mrc's Cup of Joe Blog

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ERP Systems

How to Build Custom Apps Over Your ERP (Without Changing It)

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Let me ask you a question: Does your ERP system actually fit your business?

Does it match the way your people work and/or how your business operates day to day? Probably not…and you’re not alone. I talk to IT leaders all the time who tell me the same thing. Their ERP handles the core stuff fine. Beyond that? There are gaps.

Watch the full walkthrough: In this 20-minute video, we build a purchase order form, and approval workflow, all over ERP data (without touching the ERP).

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The surprising benefits of custom ERP reporting

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EducationSummary: ERP systems rarely provide a perfect fit for your company’s unique reporting needs. While this may seem like a minor problem, it leads to serious issues. These issues not only waste time, they can even halt business growth. Learn how one company created custom reporting over their ERP system–and the surprising benefits they saw as a result.
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Tied to an outdated enterprise system (like an ERP)? Watch this…

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EducationSummary: Enterprise systems pose something of a “Catch-22.” If you don’t customize the system, it won’t perfectly fit your needs. If you do customize it, you’re locked into that system. Watch this short video to learn how to avoid these problems and customize your enterprise system without locking your company down.
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Tied to an outdated enterprise system (like an ERP)? Watch this…Read More »

Webinar Replay: Create custom reporting over your enterprise system

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EducationSummary: Enterprise systems (like ERPs) pose something of a “Catch-22.” If you don’t customize the system, it won’t perfectly fit your needs. If you do customize it, you’re locked into that system. If you’re facing this challenge, check out this webinar replay and learn how one company delivered custom reporting over their ERP system–without altering the system at all.
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How to augment your ERP to fit your needs (without expensive customization)

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EducationSummary: Enterprise systems pose something of a “Catch-22.” If you don’t customize the system, it won’t perfectly fit your needs. If you do customize it, you’re locked into that system. In this article, you’ll learn how to avoid these problems and customize your enterprise system without locking your company down.
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Webinar Replay: Create custom reporting over your enterprise system

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EducationSummary: Enterprise systems (like ERPs) pose something of a “Catch-22.” If you don’t customize the system, it won’t perfectly fit your needs. If you do customize it, you’re locked into that system. If you’re facing this challenge, check out this webinar replay and learn how one company delivered custom reporting over their ERP system–without altering the system at all.
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How to create custom budgeting over your enterprise system

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EducationSummary: Enterprise systems (like ERPs) rarely provide the budgeting capabilities to precisely fit your business. As a result, budgeting becomes a time-consuming, spreadsheet-driven process. Learn how one company solved this problem, automating their budgeting process and delivering custom budgeting applications to their executives on-demand.
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Learn how other companies deliver custom ERP reporting

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EducationSummary: ERP systems rarely provide a perfect fit for your company’s unique reporting needs. The problem is, you’re stuck in something of a “Catch-22.” If you don’t customize the system, it won’t perfectly fit your needs. If you do customize it, you’re locked into that system. In this article, you’ll learn how other businesses are creating custom reporting over their ERP systems, without locking themselves down.
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21 ways m-Power will improve your enterprise systems

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EducationAccording to Forrester, “approximately half of ERP customers are currently on releases that are two versions behind the current release, which may be four years old or more.” For these companies, upgrading to a new ERP version or package is often too difficult or expensive. Past customizations or enhancements have virtually locked these companies into their current ERP versions. An upgrade represents countless dollars and months of extra work—a project that most companies can’t afford to undertake.

The sad reality: These companies are locked into their enterprise system. Many feel tied to the old features and capabilities of their outdated systems.
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Weekly recap: 10 development predictions, the need for adaptable ERPs, and more…

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EducationEvery week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on application development predictions, why ERP systems must adapt to business changes, and more. I hope you find them useful:

SMEs must be able to adapt their ERP to business change
A recent study by Aberdeen Group highlights the importance of being able to react quickly/inexpensively to business change without major disruptions. In a growing organization, change is inevitable, and companies stuck with inflexible ERP systems will ultimately suffer. If your company is stuck with an outdated ERP system, this guide outlines one way to fix that problem. …

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Think your outdated ERP keeps you from mobile apps? Think again…

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Education“We’d love to build mobile apps, but we can’t because our business runs on an ancient ERP system.” I’ve heard that phrase (or variations of the phrase) with increasing frequency recently. Many people think that mobile apps (or modern apps in general) aren’t even an option because their business still runs on an outdated enterprise system.

If you’re in that boat, I have some good news: You can still build mobile apps even if you’re tied to an old system. Better yet, you can even integrate these modern apps directly with your enterprise system…all without any modifications to the underlying code. To learn more, check out this video:

Stuck with an outdated application? Here’s a solution.

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Save MoneyMany companies face this issue: They’re stuck to an outdated enterprise system (like an ERP). The reasons vary. It might be the
– cost to upgrade,
– the high degree to which they’ve customized the package, or
– the fact that their application vendor is out of business.

But the problem remains. These companies are locked into their current software.

Meanwhile the world is changing at an ever increasing rate. Their applications are looking and feeling dated, and the company is falling behind their competition.

Is your company facing this problem? If so, here’s a new guide that might help: 21 ways m-Power will improve your enterprise systems. It outlines and explains m-Power’s unique approach to enterprise system integration, what types of modern features it lets you add to your existing system.

Building an executive dashboard over an aging ERP system

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ProductivityIf your company runs on an aging ERP system or has difficulty connecting disparate data sources, here’s a great success story you’ll want to read. A manufacturing company needed a centralized place to access reports on the web. The challenge: It needed to integrate with their aging ERP system and pull data from 9 separate plants. The additional challenge: No one on their IT staff had any experience building web applications.

The result: They built a custom, web-based executive dashboard that pulled data from their 9 separate plants and integrated with their ERP system…in just 12 weeks. To find out how they did it, you can read the whole story right here.

The huge trend that no one is talking about

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Save MoneyThe cloud may get all of the press these days, but are companies actually doing anything about it? Probably not as much as the press would have you believe. I recently spoke with an IT professional at a large company about that very subject. When asked if his company had any plans for the cloud, his response was simple and straightforward: “Our whole business runs on the mainframe, and it runs well. Why would we move to the cloud?”

While it’s just one company, and one opinion, I get the feeling that many businesses are in a similar situation. There are many, many companies that have invested so much time and money into their current systems, they couldn’t possibly justify ditching everything and moving to the cloud any time soon.

That begs the obvious question: If these companies are stuck with old systems, how can they possibly keep up with tech trends? What if they want modern features and capabilities that aren’t supported by their outdated system? …

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