Does Your System Need A Health Check?
Why a Health Check?
We recently found out that one of our most important clients lost a year’s worth of ERP data. They thought that they had been fully backing up their ERP data, but through a perfect storm of internal miscommunications and organizational changes, they weren’t.
When their mirrored server drive crashed, they were left scrambling to rebuild their system with emergency assistance from DSD. Luckily, they had installed DSD’s SQL Mirroring software some months ago, so their most important data was recovered.
In discussing this situation after-the-fact, our staff realized that a DSD Strategic Consultation, which includes a system “health check”, was overdue for that client, and it likely would have averted this crisis. An ERP or CRM system is just like our personal health in one important respect – if you want to be sure that everything is OK, a trusted advisor needs to look at it annually.
A regular system health check allows your business software to run efficiently, reliably, securely, at peak performance and in complete alignment with all your most important business processes and standards.
Introducing “Dr.” Gardner
Trish Gardner, DSD’s Strategic Account Director, and her staff will be in touch with many of DSD’s clients in the coming months, offering a free Strategic Consultation for your ERP or CRM software. Trish has over two decades of experience in the business software industry and nobody does a better job of listening to clients than she does.
DSD’s Strategic Consultation provides our clients with two important benefits. First, we conduct a “health check” of your ERP and CRM system to make sure that it is operating at maximum efficiency. Then we review your current business model to find ways to make your system more effective.
DSD’s Strategic Consultation Includes a Review of:
- Your organizational changes and strategic goals. How have they changed since we last talked? We’ll let you know what we think we know about you, and you can fill in any gaps. We want to know about additional staff or departures, and if any of your new staff needs to be trained. Best of all, if you’re on a current maintenance plan, we’ll provide a couple of hours of training at no charge. Are you planning any acquisitions or to be acquired? We can be of great assistance in this area.
- Your “special sauce”. Has it changed since the software was first installed? Has it changed in the past year? Is your software allowing you to take maximum advantage of these most important competitive differentiators?
- The road ahead. We’ll let you know what’s in store for your software in the next 18 months, and if you’re not on a current version, we’ll let you know what features you’re not currently taking advantage of.
- Changes at DSD since we last talked. We’ll let you know what additional resources that we’ve acquired, that will help you be more successful. We want to know anything that we can do to better serve you.
What you own. We’ll let you know exactly what you’re licensed to use. This may seem obvious, but it’s not unusual for companies to own modules that they don’t know about. For instance, if you are using Sage 100 ERP, you may very well own a Sage Intelligence or a Sage CRM license that you don’t know about. These licenses allow you to take advantage of the business intelligence and customer relationship management capabilities that are built into your system.
- The Sage Customer Portal. This is an internet gateway to all of Sage’s customer-facing resources. We’ll show you how to get in, and how to configure the portal in order to optimize the communications between you, Sage and DSD.
- Your annual Sage maintenance renewal. We’ll make sure that you’re budgeted for it, and we’ll confirm that you are still using (and need) the modules, users and components that your annual maintenance plan is based on, so that you’re not overpaying. And we’ll also talk to you about a Sage Gold Business Care Plan and how it might benefit you.
- We’ll give you suggestions concerning your IT policies, as they relate to your business software, and we are particularly interested in confirming that your backups are being made properly.
Don’t Wait for a Call – Schedule your Strategic Consultation Today!
Our mission is to help you execute your mission. We want your ERP and CRM software to allow you to be more effective, more self-reliant and more efficient. DSD’s Strategic Consultation is an important step in that process, so we hope that you’ll schedule one with Trish Gardner as soon as you can. You can reach Trish at trishg@dsdinc.com or by calling (858) 550-5900 and asking for her by name.
Written by Doug Deane, President & CEO of DSD Business Systems.
