The Top 9 MUST HAVE Features in a New ERP Platform

Introduction: 

This is the ERP Advisor. Today's episode, the top nine must-have features in a new ERP platform.  

Rebekah McCabe 

Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us for today's webinar, the top nine must-have features in a new ERP platform. Sorry for the delay. We were having some technical issues, but now we have it figured out. So we're going to be joined by Shawn Windle as one of our speakers for today. Shawn is the founder and managing principal of ERP Advisors Group based in Denver, Colorado. Shawn has almost 30 years of experience in the enterprise software industry, helping hundreds of clients across many industries with selecting and implementing a wide variety of enterprise solutions. His podcast, the ERP Advisor, has dozens of episodes with 10s of thousands of downloads and is featured on prominent podcast platforms such as Apple and Spotify. Andy Yemens, if I pronounce that wrong. 

Shawn Windle 

Yemens. 

Rebekah McCabe 

Yemens is our other speaker for today. Andy has been in the ERP space for a long time and has accumulated extensive experience working with the Microsoft technology stack. He also has a lot of experience working across industry segments through various client engagements, and he's going to give us a little more background on what he does at HSO here in a moment. On today's call, Shawn and Andy will join forces to examine key must-haves that project sponsors should look for when selecting a new ERP platform. Welcome, Shawn and Andy. 

Shawn Windle 

Thank you. Andy, you can hear okay? I can hear you on multiple devices. Okay, maybe mute your computer. There we go. That's perfect. Almost. I still hear an echo coming through, Andy. We're sorry about that. 

Rebekah McCabe 

He’s welcome to speak, so he should be able to talk now. 

Rebekah McCabe 

So he can hang up the phone. 

Shawn Windle

OK, here we go. OK, Andy,you're still there. 

Rebekah McCabe 

I'm still here. If you can hear me. There we go. 

Shawn Windle 

We can. 

Andy Yemens 

All right, we're ready. 

Rebekah McCabe 

Oh, and we can see you, Andy. So if you have your camera, you can go ahead and turn that on. 

Shawn Windle 

While Andy's doing that too. Thank you, everybody, for joining. We're definitely excited to meet with Andy, who we've basically worked with for a couple decades in terms of Microsoft projects around the ERP solutions. Andy's one of the few resources that I know, Andy, just to toot your horn a little bit, that has really been super consistent through the whole Microsoft evolution of the Dynamics platform. So we're really excited. I'm very excited for you to come in and share the Microsoft viewpoint, as well as we'll be able to provide some independent objective use, as everybody knows, we work with lots of different vendors. But Andy, really thank you for joining today. I apologize about the technical difficulties there to everybody, but it's going to be worth it because we're going to get a lot of insight from, I mean, really, who else in the world has the resources and capital and infrastructure and that Microsoft has? So thanks again, Andy, for joining us. 

Andy Yemens 

Yeah, my pleasure. 

Rebekah McCabe 

Yeah, I don't think it's going to light your camera, but we're good to go. We can just talk. 

Andy Yemens 

All right, let's do this. 

Rebekah McCabe 

Wonderful. Andy, I'm actually going to have you kick us off. So just to set the context for today's call, what do we mean when we say ERP platform? 

Andy Yemens 

Yeah, good question. I think a great place to start this off. So I guess, you know, maybe just for a little bit of historical context, when we think about all the pieces that go into an ERP technology architecture, in the past, you had a lot of very specialized technology companies that played a part in that landscape. You had the application provider of the actual ERP system itself, but also then that had to run on a database that in many cases was developed by another company. Different application development tools that were used to build in and around that ERP system, different integration tools or integration platforms that allowed you to integrate data from that ERP system to other data sources, other systems within your environment. And so you really ended up trying to manage this proliferation of vendors. And those environments just by nature were very complex. The vendors all had to try to make sure everything worked together, led to a lot of complexity for clients to manage, a lot of higher cost within that environment. And so, you know, things have changed over the last, you know, handful of years. And, you know, most of the leading ERP vendors, so we're thinking the, you know, the Microsofts, the Oracles, the SAPs, Workdays, they've really started to go to market building out a complete technology environment that really embeds and controls more of that architecture, which is really a lot more important these days now that everything's in the cloud and clients are having to take updates more frequently and so on. So more and more you're seeing these larger ERP vendors really offer that end-to-end technology stack that's not just the ERP system, but the underlying cloud infrastructure itself and some cases, the data platforms, the integration platforms, low-code development tools, and so on, really everything that makes up that technology environment is what we're referring to as the platform. In Microsoft's cases, we'll talk about here in a little bit, you know, we'll even throw in the productivity and collaboration tools that people are using every day into that conversation of the platform. So really, as opposed to an ERP provider having to build their own solutions to run on other vendors' technologies, really building that entire environment, that entire platform, within a single vendor there. So, Shawn, I know from your viewpoint, you do lots of consulting and selections. You know, why would you say that these platform strategies are becoming more and more important in today's technology space? 

