

January 2009 Company News \| From the Desk of \| Industry News Special Offer \| In-Depth Learning Meet Teresa Lamar As we continue to profile members of the Zerion team, we'd like you to get to know Teresa Lamar. Residence: Orlando, Florida Hometown: Monroeville, Alabama Position with Zerion: Consultant What did you do before joining Zerion? I was the team lead in the Accounts Payable Department at Hughes Supply. What is your specialty at Zerion? Because of my Accounts Payable background, I like to help clients with Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable, but I also enjoy Sales and Warehousing. What is the best location you’ve traveled to for your job at Zerion? Some people might think it sounds crazy, but Los Angeles, California is my favorite travel memory because of the many friends I met while on that install. If there was one place you could visit in the world, where would it be? I would like to see South Africa. What do you like best about your job? I'm a people person, so I like meeting new people and building new friendships. What is your favorite “customer success” story? It's hard to choose, but I guess the one that sticks out the most would be an experience with a customer in California. I was able to build many new friendships with the people there and I am still in contact with them. Recently, one of them told me that what he learned from my training has helped him to be a better Purchasing agent. He said that we taught him to understand both the sales side and the purchasing side of Eclipse. How do you spend most of your time when you’re not working? I spend a lot of my time working with my church and reading. What is a little known, interesting fact about you? A lot of people don't know that I LOVE TO SING. I recently entered a contest called Sunday’s Best. It’s sort of like the Gospel version of American Idol. I started out by auditioning on-line and came in 4th place out of 90,000 people. Although I didn’t make it to the finals, it was a great experience and has opened many other doors. No matter what I go through in life, I can always find peace in singing. Favorite book or movie and why: My favorite movie is Love & Basketball... I’m a hopeless romantic. In one sentence, describe your philosophy on life and work: Live life to the fullest because you only have once chance at it. Back to Top "Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive." - Andrew Grove Are you paranoid? Well, I never thought of myself that way; but, this quote makes me think that maybe I am! As a business owner, I can’t afford to stand still or play the “wait and see” game. I can’t let past successes cloud my judgment or let me think that things never change, especially in times like these. I have to be aggressive and make forward-thinking decisions. I have to avoid being happy with the status quo. And I have to trudge through challenges to find solutions everyday. If I don’t, every business owner’s worst nightmare of failure will poke its way out of my dreams and into my reality. I believe that, if we focus on the things we can control, we can find ways to keep the train on the tracks and moving steadily in the right direction. For us at Zerion, this means testing our software consulting and implementation skills on ourselves. In the last weeks of 2008, we began to convert our operations from four disparate systems to one ERP solution. We had far outgrown QuickBooks, which we’d been operating on since our inception. Because the system could no longer handle our needs, we had added a scheduling and timekeeping solution. We had also added an expense tracking tool to manage our expenses. And, finally, we added a customer relationship system to track our sales efforts. Since Zerion is a relatively small organization and we aren’t a distributor, Eclipse wasn’t a fit for us. However, about a year ago, we began selling and servicing SAP Business One, which is an ERP solution for small-to-mid-sized businesses. It’s backed by the largest business management software vendor in the world, but is developed with the needs of a smaller business in mind. As soon as we saw what the product could do, we knew it would be a fit for our business. And as things slowed down around the holidays, we looked ahead to a new year and knew we wanted to start 2009 on the right foot. Some of the basic steps we took to convert our software included installing SQL Server and the new software; exporting all of our data; cleaning up and importing the data into SAP, some of which was manual; and, balancing the AR and GL. I’m sure some the tasks sound familiar if your Eclipse conversion was recent. While we consider ourselves experts in software implementation, it was humbling to do it for ourselves and take our own advice. Our conversion was on a much smaller, faster scale than what we do for our clients. It went as smoothly we expected; but it reminded us that a conversion is a stressful time for any company. Much time and effort by consultants, owners and employees alike goes into it. We also were reminded of the importance of the human element in what we do. Software can seem foreign and scary to many people, so we give as much hands-on training and reassurance as possible. Even when dealing with typical plans and schedules, data imports and product files, we must remember that every conversion and project is different. Every team does things differently. And the changes it mandates are a "big deal" to the company and its people. Every project we do has to be treated as if it is the most important one … because, to our client, it is! We now feel more confident in our ability to sell and service the product because we ourselves use it every day. We believe that our company is stronger for the diligence we paid to this process and because of the streamlined operations we see in our business as a result: one vendor versus four, and a newfound ability to leverage information across the company. We think 2009 is going to be a great year for Zerion and our clients because we didn't sit around waiting to see what economic changes the new year might bring. Instead, we were paranoid, and we took action! Alonzo Williams, Vice President 321.239.4509 Back to Top What’s happening with distribution, software