What Companies Say About Building a Salesforce-Based Best-of-Breed System

What Companies Say About Building a Salesforce-Based Best-of-Breed System

As many companies are looking to move their systems to the cloud, they also want cloud-based software that can be easily integrated with other apps. Third-party applications that share the same platform are easier to manage and integrate. They provide users with a consistent interface and experience. Salesforce has a huge lead over its competitors when it comes to ecosystem and platform maturity, as it clearly has the most applications, customers, revenue and advanced features, making it the clear market leader, says Gartner, the large research firm. The Salesforce Platform is the world’s most trusted and comprehensive cloud platform for building social and mobile cloud apps. It powers Salesforce CRM, more than 3 million custom apps built by customers and more than 2,000 apps developed by partners in its ecosystem. Because it is a 100 percent native Salesforce solution, Rootstock cloud ERP easily integrates with other, wholly separate apps built on the Salesforce platform, helping customers build a best of breed enterprise solution. Built entirely on the Salesforce Platform, Rootstock’s solution includes “out of the box” integration with the Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud; mobile accessibility and finance and accounting apps; plus Salesforce Communities, Salesforce Chatter and the Salesforce […]

4 Myths About Cloud ERP Software

Manufacturing firms have been moving to the cloud for their ERP software. Yet some myths about cloud ERP persist. Myth 1 – Cloud ERP is Too Costly We’ve heard this one many times before. But industry analysts disagree. Their studies conclude that cloud-based ERP software reduces infrastructure, maintenance and lifecycle costs by as much 54%, and save money and time by increasing real-time collaboration and reducing time to market. Cloud ERP lets firms spend less on IT. Over a three- to five-year period, consider the hardware, software, implementation, customization, training, support and maintenance costs required for on-premise ERP. These items simply do not exist or are easier to implement with cloud ERP, which doesn’t need large computers or onsite staff to maintain them. Myth 2 – Cloud ERP is Not Secure Another persistent myth about cloud ERP is that it’s not secure. When cloud solutions first appeared, sure, security was a major concern. But this is no longer true with the best cloud-based ERP systems of today. Security for these systems includes firewalls, two-factor authentication, advanced encryption, frequent security updates, and detection. Compare the cloud ERP security to legacy ERP security. The Aberdeen Group recently wrote in the article “Web […]

How to Sell New Cloud ERP Systems to CFOs

When hoping to move to a new manufacturing cloud ERP system, sooner or later, you will need to have a discussion with the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) or the person who acts as such for your company. The CFO’s job is not to join in on your enthusiasm over all the terrific benefits that you plan to achieve with your cloud-based ERP system. That’s not what CROs do. We need to understand that the CFO’s role, with us and everyone else, is to turn down many proposals to assure that the few most important can thrive. Thus, the CFO asks the right questions to provide the rest of the C-suite with the correct risk/reward insights so that they know when to approve a suggestion or not. Since there are only so many resources in an organization, the CFO needs to assure that they are allocated properly. What to Tell a CFO about Your Proposed ERP Manufacturing Software First of all, you need to explain that what you are now using to track the business no longer works. At any particular time, if someone asks you how much you have in inventory or if you are making money on that big […]

The Oracle-NetSuite Acquisition – Good for Cloud ERP, Not So Good for Manufacturers

And why Salesforce-Rootstock – Salesforce’s ecosystem is a better combination than Oracle-Netsuite! Oracle’s recent acquisition of NetSuite is great news for cloud ERP, but may not be such great news for manufacturers. The NetSuite acquisition validates cloud ERP and helps to cement the technology as business critical, but both NetSuite and Oracle have platforms that have never been integrated, and NetSuite’s ecosystem is small and offers a limited number of solutions. Even if they can be integrated, the two systems cannot come close to the large number of products that are natively integrated on the Salesforce ecosystem and can provide a true, end-to-end cloud solution. Oracle and NetSuite After years of ignoring the cloud, Oracle is finally trying to expand into cloud services with the expectation that the extra sales will cover lost sales in its core software business. With the acquisition of NetSuite, Oracle hopes to set up a new retail cloud-computing division to compete with other retail cloud platforms from Amazon, Google and Microsoft. NetSuite is a cloud ERP system for professional services, retailers, distribution and other industries. It boasts strong market leadership and aggressive marketing, spending almost $100 million in annual advertising, marketing and media. Combining NetSuite […]

Rootstock Announces ERP 101 Webinar Series

Rootstock Announces ERP 101 Webinar Series Turns the Complicated and Intricate Topics of Enterprise Resource Planning into Understandable Business English for Manufacturing Personnel SAN FRANCISCO – JULY 27, 2016 – Rootstock® (San Ramon, Calif.), the leading provider of manufacturing and supply chain cloud ERP applications for the Salesforce Force.com platform today announced that starting Tuesday, August 2, Rootstock will introduce a webinar series that unlocks the mysteries of ERP for all types of manufacturing business people from engineers to salespeople, project leaders, buyers and other company managers. Hosted by David Bush, a 30 year veteran of manufacturing and ERP/MRP systems experience, the sessions will cover everything from a basic understanding of what ERP is to understanding how ERP interacts with almost every aspect of the manufacturing process. “As ERP systems have become a must-have for today’s successful manufacturers, it becomes obvious that every contributor to the organization’s progress must have a basic understanding of the responsibilities and contributions of each inter-related department,” states Bush. “ERP is a comprehensive solution that touches every aspect of the business but that does not make it complex or difficult to explain. This webinar series will help all types of employees appreciate what different departments […]

