Practical notes on systems, selection and automation

Project recovery 4 Oct 2026

Rescuing a failed CRM rollout

When a CRM is already in place and nobody uses it, replacing the software does not fix the failure. What we check first, from a rollout we had to rescue.

What it covers

• Why a failed CRM is a process problem before it is a product problem
• The checks that tell you whether to reset the current system or replace it
• What changed when a field team got one selling process and a mobile CRM

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Finance operations 4 Oct 2026

Month-end close in one day on Zoho Books

A retail group was spending the first ten days of every month closing the books. One organization, branch locations and a single inventory record brought that close down to a day.

What it covers

• Why each new store quietly becomes its own set of books
• What has to be true before a close can finish in a day
• How branch GST, inventory and payment settlements stopped being separate jobs

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Platform selection In preparation

Odoo vs Zoho One vs Dynamics 365 Business Central for a 50-person distributor

A vendor-neutral look at the three platforms growing distributors shortlist most often: data model, customization limits, licensing and who each one is not right for.

What it covers

• Where a single database beats connected apps, and where it does not
• The customizations each platform makes hard, and what they cost to maintain
• License cost at today's headcount and at twice the size

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Project recovery In preparation

Our ERP project is failing: a health check to run before you replace your vendor

Most troubled implementations have a sound core and a few decisions that need reversing. The checks that tell you which is which.

What it covers

• Scope, data and configuration: the three places projects usually break
• Signs the team has started working around the new system
• When to push on, reset or stop

Discuss this with a consultant

Budgeting In preparation

What an ERP implementation really costs, phase by phase

Where the money goes across discovery, design, configuration, migration, training and hypercare, using the same formula as our project configurator.

What it covers

• Why discovery is the cheapest phase to get right
• The costs buyers forget: data cleanup, training time and the old system's overlap
• How to compare quotes that are scoped differently

Discuss this with a consultant

Requirements In preparation

How to write ERP requirements vendors cannot misread

Requirements written in operational language, with examples and edge cases, so every vendor quotes the same thing.

What it covers

• Describing a process by what happens to an order, not by screen
• The edge cases that drive most customization
• A simple fit, configure or gap scoring sheet

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AI and automation In preparation

Where AI automation pays back first in a mid-size operation, and where it does not

Ranking automation candidates by return and feasibility, and why the data and the core system usually come first.

What it covers

• Measuring the manual process before automating it
• Confidence thresholds and where a person must approve
• Running in shadow mode before giving an agent write access

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Data migration In preparation

The checks to run before go-live weekend

Trial migrations, reconciliation and the sign-offs that keep the first month-end close from becoming a hunt for missing records.

What it covers

• Why trial migrations belong early in the build, not the week before go-live
• Reconciling opening balances and open orders
• The go or no-go checklist

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Architecture In preparation

Grounding AI in systems of record

Why generic retrieval struggles with relational business data, and how typed, validated API calls keep agents from writing bad data into the ledger.

What it covers

• Questions a vector search cannot answer, such as an unpaid balance for one vendor this month
• Strict schema validation before anything touches the ledger
• Logging every agent action for audit

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Database engineering In preparation

Inventory ledgers that stay fast under concurrent orders

Avoiding lock contention when warehouse staff, POS terminals and online orders change the same stock at the same time.

What it covers

• Append-only stock moves instead of one quantity column
• Indexes and views for frequent availability checks
• Partitioning as transaction volume grows

Discuss this with a consultant