Not only was James Watson featured in Profit magazine's special JD Edwards edition, his picture was on the cover! Congratulations, James!

An excerpt:

James Watson, chief process officer at Energy Alloys, attributes the success of the project to a key decision to manage the ERP upgrade in an innovative way. Rather than approach it as a self-contained, lengthy, and high-cost project, Watson and his team used a strategy to “operationalize” the upgrade. “When you purchase software, it’s not a one-time event. You’re making an investment buying all future upgrades, enhancements, and features,” he says. “You build a regular upgrade cycle into your cost structure—it’s a small increment to your normal operating budget. So, we’re not going to the business and saying, ‘We need a million dollars to do this upgrade.’”

Watson believes that scheduling an ERP upgrade every three years as part of regular systems management makes more than just prudent financial sense—it minimizes the time needed to complete an upgrade because fewer changes are required each time. In addition, a regular upgrade schedule ensures that the system is as full-featured and agile as possible to help Energy Alloys keep pace in a booming industry. “Companies that keep pushing off upgrades are faced with humongous challenges implementing a new ERP system or reimplementing their current ERP system,” observes Watson. “Or they spend a ton of time getting the system current. It’s a misnomer about upgrade costs. You either pay now or you pay later.”

Read the full article here.