2 of 12 Mistakes Made During Order Management System Projects
#2 Counting on IT to do everything
Success in order management system selection is driven by assembling a strong project team of all the departments that will use the system. Order management system selection is not just IT’s project. Large scale systems like order management software change everything about the way your company will do business. The users want good order management systems, but one group or another either pushes responsibility off on the other or they don’t have input and buy into the process. Also, be sure to have executive sponsorship that supports the project from start to finish. Be sure you have a project manager capable of coordinating and supporting project. Don’t rely on the order management system vendor’s project manager to manage the entire project. For large order management software projects this is a full time job, if you don’t have the resources seek assistance from experienced external resources to assist you.
Are you currently involved in an order management system project? Do you feel overwhelmed and need to talk to a consultant about getting some help? Contact us at any time in the project to release the pressure of the order management system project as well as your daily tasks.
Curt Barry is President and Founder of F. Curtis Barry & Company, a 26 year old consulting firm focusing on system categories such as order management systems, warehouse management systems, and inventory management systems. He can be reached at cbarry@fcbco.com or 804-740-8743.
1 of 12 Mistakes Made During Order Management System Projects
The next 12 blog posts is a series of mistakes that our clients have had to painfully learn prior to us getting hired or after we have completed our contracted phase of the order management system project.
#1 Having the Wrong Expectations
Many order management software projects get off to the wrong start. In my four decades of order management system project experience, here are five things management always wants to know upfront in the project before the selection project proceeds:
- To understand type/tier of order management system that best suits your needs
- Perform preliminary gap analysis of your business compared to commercial systems available
- Develop preliminary total cost of ownership for entire project
- Understand the schedule to complete process
- To know what resources – both internal and external – are required to implement and support project
How many times have you told your boss, “ABC will cost this amount” or “We can complete the project on this timeline” – only to find out after you do the in depth research or do the project, reality is dramatically different. The point here is that management doesn’t want to go through months of detail study to find out that they can’t see their way to a huge investment. They want the answers to these questions first and then give you approval to do the detail work. This is a catch 22. Unless you have current prior experience with the order management system being investigated, how will you answer these questions?
It may be an option to engage a consultant to gain insight. You have to answer these questions in a manner that doesn’t create unreasonable expectations for the project. If you are facing the above order management system expectations from your executives, contact us to discuss your system project.
Curt Barry is President and Founder of F. Curtis Barry & Company, a 26 year old consulting firm focusing on system categories such as order management systems, warehouse management systems, and inventory management systems. He can be reached at cbarry@fcbco.com or 804-740-8743.
ProSource’s Latest Order Management System
In our continuing series highlighting order management system vendor successes, I had the opportunity to speak with John Buttery, Director of Alliances for ProSource and we discussed the following insights about their recent successes.
In the last quarter of 2009 ProSource signed Flaghouse, Inc. to deliver their Multi-Channel Commerce (MCC) Solution. Flaghouse is using the MCC to manage their e-commerce operations to provide a better experience for buying, quoting and customer service activities. ProSource MCC is set to be the backbone of Flaghouse’s operations, providing the functionality, flexibility and scalability for Flaghouse to achieve their corporate goals. As Flaghouse’s order management system, the MCC solution will also allow Flaghouse to execute marketing campaigns based on a 360-degree view of customer data and comprehensive P&L reports by campaign segment as well as sophisticated telephone sales with up/cross selling and promotional logic built in.
Late last summer ProSource also signed Lucky Vitamin to their MCC product to enable Lucky Vitamin to continue its expansive growth while continuing to provide the same level of excellent customer service across all brands and channels.
ProSource’s upcoming release is scheduled for July 1st and in addition to the order management system features outlined above, it provides:
- Central order entry and fulfillment with seamless sharing of data, business rules, products and more
- Full warehouse management system features to manage inventory logistics and supply chain management
- A powerful Web store with comprehensive functionality and 100% integration to the back-end
- Multi brand, multi-channel integration with real time data sharing
- A complete financial and supply chain management software
- Robust data analysis and reporting
As ProSource continues with its development of their order management system the MCC and relationships with complementary third-party software vendors; a flexible well-rounded order management system emerges for many different size companies with varying complexities.
