Setting the Right Timeline for ERP Implementation

Thank you for joining today. The goal really of that webinar is to discuss the setting, the right timeline for your ERP implementation. We will start from your ERP selection all the way to the project yourself. The goal really is to cover the best practices. I’m going to start with a small business presentation, basically, about genius. Who we are. I’m going to do a genius solution introduction. Then we’re going to review the overall view of the flow that I will present to you. Go through the steps, the selection step. Basically, we have a 10-step project or program that I really want to cover more in-depth step by step. Then recap on that flow, define the next steps together, and the question, a section of questions if required. Just to start with the brief genius presentation or the company presentation. We’re an ERP software company. We’ve been in business for more than 30 years now, working only with custom manufacturers. Everything that’s engineering to order, configure to order, or production to order, basically, is what we deal with. We’re a company that is a bit above 100 employees.

I think we were in the ballpark of 110 to the last news. We have tens of thousands of users all across North America. You can see on the map here the states in which in which we’re dealing or in which we’re doing business, and we have active customers. One of the things that we’re really proud about that’s unique to the market is that we have a 96% customer retention, meaning that people or companies that decide to go with genius will stay years after years to the extent of 96% and renew with us and stay partners. We also have a 25% compounded annual growth. That’s something we’re quite proud of. We’re a company that’s growing. It’s been that way for the last six or seven years, if I’m not mistaken, but we are definitely on a path of growth and we want to keep it that way. Obviously, we’re going to discuss that a bit later, but I want to keep the section after that non bias, but you will see that we have a lot of review, ranking, certifications. A lot of the companies you see our logo on the left, like Capterra, Software Advice, basically, we’ve won quite a few prices with them, and we’re one of the renowned ERP companies with them.

As you can see, customer satisfaction and usability, we’re right. We want to be in the middle of that chart. That’s something that is being done through the review of current user, not something that is a bias content. What makes us unique as a company is that we’re built for custom manufacturing. Like I said previously, engineering to order, configure to order, make to order. That’s really our bread and butter or what we’re dealing with. We’re not dealing with companies that are doing repeat manufacturing. We have a complete quote to cash ERP. That includes the engineering, that includes the CAD to BOM link, which is Inventor and Sideworks. We’re a partner with them and we do have a full webinar covering that functionality. But we’re basically, we have a button within this solution allowing to integrate with our software directly. We have industry-leading scheduling as well. We’re the only, the TOC or theory of constraint or DBR drum We have a rope scheduling tool that is within our software, so that’s unique to the market. We’ve built our whole scheduling around that concept that can be put in place, and that’s something that we’re quite proud of, and that’s a differentiator for us for sure, and our business intelligence.

We understand that data is quite important for an ERP. Basically, we have the dashboards and we have solutions that are plugged within our software, allowing you to review your data directly in real-time. We have a full coverage. I’m not going to cover through all of that. I think the point that’s really important for you there is to see that we have all of these functionalities within our software. Because we are quite niche to a market, we keep adding functionalities that are specific to that market. Everything that is production floor, shop floor modules, field services, dealer portals, warranty management, quality control, these are modules that have been added recently that we used to have, but have been migrated, and we added layers on them so that the answer to what the manufacturer ask us in the market. Good. One of the last things, basically, if you decide to go with genius or if you were to consider us, know that our solution can be purchased. You purchase the licenses and install them on your server, can go in a subscription mode, meaning that you pay per year but still deploy that on your internal servers, or we can be selling you a cloud solution as well, to which you pay per year and you basically get your access to our software hosted by us.

One of the key differentiator as well is that we have something called the genius Academy. Within the last years, we were able to develop something that’s called the Academy, which is basically a platform allowing continue to learn or to get trained on the basic functionalities. You don’t need to pay us to say, Hey, you need to click Add, click Save, click Edit to add a purchase order. All of that is being covered in videos, and every user or every employee of would get a custom path. That’s one of the things that we can do based on the fact that we are out of the box software, meaning that we install it and it’s a plug and play to a certain extent software specialized for custom manufacturing. We also allow you to access something that’s called the Canteens, which is basically a meeting that happens three times a week for free with a consultant. You can basically go or register one of your employee to attend that. If you have some questions that are specific, you don’t need to pay for consulting fees for these simples questions. You basically get a free access to our experts.

