5 establishes a direct connection between your online store and the rest of your business operations tools. Orders started online flow seamlessly into aACE, eliminating duplicate data entry and greatly reducing the risk of human error. Contact us today to learn more about aACE eCommerce integrations.

“I would recommend aACE to any business owner facing the challenging task of integrating their Amazon orders into one solution that handles all of their needs. There isn’t much limitation to what the software can do, and it flows beautifully.” ~ Cory Elliot, Founder and CEO, Troy Filters Ltd.

Some business people might describe a CRM system as high-risk, high-reward. And it's true that without careful attention, the investment into customer relationship management software might get lost. When you manage the tool and the data right though, even a small or mid-sized business can get unparalleled benefits.

In his excellent article on Entrepreneur.com, Jonathan Herrick gives a handful of warnings you can use to make sure you're doing things right. Focusing attention on the pain-points first, he explains that the one thing worse than misusing CRM info is not using it at all. That said, it's also clear that misusing the data is no picnic. Poor CRM usage can aggravate things for a business owner who feels like she's steering a ship in the dark; an executive who feels frustrated because everyone is busy, but nothing is getting done; or any decision-maker who feels debilitated by missing and incomplete data.

Leveraging your CRM starts with these four best practices, the reverse of Herrick's trouble-spots:

1. Concentrate on the Right Data

CRM systems today can be fully integrated with ERP and accounting tools, capturing a goldmine of details. But the computer isn't able yet to tell a dirt clod from a gold nugget. It's up to you to focus the system, processes, and personnel on the valuable information. Whether you've found the most benefit from direct mail, phone calls, social media, or mass email, your CRM efforts should prioritize that contact info. In other words, don't worry about the data you don't use. And definitely don't bother your customers with entering data that won't benefit anyone.

2. Measure the Right Performance

Related to the first tip, this one puts you on notice against high numbers that don't equate to high sales. With your company website or eCommerce store, you might find that tracking the increasing number of visitors is a feel-good – but that end of the pipeline doesn't provide much to help you with making decisions. Instead, work backward from the customers who cross the finish line, looking for patterns in their progress. Those recurring details are the metrics that matter most. Ensure that info gets to the right people in your organization and keep those numbers front and center, checking every campaign and initiative against this vital market feedback.

3. Bring Order to the Chaos

The CRM system you use will only be as helpful as your team's efforts make it. Automation is a great time-saver, but people are still needed for recording the crucial info. Yes, a lead called at this time on this day — what was the conversation about? Getting the team into the habit of carefully noting what happens with contacts, prospects, and clients may take planning and patience. When they understand how personalizing interactions can help with profitability, getting these processes in place can become easier. Analyze, educate, and encourage the work that will keep your CRM data valuable.

4. Put the Data to Work

Once you have organized, valuable information, you're half-way there. The next stage is to align the business processes to the picture of market reality your data shows. In a sense, each click and phone number is feedback for you, but your team has to act on it. This might start with internal changes, re-directing attention where it's most useful for the pipeline, but it will expand to boost your relationships, connections, and sales. It can even show you new opportunities where your team can thrive.

Having CRM software won't make all the difference. Having good data won't either. But having these pieces in place for your team to take advantage of might surprise you.

aACE 5 is designed to facilitate the business approach suggested in Herrick's article. It's a comprehensive yet cost-effective, cross-platform system that is customizable and provides apps for mobile users. Sculpted according to feedback from various professional services, wholesale distribution, and light manufacturing clients, this software is designed to accelerate your business growth. If you're looking to upgrade a CRM system, asking some questions about aACE 5 can help you get the best ROI. Learn more today.

"aACE has a comprehensive customer relationship management section that leads into prospective customers becoming real customers. From that point, you can take an order from start to finish by capturing deadlines, resources and material costs spent on a project, as well as extensive accounting functions." ~ Lili Hall, President, KNOCK Inc

Manufacturing businesses succeed as they arrange their operations around continuous improvement. This foundational principle, however, can be easy to lose sight of when it comes to deploying ERP solutions. When making such a crucial investment, that is exactly the time a business must resist the attitudes that can cripple an ERP project – or even the whole company.