Are you getting started or currently traveling down the path of search and selection of a new enterprise resource planning system, order management system, or warehouse management system? As you may already know; there are numerous options and available systems to review and talk with. The most important decision to make is to not go at it alone. Use our systems knowledge and experience of over 26 years to assist you in whatever capacity you need to reach your goal of a new order management system or warehouse management system. You can either email Jeff Barry or call him at 804-740-8743 in order to discuss your particular system project.
Successes in 2009 for Junction Solutions
In our on going series of highlights of successes in 2009 I had the opportunity to speak with Jeff Marker, Sr. Vice President – Multi-Channel Retail for Junction Solutions and he had the following insights about their successes this past year.
Jeff elaborated on how despite the economic challenges of last year that Junction had its most profitable year since its inception this past year with several notable new deals and implementation go-lives. Jeff also stated that Microsoft Dynamics AX got a lot of recognition in 2009, and was recognized as the leader in the middle-market ERP space by The Gartner Group in its May 2009 Magic Quadrant report. See chart below:
Junction Solutions had some forward moving companies sign on to their Microsoft Dynamics JunctionMCR solution last year such as:
- Arthur Middleton Capital Holdings, six unique divisions with both B2C and B2B requirements
- Rejuvenation, America’s largest manufacturer and leading direct marketer of authentic reproduction lighting and house parts with B2C, B2B and Retail
- Americas Gardening Resources (Gardener’s Supply) with B2C, B2B and Retail
- The Teaching Company with B2C and B2B
And earlier this year signed Taylor Corporation/Everglades Direct a large B2B conglomerate that provides business and personal communications products, technologies and services.
In addition to the above signings in 2009 several other multichannel retail companies completed their implementation and went live:
- Burpee Direct
- Peet’s Coffee
- Musicians Friend with the remaining brands and locations which also included integration to High Jump WMS
- Holt’s Cigar
- Football Fanatics
Some of the key enhancements in 2009 to the JunctionMCR product that propelled the success of their clients included:
- PA-DSS Certification
- Velocity Report for Slotting
- Expanded directed putaway and replenishment
- Wireless warehouse support for adjustments, cycle counts, picking, cart picking, putaway, and replenishment
- Days on hand reporting
- Additional Installment / Deferred Billing options
- Continuity enhancements – consolidation, MRP demand profile, schedule synchronization
- Embedded customer statistics
- Mass price updates
- Initial web store integration with JunctionEOD
The following planned new functionality for JunctionMCR is scheduled to be released in the second quarter of this year:
- Expanded web store integration with JunctionEOD
- Microsoft Dynamics/AX for Retail POS support
- Direct store delivery mobile application as well as headquarters support
- Promotions rules and conditions for advanced pricing logic
- Additional Pick list sortation options
- Barcode generation integration with Seagull Scientifics’ BarTender product
- Pick list locations – Case pick / Alternates
- Promotional inserts during picking
- New Inbound and Outbound logistics features
- Shipping import/export documentation
- Open to buy budget additions
- Landed cost
- Support for Merchandise planning and store replenishment
- Enhanced personalization options
- RFM scoring enhancements
- Microsoft payment service integration
- Gift and stored value card
- Retail workflow
- Business intelligence enhancements
These are exciting times for Junction Solutions as their functionality and user community continues to expand. Companies are always looking to add functionality and push their vendors to keep them ahead of their competition. With a number of this past year’s enhancements and the ones planned for this year Junction Solutions is doing just that.
For those companies who have been waiting to replace their existing applications with new expanded functionality there are many choices for you to leap frog your competition; don’t let them get the jump on you!
Paul Sobota is vice president of F. Curtis Barry & Company, a consulting firm established in 1983 focusing on warehouse, systems and inventory management. To learn more, visit www.fcbco.com.
