Digital Transformation unleashed

You're the CIO/CDO sitting in your weekly update executive meeting with the CEO, CFO, COO, and others. You start the meeting with the priorities of the meeting and for the first time you see "Business Transformation". First thing that crossed your mind is this question - what is that?

Next you hear the details of the Business Transformation and the overall strategy. Everybody in the room was asked to present your vision and for you it's the Digital Transformation, a subset of Business Transformation. 

To those who haven't had any experience with Business Transformation, here are some business events that can trigger a transformation:

• Improve customer experience
• Rebranding
• Merger & Acquisition
• Business expansion
• Digitize the brand experience

Of course, there are more other events but essentially you can see that all of them have business impact. 

If you've done Digital Transformation, then good for you so you know what you need to present. If not, you need to think about your vision and strategy. Do you have a framework that you've used in the past? If you're reusing a framework make sure you know the end state of the Transformation and modify accordingly. Like the pic below, you should know your destination and create the digital vision to get there as there are many path that you need to consider. 

What is constant in Digital Transformation?

• Multi-year
• Roadmap creation
• Reviewing of technology stack & capabilities
• Large budget
• Cross-functional
• Change management
• Different technology resources - functional & technical & others

e-Commerce discount types

In the world of retail today every retailer is trying to find ways and be creative to attract online customers. To attract your attention and make a conversion they publish different ads in their websites. Some of these ads can come in discounts like "buy one, get one 50% off" or free shipping. To make sure the experience is captured by retailers and convert you to a customer then later as a repeat customer, the system they're using should be capable and flexible to offer these types of ads.

There are different types of eCommerce/Website discounts and normally called Cart discounts. It can be free shipping, percent (%) discounts or dollar ($) amount discounts.

Here are sample of each:

1. Free shipping - very common in eCommerce sites like Amazon who

1. Percent discounts
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Dollar discounts

Signs to upgrade or move to a new ERP platform

Is it time to upgrade or move to a new ERP?

Interesting question but why are you asking this question in the first place, there are several reasons, it can be business-related or technology challenges. Whatever the reason you don't need to make the decision alone. Here are some scenarios that businesses might encounter why they're thinking about upgrading or moving:

Business-related

• We've experienced rapid growth, we're opening new warehouses & distribution centers, we're hiring new people and doubled our headcount. This system can't grow as fast.
• We've been using this system since we started the company, it's been X years and this system is not doing what we want anymore.
• We've introduced new businesses and new channels. The system was upgraded with add-ons and work around but it's not working for us.
• We have compliance requirements; we need to change our processes, but this system is not flexible enough.

Technology challenges

• This version has reached its End of Life (EOL) and won't be supported by the vendor anymore, I think it's time to find another platform. 
• We've customized the heck out of this system. We have hired developers to maintain the system for years. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is too high that it's better for us to upgrade to the latest version or find another system.
• We need to integrate our ERP with other systems so we don't need to duplicate our work, the ERP technology is so old that it's not possible.

Do any of this apply to your situation? Surprise, you're not alone. Most companies go through this situation every 5 to 10 years. Is there a quick answer to your question? The answer is No. 

Let's answer the who, why, what and how.

Who can help answer the question? This is a collective effort between your IT, your ERP partner & vendor if they're different and I highly recommend a 3rd-party consultant who doesn't have any vested interest to your vendor or partner. 

What's the best process to get the answer? There are several ways to do this, and it all depends on your time; how much do you want to spend and your resources. The best way is RFP or Request for Proposal. This will require more time but it's very detailed and will give you the best result. 

Why do we need resources & time? ERP is not just a system or application, ERP consist of different processes - Order to cash (OTC), Procure to pay (PTP) and others. You need to get the business requirements from each business process owners & Stakeholders. Once you complete this process then you consolidate this to your RFP. You send this to your ERP partner and maybe even other ERP vendors. 

How can we know from the process that we should upgrade or stay with our current system?

If you decide to do the RFP route then at the end of the process you will fill out a vendor scorecard and if your current vendor or current system comes out as the top scorer then you don't need to spend money upgrading. 

The most difficult part of this process is finding the right system and partner. RFP will help you find both if you do this process methodically. Don't rush the process, find a good partner to help you with this process because like I said, you don't do this every full moon.

Duke del Prado has over 25 year's experience helping businesses find the right systems and partners for different enterprise applications like ERP, CRM, eCommerce, POS, EDI and others.

ERP - Oracle Netsuite Cloud

It's been a while since my last post and I'm excited to share what I've been doing the last few months. I've renamed my blog as well to Digital Transformation as I feel the transition to a broader content makes more sense.