Shawn Windle 

It's a very interesting point. And especially, I think, again, as Andy, we're grateful to have you on the call and to get the Microsoft viewpoint. I'm actually in San Francisco. That really is Union Square down there with the Christmas tree. It's beautiful. I'm here for a couple meetings with a couple different vendors. And some of them are the exact opposite of what Andy just said. And some of them are one of the companies that he just spoke of. This concept, right, when we look at the nine must-have features in a new ERP platform, we're going to get into the nine here in just a minute. But just again, to set the context, Anybody who's buying enterprise software today or licensing in there, hey, I'm just going to start a new subscription, no problem, right? I just put my credit card in, I get a free month. I'm just going to give it a try and see what happens. You've got to be careful because you're putting data, your most valuable asset, frankly, other than your people, is your enterprise data. Apps can change, although it's very difficult, and we'd rather you not if you don't have to. But if you think about an application and putting information into it, you really are depending upon that application to function and do the things that you need to do, just like Andy said. But there's so many layers of technology that you probably will never even ask questions about. I mean, folks like us do that all day long. Andy certainly knows the Microsoft stack really, really well. But most clients, when they're purchasing enterprise software, they just don't understand this importance of the platform. And I think that's why we wanted to do this call. For instance, one of the vendors that we're talking to today is a relatively new vendor. And their tech stack is a little less pervasive and sort of gosh, I'm going to say this word cobbled together, than say Microsoft Stack. And I think, Andy, you'd be the first one to agree with this, that Microsoft Stack, especially for the Dynamics 365 solutions, it's evolved over time, but it's all owned and maintained under the same roof, which says a lot. Whereas other vendors, maybe even the less prevalent vendors, It's not right. They're relying on additional technology solutions and you might not even know it, although I can almost guarantee you that there is a there's a secure.blah.com website for the vendor, or there's a platform.thenameofthevendor.com. There's some kind of a website that tracks uptime and security and performance for every SaaS-based solution that's like worth its weight in not gold necessarily, but any relevant viable vendor has some kind of a place you can track their and monitor their performance. That's what I'm trying to say. And when you go to that website, it may even list the other apps that the solution that you're using is working on. I'm trying not to get too technical here. But basically, when you have a stitched together architecture that relies on multiple vendors solutions, the amount of risk that you're going into as a business applications user actually is increasing. So that's fine. As long as you understand it and you're aware of it, you need to just know that and be able to monitor. So like you see some of these systems that go down and you think, oh, that's not my app. Well, actually, it is. I can actually think of one of the hyperscalers recently that went down. It wasn't Azure. It was another company. I won't use any names. And we were even surprised as our customers called us about their other apps that they used and said, wow, we can't get to this because it was running on that particular platform. So I'm just trying to say it's It is what it is. The more you understand it and the more you can manage that and are just aware of it, the better. That's ultimately what it comes down to. So that's why it's much more important today in this kind of modern technology area to understand what these ERP platform strategies are. And the good vendors will be able to tell you This is what they are and will give you the information in a very simple to understand fashion. If you're not getting it and you don't understand it from that vendor, and I'm, at least at a high level, you need to talk to somebody else at that application vendor. If they still can't answer the question, I would be concerned to be totally honest with you. So Rebecca, you might be on mute. 

Rebekah McCabe 

Yeah, definitely, Shawn. I think that was a great response. And you guys had a great conversation just the other day while we were preparing for this call to talk about just some of the must-haves and the experiences that you guys have had. And I would love to start going through those. You and Andy kind of broke these up, and I think they're great insights for companies. So Shawn, I'll kick that back over to you. 

