Taking the Pain Out of ERP

Enterprise Resource Planning systems are often considered crucial tools in making companies efficient competitors. But the search for the right ERP system can be as stressful as shopping for a new house or apartment, according to Barry Lederman, vice president of business development for Woodland Hills, Calif.–based information-technology company SoftEngine.

He said some ERP systems seem useless if they can’t deal with issues specific to a field such as the idiosyncratic fashion world. Other systems are so specialized that they are unable to give users a view of the entire business; otherwise, their users literally cannot see the forest for the trees.

SoftEngine is one company that tries to take the pain out of shopping for an ERP system. It customizes systems for its clients—more than 40 percent in fashion—while giving them an entire view of their business. Lederman talked to California Apparel News about his company’s Fashion One for SAP Business One system and how to look for the right information-technology fit. What products do you offer for apparel manufacturers? Retailers? E-tailers?

Barry Lederman: Our product is called Fashion One for SAP Business One. It takes care of the matrix of items. It keeps track of items or styles by size and color. It also keeps track of the styles’ production history.

For retailers, we have a point-of-sale system for SAP. It checks inventory in real time. If a customer asks if you have a certain item in a store, the system will check and show on screen that the store has five items, there are none of the items in another store but 12 in the warehouse.

For e-tailers, we have a full-blown e-commerce system which handles business-to-business and business-to-consumer. It shows pricing, inventory and stock levels. You can look at purchase histories, pricing and make payments online. It also provides a self-service portal. It can help with retention of the customer. The more self service you can offer, the more you make it easier for the customer to deal with you.How can an ERP system help a company? Are the benefits primarily to streamline operations? Or are there also cost savings?

B.L.: They streamline operations. Sometimes it’s a reduction of labor. A machine can complete something in one step instead of three or four steps. It’s unbelievably important for accuracy with processing orders and making sure you meet cancellations. The idea of having more control comes into play. It also helps the workforce be more productive. The system will complete the repetitive busywork.

The system can alert you, so you don’t forget to call a customer, you don’t run out of an item. If you don’t have a system watching for you, you will run out of things. The SAP system lends itself to that.

Just knowing what you have can help with cost savings. When we engage with a new client, we can see a 10 percent to 30 percent reduction in inventory. What questions should a company ask when beginning to research an ERP provider?

B.L.: The system should take advantage of best business practices. They have to be aware to not get something that is so specialized. They need something that allows a 360-degree view of their entire business.What preparations do companies need to make before implementing a new system? How long does implementation typically take?

B.L.: The project ranges from 30 to 90 days. It allows the company to continue existing business and learn a new one. We have a full menu of training options. We have classroom training in-house. We have one-on-one training. They can get a DVD to watch on computer. These video-based lessons are broken down to a few minutes. If you want to learn a certain function, you can watch the video for two to three minutes. Clients can get free technical support from my company.

How much of SoftEngine’s business is fashion-related?

B.L.: Our two major industries are apparel and footwear and food and beverage. Probably more than 40 percent of our clients are apparel and footwear.

Since the recession, we thought our fashion business would go down, but the recession did not affect those sales. Since 2007, we’ve worked with StyleWest. (They distribute the Havaianas label.) We also work with Creative Recreation, which designs high-end sneakers and footwear. In the past year, we worked with Hananel and New York–based Infinity Classics.

During the economic downturn, a lot of companies could not put out $50,000 to $300,000 for our package of software and implementation. A half-year ago, we started a different way of selling systems. It was under the name of Software As a Service. SAAS is a subscription. It’s about $100 per month per user. So if you have 10 users, it is $1,000 per month. It really helped some of our accounts.