Good. Basically, if we start with the overall view of the flow, The first thing we want to say is that purchasing an ERP is a project itself. It’s a project that is simple process-wise, really, but you’re doomed to fail if you don’t organize it. There are so many software out there that it must be manage as if it was a project. We will assist you into the creation definition of these steps together, but as you can see, we basically started simply by creating for ourselves an Excel spreadsheet that will allow you to navigate through that. If I briefly show you guys, it’s really something where we’ve built the step and that allows you to put a date and figure out, am I late? Am I on time? For example, I started with, I want a go-live date of 2023, well, December 31st. Tell me when every one of the steps should happen. To the best of our knowledge right now, we would be a bit late, but not too far. That would actually say that introduction call should start this week, if that was the case. It’s not something I’ve cheated. It’s really the numbers there.

Basically, it reinforced a bit the need of saying that if you were to purchase a software tomorrow or shop for a software, we do start every call with a few questions of yours. Like, Okay, what are the main pain points you’re trying to tackle? What’s the schedule or what you’re looking for as far as timeline goes? Now, timeline can mean multiple things for multiple of you guys. It can mean that I want to sign a purchase order by that date, or I want to be live by that date, or I have selected my software, or I want to start training by that date. We will always backtrack it from the go-live date, personally. We think that you being live by a certain date will allow us to manage it around or schedule around that. That’s what we’ve built all of that around. Basically, you have a lot of things to gain from breaking down your process like that. There are a lot of people that are going to sit in the process Doing it that way will allow you to just bring the good people or the workforce at the good point, not bother everybody from the selection before that has to happen.

Before we To continue there, we’ve created a small poll, if you want. We have a question for you that we just want to trigger, and that’s a fairly simple one. It’s, what’s the percentage of ERP implementation that are considered as fail, according to you? Market-wise, how many ERP implementation are considered failure? So either they don’t go live at all or after a year or two of being live, these companies don’t consider that the reason why they purchase the software have been met or that they don’t see the value out of the software based on what they were expecting. We’ll just wait for a minute. Eric, do you mind to share the result from your end? Yeah, we’re getting quite few responses. I’m just going to let it go for a couple of seconds. Okay, there we go. Okay, so that’s a pretty even. We have 18% of you guys think that 25, 35% of you, 40, 24, 60, and 24%, 75 as well. The answer to that is actually impressive 75%. We do have a few documentation on our website. You can go have a look at that. But market-wise, 75% of European implementation are considered a failure after a few years.

Now, one of the big reasons for that, obviously, we like to think, has to do with the selection of the software itself. By not having a proper flow or by not selecting the good software and business partner, you will basically put yourself at risk of such a thing. If we go through the definition of the steps. Like I stated, the steps are very simple. It’s a 10-step program that we’re going to review. The first one, we will always say we need to start with ERP research. That ERP research ship usually lasts around two weeks. It’s fairly simple. You will get one champion or a few people that will be responsible of finding ERPs out there that match your needs. We usually recommend having a rule of thumb of 5-10 companies or 5-10 ERPs that would match what you look for. But that number can obviously be a bit lower if you’re are looking for a specific feature. For example, if you say we need a software that does a cat to bumbleing, well, you might not be able to find that many. That being said, 5-10 is the rule of thumb. We propose that you try to focus on companies in your industry, as as well.

