Golden Acres, a 264-bed skilled nursing facility in Dallas, Texas, faced growing overtime costs and complexities in their manual scheduling processes. The facility relied on separate applications to manage various aspects of their staffing processes, including ADP Enterprise eTime, PointClickCare, and ADP Enterprise HR. This siloed approach complicated staffing compliance and labor cost management. The Scheduler at Golden Acres was tasked with creating and managing schedules for over 220 nurses across nine nursing stations using handwritten paper schedules. This cumbersome, error-prone process took countless hours across multiple days. Overtime averaged up to 9% of Golden Acres’ total labor budget due to a lack of up-to-date information on employees approaching and incurring overtime. The facility reviewed reports at the end of pay periods to analyze overtime, after it had already occurred. Additionally, when open shifts needed to be filled, the Scheduler spent hours calling employees in search of a replacement, often awarding the shift to the first employee who agreed to work without considering potential overtime. Management also lacked key information to evaluate employee performance, such as the number of times an employee called off or their willingness to work additional shifts, due to the facility’s inability to document staffing activity since schedules were managed by pen and paper.

Essex Meadows faced significant challenges with scheduling inefficiencies and increasing reliance on staffing agencies. Schedulers spent extensive time manually creating and updating schedules, leading to confusion among staff and frequent call-offs. The company spent over $100,000 annually on staffing agencies to fill gaps, which raised concerns about the impact on resident care. The use of outside staff disrupted the strong relationships between residents and regular staff, potentially affecting the quality of care.

Friendship Village faced significant challenges with its outdated and inefficient scheduling process. The management struggled to evaluate facilities effectively due to a lack of timely and accurate data. Nursing staff were frustrated with the lack of visibility into their schedules. The manual scheduling process, which involved pencil and paper, was time-consuming and inefficient, leading to confusion about job responsibilities and assignments. Filling open shifts due to call-offs was particularly difficult, often taking at least 30 minutes to find a replacement. This process also led to significant overtime expenses and dissatisfaction among staff members.

The Waterford faced escalating overtime costs and inefficient scheduling processes. Overtime averaged over 400 hours per pay period due to a historical approach to managing overtime. The Scheduler relied on a handful of staff members to fill unexpected open shifts, leading to high overtime costs. Additionally, the facility used paper and pen for scheduling, which was time-consuming and inefficient. The lack of visibility into key metrics such as staffing levels and projected overtime costs further complicated the scheduling process. Staff members also lacked access to their schedules outside of work, leading to confusion and inefficiencies.

The Country Club Retirement Campus at Ashtabula faced significant operational challenges, primarily due to overstaffing and inefficient scheduling processes. The manual, paper-based scheduling system led to peaks in staffing across various departments, resulting in high labor costs without necessarily improving care quality. Department heads were overwhelmed with paperwork related to staff scheduling, which consumed valuable time that could have been spent on core responsibilities. Additionally, the lack of visibility into staffing needs and the impact of schedule updates made it difficult for management to make informed decisions. This situation was further complicated by the need to manage unexpected absences, time-off requests, and fluctuating resident needs, which often led to overtime costs and employee dissatisfaction.

BILLY Footwear faced significant challenges in managing their inventory and fulfillment processes due to rapid sales growth and the complexity of delivering products through multiple retail channels. From 2018 to 2019, the company experienced a 260% increase in sales, which made it difficult to manage inventory as both retail partners and direct customers were pulling from the same stock. The team needed a scalable technology stack to streamline their accounting, inventory management, and shipping processes to support and manage this growth effectively.

Serious Integrated faced significant challenges with their disconnected legacy software systems, including QuickBooks, MISys, and Salesforce. These systems were not integrated, leading to difficulties in reconciling financial and inventory data. The company struggled with manual entry and reconciliation, which was time-consuming and often inaccurate. Additionally, they lacked visibility into inventory levels at partner locations in China, Canada, and California. The need for better bill of material (BOM) management with revision control was also a pressing issue. As the company grew, it became clear that a new, integrated system was necessary to manage inventory, add traceability, and support their expansion plans.

Tesla Transformers India Ltd faced multiple operational challenges as it aimed to transform into a 21st-century global organization. The company lacked granular visibility into its production and delivery scheduling, struggled with functional departments operating in data and communication siloes, and needed better data into its production timing and sequencing. Management sought a consolidated resource utilization process to have real-time intelligence about capacity availability versus commitments. Additionally, Tesla needed better tracking of customer-specific requirements and inspection criteria to avoid delays in inspection and dispatching the final product.

FLOCK Specialty Finance was outgrowing QuickBooks for financial management and received pressure from potential investors to manage portfolios with a more robust, secure, cloud-based solution. The company faced challenges with limited logins, potential data loss, and the need for a more sophisticated system to handle its growing number of financial portfolios. Additionally, FLOCK needed a solution that could integrate seamlessly with its existing Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint systems, and provide better financial control and streamlined portfolio management.