IndustryWeek.com has published a pointed article that serves as good warning for companies preparing to deploy ERP solutions. This advice arises from the experience of Paul Henderson of QAD Acia Pacific, and it is framed as three memorable "sins" of omission. While the article is focused on manufacturing companies, the warnings ring true for any other business, from wholesale distribution to professional services.

1. Forgetting the Principle of Continuous Improvement

Minimizing defects and improving quality seems like it would be an obvious part of any manufacturing company's ERP project. Unfortunately not all ERP vendors align themselves to Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, or any other approach for continual improvement. Instead, they seem to operate on a theory of a software big bang (or perhaps ERP ex nihilo). That is, the ERP solution must spring forth into being, fully formed and complete, at the first implementation.

This method is usually over-complicated and less-than-agile, over-budget and exhausting. And the negative results ripple out into a larger pattern. One project like this can make an organization gun-shy, unwilling to take on other software implementations until a crisis emerges. Which often requires another massive, rushed deployment, followed by another rapid depreciation of value.

Could your company get caught in this pattern? How could any company that survives on slow, progressive excellence stumble into this pitfall? One possibility might be the good intention to get the most functionality for the company's dollar. This would be a misdirected effort to purchase as many features as possible, rather than purchasing the needed functionality plus the necessary ongoing support (aka continuous improvement).

2. Ignoring the Business that the ERP Should Support

This obstacle is related to the first. It involves letting the ERP software eclipse the processes, activities, and value that your company actually delivers. It might be understandable that an ERP vendor would be eager to make the sale, but it should also be a red flag for you.

A quality vendor will be focused on holistic success — your improved operations will be more important than a single sale. Conversations and planning must stay focused on that larger goal. And if an ERP vendor has a pattern of lapsing into tunnel vision around what the product needs, you should address it right away.

3. Assuming the Project is Complete at Go-Live

Extending from the second pitfall, this troublesome mindset can be easier for an ERP buyer to fall into. We like closure. Especially when that completion is a measuring point for our accomplishments or success. However, a solution used for something as broad and valuable as enterprise resource planning doesn't really "stop". So if a vendor gives you the impression that they're going to ride off into the sunset after go-live, you'll want to have a candid discussion about expectations.

ERP goals continue to evolve even after the ERP software is launched. This is why the closure of deploying the software may be a nice turning point, but can't be considered the end point. The business goes on and better measures of success will be drawn from the operational improvements you see after launch. And because this long-term focus is central to success, it's vital to begin with this end in mind. At the outset, identify some key indicators that will be benchmarks to demonstrate the value your company is getting from the new ERP solution.

Overall, a manufacturing company should be well-situated for a successful ERP project. Play to your strengths, following the continuous improvement principles that help your business succeed each day. These established practices will help you avoid the problems that can arise in a major software deployment. They can help you get the most from your ERP investment.

At aACE Software, our entire sales process is focused toward your organization's ongoing success:

When you reach out to us, our first step is a brief phone conversation to identify whether your company is at a point to fully benefit from aACE 5. If it looks like a good match, we schedule a free demo where we can show you how a fully integrated accounting, CRM, and ERP solution works. As needed, another demo may follow, focused on diving deeper into a select few of your top priorities. If it looks like aACE can help with your business goals, the Discovery Phase becomes a time to look into the details. We examine how the customization, deployment, switch-over, and ongoing support will need to work in order to ensure your continuing growth.

To learn more about how we strive to support client operations, check out our FAQs or contact us today.

"Our specific workflows called for a flexible central platform that we could bolt on customized work-area specific tools. Implementing aACE, in the FileMaker environment, has proven to be the right solution to get us just that." ~ Matthew Pelfrey, Director of Process and Compliance, Duggal Visual Solutions