The FIFA World Cup is well underway and, even if you aren’t the biggest soccer fan, soccer fever seems to have gripped the globe. While we are furiously debating the attributes of the teams, the competency of the referees and the quality of the stadiums, let’s also give a thought to a sign-of-the-times marketing campaign that depicts delivery drones delivering beverages to a stadium full of fans in Moscow.

The world has become a smaller place, and supply chains have become longer. Managing your supply chain effectively gives you a competitive advantage (ask Walmart and Apple) and there are many ways that ERP software can help a business manage the entire breadth of its supply chain.

Let’s start at the “demand” end of the supply chain. In Part 2 of this blog, we’ll look at the “supply” side.

The Safe Food for Canadians Act comes in to effect on January 1, 2015 and it is going to have an effect on every business involved in Canada’s food chain.

The Act puts all food inspection responsibilities under the umbrella of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency bringing together a number of disparate laws, like the Fish Inspection Act, The Canada Agricultural Products Act and the Meat Inspection Act, and their inspection authorities. It also sets out standards for all businesses involved in the food chain.

People often assume that ERP systems are only for larger companies. But, consider this - if you run a small or medium sized business, do you lie awake at night worrying about the following things:

• Is there a way to improve our inefficient processes?
• Can we grow without growing pains?
• Will the business remain viable or successful in the long term?

Last week I was at the supermarket in the very long queue at the “12 items or less” checkout station, when I glanced over at the adjacent self-checkout station. The store had installed it a few months ago but I (and most other shoppers) had never tried it – thinking it looked a bit confusing and not worth the hassle of learning how it worked, perhaps due to fear of not picking up quickly enough on how to use it. But the queue was so much shorter there, so I decided to try it. Although there was a learning curve to understand the process, for example to follow the on-screen instructions and to also get the knack of scanning barcodes properly, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I’ll definitely use the self-checkout again.

Recently I had several very ordinary (and seemingly unrelated) personal experiences that, in hindsight, had a common theme related to using an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) business software system. Can you spot the theme?