Shawn Windle 

Yeah, let's do it. And Andy, definitely jump in here. I know we're going to bounce back and forth, but these are kind of the nine must-have features for the enterprise platform. So I'll do the first two, and then Andy, I'll pass it to you. I think in our experience, the most important thing, I think individually we'd say this for sure, but in my own experience working with lots of clients, you really do need to work with somebody that has a cloud-first architecture. Now, there are some instances where we go with a legacy vendor because there's some very specific functionality that they provide where maybe they didn't write it first for cloud and now they stick it up in the cloud and it's really a private cloud and they call it cloud. And it's not really cloud, but it kind of is. Yes, it's that confusing. I'm sorry to confuse you even more. But there are many vendors who have either had products that were legacy. That took the time and the research and development dollars to create cloud-first architectures and evolve their solutions from there, or maybe they started in the cloud. When I think about the Microsoft solutions and the evolution that I've seen in my relatively short career of three decades, I think there were some legacy solutions that, you know, and you can talk to this, Andy, but better than I can, but that Microsoft made a very specific decision with Dynamics 365 to basically go from four or five different platforms to basically two, which were pure cloud-based and cloud-first architectures, Business Central, and then the Dynamics 365 finance and operations or finance and supply chain, et cetera, et cetera. Andy, if you don't mind, would you just talk to that for our listeners? Because they really do want to know this cloud-first architecture for Microsoft on the ERP side, just super fast. 

Andy Yemens 

Yeah, sure. So, you mentioned the four different applications that Microsoft had that came in through acquisitions back in 2001 timeframe, which Microsoft had rebranded over time under the Dynamics umbrella. But yeah, back in 2015, I guess, which is really when things started moving en masse to the cloud, you know, people had to re-architect and rebuild some of these solutions. And to your point, Microsoft, made the decision that they were going to go forward with essentially 2 native cloud options, Dynamics Business Central, which you mentioned, which is more of the mid-market and below type solution. So Microsoft will describe it as more of the small and mid-sized business or SMB solution, but again, a great platform for small and mid-sized growing companies that need a, robust Microsoft-based ERP system, very good option there. Once you get above that into the, upper mid-market and enterprise space, that's where Dynamics 365, finance, supply chain, project operations, and so on, that's really, again, that solution. So really trying to make sure that they are able to address both the SMB market segment, but also mid-market and up into the enterprise space as well. So again, those solutions are native cloud applications. And really, again, Microsoft's kind of reoriented all of their investment around those two architectures going forward. 

Shawn Windle 

That's perfect. Thank you. And just as a reminder to everybody that's listening to this, Microsoft or Andy's firm, HSO, they're not paying us. To do this call. We've done some great projects with his firm, HSO. We've been very successful with multiple clients. That's why we're doing the call ultimately. But what it comes down to is there are very few ERP vendors who took four different platforms and then rewrote, or didn't really rewrite, because I think the NAV, the AX, are sort of in that sort of architecture already. but made the conscious decision to say we are going to migrate from these, from Solomon, Great Plains, kind of old nav, kind of old axapta into kind of the newer. I don't know if it's really the right way to say that, Andy. I don't want to put you on the spot here, but like those two platforms were really more built around cloud concepts. And I think that's why Microsoft chose those two platforms to move forward into the cloud solutions. What I'm trying to say was that was really risky. And I think it was the right thing to do because Some of the other vendors that we work with, they don't have the capital or the time in the market to sort of invest in the new architecture, the new solutions, which we're going to talk to why that's even more important in the AI world coming up here. Instead, they sort of had to put money into their older platforms and sort of choose like, okay, we got to take the older platforms and bring those to market and make those more prevalent just to make their earnings targets or hit their profit numbers, whereas Microsoft, given its position in the market, was basically able to do both. Andy, I'm drilling in a lot on this, but I think it's interesting for our users. Anything you'd comment on that? 

Andy Yemens 

Yeah, no, I think you're right. And then you think about just when we think about Cloud First, and we'll talk more of these platform components, again, being able to deploy these in the same environments and manage them with the same tools that people are already managing many of their other Microsoft tools with today, again, was part of that conscious decision that you referred to. So yeah, it's obviously been an interesting journey, but here we are in a cloud-first world. 