and business? Zerion is committed to being a resource for our clients and friends. In the newsroom on our Web site, we have an RSS feed supplying new articles all the time. We also have some links to industry news. Here are some of the recent articles we found most interesting: Buyers find value in distributors’ websites United Nations Looks to SAP for ERP System Wireless Application Development Marching On Home Depot to cut 7,000 jobs, close Expo chain Want more news? Visit us at: www.zeriongroup.com/newsroom/industrynews.html Back to Top Get 50% off an RF site consult ... RF installation is hot right now because of the productivity and accuracy enhancements it can bring. Don't miss this great opportunity to get half off an in-person consultation covering all aspects of how RF will work in your warehouse. This offer only is available for newsletter subscribers for a limited time. Contact Tony King (321.229.1089) by February 27 to receive the discount. Back to Top From Inefficient to Ahhh: Implementing Job Management By: Lauren Giles, Consultant A Zerion client in the Midwest recently was faced with an efficiency issue relating to their inventory. A new Eclipse functionality called Job Management presented an opportunity for them to improve. Zerion was able to be onsite after the implementation to learn and offer support during their post-implementation period. Nonstock Nonsense The client was managing its jobs through Eclipse and like many other users could attest, this was a very manual process. This was made even more difficult because the client was not using the Master Job Bidding function. Master Job Bidding was created to help companies track and control large projects. It provides the ability to create different “lots” for each vendor purchase order; and without it, they were creating a nonstock for almost every item needed from the vendor. The excess products in the system were tedious to manage and bogged down their inventory. Creating nonstocks and having inventory control review the nonstock report daily was a waste of time which was greatly affecting productivity. The client was consistently finding their product file to be overloaded with miscellaneous items that were created incorrectly or duplicated. Enter Job Management The client didn’t think a solution to their ongoing inefficiencies existed. They were resigned to live with daily rituals in order to keep their inventory in check. But when Activant announced its new Job Management (JM) module, which is a web based add-on tool designed to better manage large commercial jobs, the client was intrigued. This application communicates with Eclipse in “real time” and has the ability to create and store bill of materials, change orders, returns, purchase orders, quotes, and vendor invoices. Users on Solar will find navigation of the two products is much the same. (Users on Eterm receive the same functionality as Solar, sans a few shortcuts, but the look and feel is different because it is in GUI (Graphical User Interface) format.) Companies are looking at this application as a way to better monitor all aspects of their large jobs. It has the ability to track all documents and submittals produced in Eclipse as well as easily upload any outside documents as attachments to a specific job. This limits the amount of file folders and boxes that a client has to search through for each project. It simply can produce a number of job specific reports that pertain to all jobs you are bidding or have been awarded. JM allows a client to release directs right from the BOM and to match up invoices and do payables in the application, while Eclipse updates automatically. Because tracking changes and approvals are vitally important, the system does not allow changes to a BOM without the creation of a change order once a job has been awarded. This change order stays in the electronic folder for that specific project and can be given different statuses such as pending, approved or submitted. In this way, the system helps to manage a client's paper trail and eliminate the manual processes that were previously being done outside the system. Zerion’s experience with a wide range of clients has shown that a common concern is keeping up with change orders. Incorporating Job Management appears to eliminate this problem among many others. Making the Move Our client’s interest in Job Management quickly changed to action. They decided to implement the solution once they saw its efficiency, its ability to increase productivity and eliminate many manual processes, and most of all how well it communicates with Eclipse. Because JM works as a companion to Eclipse, the overall setup and preparation was minor. This client's main challenge was a server issue. As such, we recommend that a client checks his network in advance to be sure there is room for this added application. The next major task was to train the employees. As with any change, there was some skepticism, but after being on the Job Management system for a couple of months, they already are seeing its benefits. According to their internal lead for the project, the system is "overall very user friendly, and we had a smooth transition." Conclusion The client’s job department has now been utilizing the Job Management tool for several months. The implementation was successful and has met all of their needs. Although they were not considered a beta company, they were one of the first companies to employ the system, so Activant has been working closely with them to tweak the program to meet their requirements. Back to Top	Cleaning Up the Return Goods Queue When cleaning up your return goods queue, it also helps to run an inventory valuation report of items that are type F, O, R and sorted by priceline. This gives you another view of the items that are in your return goods queue and the overall cost of those items. Warehouse and Sales Training Next Week! Now you can get quick training to improve your Eclipse skills right from your own desk. Zerion is offering an ongoing schedule of webinar classes, and next week you can attend Warehouse Training or Inside/Outside Sales. To see the complete schedule of classes for February, or to sign-up, visit the webinar page of our web site.

