
With a list of vendors with manufacturing expertise in hand, your evaluation team can start asking each vendor more detailed questions about their cloud ERP solution. At the end of this process, you should be able to make an informed decision about which software best fits your needs.
Does the Software Satisfy Your Business Requirements?
Remember those business requirements your team put together earlier? Now is the time to probe deeply into each vendor’s software and match their capabilities to your requirements. We suggest at least two levels of demos. The first should give you a high-level overview of the vendor’s capabilities and technical environment. The second and following demos should be more detailed demonstrations that focus on your specific requirements.
You need to know if a vendor’s cloud ERP software will decrease the number of steps required to perform your most important processes. Be sure to get answers to these important questions:
- Are you able to compress time out of processes?
- Will your processes be more accurate and eliminate downstream work or re-processing?
- Are you making life easier for your customers, suppliers and employees?
Here are examples of process questions you could ask each cloud ERP vendor to demonstrate:
- Does the software support multi-modes simultaneously (if your business requires it), such as build to order, build to stock, engineer to order and project manufacturing? Some systems have trouble managing multiple modes of manufacturing at the same time.
- What does the quote to cash process look like? Does the software automatically and effortlessly convert customer quotes into sales orders, and then automatically generate the production and fulfillment work orders for downstream processing?
- If you manufacture and service serialized items, can you track the history of an item from the original manufacturing specifications through the entire lifecycle after revisions and changes, including repairs and disassembly processes?
- If customer service is critical to your business, can all employees see a complete view of the customer and all their interactions across ERP and CRM systems?
Get a more detailed discussion of these and other Cloud ERP evaluation topics.
What Will the Software Cost?
Cloud ERP has a subscription-based pricing model, which gives you lower upfront costs. But it’s critical to examine all of the costs of the software and compare detailed price quotes from all vendors.
- Be sure to examine not only all short-term expenses, including implementation and training to get you live, but also all long-term expenses, such as maintenance and support.
- Watch for confusing or hidden costs. When you speak with references, ask if they were surprised by hidden costs after the sale and if the vendor had a habit of continually increasing maintenance costs.
- Consider all of the costs to determine the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), and look at your expected return on investment (ROI) over several years to see how much the new software will really cost.
This article summarizes the different aspects of calculating TCO for ERP systems.
This article discusses the details of TCO calculations for ERP systems.
How Flexible Is the Software?
With rapidly changing customer demands, you need to be as flexible as possible. Here are questions you can ask each vendor to gauge the flexibility of their cloud ERP software:
- Will I have to adapt my business processes to the vendor’s software, or is the software flexible enough to adapt to my business processes?
- How easy it is to add new product types and new lines of business (i.e.,does the software support multi-mode manufacturing, or “as-a-service” business models)?
- Does the software support multiple companies, divisions and sites?
- Can I change processes and workflows using clicks, not code?
- Can business users create their own reports?
- Can I add objects and my own special applications to the ERP environment?
- Is it easy or difficult to add customer or supplier communities? Can you easily select which information is exposed to customers or suppliers, or is the system hard-coded?
- How many different ways are there to plan and manage the shop floor? Can the system handle the production volatility of your business?
You need to know if a vendor’s cloud ERP software will decrease the number of steps required to perform specific tasks. Of course, you’re looking for increased efficiency across your enterprise, so you want as many tasks to be streamlined and easy to perform as possible. For example, quotes and orders, inventory and supply chain planning, shop floor control and even customer service can and should be streamlined to increase efficiency and lower costs.
Don’t simply believe what the vendor tells you. When you test the software, you must run through every critical workflow to make sure the software does what it promises.
Get a more detailed discussion of these and other Cloud ERP evaluation topics.
Can I Integrate the Software with My Current Systems?
You may have software already in use that works very well for specific functions. Will the cloud ERP software seamlessly integrate with these existing tools, or will you have to jump through hoops getting everything to work together?
Integration is where the choice of cloud platform plays a central role in your evaluation. For example, if your company already uses Salesforce CRM, you will want to look at cloud ERP solutions on the Salesforce cloud platform. Salesforce and Rootstock Software seamlessly integrate to give you a 360-degree view of your entire organization, your suppliers and your customers.
The Salesforce AppExchange offers thousands of apps designed specifically for the Salesforce Platform; not only is integration seamless, you can also easily extend Salesforce ERP with additional software on the Salesforce cloud platform.
Learn about the benefits of ERP for Salesforce.
Is the Software Easy to Use?
Don’t underestimate the importance of ease of use. Everyone in your organization needs to get up to speed quickly with any new cloud ERP system, so the software must be as easy to use as possible.
This means software workflows and screens need to be laid out and presented with a consistent interface that lets users intuitively grasp how to use them. If users have to guess how to access critical functions, what buttons to click or what different labels mean, they quickly become frustrated having to spend more time learning the software than actually using and benefitting from the software.
Poorly designed software is usually easy to spot; different parts of the software may have different looking layouts and workflows, and functions may be difficult to find. Avoid cloud ERP software that looks like it was put together hastily with little attention to detail.
Also be aware of “Frankenclouds” that are bolted together from product acquisitions. The company’s messaging and marketing may position the product as completely integrated, but the reality is that they have different user interfaces, different tool sets and separated data.
Learn more about Frankenclouds here: https://www.smartindustry.com/articles/2019/beware-the-frankencloud/
Does the Software Support Innovative Technologies That Drive Growth, Like Mobile, iOT and Advanced Analytics?
To compete successfully in today’s digitized world, manufacturers need to find new and innovative ways to run their business and sell their products. Think about the digital future of your company when evaluating cloud ERP software; the software should let you leverage these new technologies to help drive the growth of your company.
- Mobile devices have changed the way people work, play and communicate. For you, this means your employees can access real-time data and solve problems quickly from anywhere and on any device. This means that mobile applications should be available for all employees, whether they work on the shop floor or the highest level of management.
- The Internet of Things (IoT) is already here, connecting people, data and devices across the different departments of an enterprise. Smart sensors can alert you to potential problems in the factory or in the field.
- Advanced analytics, backed by artificial intelligence.gives you deep insights into your business and can uncover new revenue streams.
Experience Rootstock’s mobile capabilities in this 30 minute on-demand demo to see how see to connect to and collaborate with people across your organization.
Learn about the latest technologies driving innovation in manufacturing.
Learn how advanced mobile communications has changed manufacturing.