Shawn Windle 

That's right, which is definitely the first must-have, as we talked about. So the second one is around intuitive user-friendly interface. And this isn't just the basics of, hey, let's have a form, and you fill out a form and you click Save, and now we're interacting with the ERP. We do a lot of demonstrations, every year and we see all of the apps and there are a lot of applications that look like they're a little more industrial use, sort of more B2B oriented, which most of these apps are used in a B2B fashion, but we're used to as consumers interacting with our bank or with you know, I love Nordstrom's, as my team and Erica, my wife, will tell you, working with the product catalogs and some of these top retailers, they're beautiful. And then when you get into the applications themselves, you do want to work in an environment that sort of looks familiar. And of course, the Microsoft tools, right? I'm on a Mac right now looking at a Word document for some of my notes. Well, I'm used to working and interacting with Microsoft. So, I mean, those are, I think, some benefits too that Microsoft has even over other platforms too. But it's really important, that intuitive, user-friendly interface for sure. Andy, do you want to cover the next couple must-have features? 

Andy Yemens 

Yeah, absolutely. So, I think just to kind of maybe pile on to that, the user adoption is such an important thing when we talk about business systems like ERP platforms and making sure that people use the system fully, correctly. That's the only way an organization achieves their objectives, and so to the extent you can give them... more of that, easy to use experience, it's just gonna help drive better user adoption and better use of the system to drive better, you know, efficiency levels, we'll say. So, you know, the third topic kind of ties into that. The third, you know, must have, as we said, is really interoperability with the productivity and collaboration tools that people are using every day. And we really consider this part of the user experience as being able to, use the other tools that people use every day in conjunction with their business application. So, when we say productivity tools, we're talking about things like the Microsoft Office Suite or Microsoft 365, so Outlook, Excel, Word, and so on. Collaboration tools like Teams or Slack or other types of tools that help you set up and execute meetings, share content, et cetera. Also, you know, drive communications and meetings as well. So those are the tools that we're talking about here. And if you think about why this is important, I saw a study not long ago that said 57% of an employee's day on average, they're spending in the Microsoft productivity tools like Outlook and Word and Excel. And I think that's pretty accurate as I think about kind of my day-to-day. And so if nearly 60% of your day is spent in those tools and a good chunk of that remaining 40% ish is spent in the business systems that you're using to execute your business processes, why not try to bring those two worlds together in a more meaningful way within the flow of how people work? So, when we think about what some examples of this could be, we think about people and not just the accounting function, but other areas of the business heavily lean on Excel for various things. And so being able to quickly get data in and out of Excel is a huge productivity driver. So maybe I'm in my ERP system and I want to do a quick ad hoc analysis of the data I'm seeing on my screens, run a pivot table. You want to be able to just click a single button and have that pivot table light up in Excel for you. Or similarly, if you're working on data in Excel, you want a controlled way to be able to load that into the ERP system so that you're not manually keying it. So that's an example of this interoperability. Being able to expose data and even contribute data from inside of tools like Outlook, right? Another huge productivity driver. People are in Outlook, you know, all day. So if I can surface some of those insights right inside of Outlook and allow people to contribute and interact with that data without leaving Outlook, again, big productivity driver. And then we think about things like Microsoft Teams, for example. So if you're in your ERP system and you want to be able to create a document store or set up a Teams meeting, for example, right from inside your ERP system, again, you've now brought together those collaboration concepts with the transactional things that you're doing to manage the business. So those are some of the examples we talked about in terms of weaving together your productivity and collaboration tools with your ERP system. And the reason that's really important is, another statistic I'll throw out there here, saw a study that talked about how 80% of employees say they don't have enough time or energy really to get their job done well on a daily basis. So productivity is super important these days. Anything we can do to bring those two worlds together is a big win for people. So as you all are evaluating, ERP systems, I would encourage you to think about as you're looking at the capabilities of those solutions, will it do a sufficient job of, again, merging the things that your people are doing on a daily basis in the ERP system with the other things that they're doing, other tools that they're using on a day-to-day basis? Again, all in the, you know, with the end goal to be to drive higher levels of productivity and really start to break down some of the barriers you see to collaboration or communication within the business. So, Shawn, anything you wanted to add on? 

