The ERP Selection Process: Eliminating The Guesswork

foreign [Music] ER from triple helix Corporation and Welcome to our Helix Insider podcast I have a very special podcast for you guys today I'm joined in studio with one of our clients from siftex Corporation they're based out of South Windsor Connecticut one of the things triple helix does is we help companies that are looking for a new Erp system to help go through the process of an Erp selection which for companies that do not have expertise in this or are not sure really what they're looking for can they actually be quite a daunting process so we were introduced to siftex through our relationship with constip which is Connecticut's state MEP manufacturing extension partnership partner and they recommended us to siftex so we could help them welcome to the podcast Scotty how are you very good thank you for having me Jason it's a pleasure to be here and participate on this podcast today so talk to us a little bit about siftex in general what is your role within the organization and what

do you guys do some safety equipment company have been in on business for every 35 years and we basically do flexible connections for all kind of industry like food industry construction Pharmaceuticals and many many more see if that is a company that is part manufacturer party seller and part of our own Supply Chain management for products and I also I always like to see safe sets like we are the consulting company that happens to sell products that meaning that a customer come with a knee and they have different applications uh temperature permeability if it is food grade or not and see if they talk to the customer I'll help them choose what is the best product that is going to work with that application I'm the general manager of safe text I I've been with the company for five years I started as a sewing operations manager then I got promoted to sewing on welding operations manager and uh end of 2022 I was very lucky and honored to be promoted as a general manager that's my function

nine nine months on and we are in the middle of restructuring the company and making a better safe text and part of that is working with our Erp software very good so welcome to the program thank you thank you thank you now I know you were having some significant data challenges before you decided to go look for an Erp what were some of those challenges that prompt you to go look for an Erp solution um as many a small company we are the small company as many small companies as our usually we start growing and we have a very simple Erp software and that Erp software and maybe equip books maybe other simple ones and they get obsoleted and dated for the needs of a company so the company has been growing but the software has not grown with us and this particular software is very obsolete is very slow uh and doesn't it doesn't give us all the capabilities that we need for information finances and at the same time uh that software is not friendly in terms of use is very difficult to work on

with it very slow and also it doesn't it's not in accordance with our actual Supply Chain management requirements so we decided that this is the time for those to work with anyone that can move with us for the next 10 to 15 years got it yeah so in our work you know triple helix you know many of our customers are manufacturers like yourself and we actually help consult and find a new Erp uh based on our knowledge of the industry but the actual process itself is uh very deliberate we like to sit with various folks of the company and representing the Departments or the functions and the rules and what we do is we match up what they need to what a new Erp solution would provide them now you walk through that process with us as well as your team um tell me what you were hoping to get out of the the assessment as we walk through that process with you what the pain points you were trying to eliminate to get a better solution for you yeah as you said at choosing an Erp software uh for you is a

very daunting it's a very challenging uh process and even if you would be an I.T expert or a very knowledgeable out on it I wouldn't recommend anyone to go through the process of choosing uh these softwares by themselves I'm part of the the objectives I have is as I said I'm prestructuring the company part of my objective is find the best software possible for the company uh within our budget and that will have all the items or requirement that my company is needs now but also is going to need in the next 10 years and I wanted to do this with 100 certainty that I'm choosing the right software and I have many many projects for my company to work on and choosing the Erp software is really highly demanding I don't I didn't have the time to go through this neither that was my expertise so my goal was to get the right Erp software at the right budget within a right time without me personally neither my team at spending all the time that it would take to do it ourselves right no good point and

you know to that point like when we do the research for finding the right Erp we sit with the various departments and and the stakeholders and find out what they need and then when we take those needs we actually translate that into a requirements Matrix so this Matrix is a list of all the things it needs to do and so categorized with you know how important it is in a level one two or three and so you walk through that process with us how did you feel about it as far as just talking about the research and how thorough that process was tell us a little bit about how you felt that went uh that process was extremely enlighted to me um even though because we as general managers we specialize on kind of nothing and that we cut but we touch everything so for me that I was a new general manager first it helped me a lot on understanding um needs from the apartments that I didn't know that much so that was good the process was very thorough extremely thorough and one thing that I found extremely

interesting is that you and your team ask questions to us and make us see the needs that we had that we didn't even know we had them and that was a very interesting Athen that happened and the thoroughness of asking the questions of making sure uh that every Point has been told uh that nothing got no question it and asked and the thoroughness of that process was fantastic and at the same time I found that it was extremely quick in my opinion because it will go one Department to one Department we did Super week yeah and uh going that and it was not that long it was like about two hours with each head of department and but the thoroughness and the knowledge that you show on asking those questions make me feel very comfortable and very confident that all our needs are being evaluated and put it on that Matrix and taking care and then when I saw that Matrix it was very revealing in terms of how demanding our uh our company was on on the different process we were doing yeah so that helps me

