WBSRocks: Scaling Growth with AI, Enterprise Software, and Digital Transformation
WBSRocks podcast features in-depth conversations on AI-enabled business models, customer experience, digital transformation, supply chain, eCommerce, industry 4.0, and enterprise software categories such as CRM, ERP, or analytics suites. The purpose of the show is to help CFOs, COOs, CEOs, and business owners with their daily commercial, operational, or financial challenges by taking a deep dive into business cases and processes, technology strategy and architecture, transformation initiatives, and business models. The show also offers an independent analysis of technology trends, various enterprise software vendors and solutions, and their mergers and acquisitions. Subscribe today to stay on top of digital transformation trends!
Episodes
927 episodes
WBSP076: Grow Your Business by Choosing Scalable E-Commerce Platform and Architecture w/ Erin Courtnay and Eric Landmann
If you are building or upgrading your e-commerce capabilities, you are likely to evaluate several platforms. This evaluation needs to be comprehensive, covering factors ranging from legal contracts, deployment issues, customer experience needs,...
WBSP075: Grow Your Business Through Robust Corporate Performance Management Practices w/ Alok Ajmera
Cash is the lifeblood of a company. Cash forecasting is the discovery process to predict your future cash needs. How would you feel if you discovered that you had four months of cash left to operate? I am sure you will lose your sleep. Thus, ca...
WBSP074: Grow Your Business by Becoming Operationally Resilient To Combat Uncertainty w/ Tamar Nelson
If you focused on the metrics for each employee where they contributed to the organization's overall improvement, it could result in millions of dollars of savings. But finding the areas of improvement is easier said than done. It requires you ...
WBSP073: Grow Your Business Through Real-Time Inventory Replenishment Using RFID w/ Andrew Johnson
RFID technology has been available for a long time, but its adoption has been limited to high-value assets. Most manufacturers might not believe that RFID technologies can track commodities and be an excellent replacement for barcode labels. Un...
WBSP072: Grow Your Business by Optimizing Your Facility’s Energy Consumption w/ Mike Nager
Energy has always been one of the heaviest line items on a P&L for manufacturers. While manufacturing executives are acutely aware of the energy costs, they have struggled to enforce energy-saving procedures. In fact, the push for quality a...
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WBSP071: Grow Your Business by Keeping Appropriate Inventory Levels Through Material Requirement Planning w/ Marcia Williams
Material requirement planning helps in keeping the appropriate inventory levels that you need for manufacturing. If the MRP processes are not optimized, it could result in surplus inventory or component shortages that could halt your production...
WBSP070: Grow Your Business by Mitigating Financial Risks Through Experimental Design and Additive Manufacturing w/ Kevin Mako
With new trends and technologies such as additive manufacturing and experimental design, it's never been this easy to launch and disrupt a hardware product category. The traditional manufacturers that are slow in taking advantage of these trend...
WBSP069: Grow Your Business Through Partnership With Tech Vendors and External Research w/ Shari Lava
While other industries such as banking or logistics have successfully differentiated purely because of technology, manufacturers treat digital technologies as their stepchild, especially in the SMB space. SMB manufacturers and distributors rare...
WBSP068: Grow Your Business by Using Business Processes as a Sales Tool w/ Paul Van Metre
Running a machine shop is complicated with complex parts, heavy precision needs, and tricky materials handling requirements. With cost pressures from customers, rising material costs, and shrinking margins, one inaccurately estimated job could ...
WBSP067: Grow Your Business by Understanding Costing Granularity and Product Profitability w/ Christiano Gherardini
Cost accounting is a complex topic. You have so many different choices, and sometimes it's hard to decide which method may be appropriate for your business. If you choose an incorrect accounting method, you may get a significant variance and re...
WBSP066: Grow Your Business by Mitigating Financial Risks With New Product Development Initiatives w/ Andrew Lees
New product development is complex. There are financial risks associated with research and development. The experience could be even more frightening if you are new to R&D, have a tight budget, or working with external or overseas partners....