Shawn Windle 

No, that's perfect. I know we got a couple more to cover, so let's do it. 

Andy Yemens 

All right, very good. So, the next one we wanted to talk about was again one of the must-haves. Shawn alluded to this earlier is really around data. Advanced data and insights, very important, obviously, these days, taking on more importance as businesses try to become more data-driven, right? People are starving for... meaningful data, especially when speed and agility are important to being able to, compete and run the business effectively. So interestingly, and I'm sure, Shawn, you've seen this as well, I've actually been involved in more than one ERP initiative over the year that actually started with the client thinking they needed a new business intelligence platform, right? They were struggling to get reports and data out of their current solution. And the more they got into it, they realized it was really the underlying plumbing that was the challenge. And so, it actually turned into an ERP initiative to be able to give them that consolidated, controlled, structured environment to be able to surface that data. So that's really critical these days. The technology around delivering these data and insights has evolved a ton over the last, let's say, handful of years, right? People used to rely on traditional reports, more of those kind of flat reports that you used to print out and be able to get information on. And those are still important for certain scenarios, but being able to gravitate more towards multi-dimensional analysis. So being able to look at your finances, look at your operational data, and really be able to pivot that and slice it and dice it and say, well, let's look at this by then, let's say business unit or customer market segment or what have you, right? Really more of that interactive slicing and dicing that people like to do these days. And being able to visualize that data in a compelling way using charts and graphs. Obviously, in the Microsoft world, Power BI, a great tool, to do some of that. Now things are moving into more of this interactive Q&A with your data using natural language. So there's tools within the data platforms that many of these providers offer now that offer something called Data Agent, which is really a way for me to just have a conversation through a Q&A type environment to ask questions and it returns that data. So, being able to say, you know, what's our revenue this year compared to last year? You can just ask that as a question, and it brings that back and even can display it graphically, right? Who are our top clients? What are our best-selling products and so on? You can just ask those questions without having to write a report or build a dashboard for every conceivable thing you might want to know about your data. So a lot of, a lot of movement within the tools that are surfacing this and a lot of improvements around how real time that data is as well. The underlying data platforms are getting better and better about serving those analytics up in more real time than we had available in the past. And so even for most companies, near real time is a really big win. And today we can get to within just a few minutes of that transactional data showing up again in a multi-dimensional data model for people to visualize. So one last point just around the data side of things, and then Shawn, if you have anything to add, feel free. I just wanted to point out that when you look at ERP initiatives, obviously your ERP data is very important, right? But we want to be able to take a broader view of the organization's data strategy. So there's a lot of data that's really valuable to the business that doesn't live in the ERP system or originate in the ERP system. Maybe it's in, you know, coming from other systems that you use, it's unstructured data sitting in documents and so on. So it's really important as you think about, you know, your business's reporting strategy or data strategy that you take more of that holistic company-wide view of, you know, how do I consolidate this and centralize this data? How do I model it so that it's consistent? How do I surface it in the right ways for my people? So we're going to jump into our next point here in a second, but Shawn, anything you wanted to add on that? 

Shawn Windle 

No, I think that's good. I'll maybe cover a couple points here in a little bit. 