I’m sure all of you have Google or search for ERPs before, and you can see that there are so many out there. It’s difficult to figure out where to start. That being said, by looking for custom manufacturing ERPs, for example, you will be able to get results that are way more streamlined toward what you actually need or what you’re actually looking for other than looking for generic and trying to figure out or remove the dust and find the one that match what you need or what you’re looking for. Out there, there are so many software. Like I said before, you are a plastic molding company that does repeat manufacturing. There’s a software for you. You’re a big general electric company looking for SAP R2. There’s a software for you. That being said, finding a good fit, like if you’re a 100-employee company looking for the same solution as G, there might be an issue. That’s why figuring out or looking for it makes a lot of sense. That’s the last point. Be careful. Google is useful, of course, but can introduce a sponsored content bias. If you were to look for ERP, know that the people at the top of the list are the one that paid the most to be there.

Of course, you all know that. That being said, we strongly suggest that you look for websites that are basically specializing to ERP, like ERP, Capterra, ERP Focus, Software Advice. These companies are basically reviewing companies by themselves. They are really heavily built on users’ feedback. That being said, you will be able to see people using Genius or using the other ERPs for years with the pros, the cons, and For an actual review, that’s not something that is sponsored. I’ve goog in the past some stuff that I know genius is not doing and got genius as a result from Google. That’s why the content can be a bit tougher and going towards specialized website will grant you a better access or a better view over what you need. Good. Once you’re done with finding the ERPs 5-10, the Step two is to start with introduction calls. Now, introduction calls also last around two weeks. Usually, you will identify a champion that is responsible of getting in touch with all of these 5-10 companies. The goal of these calls are fairly simple. You want to help the supplier understand what you’re trying to achieve when you purchase that ERP and what’s the motivation behind the project.

There will be a lot of questions back and forth as far as what do you need, what’s your budget that you’ve to find prior to that internally, what’s your decision making process, what’s your deadline, etc. Today’s call is a bit helpful for that. We know for a fact that when we come and say, what’s your decision buying process? Some of the people are new to that or don’t have much experience in selecting an ERP, which is normal, but it’s always difficult to understand the flow even for yourself. By having that knowledge, it’s going to allow you to expose it and to get a better grasp on what’s needed and when. After that, it’s a pre-qualification as well. If the solution is not suited for your needs, we don’t want you to waste your time and you don’t want us to waste ours. It’s unfortunate, but sometimes it happens where we just shake in and say, whatever you’re looking for is not something that we can help you with or that we’re suited to do. It’s the same for all of the ERPs out there. You need to be aware that the person that’s going to go into that call will have to share budget, will have to share company problems as well.

These calls usually last around in the ballpark of 30 minutes, let’s say. Basically, you try to keep them as tight as possible. You want to be able to compare the notes after that just to see which company These scores, where and who does what, basically, to a certain extent. We’re not talking about a demo. It’s going to come later. But that’s just these discussions or calls are going to be feature-oriented a lot. We’re going to talk about the flow, but then you’re going to go into depth with a few of your pain points. We usually suggest that you have two or three main pain points. What’s hurting your business the most? What’s triggering the search for an ERP? And that you expose that to the suppliers. You can see automatically if these suppliers can help you with these. A pain point is usually not my description field is not long enough. It’s more something like I don’t have visibility over my material, let’s say. Well, I want to get more in-depth in that and I want to see the features. Basically, Basically, that’s going to allow you to disqualify some suppliers if they say right off the bat, that’s not something that we’re doing.

Makes sense so far? After these two weeks of introduction call, you want to start and ask the suppliers for a preliminary budget letters. There again, that’s something that should last around two weeks. The goal there is fairly simple. You want to identify top three, four pain points and you want to address them in a budget letter based on the information that you shared on the introduction call. By doing it that way, it allows you to figure out what’s the ballpark or who is set where as far as budget goes. There might be some solution that you want to discard because they are way above the budget that you’ve set. You might want to start asking questions to some software that are way cheaper than the other ones. They might have less functionality coverage. They might not be exactly where what you want, or they might be exactly what you’re looking for, a simple solution and not looking for a full ERP for all of your needs. It really depends where you stand as far as that business goes. Now, after identifying these three, four pain points, you want to address them, you You want to make sure that you share as much info.

