New Financial Apps Created Specifically for Manufacturers and Distributors
Big Interest in Internet of Things (at Rootstock Booth and Elsewhere)
Many Noticed ERP Pioneer Jan Baan's Rootstock Connection
This year's Dreamforce was held last week in San Francisco but it won't be over for some time, based on responses from attendees. Although Sales Wave Analytics from Salesforce came out in a public pilot in June, Philip Cooper, vice president of the Analytics Cloud, said during the Dreamforce Analytics Cloud keynote Thursday, that Salesforce was taking the best of Wave Analytics and bringing it to a Service Wave application as well. More role specific apps are coming to sit atop the Wave Analytics platform, with the goal of pulling the most relevant information out of Salesforce Sales Cloud (CRM) and from outside applications such as Rootstock Manufacturing ERP.
According to Charles Babcock, editor at large for InformationWeek, the speech made it clear that "Salesforce will represent a big change in how analytics will be adopted and, in some cases, play out in the enterprise. It will have less to do with a select priesthood of PhDs toiling away in back rooms. It will have a lot to do with putting tools into line-of-business people to make lots of basic and relevant information available to all, with the amount available depending on your role. The sales manager will review data from all sales reps. Junior sales reps will look mainly at their own data and that of their own customers, not that of another sales rep."
"The data contained in your ERP can be a gold mine," explains Pat Garrehy, CEO of Rootstock. "Now, with Rootstock's ERP Performance Dashboards, customers are able to analyze and act on this valuable data quickly across departments and facilities. Built on the Salesforce Wave Analytics Platform, access to this data is supercharged to allow organizations to quickly adjust to their markets by drilling into insights and discovering trends across the business and industry to preemptively address needs, identify opportunities and take immediate actions."
At Dreamforce, Rootstock demonstrated its pilot of ERP Performance Dashboards as part of the Rootstock Manufacturing, Distribution and Supply Chain Apps. To customer compliments, Garrehy added, "We are very pleased to bring the power of the Wave Analytics Platform to our robust 100 percent Force.com-based ERP solution."
Rootstock Adds New Options for Financial Apps
Being focused on manufacturing and distribution organizations, Rootstock, for some time, has wanted to assure that these customers have the financial features that are of importance to them. Commencing the first quarter of 2016, Rootstock Cloud ERP buyers will be able to order a new set of Rootstock financial Apps, including Accounts Receivable (A/R), Accounts Payable (A/P) and General Ledger (G/L). The new suite of Financial Apps will include features such as A/R Cash Application and Credit Management, A/P Payment Processing and General Ledger and Journal Management. Financial Reporting will include fully customizable A/R and A/P Aged Trial Balances and Sub-Ledger analysis as well as Management reports for Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and Cash Management Analysis.
Come 2016, customers that want their Receivables, Payables, Ledger and Reporting software from a Salesforce partner will still be able to easily integrate that partner's financials with Rootstock Cloud ERP in the same manner as those seamless connections exist today or use the new Rootstock Financial apps. At Dreamforce, Rootstock verified that the latter will be especially interesting to "hub and spoke" organizations, in which the individual operating unit is free to have its own ERP and local accounting functions but all financial reporting is done at the corporate level, providing them with a very easy, flexible solution. If such an organization subscribes to Rootstock’s A/R and A/P, there will a single integration to the company's G/L of choice.
Dreamforce Confirms - Internet of Things Becoming Major Opportunity for Cloud ERP
Much of the talk at Dreamforce was over the coming impact over the Internet of Things and how it could be leveraged by ERP users. There is no doubt about it. The Internet of Things technology revolution has arrived. And, as confirmed by Dreamforce attendees at the Rootstock booth, the earliest adopters of IoT are manufacturers who are faced with enormous strategic and operational challenges. They understand and appreciate how a Cloud ERP will help them face the future with solutions that help manage, analyze and share the vast amount of data from all those smart, connected IoT devices.
Since the Internet of Things involves huge amounts of data, in many cases, it needs an IT infrastructure way beyond what the majority of small, mid-sized and even many larger companies want to supervise. But with Cloud ERP, using the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, combined with Salesforce.com’s recently announced IoT platform (Thunder),users are provided access to ERP software, databases and communication with IoT devices in a newer, better manner.