McStain’s growth was outpacing QuickBooks, and it needed to integrate back office accounting data to its BuildTopia homebuilding software and replace manually-driven processes. The team at McStain spent considerable time with a consultant to review its workflows, processes, and pain points. McStain also considered alternative construction management solutions which would also encompass accounting functionality, but in the end determined that keeping BuildTopia for construction management and replacing QuickBooks with Microsoft Dynamics would be the most cost-effective, efficient path.

Azure Northwest’s growth was outpacing QuickBooks, and it needed to integrate back office accounting data to its BuildTopia homebuilding software to replace manually-driven processes. The team at Azure expressed QuickBooks’ limitations with BuildTopia, and they recommended Velosio and Microsoft Dynamics SL as a solution that would easily integrate. The team was frustrated with the inability to integrate QuickBooks with BuildTopia, its online homebuilding software. They couldn’t access the reporting they needed to see on a daily basis, budgeting was tough, and the integration between the two systems just wasn’t happening, which meant they were spending a lot of time hand-keying information.

C.A. Short wanted to maximize the value of the data that they had been collecting. They didn’t have the security they needed on the IT side.

Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH), a non-profit world-class medical center, aimed to become a destination hospital in the Northeast. To achieve this growth objective, YNHH needed to increase its operational efficiency and prestige by attracting more patient referrals and transfers. The challenges included the complexity of the transfer process involving numerous doctors, nurses, administrators, and multiple data systems for each individual case. Additionally, there was a lack of a real-time centralized method for managing, tracking, and communicating during the transfer process. Insufficient resources and ineffective processes further compounded the problem.

With a 16 million-dollar investment portfolio and multiple non-profit organizations to manage, Wingspan needed state-of-the-art business technology to make accurate and strategic business planning decisions. Their operations cover a broad range of services, each presenting unique funding challenges. They recognized the need for a sophisticated business management solution to handle these diverse challenges.

With new project-based work encompassing full scale design, engineering, project management, installation and support services, VCA found they needed more than top notch equipment and technical skills to meet customer needs. They needed a new accounting system. As audio, video, and IT began to converge, VCA recognized the growing importance of service as an essential part of their product portfolio. “We started business as a distribution company, a straight reseller of audio visual equipment,” said Chuck Heuer, Vice President of Information Technology for VCA. “Today, we’re a technology integrator as well. Professional services are now a substantial part of our business that wasn’t there 20 years ago.”

Although prepaid Visa debit cards might be a common sight now, when UniRush first started offering them back in 2003, it was one of only a handful of pioneers in a new industry. Founded in the offices of UniFund, its sister company, UniRush had relied heavily on its sister company to get up and running. For seven years, UniRush paid an annual service fee for back-office operations and the use of UniFund’s deployment of Sage Accpac for accounting. But by 2010, it became clear that it was time to make a change. “Relying on our sister company to run the back office worked out well in the beginning,” says Tom Brand, VP of Finance for UniRush. “It enabled us to concentrate on developing our product and growing our sales. But when we received a private equity investment in 2010, it pretty much required us to part ways with the support UniFund had been providing. We had to hire our own back-office staff and find our own financial management system.” Finding a new system was about more than autonomy, however. It was also about driving significant improvements to financial management and reporting. For example, the Sage Accpac system, which by 2010 was already reaching its end of life, could take as long as 90 minutes to run a report. Consequently, month-end close could take as long as 12 days.

In July of 2015, several companies in the paper and pulp industry merged to create Triosim, a diverse network of companies with broad knowledge and expertise in pulp, paper and other industries. The creation of Triosim united several brands with a similar client base, who could better serve their clients with a combined offering from alignment to manufacturing, welding and fabrication. The new company required a process to track client relationships and a team to manage and develop these relationships. Triosim needed to manage sales processes for six brands and 25+ Sales Engineers, and combine multiple, manually intense sales processes to become a leading edge high functioning operation. Additional objectives included: • Recreate sales processes leveraging the best practices from the merged organizations. • Create a future-proof CRM platform and provide sales reps with a tool to be successful in their new roles. • A system that could support growth and opportunity to dominate the market with end-to-end capabilities.

The Model Group has a multifaceted business operation requiring specialized accounting and property management software to meet its complex reporting requirements. The company was using an outdated software package designed for federally subsidized low-income housing, which was not robust enough for their growing operations and reporting needs. They switched to another property management software package that relied on Microsoft Dynamics GP for back-end accounting, but it still did not meet their complex requirements. The company needed a solution that could handle the affordable housing market's regulations and support other business areas.

Organizing and Updating Data for Remote Access\nWith its global sales force and customers, Sultan needed to find an efficient means of organizing and updating data that could be accessed remotely. Sales reps and distribution partners needed to know the status of sales to gain insight into a customer’s buying history and payment schedule.\nSultan also needed to find a solution that would allow them to move away from their outdated paper-based field service system. Office employees needed to find and update information regarding complaints and share within the office and remote field service. In addition, Sultan wanted to leverage their investment in Microsoft technology (email platform, accounting) and needed a CRM system that would work well with existing infrastructure.