Andy Yemens 

Okay, great. So the next one, #5, was around embedded AI and agents. And this is quickly becoming a must-have, obviously a big craze these days around artificial intelligence. I kind of have mixed feelings about this one-on-one hand, AI absolutely has unique potential to really change how businesses are getting work done. We're seeing that happening today. And the pace of progress within these tools and this technology is nothing short of amazing. So I'm a big believer in the impact that it can have on how we get work done. On the other hand, it's very intimidating for people to think about. There's a lot of, you know, people have a lot of concerns around data security and so on. I kind of look at this, if you do this right, this is really just the next set of tools in the toolbox to help drive automation, right? We had workflows, we had robotic process automation. This is really just that next tool in that evolution. And so when we think about, you know, AI strategy and use cases in the context of evaluating ERP system, we kind of think of this really along 3 legs of a stool. So the vendor that you, the ERP vendor should be delivering at a good pace now, first party AI use cases, right? So that's one of the legs of the stool. The partner consulting firm, if you're using one to help you with the implementation, hopefully is bringing some IP to the table to also add to those use cases. But then many of the vendors out there now are delivering tools within the platform that allow you to easily build out company specific AI use cases in many cases without really having to do a lot of data science or development from a technical standpoint. So very important that you kind of look at that holistically. If you believe the analysts, there's going to be an evolution here where, you know, kind of today's world is we have these agents that are assisting people in getting their work done. over time, that's going to gravitate to people having multiple agents doing work on their behalf. And you're really now trying to manage, kind of be a manager of these agents that are doing different bits and pieces of your job for you. And you're kind of orchestrating that. And then, and again, this is moving very quickly. We're seeing some examples now, autonomous agents that are just going to sit there and run behind the scenes and do some of this work for you. HSO actually has been building these agents that we can deploy for our clients kind of out-of-the-box. And we have one that we call Payflow, which is actually a vendor payment inquiry agent that kind of just sits there over the top of an inbox. Think about, you know, directing all your vendor inquiries on payments to AP payment inquiry at your domain.com. This agent's just watching that inbox. It's able to, you know, read the details of the e-mail. It can go check the ERP system, look for the status of that payment, and then author an e-mail back to the vendor and basically give them an update, right? Otherwise, they're going to be calling and emailing your AP department. And it's just a lot of unnecessary work. So that's a good example of an autonomous agent kind of working behind the scenes. And then if they can't figure something out, engaging a human that way. So I think it's really important as we evaluate ERP systems to make sure your vendor is positioned to really keep up with this rapid advancement. In tools or else, there's a real fear that your company could kind of fall behind the times very quickly here. And you want to make sure you pair that with strong organizational change management capabilities too. That's these, tools are really changing how people work. And so we need to support them by helping them manage that change effectively and be able to, again, kind of transform how they how they get work done. So that's a little bit on AI. Shawn, I think you've got the next one around seamless integration capabilities, but want to add anything to the AI topic before you jump in? 

Shawn Windle 

I do, actually. And I think, Andy, that's, again, we always look for nuggets that help our listeners to, you know, actually go out and confront selecting ERPs and talking to vendors and, oh my gosh, it's very confusing and they throw a bunch of stuff at you and it doesn't make sense, right? But here's a good nugget that I think Andy just said. I just want to reiterate this. That this concept of sort of the AI three-legged stool really around who's offering the AI solutions. You know, that first point about first party being the software vendor themselves, the second point being the implementation partner, and then the third being the tools in the platform that are hopefully not at a point where you have to be an AI, basically agent to build the agents. But I think that's a good way to sort of break down the layers of solutions around AI that an organization should look at when they're evaluating software. So again, what does the software vendor offer out-of-the-box for bank reconciliations, for close, just in accounting? There might be things in manufacturing around even forecasting and planning kinds of agents that are coming out or in projects. Andy's firm, and we've worked a lot with him on some of the project stuff that they've done. But on how do we, which resources are available and what projects should we assign them to based off of all the criteria in the system, right? Those are the kinds of agents that an app would offer just sort of quote un quote out-of-the-box with some configuration. The second thing would be an implementation partner who really knows an industry segment who's offering those agents on their own. And yeah, you're going to license or subscribe to those with the implementation partner, but that kind of shows you they actually understand your industry and that's important. And then the third being, maybe a little bit less now, but as you have internal people that they're evolving, right? I'm thinking of a client we did with HSO where they had a resource that was an awesome expert in an older technology platform, I mean, real old. And they were able to retool into the Microsoft. And then I can see that specific individual go into being more of a tools person around the agentic environment in Microsoft. Like you will have people that are going to be interested in using the tools that your ERP offers to build out agents for sure. So definitely you want to, I think it's a good way to kind of look at it. The next point here, and you can see it on my screen too, seamless integration capabilities. So there is no doubt that Every single one of our clients wants either data from somewhere in their supply chain, from vendors, partners, or their customers are demanding information in a certain way. you know, automagically, that used to automagically used to be EDI. And we have a lot of clients that are still working in the EDI environment. It's a very viable platform for sure. But even going deeper and ensuring that we're able to bring information from our systems, again, upstream or we're pulling downstream information into ours, you really have to look at solutions that have contemplated integrations probably maybe second or third in their architecture development. We talked about cloud first for sure. Application, gosh, I'm getting too technical for these calls today. But the concept of having written functionality in a way that it can be functioned, or can be executed, not just from the user. The UX, the user experience, or just like the forms that sit on top of it, but also from other systems interacting with your application through a business logic layer. I hope you guys are ready for a technical discussion today, because that's where this is going. So that's probably the most important thing that I would say there around seamless integration capabilities. Andy, I think back to you. 

