Hasta La Gadget!

During this year’s Microsoft Summit, I had fun with Cincom’s manufacturing demo; what’s not fun about outfitting your own 18-wheeler with custom tires and lights? As always, it was great to see Brad Fleming, Cincom’s Director of Sales for NA for CPQ and ERP, and he was kind enough to sit down with me for this Q&A, where I learned that Cincom’s relationship with Microsoft Dynamics is unprecedented in size and scope.

SDM: How did Cincom come to focus on manufacturing?

BF: The primary reason is that we are headquartered in Cincinnati, the heart of the industrial Midwest. There is a lot of manufacturing in this region. Our vertical direction has been driven by manufacturing customers who need help achieving their business goals. Our clients went from wanting database solutions to other business solutions such as the ERP and CPQ solutions that we offer today. Over time, we’ve also extended out industry expertise beyond manufacturing. Now we also have product lines that service the insurance and healthcare industries.

SDM: What is end-to-end ERP/CRM/CPQ?

BF: You can walk all the way through the selling pieces, put quotes together, and do project management. We built-in different modules — the sell module contains full CPQ for configurable products — and push those functions and data into the ERP system. We can create the routings, multi-organization, and project-based planning and controls, with regulatory compliance, and, after shipping, can get into some really core high-level project management and data management functions. We have a module for services, assets, engineering and service operations. When you get into highly complex project work, you need a powerful estimating module. With these types of complex projects, you’re really starting with a blank piece of paper — working with contract manufacturing — and going through revisions through every quotation. Really, what end-to-end means is that our ERP product can take your original sales quotes and configurations from your CRM and CPQ and push them to your ERP, where revisions can be made, and then move that project through the entire supply chain and manufacturing process with all of the project information intact. The product also contains a module for aftermarket support. We’re really closing the loop from the initiation of a project through the sales process, project revisions, manufacturing process, and aftermarket services.

SDM: Who are your competitors?

BF: In the CPQ space, Experlogix and others in the space like Axinom and Calitus Cloud. In the ERP space, Oracle, SAP, and Infor. In the government space our competitors are IFS, Columbus and Deltek.

SDM: Do you have a case study you can share?

BF: One that comes to mind is Harris Corporation in the government sector. They replaced an old legacy MRP and, once we were finished, they had a 20% improvement in productivity three months after implementation. Harris is a $5.4M aerospace company. We’ve simplified things like multi-organization project-based revision controls.

SDM: With that much of a global footprint you must see manufacturing trends.

BF: We are watching a lot of global consolidation eating away at some of the smaller niche players who have good IP and we’re seeing a lot of acquisitions of those smaller entities. We see a lot of disparate systems in need of good integration. How, for example, do you take your seven different ERP systems, rip everything out and put in one good platform, able to handle complex configurations, in the discreet manufacturing industry? Manufacturing is dealing with globalization. Globalization is causing an increase in the number of people, governments, and customers that a manufacturer has to deal on a daily basis. Having scalable technology will be beneficial to that manufacturer and the growth of the market.

SDM: And you’re seeing a lot of manufacturing come back to the US?

BF: Yes, it’s re-shoring but as I said, it’s also due to the fact that businesses are recognizing that they need to be closer to the customer. I think that’s the main reason that some manufacturers are choosing to move their operations back to the US, which is a big market. I know that it has been a topic of conversation in the manufacturing community for some time. At Cincom, we really are focusing our efforts not just on our customers in the US, but also trying to keep a global mindset.

SDM: What do you see looking out to the future?

BF: The future of manufacturing is really cloud, mobility, and IoT (Internet of Things). There has been some discussion of whether cloud is really where manufacturing is going to be moving, but I think it’s already shifting that way. A manufacturer is still going to need to see its operations, information, and analytics on the go; that’s where cloud and mobility are really going to make sense. Our products are capable of supplying both the ability to use the cloud and mobility options to our customers. We’re able to host on Microsoft Azure, and all of our products are responsive to any device that you’re using. This includes Cincom’s ERP solution.

Does this sound too familiar? “I urge all Americans to approach this situation with calm, with tolerance…the Department of Justice has been monitoring this case since its inception as is customary in these kinds of situations. The Justice Department moved last night to accelerate the investigation that it started several months ago.”

It wasn’t Barack Obama talking, but the president could have used this script for Michael Brown or Eric Garner or how many other names of black men. That was actually George Herbert Walker Bush calling “for calm and tolerance” in 1992, responding to the verdict in the Rodney King case. “What you saw and what I saw on the TV video was revolting. I felt anger. I felt pain. I thought: How can I explain this to my grandchildren?

“Civil rights leaders and just plain citizens fearful of and sometimes victimized by police brutality were deeply hurt. And I know good and decent policemen who were equally appalled.

“I spoke this morning to many leaders of the civil rights community. And they saw the video, as we all did. For 14 months they waited patiently, hopefully. They waited for the system to work. And when the verdict came in, they felt betrayed. Viewed from outside the trial, it was hard to understand how the verdict could possibly square with the video. Those civil rights leaders with whom I met were stunned. And so was I, and so was Barbara, and so were my kids.

“But the verdict Wednesday was not the end of the process. The Department of Justice had started its own investigation immediately after the Rodney King incident and was monitoring the State investigation and trial.”

Here is another presidential script on the issue:

“I didn’t sit there and listen to all the evidence, but I know most people in America of all races believe that if it had been a young white man in a young all-white neighborhood, it probably wouldn’t have happened. That doesn’t mean they were guilty under criminal law and the Justice Department is looking into that, in the Civil Rights Division and that’s the way to handle that. But what it does mean is there’s this huge gulf out there still in too many places where people wonder if they can be treated fairly.”

That one was Bill Clinton on Amadou Diallo. Perhaps he should save the draft for his wife–if she gets lucky and has to one day make the proverbial presidential comment. It is easy to become a cynic when reading those comments and seeing how closely they resemble the words of President Obama — even considering his push for body cameras on cops. Actually, Bush’s words were arguably more passionate than what we’ve heard from Obama who inevitably can’t escape a higher expectation to address this issue. In fact, the elephant in the Oval Office in response to anything racial is the reality of living in the age of the first black president.

However, something does feel different in the reactions to Ferguson and Eric Garner when talking to some local lawmakers and reporters in Bush-Obama counties. For example, “South Carolina may well be ahead of the curve,” writes Brian Hicks in an article from The Post and Courier in Charleston, a Bush-Obama county. Hicks is referring to the two black state senators, Marlon Kimpson and Gerald Malloy, who pre-filed legislation this week for all state law enforcement officers to wear body cameras. “The fact that, this is a legitimate issue being raised by our president, gives us, local officials, credibility when we speak about these issues on that state level where, historically, we’ve had so much difficulty in light of this nation’s history,” says Senator Kimpson.

Really? Even in flaming-red South Carolina. The president’s popularity may be high in Kimpson’s majority black Senate district. Statewide, it is another story. Kimpson still insists the president’s voice on this issue matters across the state. Regardless, I’ll keep hoping for the day when George Herbert Walker Bush’s words on Rodney King will be just a piece of history and not a template for a presidential script.

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