You want to make sure that you can get that high-level budget. You are basically not looking for a final price there, but really a ballpark. Doing it that way will allow you to go into the step number 4, which is your preselection step. Now, doing the preselection is very simple. It’s something that will last a week or so, but it’s going to allow you to narrow down the number of potential partner from that list to two or three. We went from 5 to 10 to two or three at that point. Now, that preselection is important for selecting the partners you want to continue with, but it’s also important for the internal setup that you’re going to do. You want to create an ERP Selection Committee at that point. Now, the ERP Selection Committee should to be composed of a few members of your team, but you must consider their soft skills and their position into the company. They’re basically going to be the watchdog for some key functionalities, and they’re going to be the people that will need to basically go through the next steps of the project with you. You must be aware of so that ERP usually means compromise.

You’re often moving from a software or, let’s say, a Quickbooks with a few Excel spreadsheets, and now you’re going to get a bunch of department working together. In order to have the scheduling person having access to the material, you must have the purchasing person keeping the dates up to date and putting the POs into the system. Having all of the people around the table, making sure that they are aware of the process they’re going through and what are the implications of an ERP process is usually something that you want to do that’s going to ease up the next steps for sure. Once you’re done with the preselection, you will contact the suppliers and go into the interviews. The interviews, we usually suggest that you owe them within the one week, but that’s one of the steps that would be quite business disruptive. I’m saying that because an ERP project, like it’s written there, it goes beyond finding the right ERP. The true success comes from correctly using it and users motivated to use it properly. You can have the best ERP with the bill of material integrated and the scheduling in place if your scheduler does not update the dates and if your customer The sales people don’t put the dates in there, you won’t be able to get a proper data input.

That is important for people to understand that. What we usually ask to do is to plan 30 minutes per people in the committee and do a one-on-one interview with them. Basically, the goal of these interviews are really to understand where they are as far as ERP knowledge goes, what they need to perform their job, and basically understand the interaction between them and the other departments. Now, this is key to the process. This is usually where people show us, Oh, to do my job, I use that Excel spreadsheet that have all of these input, output, and here are the processes that are basically built on top of that. Us understanding that will allow us to build a demo or a product demonstration, basically, that will really fit your business need and that will solve the problems that you have. Not the temporary pain, the real pain points that were identified. We’re going to be able to build it around and show you your process. Now, I’m saying we do 30 minutes per people. There are some companies that prefer to hand us a list of functionalities that they want us to demonstrate. We basically, in that case, use an hour to an hour 30 with everybody in the room just to make sure that we’re talking about the same thing.

Something like, I want to do my nesting in the software is fairly simple on the surface, but we need to dig a bit more deeper and understand what are the challenges, what are the input/output of that, and basically make sure that we can demonstrate something that makes sense for you guys. Now, like I was stating earlier, ERP is a good opportunity to have everybody connected. Having someone that is opposed to the project will definitely affect the quality of these interviews. You want to make sure that your resource are coached and prepared for change, and they understand that they need to participate, and the quality of their input is directly going to affect the quality of the project we’re going to be able to put in place. I’m also saying that because we do sometimes stumbles on cases where people say, Well, these interviews have been through them with five companies before. Why bother? Or people don’t give you the same output because you’re the third in line to do the interviews. Therefore, they feel like they just keep repeating the same thing. Now, bear in mind that you’re introducing a bias by doing something like that, of course.

That’s why we try to propose that you do all of that within one week. That’s usually where you will be to be streamlined and not to be too business disruptive. Good. Now, step six after that presentation to the committee, that’s the demo of the software. It doesn’t mean that you have not seen the software before. Obviously, through the introduction, through the research, you have a lot of visibility over the website of the supplier, or we can even share some things during the interviews and prior to that. But the real flow of demo will happen at step of six. Now, what we propose is that you host all of these within two weeks to keep it tight as well, and you will need to have your whole decision making team attend this presentation. One of the things you want to avoid is us redoing the demo two, three times because the quality might not be equal on the three times, and one question from someone might affect what the other person see out of them. Now, we strongly recommend that all the final demo are done within the week. There’s There’s an internal game here, a blame game happening in the ERP world where we all want to be the last to do the demo.

