Servicing manufacturers’ needs in a changing world

What do manufacturers want from their ERP system and from the business solutions provider which implements and supports it? It's a fascinating question, says Mary Hunter, managing director of business solutions consultancy and ERP expert Columbus UK, a well-known name to anyone familiar with Microsoft's popular Dynamics AX solution. And more to the point, she adds, it's a question where it's perhaps easier to articulate what it is that businesses don't want, an observation given further impetus this autumn by the findings of a survey from analyst Redshift. Detailing widespread dissatisfaction with ERP among businesses using the technology, it starkly highlighted the gulf between ERP's potential, and what ERP was actually delivering to real manufacturing businesses. Consequently, says Hunter, the agenda that manufacturers are pursuing these days revolves around preventing that gulf occurring – keeping ERP and its business processes up to date, focused on best practice, and exploiting emerging technologies as needed. "Gone are the days when the customer expected us to walk in and ask: 'What would you like us to do?'" she explains. "These days, the expectation is very different – they're expecting us to be familiar with industry best practice. And our role is to help them benchmark themselves against that best practice, with the work that we do directly stemming from this, and aimed at closing any gaps." As a consequence, she adds, Columbus has had to both deepen and broaden its offerings to reflect this market need – an expensive, but necessary step, she insists, if Columbus is to continue to enjoy the commercial success and customer loyalty it has built up over its 25-year history. In terms of depth, for instance, Columbus focuses tightly on its key strategic industries – manufacturing, food, retail & distribution – and on developing vertical specific solutions and expertise within those key strategic industries. "Our ERP solution packages cover every aspect of the supply chain, from basic AX features to through to industry-specific functionality," she explains. "So if you're a food manufacturer, for instance, we have specific food industry offerings that are our own intellectual property: templated business processes, built for food manufacturers, which manufacturers can then review and adopt." But recognising that customers don't just want depth of expertise but breadth of expertise as well, Columbus has also invested in becoming a full-service 'one stop shop'. In short, through a combination of organic growth and carefully targeted acquisitions, the result has been to build out a solution set that now encompasses solid capabilities in Business Intelligence, CRM, PLM, and Microsoft SharePoint, as well as bolt-on acquisitions that have delivered cutting-edge capabilities in both B2B and B2C eCommerce and multi-channel retail, as well as mobile data. ColumbusWebstore, for instance, came about through Columbus' acquisition of leading retail, eCommerce and multi channel retail company Omnica early in 2014, a move that not only consolidates its position in the retail industry, but cleverly supports its manufacturing customers too. Omni channel retail "It's 'omni channel' retail," sums up Hunter. "For manufacturers with an after-sales spare parts business, or trade counters, or maintenance business, it provides retailing capabilities and a web based 'front end', and with a web store as part of that front end." Designed for low overhead administration, she explains, Webstore integrates and pulls from within a manufacturer's Microsoft Dynamics AX environment, drawing on ERP for information such as product and pricing data, customer, market segment etc and taking these to a web front end store or portal. Information can be viewed on a website via the chosen medium, laptop, tablet, mobile etc. With Dynamics Anywhere, on the other hand, the focus has been on providing manufacturers with mobile solutions that offer access to Dynamics AX anytime, anywhere and across practically any mobile platform, being device independent, operating system independent, and browser independent. "The world is changing, and going digital, and increasingly, going mobile digital: it's a change that simply can't be ignored, with some analysts expecting 30% of business to be carried out through mobile devices within a year," sums up Hunter. "So manufacturers and their solution providers need to match that change with capabilities to suit. With Dynamics Anywhere, you have mobile Dynamics AX transactions, from ruggedised handhelds in the warehouse and on the factory floor, through to low-cost Android and iOS tablets on the road, and around the business." But even so, as the Redshift survey highlighted, businesses' levels of dissatisfaction with ERP will require more than simply ERP add-ons to assuage. Indeed, one of the things that was notable about the survey was the relatively low levels of adoption of technologies such as mobile, despite mobile being by now relatively mature. The problem, says Hunter, is that manufacturers aren't thinking – or aren't being helped to think – about how and where technologies can make a strategic difference to their operations. Cue another piece of Columbus intellectual property: its RapidValue business process modelling tool. Embedded in Dynamics AX, and with added value industry-specific content as templates, RapidValue helps businesses to define and adopt proven industry best practice in respect of the 200+ separate business processes that are typically in place in the average manufacturer – order quotation, product design and development, purchase order quotation, manufacturing, and so on. "RapidValue offers manufacturers a 'win win' scenario," sums up Hunter. "On the one hand, they're getting industry-specific, best practice ERP and technology adoption recommendations. And on the other hand, they're getting this while saving thousands of pounds in consulting fees, seeing a reduction in the amount of related management input, and a reduced implementation elapsed time." Even so, a mention of a reduction of fees will come as a red rag to a bull for the customers of some ERP vendors, locked into high-price maintenance programs in respect of products seeing very little further development. Here, too, Columbus is impressing customers with the provision of a three-level tiered ColumbusCare package – ColumbusCare Essential, ColumbusCare Advantage, and ColumbusCare Premier – offering user-selectable levels of support and services. "The idea is to allow manufacturers to more closely link their support costs to the actual amount of support and services, as well as the response times and assistance that they need," says Hunter. Roll it all together, she sums up, and the Columbus difference is clear. "We like to think of ourselves as business partners with a long term interest in our clients' success, sharing our expertise and insights into proven best practice," she sums up. "Some firms passively ask what their clients would like them to do. Instead, at Columbus, we define the agenda differently: What is best practice and what needs to be done to get you there?"