The Internet is teeming with cybercriminals armed with increasingly sophisticated malware designed to steal your data – or extort you for cash. It’s an evolutionary process, an arms race, and a threat to every organization doing business across the Internet. Symantec’s 2016 Internet Security Threat Report contains some appalling statistics. During 2015:

Over the years, I have heard many customers and prospective customers suggest that customization is a bad word. People of change, ERP vendors, sometimes customize the software to the nth degree and then struggle to deploy the latest and greatest of their existing platform.

Scalability is a bit of a buzz word these days. Some experts struggle to find a consistent definition, but it remains an important concept for understanding the growth-related characteristics of businesses, and of the systems, such as ERP, that support them.

“How’re you doing?”

This is a question that shouldn’t only be asked socially. It’s also an important business tool for both the enquirer and the respondent. Think about it – a customer has the opportunity to voice their pressing concerns and a service provider has the chance to listen to these worries and improve their offering.

Yesterday afternoon I had a phone call from a relatively new customer, James Briggs, who ‘went live’ with SYSPRO a few months ago. “Right,” the CFO said, “we need you to come in and talk to us about how we can really start to use SYSPRO now.”

As discussed in part 1 of this series, application erosion eats away at the value of your company’s ERP investment – right from go-live. Over time, it can also eat away at your employee’s perception of the technology. The idea may spread that the system isn’t working properly, that it doesn’t fit well with the company anymore, or that it simply doesn’t have all the necessary functions. There might even be talk of a new solution – one that will really get the job done.

In my previous blog on Architecting your business I discussed the broader benefits that can be gained from applying an architectural approach to your business, the information, the processes and technology.

But the benefits will not be realized if your architecture does not take into account the people in your business, as well as the workflows.

Architecting for people.

Return on investment (ROI) is often cited in relationship to ERP but not so often achieved.  It doesn’t matter whether you are selecting a new ERP system, are part way through an ERP implementation or living with ERP – reviewing ROI is the best way to ensure ERP adds value to your business. 

As we hurtle towards the end of March I find myself reflecting back on the first quarter of the year – wondering where it’s gone and what the rest of the year has in store.  I’m sure this year has gone quicker than usual and I am sure there are many of you out there feeling the same.

There is something to be said for taking your own medicine. As a SYSPRO distributor, K3 Syspro uses SYSPRO internally. 18 months ago we started on a journey to update our own internal systems. We didn’t want to be “one of those builders with their own house falling down.