Future-Proofing Your ETO Business Management Technology

Engineer-to-order (ETO) companies create value for their customers by putting specialized expertise, innovative engineering, and project manufacturing operations to work. However, many ETO firms are not yet taking advantage of the best of modern business management technology. In this series of blog posts, we consider several pressing industry issues and discuss how Sikich can help ETO companies get ahead by deploying Sikich HEADSTART for ETO, a business management technology solution based on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Recently, we described the digital lag in the ETO industry, gave highlights of the benefits of Sikich HEADSTART for ETO, explored how ETO companies can gain configuration capabilities, and considered the potential of customer relationship management (CRM) software for ETO firms. Today, we give you a preview of what an engagement with Sikich might look like and how we evolve our ETO solution.

Sikich continues to innovate HEADSTART for ETO

As Microsoft continues to refine and extend Business Central, delivering major upgrades twice a year, Sikich evolves HEADSTART for ETO. In the Microsoft partnership, Sikich has early visibility of upcoming solution enhancements and often shares the requests and feedback of ETO companies and industrial equipment manufacturers with the Microsoft development teams.

As we build on to HEADSTART for ETO, we follow the stringent quality standards Microsoft has set for partner solutions. We perform extensive testing to verify that we meet technical criteria and indeed can help customers achieve their functional goals. We never modify or customize the original Microsoft code, but create additions and extensions to augment it.

For companies using or considering HEADSTART for ETO, the high level of discipline in the Sikich and Microsoft collaboration means that they don’t need to worry about the risks of barely tested, unproven innovations. Your production and business environment may never be as challenging as the testing which HEADSTART for ETO and Business Central undergo. You can also be confident that you will be able to use the solution in conjunction with other Microsoft technologies, such as Power Apps. Finally, just as important, HEADSTART for ETO follows a well-aligned roadmap for additional capabilities. The solution can support you far into the future of your business and the ETO industry.

Reviewing systems and processes before delivering the new ERP solution

Part of future-proofing an important undertaking like an ERP deployment is ensuring that the business is ready to take that step. As part of your deployment project, Sikich consultants will review your technology environment to assess its cloud-readiness and security posture, and suggest adjustments to mitigate your risk and ensure a smooth implementation.

Before you deploy a solution like HEADSTART for ETO, it’s also worth your time to assess the processes in your business and make note of any opportunities for improving them. Even before you make significant technology changes, you may be able to improve the company’s health, efficiency, and productivity by reviewing its current workings and introducing practical, non-disruptive adjustments. For many clients, Sikich performs business process alignments (BPA) to review their operations in comparison to the best practices in the industry’s most successful and established organizations.

When you revise your business processes and roles based on a Sikich BPA, your operations can become more efficient and value-driven. Your software deployment will align more closely with your goals and deliver tangible benefits in less time than if you were to transition your current-state processes to a new technology platform.

Partnering with Sikich

Our consultants deploy Sikich HEADSTART for ETO for you and provide the training to help everybody use it comfortably. They perform any needed integrations with other business systems and migrate data from legacy software into HEADSTART for ETO. Many Sikich clients use design software such as AutoCAD. We use a well-tested third-party software product to pull information related to your BOMs from AutoCAD into HEADSTART for ETO, and we continue to develop and standardize integrations to other CAD systems.

Our deployments incorporate the experience of hundreds of successful ERP and other complex software projects. We know how to keep the effort moving quickly toward a successful go-live. Going by what we’ve seen and heard from clients, HEADSTART for ETO deployments are less costly and roughly six months faster than those of comparable, alternative solutions. One variable in this is the extent of needed configurations, although your internal team will likely be able to take care of most of these. Deployments as well as training can happen virtually, through the cloud.

Ensuring user adoption

Even with modern software that incorporates findings from thousands of research hours with users in real businesses, you still need to plan how you want to pave the way for people who may be used to a certain style of working and communicating. You need everybody to be on the new software platform at the same time, without shadow IT or workarounds. It may take an outreach effort to accomplish this. Sikich helps you create a communications plan to drive rapid, confident adoption and work with the most important influencers in the company to showcase the potential payoffs of the new software system. For IT team members it will be important to see that HEADSTART for ETO presents low demands for ongoing maintenance compared to more traditional ERP systems. Automatic updates and centralized management in the cloud greatly reduce the workload of day-to-day administration.

Transferable technology outside of the ETO industry

In this ebook, we discuss industry issues and Sikich HEADSTART for ETO in the context of the many ETO companies we have known and supported over many years. Bear in mind, however, that your business does not have to be a classical ETO or CTO shop to take advantage of this ERP solution. We have seen that HEADSTART for ETO can be a great fit for a variety of companies that manufacture equipment, machines, or specialty vehicles. These may not be the complex, expensive machines that are typical for the ETO industry. But they may involve lengthy, multilevel BOMs with a similar combination of standard and custom components. Their production may become greatly more manageable with the right project management capabilities, and they may require post-sale, revenue-generating services.

When you decide to document your requirements and review possible ERP solutions for your ETO or CTO business, be sure to involve all the stakeholders who should have a say. The executive team has to be on board with the effort. The CFO and finance managers will need to help everybody assess the true financial benefits and costs of a software deployment and the associated changes in how the business works. IT, of course, should weigh in on the functionality, dependability, security, and manageability of the systems you consider.

It’s also important that your company’s head of engineering and key influencers from the engineering team participate in discussions, solution demos, and decisions. They will have critical considerations and questions that can make a difference in your choice and the results of an ERP purchase and deployment—and nobody else will likely have their informed perspective. In fact, if a potential technology vendor is not asking for engineers to be involved, take that as a warning sign.

The next step

If you want to have an exploratory conversation about our solution or arrange for a demo, here are some next steps:

• Read the previous blog posts in this series:
  • Technology modernization comes to the ETO industry
  • An ERP solution tailored for ETO requirements
  • Choosing between embedded or standalone configuration technology for ETO companies
  • Why should ETO companies rely on CRM software?
• Download our full ebook, Take Engineering and Production Excellence To The Next Level, for free.
• Contact the Sikich team.
• Watch a video about some capabilities of HEADSTART for ETO on our YouTube channel.
• Learn about Sikich CRM and ERP services.
• Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.