If you’re like me, you love your mother a lot. She’s an important part of your life and each year you call her up on Mother’s Day, tell her you love her and listen for two hours while she tells you about the new Korean soap opera she’s watching. I love my mom. I also love the ERP my company sells, QAD Adaptive ERP. They are very similar except in the many ways they are not, which are significant. Since it’s Mother’s Day, which in many countries is synonymous with Enterprise Software Day, I decided to take a moment to dive into some of the fundamental similarities and differences between my mom and QAD Adaptive ERP.
How They Are Alike
So, how is enterprise software designed to run manufacturing companies similar to an 85-year-old grandmother? Well, I can depend on both. Mom is always there for me. Each time I visit, I can count on a hot, nutritious breakfast every morning by 8:30 a.m. QAD Adaptive ERP is super dependable too. It has 99.5% uptime. I can reach my mom 24 hours a day by phone (although I can’t leave a message because she doesn’t know how to set up her voicemail). QAD customers can access QAD Adaptive ERP on a mobile phone, on a tablet or on a computer any time from pretty much anywhere in the world. Like my mom, QAD Adaptive ERP just keeps getting better. QAD has been providing ERP for manufacturers since 1979 and each update adds new capabilities and features to help manufacturers run their businesses in the face of disruption. My mom’s been providing love and security to me since…well, a long time. While getting old is hard, Mom’s continuing to get better. She finds new estate sales to visit on weekends, she got vaccinated last month and she’s tipping better at restaurants.
Mom and QAD Adaptive ERP both provide real-time data and insight. Every time I visit her, my mom gives me real-time insight into my flaws, points out errors I have made, careers I should have pursued and reasons I am not married anymore. She’s convinced me to get a living trust. QAD Adaptive ERP gives users a never-ending stream of real-time data, providing clear visibility into their business and giving them information they need to make informed decisions. Mom’s memory is not what it once was, so she sometimes forgets to point out dumb stuff I’ve done. On the other hand, QAD Adaptive ERP forgets nothing. Which leads us into…
How They Are Different
First of all, Mom has no knowledge of tax statutes and reporting deadlines in Belgium, while QAD Adaptive ERP has no knowledge of how much gasoline or round steak cost in 1952, or how muscular my Dad was when he was in the Army.
QAD Adaptive ERP is also more agile than Mom, who is 85 years old and suffers from arthritis in her knees. QAD Adaptive ERP is not only agile, it helps make our customers agile too. Change is constant and disruption comes in a never-ending stream. QAD Adaptive ERP is designed to help manufacturers react quickly, pivot and keep their business processes aligned with their business strategy regardless of whether or not a giant cargo ship gets wedged sideways across the Suez Canal. It provides supply chain visibility so manufacturers can quickly adjust to demand fluctuations and reduce or increase inventory levels accordingly.
Another way my mother is different from our ERP is in the area of adaptability. As I said, Mom is 85. She’s an old dog (by dog I mean gracefully aging woman) and it’s hard for her to learn new tricks. She’s still got a landline. She has no idea what WiFi is, what it does or what her password is. She has saved the box from everything she’s bought since the 80s in case she needs to return it. When she needs food, she drives to the grocery store and when she needs money she walks into the bank. She does not trust ATMs and will not pay at the pump. QAD Adaptive ERP, on the other hand, is extremely adaptable. Customers can personalize different areas to meet the needs of individual users. Those same users can write new apps without having to write code. They can upgrade one module at a time and leave the rest like it is. The term version lock has no meaning to them. QAD Adaptive ERP is adaptable. It’s in the name. It’s not QAD Rigid ERP or QAD “You Can Never Change It” ERP.
Unlike my mother, QAD Adaptive ERP always tries to adopt new technologies. QAD CTO Tony Winter leads an entire virtual lab staffed by engineers who run business case analyses on new technologies to see if and how those technologies can help QAD customers. QAD Adaptive ERP just added a data lake that sifts tons of data, breaks it up into manageable chunks and turns it into real-time analytics that help people run their business. Mom refuses to get a smartphone. “I don’t need a thousand-dollar phone for goodness sake.” She won’t text. She writes checks to pay her bills and streams zero movies per month. Pictures are for frames at Mom’s house. Clouds are for shade and rain.
Celebrate Your Mom, but also Celebrate Your ERP
There’s more, but this should be enough to get you thinking about your own Mom and your own ERP solution. Just remember, however, on this Mother’s Day, that your mother and your ERP are two different things, and both are worthy of being celebrated. You wouldn’t be here without the first and you couldn’t run your business without the second. Don’t expect your mother to generate production orders and don’t expect your ERP to make waffles.