really also to steal a clear view of all the processes of the company so it was very helpful helpful on that sense too yeah no good good to hear we were thorough it's part of what we're trying to achieve fantastic now we have this Matrix and what our typical process is is that once we know what the requirements are we go to a field of uh Erp vendors that we've down selected from typical processes we have like over 100 Erp systems that we before we even meet with you we know your type of Industry we know the um the type of manufacturing you do so we're down selecting to about 20 but by the time the research is done in The Matrix is made we've actually whittled away of Old Testaments so we're looking at a field of about eight to ten uh erps now from there we go to the vendors and we have them assess the solutions that they offer some are very quite obviously and not a fit uh could be on price could be on a function where um we call a number one tier one requirement it's a core requirement

so if you don't have that met you can't buy the Erp so we Whittle them out by the time we're done we're bringing it down to a top one two three recommendation at which point we bring them back to you and say hey these are the top three that we're recommending and then you can go talk to them and we in this particular example had assisted you with the follow on vendor demos and helping facilitate those conversations so you get an accurate understanding from them that you are indeed getting what you mean tell me how that went for you like the act of us bringing the vendors in uh coordinating the appointments and then how we were able to help guide you through those meetings as you did your own assessment of the final Choice yeah well first of all for me it was is very important to trust um I feel working with with you your team triple helix um I had a partner I have a person and I have a team behind the company needs that was a neutral person third party that is looking for a specific scenes

that are on a matrix and is making 100 sure that those needs are met so that for us for me is the most important thing on any relationship business relationship I have with any vendor so I felt first that this was a partnership and and that was very well then when we were looking into the three softwares part of that partnership bringing to the trust that you knew what our budget was and you know what we were looking for so for me uh one thing that that makes me very ideas was uh when you say D3 vendors the three of them fulfill everything that you want that you have in your mattress or even more yeah so that was that was very good to me because that gave me that confidence that we I can close my eyes just one and I'm good and then that then it's just a matter of meeting with these vendors do the demos and got the feeling of the software that was a very nice process I pretty appreciate that you guys uh set up the set of the meeting set up the demos follow up on that um everything was ready

for this so when me and my team came in into every meeting we're not wasting our time it's a demos are a long time so they are something in between three four or even more hours depending on how thorough they want to be and it's a it's a very lengthy process so the fact that we were prepared that you guys talked to the vendor have everything set up for this and my team just have to show up that that is something very good for us um but most importantly to know that D3 softwares meet all of our expectations coordination was easy to do the fact that you guys asked for my calendar I asked for my my team calendar and you guys already made sure okay this is a time that accommodate the whole team that that doesn't seem like a lot but it does add up into all deficiency and easiness of the process for myself for the company for the whole team no I'm glad we were able to do that for you yes now I'm really happy to hear that you have actually made the final choice for a four-year decision out of

the top three and you're actually now moving under contract to release hopefully by the beginning of q1 of 2024. uh talk to me about what you're hoping and your excitement of the new Erp what are you hoping it will do for you right out of the cave uh for this software I I'm excited in general because as I said at the beginning our software is is validated um so I I already made numbers I'm a numbers girl so I already wrote my numbers and I estimated that the efficiency of this software the efficiency is going to bring I'm gonna be saving about a hundred thousand dollars per year on salary of people that I don't have to hire so it makes me feel confident that with the people I have I have enough growth for the next year year and a half without hiring anyone because every process is going to be more efficient um right now we have a lot of problems with the software the crashes is low so see my people happier that they're gonna have the information when they're talking to a customer my customer

service team and sales thing have the information in their faces that that is extremely valuable um I I spent a lot of time on the finances reports looking at our numbers um so also the software is gonna be extremely powerful so I'm gonna be able to look at these numbers and not explain that much time I'm gonna be able to have all those numbers in my fingertips look at it and make better decisions for the company so I I can see all the efficiency that we're gonna attain in the first semester of of the year after the implementation I think it's going to be fantastic but also preparation for taxes is going to help me working with our our accountant of getting the taxes ready uh it's gonna help us also with connecting our shipping station to FedEx UPS DHL connecting the banks I didn't know that would happen and that is a plus for this so and I'm surprised that this software is going to be able to connect our three different banks and make it easier for um our finance manager uh and also we