Andy Yemens 

So extensibility is next. And we kind of could also call this flexibility, right? We need to be able to make sure that the system and the platform evolves to any unique or changing needs. So just like you're always going to want to integrate with other solutions, there will always be gaps to whatever ERP system you select. No ERP systems are going to do 100% of what you want exactly the way you want it. Effective organizational change management can help overcome some of that, but In many cases, there still are some gaps in capabilities. We also know that businesses change over time. Their needs and their business processes change. So we need to be able to adapt quickly as that happens. And then, you know, a lot of companies just have unique requirements that a ERP vendor may not have thought of building. So you need a way to address all of those situations. And so that's what we mean by extensibility is being able to extend the ERP system's capabilities to meet either unique needs that you have that the vendor didn't develop to, or any changing needs that you have as the business goes forward. So there's a couple different strategies for this. Historically, a lot of customizations were done in the ERP system to make the system do what you need, how you need it. And there are still scenarios where that makes sense. But in the cloud world, where you have to take more frequent updates of the platform, that can start to become a little disruptive depending on what type of changes you're trying to make. So there are, a lot of the platform vendors now, again, the Microsofts, the Oracles, Workdays, SAPs are also delivering. development tools within the platform itself to do these types of extensions. So in the Microsoft world, those are Microsoft Power Apps, Power Automate, and then of course, we call those low-code. There's also pro-code tools, which are more developer-level tools. But regardless of the approach you take, you should really make sure that the vendor has some way, whether it be their own tools or others, to really make sure that you've got the flexibility to address your unique needs as well as again be able to kind of change as things change going forward. So extensibility is certainly an important consideration there. All right, #8 was around advanced automation and workflows. So, we talked about how, AI and agents are kind of the next big thing for helping to automate certain business processes. Obviously true. I think there will always be a place for more traditional workflows. When we say workflow, what we're talking about is really the routing of work or transactions for approvals, notifications, you know, think about an expense report I put in that needs to be approved. By, say, my manager before it gets forwarded to accounting to reimburse or a purchase order or purchase request, right, that needs to be approved by different people depending on what it is and the spend level. Before we go out and send that out to a vendor. So there's always going to be, that need for workflows and some of the automation that can come around those, in terms of automating that next step in the process, right? So say we get the purchase order approved to go buy something, automatically posting that and sending it out to a vendor, right? So there's a lot of automation that comes in those workflows. So I think there'll always be a place for that. We also had, a little era of robotic process automation. A lot of those things are gravitating more to AI-based solutions. So common one in ERP is around AP automation, right? Being able to ingest an AP invoice, read what that is, pre-code that AP invoice, get it out for approval, and get the vendor paid once it's approved, right? Those things are now becoming more AI-driven because AI is just a smarter way of doing that. It can learn more and make decisions on your behalf. More than the other tools, but clearly still a need for automation, clearly still a need for workflow. And so if you think those are important to your business, trying to drive productivity levels higher, definitely make sure that your vendor has a good story for how to help you do that. 

