What’s your hull?

What’s your hull?  When was the last time you dry-docked your business?  How can you leverage COVID-19 shutdowns and downturns to revitalize your core business systems to emerge stronger, faster, and leaner after the pandemic storms have passed?

If you’re like us, you’ve spent a lot of time asking critical questions about how COVID-19 will affect you, your employees, and the future of your business.   At Encompass, we’ve been talking a lot about the dry dock.  When a ship needs critical work on its hull, it is pulled out of the water into a ‘dry dock’ for inspection and repairs.

This is hugely expensive.  It’s hugely inconvenient, too.  Taking a ship out of water is the equivalent of locking the doors of your business.  We all do that for holidays (fun and predictable), year-end inventories (predictable but never fun), and occasionally because life is unpredictable and sends us surprises like snowstorms and power outages.  But most of us have never shut down our businesses for an extended period of weeks or months the way a ship is taken out of the water for months in dry dock.

COVID-19 changes that.  Some of you sent staff home and locked the gates.  Some of you feel like the gates are locked anyway because your customers are sheltering in place at home.  Some of you saw your entire supply chain shut down and fall apart.  In some way or another, most of us are in dry dock right now.  It’s expensive, outside our control, and hugely inconvenient.

If we’re all dry-docked anyway, how can we take advantage of a complete system shutdown and upgrade our business ships?

When was the last time you dry-docked your business?

If your business is a ship in a dry dock, the hull represents your critical systems.  Do you have areas of your business that desperately need overhauling, but they are too integrated into your daily routine to ever take them offline?  This could be:

  • Network and server setup that impacts the security of your systems.
  • ERP modules you paid for but never implemented.
  • Part BOMs have been inaccurate for years.
  • Financial, engineering, and manufacturing configurations that drive you and your staff crazy.
  • Cleaning up old, bad MRP data so your ERP can run MRP, scheduling, and purchasing accurately.

Encompass is using our own dry-dock time to upgrade and improve the systems that run our business.  We’re keeping staff engaged on continuous improvement projects we never have time to work on when we’re running at full capacity.  And since we are working on systems, this can all be done remotely.

What can you do to improve your systems?  Right now, your best staff members are probably sitting idle.  They’re afraid of COVID-19.  They’re afraid of losing their jobs.  And they’ve been frustrated for years because they know how to improve your systems but never have time to work on them.

How can you leverage the recent shutdowns and downturns?  Can you use idle time to revitalize your core systems?  What will make you stronger, faster, and leaner once this storm blows past?

Do you need our help?

If you’re reading this, know that Encompass chooses who we partner with.  We pick and choose customers, and we’re with you today because we fundamentally believe in your business.  We want you to survive and thrive.

If you do need help, we started preparing ‘dry dock support’ packages for our customers in late January, and we’re geared up to offer support with:

  • Remote workshops on all core Epicor modules to help your team identify best practices, plan, prep, implement, and process improvements across the system.
  • Rapid implementation of new modules. Right now is the easiest time you’ll ever have implementing scheduling, quality assurance, landed cost, and other new functionality.
  • Report development and customer and supplier communications right out of Epicor.
  • Coaching on how to optimize projects when your team is working from home.

Let us know what you need.  Or just touch base and let us know you, your team, and your families are OK.  We like you as people, and we like being in business with you.  We’re all in this together.

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass has helped modernize operations and automate processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, and renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.