are preparing ourselves for growth so the fact that this software is going to help us with the manufacturing Department with the scanners I can see it happening the scanners um the barcodes um they are all the stickers printers when we can have the information just pop scan it and it's working I can see it I can see my employees enjoying that and also we want to go next year in twice on myself in one so this Erp software is going to give us platform for traceability and for iPhone requirements uh that's also pretty good and the module for the crms that are very excited because I'm working with a marketing company and then we're gonna be able to put together our marketing plans our marketing campaigns with the CRM follow up better on customers see results um so I'm I'm very excited in general and my team is extremely happy with the software uh with the decision we're making and and I think it's gonna reflect uh very um it's gonna reflect very hardly on our numbers and I'm very excited also

on seeing the efficiency not only on people but seeing on on the numbers on the result for the company so uh a lot of things to be excited about no absolutely it seems like this is going to be very transformative for you yes absolutely and the team is so ready the team is asking for it and even though it's a six to eight month period of of uh implementation but everybody's so excited to start working on it prepaid it and be ready for the first quarter so it's good to be able to give these to your employees better tools to do a better job absolutely and we're so very excited for you for that yo I just want to comment on just the overall process that we walked with you and I mean we were very impressed with your team especially yourself with you know the professionalism and you know how well the company's running despite having such a poor software that that is just kind of holding you back and what was really delightful during this process was being able to walk all the Departments and

all the different people through what a modern European implementation looks like and give them the view of the future because I think to your earlier point you don't know what you don't know and we can share like here's what you should expect your Erp to do for you and then seeing how that would really transform the company and even though it's not our software even and we do do customer software development as you know but you know there's no better feeling to have a customer find the fit that we're looking for and yes I'm I'm expecting good things for you guys so thank you congrats on that now I do want to mention that um the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development um administers Grant programs for manufacturers um they actually do it through the ccat office but it is the decd providing the funding and through through CCAD who's administering this there's a number of manufacturing grants out there of which you're taking advantage of one of them through this person

that's called the manufacturing Voucher Program just talked a little bit about listeners about how much that Advantage is giving you because you're literally getting one third of it covered by this grant yes yes absolutely um so one of the things that we were looking for of course when you are doing this kind of investment is there are many grants there are many things around that can help you out and that Grant we are starting the process with our finance manager to apply for that we're just waiting on one of the last polls and we're gonna start applying first of all one thing that impresses me is this is a state funding um the process is they are behind like only two days I went to the websites and they say we're processing these days and they have only like two or three days behind so approval is real quick uh the application process is extremely easy my finance manager doesn't have any any issues on we have used it before for acquiring machines we are using it before also for training

for our employees and now we're gonna use it for the Erp software um with the Erp software one of the things I want to do is move my company more into the future and for that we're gonna have to buy equipment uh we're gonna have to buy a scanners handhelds um tablets um different new laptops and and that's part of what you want to bring in you don't want a new Erp software and have absolute machines that don't run as well um so this saving um with this grants is gonna allow the company to invest a little money on those improvements so that that means a lot because our profitability also is gonna be very well impacted but by saving the money and use it for other purposes and that helps our the manufacturing company the small companies like our that's a great help every every dollar counts on a small company every time you save a hundred dollars it's a hundred dollars you can buy food for your employees I'm motivated you can start saving money for buying a new laptop or for for any reason

and money is money so all you can save and help your company out uh it's just gonna uh it's gonna be seen on the numbers and the results that you provide right right and I am so very impressed with with this state who has so many Democrat programs available on helping manufacturers yourself yes absolutely I was impressed and surprised myself there's so many things that people don't take advantage of and are thinking I want to buy new equipment I want to buy this new RP software I don't have enough wants to do this but create the state is is willing to help you you just have to apply you just have to apply so and it's easy it's easy I recommend to any manufacturer small owner to use these Services because they are just gonna help you uh progress and be better than your company absolutely absolutely yes so um I I'm just very pleased that we got the opportunity to work together and you know that that is the extent of our time for today on this podcast but I wanted to thank you caddy for graciously

agreeing to come on our show and and talk to our listeners about how the process went um also just uh for anyone listening or is interested in this um you can reach out to triple helix at 3xcorp.com that's www.3 uh the number three actually x-ray corpplay corporation.com or 860-490-3488 is uh how to contact us and we'd be delighted to sit with you and talk to you about having you help you select an Erp solution if you are looking for something like that uh please like And subscribe in the comments below and I want to say until next time thank you and thank you to my special thank you thank you Jason for having me okay bye now foreign