The human mind is what it is. Usually, you remember better the last one that you saw. That’s why by keeping all of them tight and within a week or one after the other, that’s going to allow you to have a clearer mind or clearer view of which software does what and be able to take a step back there. Now, one of the things that goes, it seems obvious, but it’s important to mention is that you want to review and recap with the team as soon as the demo ends. You’re going to get a lot of your payroll around that table. You’re going to get the decision maker of the company. Odds are that as soon as the meeting is over, people are going to fly because they have other business responsibilities and emergencies to deal with. That’s a mistake. Usually, what we recommend is that you keep and you book 30 minutes after the demo to sit the people around the table and to note what was good, what’s an issue, what was bad, and general feelings about the software and the flow itself. Now, that’s going to allow you to, when you go forward in this step, take a step back and compare the software because you were able to take the note and get that review right after it What happened is going to cut a bit the bias of which company showed last or demoed last.

I want to state there again that this part is counterintuitive. We often get calls from companies asking, Hey, I want to see your product next week. I want to demo next week during the step two, which is the introduction call, actually. That’s something we can understand, but you must be aware that you should try to avoid that as much as possible, or you should avoid that because that creates a big risk. You will get Probably or you might get the worst solution because you get the best stage demo, or you might go towards out of the best vendor because the demo, the standard vanilla demo, was not accurate to your needs. It’s It’s really important that you share the real pain points and that we can understand before doing a demo which would be customized to what you guys really want to achieve, not just the summary pain points, but the real root problems that you’re aiming for. No question at that point. You can use a Q&A if you have things. Otherwise, there’s going to be a question section at the end after. Once we’re done with that, we can go with the final a decision.

There again, this one usually takes a week. Do you have everything, enough information to make a decision? Usually, what happens after the final demo, I will give you an example that happens to us at Genius. We add in the committee, the engineering manager, and he says, Well, I do have a few technical questions, but I will need to bring one of my draftmen with me or someone that’s doing the technical drawing because he can go more in-depth into the functionality or into the needs that we have that are specific to the way that we draw. The final demo does not mean that we’re not going to do a step two, really focus towards one topic, let’s say 30 minutes to an hour with some extra people. But that’s at least going to allow you to make sure that you can cover the overall flow, and then you can go more in-depth into some of the functionalities that Let’s say the way that we quote an estimate was not covered properly, I want to review more in-depth what we can do with your software. While doing it that way, it will allow us to do a custom demo just for that small portion or that small flow.

Be Be aware that the more software you watch, the longer the back and forth. Seeing more companies or more demo will make your view cloudier, not clearer. One of the common mistakes that we see is that companies will bring a few companies all the way to the step seven and then stretch that final decision for a few months and bring new players in the game and try to do step one, two, three by having some companies stuck on step seven after the demo. Having a few people competing on the same timeline and going forward with your final decision is going to be game changer as far as the flow of the project. Keep in mind that you have a momentum, you’ve shared information, you have people that started working through the interview and demo You don’t want to break that momentum. You’ve done your homeworks prior to that. Step seven should be fairly simple to do as far as sitting as a committee and deciding with it. Once you’ve decided, you’re going to contact that company, of and you’re going to get the step eight, contract and deposit. Usually, that step lasts for a week.