January 2009

Company News | From the Desk of | Industry News

Special Offer | In-Depth Learning

Meet Teresa Lamar
As we continue to profile members of the Zerion team, we'd like you to get to know Teresa Lamar.

Residence: Orlando, Florida
Hometown: Monroeville, Alabama
Position with Zerion: Consultant

What did you do before joining Zerion?
I was the team lead in the Accounts Payable Department at Hughes Supply.

What is your specialty at Zerion?
Because of my Accounts Payable background, I like to help clients with Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable, but I also enjoy Sales and Warehousing.

What is the best location you’ve traveled to for your job at Zerion?
Some people might think it sounds crazy, but Los Angeles, California is my favorite travel memory because of the many friends I met while on that install.

If there was one place you could visit in the world, where would it be?
I would like to see South Africa.

What do you like best about your job?
I'm a people person, so I like meeting new people and building new friendships.

What is your favorite “customer success” story?
It's hard to choose, but I guess the one that sticks out the most would be an experience with a customer in California. I was able to build many new friendships with the people there and I am still in contact with them. Recently, one of them told me that what he learned from my training has helped him to be a better Purchasing agent. He said that we taught him to understand both the sales side and the purchasing side of Eclipse.

How do you spend most of your time when you’re not working?
I spend a lot of my time working with my church and reading.

What is a little known, interesting fact about you?
A lot of people don't know that I LOVE TO SING. I recently entered a contest called Sunday’s Best. It’s sort of like the Gospel version of American Idol. I started out by auditioning on-line and came in 4th place out of 90,000 people. Although I didn’t make it to the finals, it was a great experience and has opened many other doors. No matter what I go through in life, I can always find peace in singing.

Favorite book or movie and why:
My favorite movie is Love & Basketball... I’m a hopeless romantic.

In one sentence, describe your philosophy on life and work:
Live life to the fullest because you only have once chance at it.

From the desk of Alonzo Williams "Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive."
- Andrew Grove

Are you paranoid? Well, I never thought of myself that way; but, this quote makes me think that maybe I am! As a business owner, I can’t afford to stand still or play the “wait and see” game. I can’t let past successes cloud my judgment or let me think that things never change, especially in times like these. I have to be aggressive and make forward-thinking decisions. I have to avoid being happy with the status quo. And I have to trudge through challenges to find solutions everyday. If I don’t, every business owner’s worst nightmare of failure will poke its way out of my dreams and into my reality. I believe that, if we focus on the things we can control, we can find ways to keep the train on the tracks and moving steadily in the right direction.

For us at Zerion, this means testing our software consulting and implementation skills on ourselves. In the last weeks of 2008, we began to convert our operations from four disparate systems to one ERP solution.

We had far outgrown QuickBooks, which we’d been operating on since our inception. Because the system could no longer handle our needs, we had added a scheduling and timekeeping solution. We had also added an expense tracking tool to manage our expenses. And, finally, we added a customer relationship system to track our sales efforts.

Since Zerion is a relatively small organization and we aren’t a distributor, Eclipse wasn’t a fit for us. However, about a year ago, we began selling and servicing SAP Business One, which is an ERP solution for small-to-mid-sized businesses. It’s backed by the largest business management software vendor in the world, but is developed with the needs of a smaller business in mind. As soon as we saw what the product could do, we knew it would be a fit for our business. And as things slowed down around the holidays, we looked ahead to a new year and knew we wanted to start 2009 on the right foot.

Some of the basic steps we took to convert our software included installing SQL Server and the new software; exporting all of our data; cleaning up and importing the data into SAP, some of which was manual; and, balancing the AR and GL. I’m sure some the tasks sound familiar if your Eclipse conversion was recent.

While we consider ourselves experts in software implementation, it was humbling to do it for ourselves and take our own advice. Our conversion was on a much smaller, faster scale than what we do for our clients. It went as smoothly we expected; but it reminded us that a conversion is a stressful time for any company. Much time and effort by consultants, owners and employees alike goes into it.

We also were reminded of the importance of the human element in what we do. Software can seem foreign and scary to many people, so we give as much hands-on training and reassurance as possible. Even when dealing with typical plans and schedules, data imports and product files, we must remember that every conversion and project is different. Every team does things differently. And the changes it mandates are a "big deal" to the company and its people. Every project we do has to be treated as if it is the most important one … because, to our client, it is!

We now feel more confident in our ability to sell and service the product because we ourselves use it every day. We believe that our company is stronger for the diligence we paid to this process and because of the streamlined operations we see in our business as a result: one vendor versus four, and a newfound ability to leverage information across the company.

We think 2009 is going to be a great year for Zerion and our clients because we didn't sit around waiting to see what economic changes the new year might bring. Instead, we were paranoid, and we took action!