Stafast was previously using a highly customized and outdated version of Microsoft Dynamics SL, which did not support their distribution or manufacturing processes. The company’s international locations were running separate systems, preventing process automation and organizational visibility. The Stafast team had a reactive purchasing process for a large number of parts, resulting in inaccurate stock levels. Additionally, the company lacked a production planning tool.

SO natural, the largest pot orchid plantation in the world, faced several challenges in managing their operations. They needed to manage the production of over 10 million orchids a year across four companies. Many business processes were manually managed using Excel and spreadsheets, leading to a lack of control and an increase in human error. Additionally, they required analytics that included financial integration with other systems. The acquisition of Delta Orchids necessitated the integration of multiple systems.

Since inception, ShuBee® had been running two separate systems, one for sales and one for accounting. With two systems to populate with data, lots of time was eaten up by data entry and re-keying. As sales continued to rise, ShuBee® was faced with a choice: hire more employees for data entry, or find a new, complete system.

Schaeffers Investment Research was using a highly customized CRM system which was no longer supported, putting their customer data and business at risk. The company needed a platform that would enable continuous improvement.

Sarnova’s growth had outstripped the capacity of its old software, forcing the company to purge valuable sales history. The legacy software package had a two-gigabyte limit on the database size, which was insufficient for the growing needs of the company. This limitation led to the loss of important sales data, which was detrimental to the business. The company needed a more robust and scalable solution to handle its expanding operations and data requirements. Additionally, Sarnova required a system that could streamline warehouse operations, provide real-time access to customer and inventory data for remote staff, and offer flexible and powerful business reporting capabilities.

Rotex Global, LLC faced significant challenges with its highly-customized Oracle-based system, which lacked financial and accounting components. This led to the use of separate, standalone applications for these vital tasks, creating inefficiencies and data silos. The company needed a robust and flexible ERP solution to support its complex international operations. The existing system made it difficult to get an overall view of the organization and share data across departments and locations. This lack of integration hindered collaboration and decision-making, necessitating a more unified and comprehensive solution.

In mid-2011, Rhenium Alloys began growing impatient with their software partner's lack of responsiveness. While they were content with the quality of service they received when they managed to get it, it was hit or miss whether they could get ahold of their partner. This inconsistency led to concerns that the product, Microsoft Dynamics GP, wasn't being used to its full potential. The company felt that the lack of responsiveness was reflective of the people, the culture, and the habits of the users. This situation prompted them to seek a more reliable and responsive software partner.

In December of 2011, QSI made the switch from Sage MAS90 to Microsoft Dynamics GP in order to optimize the more robust time and materials management and reporting features found within the Microsoft Dynamics GP Project Accounting module. Despite their plans, QSI struggled with their new solution since their software partner didn’t analyze their business procedures thoroughly before entering their data into Microsoft Dynamics GP. QSI quickly realized they weren’t using the solution correctly and were forced to deal with some major business pains on top of it all. Not only were they conducting manual workarounds, they weren’t able to create the profit & loss (P&L) reports to show which projects were profitable and which were not. QSI also wanted to break out financial statements by the different industries they worked with, but they could never organize the information into a comprehensive report due to the way the software was initially configured. The Corporate Controller at the time tried to pull journal entries manually from the General Ledger by industry and after nine months, still wasn’t able to produce the information they needed.

The organization was experiencing tremendous growth in several of their lines of business. Their growth, coupled with a changing business model, stretched the organization’s use of systems to the breaking point. The disparate, largely disintegrated systems used for Customer Relationship Management, Customer Data and accounting created inefficient, redundant operations to perform basic tasks. Press Ganey was at a point where they needed speed and agility to keep up with client demand. Their legacy systems did not accommodate this, and were not compliant with best accounting practices. Simple tasks, such as month-end reporting, took more than a week to complete. In order to complete reports, they were required to export data from their homegrown system and then import the data to their accounting system. In addition to time-consuming steps required to complete common tasks, Press Ganey found that management information was not only untimely, but increasingly inaccurate.

Pentax Medical needed to track sales pipelines, opportunities, and accounting information, and generate quotes from a single user-friendly CRM system. They required an implementation partner familiar with the rigorous compliance requirements of the medical devices industry. The main challenges included establishing a secure CRM environment compliant with strict medical industry standards, automating a time-consuming quote process, and integrating calendars, email, and SharePoint, which necessitated a Microsoft solution.

Client Targeting and Reporting: Research analysts at New Street Research are in charge of maintaining their own client bases, and notifying them via email newsletters when important industry information is released. A typical newsletter could contain hundreds of HTML links to articles, reports and other information. When this London-based company set up its U.S. research group, new users wanted to leverage current CRM technology to implement a state-of-the-art approach.\n\n• Manual research distribution provided no way to track results or provide metrics\n• Legacy CRM system made it difficult to search, build lists or target information to specific clients’ interests\n• Compliance with U.S. anti-SPAM laws was a must