You’ve chosen the partner. Now you’re ready to get a full final contract with the final price, obviously. Are there any things you want to review as far as that contract goes? Do you want to review some functionalities or make sure to fine-tune some stuff? That’s something that usually lasts a week or so. It says time to put your money where your mouth is. Be aware that the vast majority of the companies out there like us will ask you for a deposit or an account on the project while you send the contract. The original kickoff is usually a deposit plus the signed contract or entry. Now, that bring a good point of financial Financing. If you’re looking to finance or get grants for your project, this is something that should be prepared ahead of that step. You know that it’s going to come. Usually, a grant does not come with the company that you’ve selected, but with the project as a whole. Starting your grant process prior to that will ease up that process and make sure that from the demo to the signature, to the selection and to the kickoff of the project, it’s something that can run smooth.

Now, as far as next step, we can go into the project kickoff. Once you sign, you’ve done the deposit, we will initiate the project kickoff. Usually, that is something that is done a week after the deposit, and that’s where you will be assigned with your project team, so you’re going to meet with the people that are going to assist you through the whole course of the project. You will discuss the delivery flow as well. Basically, do you want trainings to be done on-site? Do you want them to be done remote to save the cost of traveling. All of these discussions are stuff that are usually shared with us during that project kickoff. Also, what’s the training format or what’s the approach of project you want to go with? You can start with something that’s called a phased approach, meaning that you’re going to start with replacing the accounting software and then add layers to it as you go, let’s say, new functionalities every month, and you’re going to be fully implemented within six months If you’re adding layers, or you can do a big bang approach as well, meaning that you’re going to get trained on all of the software, and on a certain date, everybody’s going to start using that ERP software, and all of the new process would be put in place.

Be aware that that’s step number 9, the project kickoff is usually where the software installation is discussed and the access are established as well. If you’re looking to host the ERP solution you’ve selected on your server, well, the server must be physically ready or being configured at that point because that’s going to affect the next steps after that project kickoff. Now, that’s where I’m going to be a bit… I’m going to remove the unbiased add and I’m We’re not going to go towards the way that we deliver the projects at genius, but that’s something that should not be too far or that’s something that is the way that we deliver. All of the project usually last between 3-6 months. That’s the ballpark that we say. Any project lower than three months will be something that will be done on the faster pace. We might want to leave some functionalities aside and add them as a phase two. But the way that we deliver the project and the way that all of our contract are going to be built is It’s really similar. It’s going to be broken in three phases. We start with something called the knowledge gathering phase.

The knowledge gathering, you shared a lot of information through the interview process, and we will share that with the project team. But you must know that the knowledge gathering will be way more in-depth. We usually spend 2-3 days to do that process where we take a consultant or an employee of ours, we fly them to your place or they drive to your place, and they make sure to sit with every people that are going to use the software to understand their needs, their restriction, the software, the QuickBooks database they use right now. We really want to see everything you’re doing and the way that you’re doing it. The goal is so that we can take a step back and define basically what is your business review and do the planning of the project according to that. Now, the planning we will do is a custom-tailored training path for every one of the employees. We personally use the academy, but we will make sure that all of employees sit through all of the good training so that they can use genius or use the software that you’ve selected in their day-to-day tasks. We will also identify everything that was either not discussed or that we did not go too much in-depth during the sales process, and we’ll make sure to raise them to you.

For example, that process here is not something that is standardized in our software. We’re going to plan a work session to find a solution with you to expose It gives you a workaround or a process flow that will solve that issue. It’s not something that is being pushed down of the table. It’s something that’s being addressed during that knowledge gathering. You can almost see that as a blueprint if you want. We make sure that what you purchase and what you’re expecting to do with the software is being met and will be done within your software. Once we are done with the knowledge gathering phase, we will fall into the knowledge transfer. The knowledge transfer is where we do training, simulation, workshops. It’s really something that is built around the fact here at Genius that you follow the base classes and that these training flow are really custom to, Oh, we have that project 1, 2, 3, 4 that we just released. Let’s do the material planning and let’s make sure that your sample of data has been covered there. I’ll just go with the last one and we go to the question, Eric. But After you’re done with that knowledge transfer, that’s where we’re going to go with the knowledge application.