My topic for this post is Oracle Netsuite, a cloud ERP for medium sized companies which they claim is the first cloud ERP in the market. I can't argue with this being in the market for almost 25 years as around 2010, we migrated to this system before the Oracle acquisition, and it was already in the cloud.

My current company implemented Netsuite last year and now my team is supporting the system. I can see much improved performance and more functionalities both in Order-to-cash and Procure-to-pay. 

I'm learning more about this system so more content in the weeks & months to come. You can learn more about Netsuite here: Business Software, Business Management Software | NetSuite

Migrate from Dynamics to SAP S/4HANA

It is almost night and day when you get involve with this migration. I'm on my 3rd system migration from Dynamics AX/GP to SAP S4HANA and there's always something unique in each implementation.

One uniqueness is the S4 platform - On-premise vs Cloud, now there's Hybrid. Data migration is another unique criteria to consider. 

The process is almost the same as I remember, a WRICEF or RICEFW was the basis of all the development work and all other requirements like functional specs, change management, master data, etc. were documented.

Every detail is documented and this is where the implementation approach differs from Dynamics and SAP. This is why I said from the start it's like night and day. In a typical Dynamics implementation unless the partner don't have the resources, you normally will deal with a PM, a functional consultant, developer and maybe a report writer but the developer can fill this in some instances. 

The biggest difference is the functional consultant which in a Dynamics project is normally your resource for financials, distribution (supply chain), interfaces and reporting. In SAP, you have functional consultants in almost every module, well that's what I've experienced so far. You have one or two in FI/CO, one each for OTC, PTP and if you do inventory management (MTS/MTO) you need at least one. On the technical side you have one for conversions, one for SAP PI/PO, one or 2 for reporting, more than one for development (ABAP) based on WRICEF and one for training. There's more required for HANA hardware and database.

To summarize, the investment for the migration includes the following:

- SAP S/4HANA licenses. Do multiple negotiations before you commit to SAP.

- HANA hardware (Cloud, Hybrid, on-premise). Azure and AWS are pretty stable now.

- Implementation partner which can be one or multiple and I've done 3 partners at once (Not recommended)

- Internal resources. You'd rather over invest here as you don't want to scramble looking for a resource in the middle of the implementation 

- Get an overall Program Lead not just a project mgr who will oversee functional, technical, infrastructure, financials, and more important "change management". Don't underestimate the last one as you can be on schedule and budget but if your business partners are not happy with the transition then they won't consider it a success internally. 

Microsoft in Retail

In one of my previous post I've mentioned the lack of investment from Microsoft in the EPM space. In this post I'll touch on the Retail space and some transformations that organizations partake.

I was with Microsoft Dynamics between the years of 1990 to 2000 and very privileged with the opportunity. In the last 10 years it has been unfortunate though that most of my engagements (mostly Retail and CPG) have been moving Microsoft to SAP. Why is that? It took me awhile to realize that there were commonality between these companies.

Here are some of my observations:

1  Scalability. They have outgrown Microsoft products, their processes have become more complex and existing investments cannot scale.

2  Relationship. They don’t have direct relationship with Microsoft so they find another partner to help them with their transformation.

3   Support. They need more support from their partners including technology, processes and data. Their current partner don't have all expertise, they can only do one not all.

4  Technology. They want to explore new technologies like Cloud, Big Data, IoT and others. Even though Microsoft can fill these space, the companies don't know who to contact.

If you look at the reasons, Microsoft could’ve easily filled the gaps. SAP does this pretty well, their regional AE's are in constant contact with their clients. They’re constantly asking and they take care of companies that carry weight in the verticals, brands that matter in that space. 

Retail is one vertical where Microsoft can capture some market share. Here are some reasons:

1- Retail companies have complex processes from store operations to back office. Microsoft have all the toolset to help but they're not selling it bundled. They need to go to these retailers and sell their products from store to back office. Show how the POS can integrate with Microsoft Dynamics Inventory then show them Analytics thru Power BI. Do a retail suite of solutions that can solve a retailers process from end-to-end.

2 - Microsoft needs to put more investment in their Retail space. They have the products to scale up and capture a market share but it’s not happening. They’re even losing clients and more importantly “brands” that matter in the space. SAP talks directly to top brand customers to know what processes are changing because of regulations, compliance, tariffs and others. In the Enterprise Applications technology takes a back seat, CIO’s look at vendors who can solve complex processes, use best practices, able to provide solutions to regulatory or country specific requirements and others.

I can go on but my point here is Microsoft does have the products but they need to understand the business needs and how they’re going to selling their products effectively. I’ve seen demos where the CFO and CIO just walk out of the room because they’ve missed the mark so bad. SAP is not untouchable, they just know how to sell their products well and Microsoft needs to learn from them.

Amazon piece of the pie

How big is Amazon compared to the other retailers