7 Tips for Understanding the Total Cost of Ownership When Acquiring Applications
Recently cited information from the technology firm CNET reveals that roughly 49 percent of IT projects suffer from budget overruns, and 47 percent suffer higher than expected maintenance costs. It’s imperative that companies identify and properly plan for all expenses associated with replacing a business application to avoid these costly mistakes. Here are seven ways to help you go about this process.
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Selecting the Right Software Vendor For Your Business
Selecting software, be it an Order Management System (OMS), Warehouse Management System (WMS), Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP), E-Commerce solution, or some other system, is a challenging task. The process normally begins by documenting a set of requirements, constructing a Request For Proposal (RFP), identifying vendors, viewing web demos, and conducting site visits and reference checks. Recently a trend appears to be emerging to select vendors based on word of mouth recommendations and two-hour web demos. Is that really the right approach? Selecting the right vendor is critical to the success of your company. The choices in the software marketplace are overwhelming, and if the software solution meets your requirements, how do you determine if a vendor is the right vendor for your business? Here are a few points to consider.
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How to Select the Right Front- and Back-End Systems for 3rd Party Fulfillment
More and more companies today are outsourcing fulfillment to avoid making investments in that non-core area, or in the technology necessary for it. We’ve also seen hundreds of start-up e-commerce companies that simply don’t want to be in the fulfillment business. All of these companies are turning to third-party fulfillment (3PF) providers like you. With so much riding on it, it is very important that your front-end (call center, customer service, and marketing) and back-end (warehousing, order management, and fulfillment) systems and technology give you a continuing competitive advantage. The systems you select will have significant ramifications for your personnel’s productivity, as well as how effectively you serve your customers and help them grow their businesses—and the management information these systems provide can help you grow your business. No matter what type of system you’re considering, the purchase is a long-term investment. In short, selecting the right front- and back-end systems for your 3PF business is a major undertaking.
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10 Critical Considerations in Selecting Retail and Direct Business Intelligence Solutions
Your senior management just read you the riot act about the company’s proliferation of systems and the lack of data integrity in those systems. “We have the same data—like sales and inventory—in different systems, with different timing and accuracy. Between our order management, warehouse management and forecasting systems, there is no single version of the truth. We are no longer in touch with the data, and the department managers are analyzing performance in different ways and getting different results—even though they are using the same data! No one system gives us more than 25% of the data we need to plan and manage the business. And we aren’t even users of the major business systems.”
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Warehouse Management System Confusion
Warehouse Management System Confusion
In the past it was relatively easy to tell the difference between the tiers of warehouse management software capabilities. The larger more expensive products offered significantly more functionality and scalability than the other smaller versions. That appears to be changing as we speak. As we help clients look for a warehouse management systems for their operation, the process of culling down the list of potential vendors to consider is becoming more confusing.
Before, a larger company usually migrated to a larger vendor while the smaller companies moved to smaller systems. Recently, vendors seem to be morphing into a more homogenous mix of feature/function. Almost all of the warehouse management system vendors we have run into have full functioning systems. The chief difference we see today is that many seem to have specialized in a particular market segment such as retailing, manufacturing, or third party fulfillment among others. This specialization has caused the development of functionality to reflect the specific requirements of that particular industry type.
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Taking the Easy Path leads to a Long Journey in Selecting Systems
Have you ever come to a fork in the road where one is the easy route and another is a longer, more strenuous climb? Many of us face that decision regularly and I’ve seen this happen in systems selection projects for e-commerce, order management, warehouse management and enterprise resource planning systems. If you have ever faced the challenge of selecting a system for the first time or replacing an existing system, you know this can be a tough task.
However, for an important decision on a system that will manage your business and income, I am amazed at how many small to mid-size companies base their system selection on a word of mouth recommendations, a 2 to 3 hour Webex demo and a commitment from a vendor that the functionality will be delivered in a 2 to 3 month time period. If you are one of the few fortunate ones where this has worked for you then my hat is off to you but for the majority, this easy path is a mistake.
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