Now, the knowledge application usually comes after a full-blown simulation where we know that people can run their daily task and it does not affect their… Well, it affects, but not negatively, the quality of work that they can do, that all of the data that they need is available in the software and that they know how to operate the system. That knowledge application is usually the preparation and the scrubbing of the data. If you don’t want to take the 20 years worth of customers in Quickbooks, you just want to take the one that are active in the last three years. That’s where we’re going to help you and you’re going to scrub that data and load it in the final clean view that’s going to be used for the go-live. The go-live is basically the assistance of every employee, and we stretch out one all the way until the first accounting month end, because a lot of the things or stuff that has not been finetuned and put under the carpet gets lifted at that point in time. We want to make sure that there was nothing that caused an issue. And we then transfer you to the customer success team.

I do see a question, how do you identify if the size of the ERP is adequate and you’re not overpaying for the price? Well, by comparing a few companies, that’s usually a pretty good way. Like I stated, by having 5-10 of them giving you a rough budgetary amount, you will be able to see it. That being said, you need to understand that the ERP also is something that you want to put in place for 5-10 20 years. Sometimes by going with a simple solution, it might make sense for this year, but you know that you’re going to overgrow it fast, it becomes quite business disruptive. As far as overpaying goes, all of the software need a similar time as far as assistance goes. There are some softwares out there or some salespeople, unfortunately, that will try to put a foot in the door by going with the lowest price that they can. Then at the end, you’re going to end up paying the same price then their direct competitors showed you. Usually, I would say by doing a due diligence of sitting the companies at the table or having rough estimates of budget and challenging the one that seems to be way out of a certain I get, that would be the best way there.

This is basically the 10 steps that you should go through how you should organize that project of purchasing and going with the software. Just to do a quick recap, you want to start with your ERP research. That means searching through ERP specialized website or looking for ERPs that fits your business needs. Then you want to do an introduction call with these 5-10 softwares that were selected. After that, the ones that make the cut or seem to fit your business need, you want them to do a primary budget budget letters that would cover and help you fix all of the gaps. That’s also where you’re going to be aware of if some of the software are Bolt, meaning that they have five, six, sevens business partner that they need to bring to Bolt on the software, you’re going to be exposed to that situation by going through a budget letter that way. That’s something that you must ask to a certain extent. Once you’ve gone with the primary budget letter, you go with the preselection. You try to keep 2-3 softwares to go forward in the the next step. Then you do a committee and you basically sit everybody through the concept of interviews.

You make sure that we sit with you guys and understand what are the specifics of the key player of the committee so that we can go to the step six and do the presentation or the demo to the committee. It goes a bit with the saying that we only get one chance to make a good first impression. By going all the way to that depth or to that importance, you will really get a software view that will match what you guys are looking Then you’re going to go to your final decisions, sign a contract and deposit, go through the project kickoff, and basically after that flow into the ERP project. Remember, there Again, timing is key. It is important to keep a certain pace at that point. It is okay that you have some business reality that would require you to focus on other projects. That being said, just know that there are some gates that would make way more sense to stop. Usually, we say that you can do your ERP research by yourself. That’s not the problem. You can do your introduction call and even ask for the primary budget letters as well.

But usually, if you want to freeze, that is where you would go. Once you set with the companies, put them face-to-face, and you’ve selected the two or three you want to go forward with, that’s usually where you can put a hold on that and wait until you have the time to do the preselection, the interview, and the presentation and decision and contract all within the bucket. We also want to avoid losing pace after the contract has been signed. We have a certain momentum. So even for you, like I said before, an ERP is the software, but it’s also the quality of data that gets input in it. It’s also the willingness of people to work with the company and work with the ERP. Having all of that as a laminar flow or as a Gantt chart like that is usually something that would be quite beneficial This one for you guys. Just going through questions, what next? Before we go forward, I want you to know that we have June 15th, There’s another webinar that’s going to be presented. The topic of that one goes end-to-end with what we did today. It really has to do with the budgeting of a New York implementation project, how to budget for a project, and what are the key factors to consider by doing so.