WBSP065: Grow Your Business by Understanding the Challenges Associated With Buy Online, Pick Up at Store Model w/ Richard Halter
The lines keep blurring between traditional retail supply chains with trends such as DTC and buy-online-pick-up-at-store. With large retailers offering such convenience, it's harder for smaller retailers to compete. These models require you to ...
WBSP064: Grow Your Business by Understanding Your Risk Profile and Insurability w/ Michael Schlagenhaufer
The risk profile of manufacturers plays a critical role in how insurance companies and regulatory agencies perceive them, including their cybersecurity standard operating procedures, their ability to prevent injuries, and their consistency to h...
WBSP063: Grow Your Business by Shifting to LEAN Strategy and Thinking w/ Sanjeev Baitmangalkar
There are a lot of definitions around LEAN. But implementing it right is easier said than done. Most companies fail to implement LEAN because they focus more on tools than focusing on strategy. It's a change in thinking, the way you do your bus...
WBSP062: Grow Your Business by Continuously Monitoring the Emotional Response of Your Team w/ Amanda Prochaska
There is always so much at stake with ERP implementations. One plus one is perhaps eleven when it comes to deploying ERP. They are never just technology deployment. The companies that promise the world to their teams based on the overstated cla...
WBSP061: Grow Your Business by Shifting From the Transactional Mindset To Value-Driven Pricing w/ Andrew Deutsch
Product pricing is more than just the dollar amount printed on the packaging or pricing labels. It drives consumer behavior, affects the customer experience, and impacts the bottom line. Right pricing strategies could catalyze your growth and p...
WBSP060: Grow Your Business by Understanding the Outlook for Accounting Practices and ERP w/ Brian Sommer
ERP contracts are inherently crafty. If you don't have experience buying an ERP, you might want to get your contracts reviewed with a consultant who has several years of experience reviewing ERP contracts. You might think of purchasing an ERP a...
WBSP059: Grow Your Business by Utilizing Warehouse Mobility Trends and Technologies w/ Chuck Coxhead
Mobility can increase the efficiency significantly of your warehouses, from automating your data entry to voice-enabled picking. But how to plan for a mobility journey? Is it as simple as picking a bunch of bar code readers from the market and ...
WBSP058: Grow Your Business With Marketing Automation w/ Dave Meyer
Have you had challenges engaging with your customers? Do you lose prospects just because you could not call them timely? Do you have challenges in finding net-new prospects? Do you have capacity issues in your sales department? How deeply do yo...
WBSP057: Grow Your Business by Learning Key Nuances From the Gear Manufacturing Industry w/ Dave Hataj
Gears are among the most foundational parts of machines, ranging from food delivery equipment to medical devices. While we all may recognize the prevalence of gears, how many of us know that manufacturing gear is almost like surgery? Yes, that'...
WBSP056: Grow Your Business by Aligning Your Customer Experience Strategy w/ Kirk Thompson
Most people think of customer experience as providing the best customer service. But, in reality, it's much bigger than that. It's about removing the friction and choppiness from each channel. It's making the experience personalized while not c...
WBSP055: Grow Your Business by Doing Sales and Operations Planning Appropriately w/ Michael Ryan
As your business grows, it's hard to find that Goldilocks zone of inventory so that neither you lose on opportunities nor lock your cash down. Sales and operations planning is easier said than done. The problem becomes more complex when you mig...
WBSP054: Grow Your Business by Better Managing Your Tail Spend w/ Sarah Scudder and Madison Mobley
They say that numbers add up. It couldn't be more true about tail spend, which is the non-strategic spend that most companies don't care for. The problem becomes far serious if they may not have true visibility into tail spend or if they miscla...
WBSP053: Grow Your Business by Having a Cash Flow Mindset w/ Aaron Spool
Most organizations focus on growing revenue. Sure, getting revenue is always the hardest part. But did you know that the increased time between earning revenue and collecting cash could result in giant write-offs impacting your growth? Also, ho...
WBSP052: Grow Your Business by Understanding Artificial Intelligence and Industry 4.0 Adoption Barriers w/ Martin Cloake
Data is the new oil. But collecting data could also mean distracting your operators from focusing on jobs. Moreover, just because you collected millions of data points, drawing insights or meaning could be challenging if your systems are siloed...