Shawn Windle 

All right. I think our number nine, the final point on our list here is continuous innovation roadmap with meaningful R&D strategy. This is important, not just for today, but definitely for the future. When you've gone through the effort of differentiating each of these items with the vendors that you're talking to, which is not easy, because a lot of it sounds the same. But again, if you just dig in on each one of these areas, take some of the points that Andy's mentioned, take some of the points I've mentioned, you can go back and listen to this podcast again to really understand each of these following eight points. When you get into #9, you can ask questions like, okay, vendors, so what are you doing for extensibility into the future? Tell us about your long-term integration strategy. When you say you're cloud first, What does that really mean? How are you providing instances of the software and updating each of those instances of the software in a meaningful way, right? You'll be surprised at what some of those answers are. Most vendors are making application updates each week, and you might not even know about it. So, but that's a good thing, believe it or not. It sounds a little scary, especially if you're in the life sciences industry and you have to certify that the app is doing what you need to do. There are solutions specifically for these industries that have that specific issue, by the way. But the key thing here, again, to kind of bubble up as I dive into too much detail today, is... A vendor, you're not just buying them for today, you are buying them for the future. And especially in a subscription model, this recurring revenue model where you're paying each year, it's not like it used to be where you bought the software upfront and then you have a smaller maintenance fee or support fee each year. I'm sure most of you know that. It's basically the same amount each year. But the benefit of that is that you're basically getting I wouldn't say a new app each year, but the amount of functionality that's coming out and the technology platform enhancements, the agentic environment. the integrations, the workflow things we just talked about, the vendors are constantly making these tools better and better and better. And of course, this is why sometimes you have to do what's called regression testing when a major release comes out to make sure that you're, especially if you've extended the product, that it still works with some of those new changes. That's another thing I'll just sprinkle in there. If you have any questions about that, let us know. But the key thing is that if you don't have a vendor that's financially sound, and these days, that doesn't just mean millions of dollars in the bank, it means a lot more, but that they're constantly looking at what are the future trends and predicting the direction that these applications are going to go, and they're investing in those strategies today. So that when we do get into a world that is, let's say right now, it's this agentic world that I think we're already seeing it. Shoot, we had one vendor who said he was never going to hire another admin again, that he was of course going to hire consultants as an implementation partner, but he was just going to build out agents to do all the admin work. And I said, good luck with that. But there's a nice balance there. If anything, I want my people, Rebecca, to build their own agents so that their jobs are getting better and easier and more quality. But without building and looking at those kinds of frameworks today, you will get caught behind into the future as a client on your ERP. I see that more and more that the investment and the shared risk model with my clients and with their ERP vendor and with their implementation partner, it's just exponentially growing. Like our clients are growing sometimes at the, sometimes it's the detriment of the vendor, but usually it's because as the vendor's capabilities increase, my client's capabilities increase, the value they can bring to their customers and to their shareholders or stakeholders increases too. So that's just going to continue to go on and on and on, and I don't care what app you're buying, I don't care if it's, Evernote, that's an app we use for note taking. It's very specific, right? We've actually gone in and asked them about viability and what's happening with them. They happen to just get purchased recently, which can happen. So it's really important to have that R&D strategy discussion as well. Rebecca, that was a lot. And I hope people go back and listen to that to get more details, but I'll pass it back to you. 

Rebekah McCabe 

Yeah, it was quite a bit. And I think that you both provided a lot of great information. And hopefully, if anybody on this call has any questions, please feel free to reach out to us. We're more than happy always to answer any of your questions. And especially when you have such a technical conversation like this, sometimes it's difficult to really absorb exactly what was going on. So thank you, everyone who joined us. I think you covered everything that I was going to have you cover. I'm just going to wrap up for anybody on the call. Thank you again for joining us for today's call. Thank you, Andy, for taking time out of your day to join us and share all of that information. I always love having guests with as much experience as you do because it really provides a background that we don't always get because everyone comes from different experiences. Be sure to join us if you're on this call for our next webinar, which is actually scheduled in about nine minutes. Where we're going to go over the 2026 ERP trends and predictions part one. Shawn and I are going to just make some of our predictions for 2026 and go over some of the trends for the year. So even building off of the conversation we just had. ERP Advisors Group is one of the country's top independent enterprise software advisory firms. And we advise mid to large sized businesses on selecting and implementing business applications from enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, human capital management, business intelligence, and other enterprise applications, which equate to millions of dollars in software deals each year across many industries. Andy, would you like to add anything just about HSO to wrap us up? 

Andy Yemens 

No, only that if in your evaluation endeavors you're interested in learning more about what Microsoft can do across the different product offerings that they have, I know there's a lot there, right? So if you need help distilling that and understanding what might be a potential option for you all, we would be happy to do that. So thank you for the opportunity, Shawn and Rebekah, to join you here today. 

Rebekah McCabe 

Wonderful. Thank you, everyone. This has been a special installment of the ERP Advisor, and we look forward to you joining us again. 

Shawn Windle 

Take care, everybody.