One of the trends that we at Phoenix Systems are noticing is that ERP is becoming a commodity. What matters most is the VAR Partner you have chosen to assist with implementing, developing and supporting your system. This trend made us ask the question, “Why Phoenix Systems?” Initially we thought that the question should be easy to answer – not so. It took much discussion to come up with a comprehensive list as we all had different ideas as to where our strengths lie. It was an interesting journey, and we want to share the result with you.
International Resource Specialists
We have offices and branches across both Canada and the US with highly skilled resources in:
- Business Consulting
- Development
- Technical Consulting
- Project Management
Our leading realization was that the nature of the consulting business has changed. It has been a gradual process but over the last decade telecommuting and remote access has changed the landscape of our primary function. In most cases we have access to servers via various methods which allows us to provide our customers with excellent support and consulting regardless of where they are located. Additionally it allows us to assign the resource best suited to your project, even when the resource isn’t local. Of course if your offices are close to ours and the resource is local then we are happy to be on-site that hasn’t changed but remote access has opened up many opportunities that would not have been available to many of our customers decades ago.
Support Desk
Phoenix Systems has a leading support desk which is manned by dedicated staff every day and we do not assign inexperienced consultants to our helpdesk. Our philosophy is that we can with careful scheduling have our experienced consultants assigned to the support desk in order for you, the customer, to have first-rate support on a daily basis. There are two support desks, one for the Eastern customers and one for our Western customers and the two desks collaborate internally to ensure that support is available across most of the workday in North America. The consultants are supported by our technical services and our development teams which ensures that all your issues can be resolved as promptly as possible. Our annual support agreement allows your staff access to the support desk for a fixed cost and allows your staff to call in whenever they are stuck.
The most important role of the support desks however is to be your champion with the developers of the software i.e. SYSPRO. We troubleshoot issues, test and report errors on your behalf. Our role is to be your advocate and to ensure that SYSPRO gives us the best service possible. If we have identified a problem with software we will report errors, track fixes and report back to you when the issue has been resolved. Additionally our consultants will find a workaround for you while the error is being addressed.
Solution Partners – Best of Breed
We all know that there are areas in SYSPRO that can be better handled by software that is dedicated to a process i.e. Warehouse Management. Another way that we are able to provide excellent consulting is by aligning ourselves with many “Best-of-Breed” vendors and integrating to SYSPRO. What we know is that often SYSPRO will not have the in-depth requirements needed. Here is a list (not comprehensive) of Best-of Breed vendors that we have worked with on many occasions:
- Manufacturing Systems Corp – Warehouse Management
- Cabot Software – SAW
- Preactor – Graphical Planning Board
- CyberStore2 for SYSPRO – Website integration
- RiteScan – Mobile Warehouse for SYSPRO
- iDashboards – Dashboard Tool
- Dash – Document Management
- uniPoint – Quality and Maintenance
- iWorx – Cloud Datacenters
We are however not limited to the vendors on this list and we are open to working on integrating any software that you might want to integrate to SYSPRO with our team of developers.
Custom Development & Custom Software
The development of custom software and enhancements is the basis of the origin of our organization. For over 35 years we have designed and developed web-based, distributed and standalone applications to meet our client’s specific business requirements. We utilize our own in house development team equipped with extensive business backgrounds and required certifications.
We follow proven practices that allow for successful project completion and deliver solutions that exceed customer expectations. We have experience working with a broad range of customers, from smaller organizations to much larger companies with worldwide operations.
Our skill-sets include:
- .Net, VB Scripting and all presentation tools
- SQL programming
- Database level customizations
- Website Development
- SYSPRO Espresso
- Micro Focus COBOL – enables us to modify SYSPRO Source code if needed which we can secure from SYSPRO
Professional Services – Goals & Philosophy
Based on our extensive 35 years of business experience and trained and committed Team:
- We wish to be a true partner, with a vested interest in working with client staff/teams to optimize your SYSPRO environment.
- We excel at project-based solution design and delivery. Projects may be fixed-bid or T&M, to be determined prior to each project.
- We can provide ad hoc and non-project based support as required. We can also provide (E.g. implementing investigating automated processes that run after hours) Time-shift /work outside of regular hours where needed as long as planned in advance.
- We can help develop multi-year, scalable ERP architecture/roadmaps supportive of clients’ growth and expansion plans. No shortcuts. No Band-Aid solutions.
- We can provide end-user and super-user (train-the-trainer) training, tailored to the specific needs of your users; we have experienced trainers available for this purpose.
- We can provide support of your IT environment and deploy remote services as needed.
- We provide dedicated account management/account ownership to maintain an active relationship and as such look forward to being considered as an extension of your Team. This approach is consistent with our operating structure.
- We pride ourselves in leveraging native SYSPRO functionality as much as possible to reduce reliance on in-house application development. This extends to leveraging SYSPRO supported 3rd party applications of which we are very familiar and work in conjunction with vendors with whom we have established business relationships and concluded successful projects with over many years.
- We are well versed in Business Analytics and Business Intelligence information be drawn from SYSPRO and other recognized 3rd party applications such as SAW and iDashboard, for which we are certified. Additionally we are experienced at integrating products such as COGNOS to SYSPRO.
- We handle all requirements related to managing SYSPRO licenses changes, additions and annual renewal.