Experts Speak: Why I Love My ERP

When deciding which software to implement for a specific business purpose, there is often more marketing hype than there is helpful information.

As such a critical system within a company, brands can't afford to receive misinformation about enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors - what they offer, what they excel at, which industries they are best suited for. Website Magazine enlisted the help of several ERP users to get a better idea of why they "love" their ERP. With so much "chatter" between the vendors themselves, it may be refreshing for some to hear client success stories, so that's what is offered below.

Deacom

"We don't want a temporary solution for tomorrow, but a permanent solution for our future which is why we selected DEACOM. Their impressive implementation success rate and loyal customer base contributed significantly to our commitment to not only the software but the company. By choosing Deacom as our comprehensive ERP partner, we are now well positioned to compete on higher grounds with bigger players."

" Adam Cabot, CEO of AMCO

"Deacom has really helped us improve communications between facilities and business areas. We are able to establish and maintain strong process control by implementing QC holds making us double-check work before it leaves our facility. If there are ever any problems with our products, we need to trace that back to the raw materials, which lot it was on, where it went, and pull the product so it does not negatively affect our customers or company in the long run. Strong lot traceability is very important for our not just our company, but our industry and DEACOM ERP allows us to achieve this at a very high level."

" Kenneth Teich, General Manager for Earth Friendly Products

Epicor

"We needed an ERP platform that could provide shop floor employees with up-to-the-minute information, empowering them to make fast enlightened decisions to keep manufacturing moving and meet customer demands. We recognized that Epicor Cloud ERP could facilitate the quick movement of jobs, projects, processes and information across the business to reduce customer lead times. It took us one evening to go live - literally from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Key results include a 15 percent reduction in indirect labor costs, one single view across our supply chain and improved competitive advantage, along with reduced reliance on paper by 20-25 percent."

Jos Greeve, ICT Manager at Boers & Co FineMetalworking Group

Intacct

"As our transaction volumes exploded, we wanted to automate our financial processes and needed a modern financial management solution that could seamlessly integrate with our other cloud software like Salesforce.com. Making the switch from Blackbaud to Intacct has saved us tremendous amounts of time by minimizing data entry and providing intuitive, powerful reporting that we just didn't have before.

"In many nonprofits, there's a bit of a disconnect between the development team and the finance team because they're each counting things differently, noted Kaplan. With Intacct's seamless connection to Salesforce, that whole conversation and frustration has evaporated."

"Andy Kaplan, CFO of DonorsChoose.org

"Given our constantly shifting business environment, we knew we'd benefit greatly from Intacct's ease-of-use and the simplicity.

"It's so helpful that we can drill into a deeper view of our data as needed, or roll everything up to a very high-level picture of our financials for board meetings-all from the same reports. We also love our executive-level dashboards, which include impactful Intacct Performance Cards that display flash metrics to help our CEO and executive director monitor how we're doing with cash flow and gross margin from week to week, month to month, and year to year."

" Timothy Carlew, Controller at University Clinical Health

NetSuite

"Our previous system just couldn't keep pace with the rapid growth we've seen in our industry and our business. NetSuite gave us the agility to adapt to change and the scalability that we needed. It's been critical to entering new markets quickly, efficiently and effectively."

"Al Goldstein, CEO of Avant

"Having switched to NetSuite, we already doubled the number of countries that we are in, supported over 800 million loans, and all those pieces coming together has empowered over one million borrowers. Because we were working with NetSuite we were more efficient, we have reliable data, accurate reporting, can work internationally with our staff all over the world using a cloud-based system, it has really helped us scale and it has been really wonderful."

"Julie Campbell, Development Operations Manager at Kiva

Editor's Note: Some answers were edited to comply with word count guidelines.