Alonzo Williams, Vice President
321.239.4509

What’s happening with distribution, software and business?
Zerion is committed to being a resource for our clients and friends. In the newsroom on our Web site, we have an RSS feed supplying new articles all the time. We also have some links to industry news. Here are some of the recent articles we found most interesting:

Buyers find value in distributors’ websites

United Nations Looks to SAP for ERP System

Wireless Application Development Marching On

Home Depot to cut 7,000 jobs, close Expo chain

Want more news? Visit us at: www.zeriongroup.com/newsroom/industrynews.html

Get 50% off an RF site consult ...
RF installation is hot right now because of the productivity and accuracy enhancements it can bring. Don't miss this great opportunity to get half off an in-person consultation covering all aspects of how RF will work in your warehouse. This offer only is available for newsletter subscribers for a limited time.

Contact Tony King (321.229.1089) by February 27 to receive the discount.

From Inefficient to Ahhh: Implementing Job Management
By: Lauren Giles, Consultant

A Zerion client in the Midwest recently was faced with an efficiency issue relating to their inventory. A new Eclipse functionality called Job Management presented an opportunity for them to improve. Zerion was able to be onsite after the implementation to learn and offer support during their post-implementation period.

Nonstock Nonsense
The client was managing its jobs through Eclipse and like many other users could attest, this was a very manual process. This was made even more difficult because the client was not using the Master Job Bidding function. Master Job Bidding was created to help companies track and control large projects. It provides the ability to create different “lots” for each vendor purchase order; and without it, they were creating a nonstock for almost every item needed from the vendor.

The excess products in the system were tedious to manage and bogged down their inventory. Creating nonstocks and having inventory control review the nonstock report daily was a waste of time which was greatly affecting productivity. The client was consistently finding their product file to be overloaded with miscellaneous items that were created incorrectly or duplicated.

Enter Job Management
The client didn’t think a solution to their ongoing inefficiencies existed. They were resigned to live with daily rituals in order to keep their inventory in check. But when Activant announced its new Job Management (JM) module, which is a web based add-on tool designed to better manage large commercial jobs, the client was intrigued. This application communicates with Eclipse in “real time” and has the ability to create and store bill of materials, change orders, returns, purchase orders, quotes, and vendor invoices. Users on Solar will find navigation of the two products is much the same. (Users on Eterm receive the same functionality as Solar, sans a few shortcuts, but the look and feel is different because it is in GUI (Graphical User Interface) format.)

Companies are looking at this application as a way to better monitor all aspects of their large jobs. It has the ability to track all documents and submittals produced in Eclipse as well as easily upload any outside documents as attachments to a specific job. This limits the amount of file folders and boxes that a client has to search through for each project. It simply can produce a number of job specific reports that pertain to all jobs you are bidding or have been awarded. JM allows a client to release directs right from the BOM and to match up invoices and do payables in the application, while Eclipse updates automatically.

Because tracking changes and approvals are vitally important, the system does not allow changes to a BOM without the creation of a change order once a job has been awarded. This change order stays in the electronic folder for that specific project and can be given different statuses such as pending, approved or submitted. In this way, the system helps to manage a client's paper trail and eliminate the manual processes that were previously being done outside the system. Zerion’s experience with a wide range of clients has shown that a common concern is keeping up with change orders. Incorporating Job Management appears to eliminate this problem among many others.

Making the Move
Our client’s interest in Job Management quickly changed to action. They decided to implement the solution once they saw its efficiency, its ability to increase productivity and eliminate many manual processes, and most of all how well it communicates with Eclipse.

Because JM works as a companion to Eclipse, the overall setup and preparation was minor. This client's main challenge was a server issue. As such, we recommend that a client checks his network in advance to be sure there is room for this added application.

The next major task was to train the employees. As with any change, there was some skepticism, but after being on the Job Management system for a couple of months, they already are seeing its benefits. According to their internal lead for the project, the system is "overall very user friendly, and we had a smooth transition."

Conclusion
The client’s job department has now been utilizing the Job Management tool for several months. The implementation was successful and has met all of their needs. Although they were not considered a beta company, they were one of the first companies to employ the system, so Activant has been working closely with them to tweak the program to meet their requirements.

Cleaning Up the Return Goods Queue
When cleaning up your return goods queue, it also helps to run an inventory valuation report of items that are type F, O, R and sorted by priceline. This gives you another view of the items that are in your return goods queue and the overall cost of those items.

Warehouse and Sales Training Next Week!
Now you can get quick training to improve your Eclipse skills right from your own desk. Zerion is offering an ongoing schedule of webinar classes, and next week you can attend Warehouse Training or Inside/Outside Sales. To see the complete schedule of classes for February, or to sign-up, visit the webinar page of our web site.