Does Oracle Lead Salesforce in ERP?

by Pat Garrehy, CEO, Rootstock Software In Oracle’s June 16, 2016 earnings call1, Larry Ellison, Oracle Chairman and CEO states, “[Salesforce] don’t compete in the largest category, which is ERP, also not HCM, again supply chain and manufacturing again and we think that gives us a huge advantage that our footprint is wider.” In their 2016 Q1 earnings report, he states, “In some of our most important SaaS markets, such as ERP, HCM, Supply Chain and Manufacturing, Salesforce.com does not participate at all. By successfully competing in all of these markets, Oracle has the ability to sustain its high growth over a long period of time. That should make it easy for us to pass Salesforce.com and become the largest SaaS and PaaS cloud company in the world.” What Does Salesforce Provide For Manufacturers? It is common knowledge that Salesforce provides the world’s leading apps for Marketing, Sales and Support, all working seamlessly together on the same platform. What may not be as well known is that Salesforce has built an incredible platform that today features nearly 3,000 ISV applications. These products have been widely adopted, with over 3 million installs to date. The beauty of this platform is that […]

Building an End-to-End True Cloud Solution

A salesperson wants to track a sales order after he closes an opportunity. A production controller wants to know what’s coming down the pipeline so he can plan capacity utilization. A manufacturing firm needs to be able to coordinate delivery of raw materials from multiple suppliers to multiple plants. There are many ERP vendors on the market that promise to deliver cloud-based solutions, but only a true cloud ERP solution like Rootstock built on the Salesforce platform and encompassing an ecosystem of integrated products can seamlessly handle these real-world manufacturing challenges. Markets and supply chains are spread all over the world and consumers’ demands change rapidly, creating daily challenges for manufacturers of all sizes. Firms realize that they need an ERP solution that can accommodate any workflow, implement social collaboration, add new capabilities and quickly address changing requirements. Forward-thinking businesses are looking beyond the glib promises of hosted solutions and two-tier hybrid systems for comprehensive end-to-end enterprise management solutions that support the flow of people, processes and information. We call this ideal enterprise-wide system an end-to-end true cloud ERP solution and it connects ERP with customer relationship management (CRM), human resources management (HRM), financial management, document/knowledge management, and workflow management […]

Not All Cloud Solutions are Alike

Manufacturers know that to succeed in today’s dynamic, evolving markets, they need a cloud ERP system that allows their firm to be agile, productive, mobile and connected to the real-time data they need to make critical business decisions. Manufacturing firms can’t afford to settle for less than the best solution, and they can’t afford to keep pouring money and human resources into antiquated legacy ERP systems or implement flawed systems that have been rushed into the cloud. There are so many choices available that it can be difficult for manufacturing firms to choose the ERP solution that is right for them. Do you implement a solution from a familiar vendor even if they are new to cloud ERP? Do you believe all the hype about hosted solutions? Or do you hedge your bets and go with a two-tier, hybrid legacy-cloud ERP system that does not really  solve the problems found in on-premise ERP systems? The best answer is a true cloud solution comprising a comprehensive ecosystem of products tailored to your specific needs, an end-to-end solution that will deliver the cloud ERP advantages that will help your enterprise succeed. Manufacturers can build a true cloud solution on the Salesforce Cloud […]

The Problem with Hosted Solutions

Every company wants to move to the cloud. Most notably, manufacturing firms want to realize the benefits of cloud-based ERP systems, including real-time access to critical business data, improved productivity, scalability, mobility, integration with other software, and greater return on investment. The cloud is now a critical path technology for manufacturers, and as a result, the cloud ERP market is being flooded with ERP “solutions” that either fail to deliver on all of their promises or don’t solve manufacturers’ problems at all. Take hosted solutions. Eager to get into the cloud ERP market, some large software vendors are selling hosted solutions presented as real cloud solutions. However, these hosted solutions are at best fake cloud solutions and bring with them many disadvantages. Many on-premise vendors like Microsoft now offer hosted versions of their software. So what’s the difference between Rootstock on Salesforce, a Software-as-a-Service (Saas) ERP solution that is designed to run in the cloud and integrated with an ecosystem of products, and a product that was originally designed to run on-premise but is now being offered as a hosted solution? With a hosted solution, companies rely on an external services provider to manage their ERP system. The organization connects […]

Enterprise Apps Today Reviews Top 11 Cloud ERP Vendors for 2-Tier ERP Systems

Gartner expects that most organizations will shift from monolithic ERP to a hybrid approach by 2017. Gartner is not alone. Accenture Technology agrees that a distinctive feature of today’s ERP is that it is built inherently on a hybrid architecture. Commonly, such an architecture is referred to as a “Two-Tier Model”—that is, the combination of core ERP capabilities with cloud/Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based capabilities on the edge in areas such as sales, CRM and collaboration—all integrated with the ERP system. Accenture continues, “CIOs today need to manage the legacy environment, ERP systems (sourced either through a public or private cloud), SaaS technologies, as well as various platform as a service, business process as a service or SaaS offerings from vendors and integrators. And all the while companies need to be thinking about the proper way to incorporate today’s leading technologies including in-memory computing, analytics, mobile and social. In the April 12, 2016 issue of Enterprise Apps Today, reviewer Drew Robb discusses two-tier ERP software and looks at the leading Cloud ERP providers. According to Robb in agreeing with Gartner and Accenture, finds Cloud ERP software is becoming increasingly popular for two-tier ERP deployments, the model Gartner describes in which companies run more […]