As an example, using Rootstock Cloud ERP in conjunction with the IoT (via sensor in production machinery), schedulers can receive a heads-up to when a machine will be down for maintenance. As the data brings the unit closer and closer to needing maintenance, alerts of the machine's impending unavailability will be noted. That's not a big jump for Rootstock users.
For instance, today, with the Rootstock Capacity Requirement Planning module, one can already view a work center’s available capacity on a day by day basis (in terms of labor hours or machine hours) in a colorful graphical format. Its ‘drag and drop’ feature supports moving the schedule for a given work order within a work center from one day to another. If moving up the priority (and display) of a work order within a work center is required, this ‘drag and drop’ feature allows the altering of the priority. The schedule is even adjusted automatically when the ‘work order’ is moved from one day to another.
Big Buzz on Wave Analytics and ERP at Dreamforce
Rootstock COO and Executive Vice President, Chuck Olinger, gave a standing room presentation to Dreamforce attendees on Wave Analytics, the first cloud analytics platform designed for every business user, making it easier than ever for anyone to explore data, uncover new insights and take action instantly from any device. Olinger demonstrated how Rootstock ERP Performance Dashboards extend the power of the Salesforce Wave Analytics Platform to help every business user monitor, measure and analyze the enterprise's company performance, profitability and efficiency from any device. (See photo with Jan Baan in audience.)
Rootstock COO and Senior Vice President Chuck Olinger provides presentation to standing room audience including Jan Baan (far right).
Olinger explained that, by delivering the ERP Performance Dashboards on Wave Analytics, Rootstock ensures manufacturing and distribution customers are able to explore and discover actionable insights on key KPI's and measurements that let them identify areas of their businesses that need attention before they become a crisis. Questions addressed by the Rootstock ERP Performance Dashboards include:
- Are we meeting our planned production dates and costs?
- Are we using our factory and/or warehouse resources (labor, equipment) efficiently?
- Are our inventory levels adequate to satisfy demands from our customers?
- Are our inventory levels excessive?
Answers to these questions and many more will let Rootstock users make informed decisions on ways to improve performance within various parts of their organizations.
Baan's Opinions on ERP Still Influential a Generation Later
Each industry has its opinion leaders, people who others listen to year after year. Certainly, Jan Baan holds that esteem in the ERP industry. From the time he started the Baan Company in 1978 and grew it to a $680 million company in 1998 and sold it, Baan's word on ERP was gold...and continues to be so. What Baan says, people listen to and put into practice.
Imagine, then, the excitement of so many visitors to the Rootstock booth at Dreamforce seeing Jan Baan there, ready to talk to them about Rootstock. Some wondered and asked, "How did you get him to visit your booth?" Visit? No, Jan Baan was working the booth. Here's why.
Baan is a director of Vanenburg, which is a premier channel partner for Rootstock, concentrating efforts in Europe. Vanenburg represents Rootstock’s cloud based ERP and offers full service and support for European customers. There's a certain irony here.
“Jan Baan developed his Vanenburg Software team to help customers address their current and ever changing requirements,” emphasizes Garrehy. “It wasn’t that many years ago that we were competing with legacy ERP products. We recently discovered that our visions for the future requirements on enterprise ERP were closely aligned. Now, working together, we are delivering best in class solutions that connect manufacturers and distributors with all members of their communities. We believe companies that have been getting by with systems they implemented in the run up to Y2K should and will adopt new contemporary cloud ERP solutions.”
Adds Baan, “This partnership is all about next-generation business.Combining Rootstock’s ERP solutions with Vanenburg’s social collaboration platform (Collabrr) is a vision shared by Vanenburg and Rootstock. Together, our two companies are providing all the tools a company needs to be successful in today's rapidly changing environment.”
The Next Dreamforce is a Year Away
Enjoy some of the photographs and captions from last week's Dreamforce. But, don't wait until next year's event to learn more about what is happening in manufacturing cloud ERP. Contact us today.
Connect with us on social media:
https://twitter.com/rootstockmfg
https://www.linkedin.com/company/rootstock-software