So any questions, anything that have not been addressed? I see one of them in here. Basically, the question is how to make sure that you understand what’s the business requirements as far as department goes. When you pick a software, you usually have a few business departments. You will be able to say, I do a custom machine. I also sell spare parts for it. I also do repair and maintenance and fill installation on these. These are things that are quite important to share with the companies when you do the evaluation or the preselection process. Because obviously, being able to integrate all of these functionalities will have an effect on your budget and on the scope of the project and licenses you’re looking for. I would say that identifying all of these and making sure that your main pain points have been clearly identified upfront is something that will allow you to filter the good companies. Keeping these for the last interviews or the last minute might make it so that you select the ERP that could not cover for a few business needs that are quite important for you guys. Any other questions? Feel free to use the Q&A.

In that case, we’re going to leave the link open. We’re going to close the cameras and the microphones, but you will be able to type questions if you want in the chat. Just know that you have my email address in here, edeshain@geniuserp. Ca. Com, but you can go on our website and ask for introduction call if you see that it would be a good fit for you guys, and I would be more than happy to share with you. There’s a question in here. How many people should be involved in this selection process. Usually a good ballpark would be, let’s say between three and six people. Having more than that on your committee is going to create, well, it’s going to be two business disruptive. But having at least three people People that are decisions maker that can sign the contract themselves is usually the ballpark that we try to go with. Now, there are some companies that are greater size that can go above that, but let’s say three to six would be a good row of them. From the decision time, how long does it take to go live, usually? Well, the decision time itself, let’s say from the contract signature to the go live, usually is something that we estimate between three and six months here at Genius.

For the type of companies or small, medium companies in manufacturing we’re dealing with, that’s a realistic time frame. There are some companies that stretch for other reason for longer than six months, but usually Three to six would be realistic. I would say always be aware that it’s something you can discuss during the introduction call. But if you have there, again, a company that says we can do it in one month, it’s usually something that should raise a flag and say, well, is it because your product is don’t have as much depth or is it because they have a streamlined way of training? But these are something… Below three months is usually something that’s considered as a really fast-based project. Good. Can you send us your PowerPoint or at least the note. The call today is being recorded, meaning that you will be able to go on the website and access it after the fact. But I will take your name in note and I will send you some information. Yes. Does the Section Committee vote on the chosen solution or is there a better way? Usually, everybody needs to understand that they are compromised that are quite important.

That being said, usually people will need to agree on a solution. It’s always good to sit people at the table and have them agree. I would say, usually, there’s one solution that stand out and that covers the need of every department when you have done the interviews prior to it. One of the worst thing that can happen is that someone from sales show up and that basically, nobody addressed the situation of sales at all. It’s difficult to have a vote, but making sure that these committee people sat through the interview, there’s There’s going to be a portion for them and they’re going to see right off the bat which software stands out. If it becomes a vote, it can be a vote, but usually through communication discussion, one of the solution stands out. What would be the order of implementation in a phase in approach? It always depends on what you’re replacing. When you go in a company that have no ERP, just Quickbooks and Excel, usually a good phase approach would be to say, We’re going to replace Quickbooks to begin, or we’re going to replace these Excel as a phase one, and then that Excel as a phase two, and then Quickbooks as a phase three.

I would say it’s pretty custom to the needs. That being said, we at We probably have four or five scenarios that we usually propose, and it would be a lie to say that we do a lot of them outside of these four or five scenarios. It really depends on what you have in place and where are the main pain points also. If you purchase because you don’t have visibility on material and we say the phase six is going to be the material, you might not be too happy with it. Usually, that’s why we custom-build these paths. Good. Thank you very much, everybody, from attending today. I hope it was useful. Feel free to reach out to us directly if you want to go more in-depth in some of these discussions. I’m looking forward talking with you in the futures. If you don’t go with genius, well, have fun and good luck into your ERP research process.