WBSRocks: Scaling Growth with AI, Enterprise Software, and Digital Transformation

Send us Fan Mail 3D should always be better than the 2D experience, especially for the furniture and home goods industry. This industry also has one of the highest return rates even if there might not be anything fundamentally wrong with the product. Sometimes it’s the perception of the measurement or fabric that might turn off some of the customers. The 3D experience allows companies not only to...

Send us Fan Mail How important is the general ledger to your organization? You might not care until you get a huge bill from your tax department for incorrectly coding an expense. Or you come to know that your financial position might not be as strong as you thought. The correct setup of the chart of accounts determines how much admin effort you would have with your accounting. In fact, it's...

Send us Fan Mail Do you know an eCommerce platform that is open source and built on PHP? Do you know an eCommerce platform that is very strong with B2B features with complex approval flows? Do you know an eCommerce platform that can bump up the products in the search list based on the score of product attributes? Do you know an eCommerce platform that can have a separate landing page for different...

Send us Fan Mail Do you know a Sage product that has multiple location functionality but is not designed for multiple countries? Do you know a Sage product that has multiple versions of its products for different countries? Do you know a Sage product that is targeted for distribution, agriculture, and light manufacturing and has a SQL-server-based database? Do you know a Sage product that has rich...

Send us Fan Mail ERP implementation is easy. Anyone can do it. But, ironically, anyone can fail it as well. So how can ERP implementation be so easy and difficult at the same time? There are several reasons. But the core reason is how ERP systems are selected and implemented. Most companies follow a checklist approach. And this approach often results into hit or miss scenarios because creating a g...

Send us Fan Mail How hard could it be to manage the vendor side of processes? Well, sometimes, it could be more complex than your customer side of processes, especially for B2C businesses. Also, it might vary based on your industry, product type, and supply chain. You might need to make arrangements such as prepayment. The R&D side of processes could be completely different from operational pr...

Send us Fan Mail The B2B companies have needs for eCommerce functionality such as catalog management, saving of carts, and complex product variants. But do catalog management needs vary even among B2B companies? While there are solutions that can promise catalog management, there are very few solutions that have gone as far as decoupling these three completely. This is where Elastic Path lives to...

Send us Fan Mail The number of installations for an ERP is a metric that is often used as a purchase criterion.  But it can often be misleading. Misinterpreted. Misunderstood. Also, the product sold to small-to-medium-sized businesses is likely to have a higher number of installs because of the larger customer base. How about different geographies? Is that also a factor? Yes, the products sold in...

Send us Fan Mail 70% of the ERP implementation time is spent on testing the functionality. In fact, some people might argue that most of them manual data entry with ERP can be automated. But it’s easier said than done. Because of the rigidness of the ERP data, even manual testing could be extremely challenging. Also, the testers who might not have as much background might not understand why it’s s...

Send us Fan Mail Account receivable functions should be as easy as sending a bunch of invoices, making a few phone calls, and collecting cash. It must be the easiest job in the world, right? Well, once you get into the nuances of billing, you will quickly realize that it can get very complex with different payment arrangements, payment schedules, and partial payment options. Each industry may have...

Send us Fan Mail Shopify is the name that is now synonymous with eCommerce. Shopify is so easy that you can get up and running within hours and start selling. You also probably don't need the coding background to start selling on Shopify. Then you have thousands of apps that are pre-integrated. But as you add more apps, the cost increases. Also, you might be limited with your options unless y...

Send us Fan Mail Most people underestimate the role of products or services in defining your processes' structure. This is also probably the reason why most industries would have comparable operations. And as a result, they would be using a similar ERP system. For example, the needs of FMCG distributors are likely to be different from industrial distributors. While most distributors might hav...

Send us Fan Mail COVID has taught us that Supply Chain issues can shake the whole economy. And everyone is attacking Supply Chain issues from their perspective. And sometimes it’s very hard to understand how these solutions will collectively solve the overarching issues within Supply Chain. One of the most critical perspectives that are often missed when we talk about production scheduling is of t...

Send us Fan Mail If you cut any materials on your shop floor, you might have nesting software to reduce waste. But the admin efforts increased by a standalone nesting software might eliminate the benefits of reducing waste. Also, if you have multiple software on your shop floors, such as MES, QMS, EAM, nesting, SPC, etc., it might be harder to create the roles and responsibilities of different sys...

Send us Fan Mail BigCommerce is the name you will hear in the B2B space. But does BigCommerce have the same options as some of the other sophisticated platforms such as Magento, with a security layer to enable procurement flows, quoting functionality, and catalog release process? Even for the omnichannel experience, you might need an external POS. But one thing it does offer is a very strong varia...

Send us Fan Mail When an ERP system uses a specific buzzword or something that customers might relate to, it's typically the marketing hype. And not really the strength of the product. For example, several cloud products might include a "cloud" word, even if they might be legacy products. Just to prey on uninformed customers! But there is one system that really lives to its name cal...

Send us Fan Mail There are many different business models for how each ERP vendor promotes its products. Some like to go direct to the customers with their own professional services team while the others only sell through their partners. While not common, some vendors also have OEM arrangements, which is similar to the technology licensing business model, where a distributor may have exclusive rig...

Send us Fan Mail eCommerce consultants have been the most enthusiastic about the importance of product configurators. How this is a need for every custom manufacturer. But product configurator comes in many shapes and sizes. A product configurator could be a simple form on a WordPress site that sends out an email to the backend team. Or a 3D configurator with a live product experience. Just like t...

Send us Fan Mail If you were to name the top 2-3 eCommerce platforms, I am pretty sure you would have Magento on your list. Sure there are always going to be pros and cons of every single platform, but you might find a lot more pros with Magento than cons. The pros are going to be especially applicable for businesses with complex products and catalogs. The businesses that are B2B are likely to ben...

Send us Fan Mail Sage 50 is the household name for companies that might be in the revenue range of up to $10 million. In fact, there was a time when Sage 50 literally meant that the software was designed for companies with up to 50 users. But some companies may use it even after they outgrow that mark. Sage 50 competes with QuickBooks desktop and will have all the problems that QuickBooks Desktop...

Send us Fan Mail Creating good content takes time, effort, and investment. But targeting the right content for the right target buyer and prospect is even harder. Because how do you know which prospect might care for which piece of content? Also, even if they might care about a specific topic today, they might move on from that topic in the future. And this makes engagement marketing super hard. B...

Send us Fan Mail Outside process management is a critical process for manufacturers. It's hard for them to run their operations without the support for this process. But you will be shocked how many ERP systems don't support this process natively. Despite their claims that they all are designed to work for any industry. So what are the nuances when it comes to outside process management?...

Send us Fan Mail Consulting companies have never been good at selling products. IBM is a classic example. They have always struggled with their true identity. While they were one of the strongest engineering organizations, just like BlackBerry, product marketing is a different skill. And that's probably the reason why they ended up selling all of their software assets to other organizations.&...

Send us Fan Mail ERP systems get a bad rap for being biased toward manufacturing. So manufacturers must feel comfortable using the mainstream ERP systems out there. Right? Well, at least that's not true for job shops. Job shops are unique in the way they think and work. They have a tendency to feel that they have unique business processes and workflow that require them to use a unique ERP sys...

Send us Fan Mail Recent economic events have taught us that Supply Chain is much deeper than most people think. These events, regardless of whether macro- or micro-economic, have the potential to throw off Supply Chain planning. And it requires careful calibration and cross-functional collaboration. So the Supply Chain professionals have data they need to take preventive measures to ensure that yo...