SCM: The Path to a Seamless Cloud Migration

By: RPI Tech Connect   June 25, 2024

On this segment of RPI Tech Connect, we’re exploring supply chain management (SCM) best practices for cloud migration as Infor’s 2030 on-premise support cut-off approaches. Today’s guest, Stephanie Marquez, Principal SCM Consultant at RPI, shares insights on the importance of pre-planning, key SCM initiatives to prepare for the transition, and the value of process optimization and data standardization.

If you’re looking to future-proof your SCM strategy and ensure a seamless migration to the cloud, this episode is packed with valuable insights for preparing your journey. Tune in to hear Stephanie’s top recommendations for SCM, pre-planning, and migrating to the cloud.

Meet Today’s Guest, Stephanie Marquez

Stephanie Marquez is a Principal Infor CloudSuite Supply Management Certified Consultant with over 14 years of experience in both Corporate Procurement and Project Management. She started with RPI Consultants in July 2019, bringing a variety of Supply Management expertise to the implementation of Contract Management solutions, Infor system upgrades, and procure-to-pay process improvement initiatives. Stephanie is also experienced in data analysis, policy and procedure documentation, end-to-end testing, and training. She is a self-motivated learner and problem solver focused on continual growth and development.

In her role as Resource Development Manager, Stephanie is responsible for overseeing the training, development, and coaching of junior Supply Chain team members.

Stephanie’s skills can be seen in RPI’s CloudSuite Bootcamp training sessions. Each training lasts for three days interacting in-person with clients. She’s led multiple training sessions in Supplier Order Management and Contract Management. She created the curriculum, documentation, and content for our other SCM focused Bootcamps.

Meet Your Host, Chris Arey

Chris Arey is an experienced B2B marketing professional with nearly a decade of working in content creation, copywriting, SEO, website architecture, corporate branding, and social media. Beginning his career as an analyst before making a lateral move into marketing, he combines analytical thinking with creative flair—two fundamental principles required in marketing.

With a Bachelor’s degree in English and certifications from the Digital Marketing Institute and HubSpot, Chris has spearheaded impactful content marketing initiatives, participated in corporate re-branding efforts, and collaborated with celebrity influencers. He has also worked with award-winning PR professionals to create unique, compelling campaigns that drove brand recognition and revenue growth for his previous employers.

Chris’ versatility is highlighted by his experience working across different industries, including HR, Tech, SaaS, and Consulting.

About RPI Tech Connect

RPI Tech Connect is the go-to podcast for catching up on the dynamic world of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Join us as we discuss the future of ERPs, covering everything from best practices and organizational change to seamless cloud migration and optimizing applications. Plus, we’ll share predictions and insights of what to expect in the future world of ERPs.

RPI Tech Connect delivers relevant, valuable information in a digestible format. Through candid, genuine conversations and stories from the world of consulting, we aim to provide actionable steps to help you elevate your organization’s ERP. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or new to the ERP scene, our podcast ensures you’re well-equipped for success.

Tune in as we explore tips and tricks in the field of ERP consulting each week and subscribe to RPI Tech Connect below.

Transcript

Chris (00:00)
Today on RPI Tech Connect, we’re taking a closer look at supply chain as a starting point for a cloud migration. By optimizing processes and standardizing data, you can better prepare your business for a successful cloud implementation. Stick around to find out how you can get started.

Chris (00:02)
Welcome back to RPI Tech Connect. I’m your host Chris Arey. We’ve got a special guest today, Ms. Stephanie Marquez. Stephanie is a principal supply chain management consultant at RPI. But what makes her an especially interesting guest on today’s episode is her involvement in just about every aspect of business. From project management and strategizing to marketing and sales, Stephanie is a contributor of all sorts. Stephanie, is there anything else you want to share with the audience before we get started?

Stephanie (00:30)
Sure, thanks Chris. First of all, I just wanna say thank you for having me today. I love participating in this side of our business and our organization. So I’ll just take a moment, tell you a little bit about myself. As Chris mentioned, I’m a principal supply chain consultant with RPI. I’ve been a part of the team for going on five years now, but I have a pretty diverse work experience background, but I’ve been working in the supply chain space for about the last 14 years.

In that space, I’ve worked as a buyer, sourcing manager, I’ve done some inventory and logistics coordinating. I’ve worked as a contract administrator and a systems application administrator prior to joining RPI. Before that, I worked for a large healthcare system here in Western New York in contracts and item master management. So ultimately ended up there in systems application. But as you mentioned, my role has really kind of evolved.

And one of the things I love most about our organization and what I get to do is we can pretty much be involved as much or as little as we want to outside of our traditional, you know, consulting roles. So when leadership or other teams like yourself, uh, approach me with these types of, um, activities, I’m really excited to, to be able to participate. And I always like to jump in.

So I appreciate how much it helps me really get like a pretty well-rounded view of what we do, who our clients are, and just other aspects of the business and the organization. And as you mentioned, I like to contribute really in all areas. I’ve helped with things such as creating curriculum and facilitating trainings and webinars. So if you’re joining us today, you may have heard my voice or seen my face before. So I’m just glad to be with you.

Chris (02:18)
Just a couple things you do there. But we’re super excited to have you on the show today. So thanks for being here with us. And I really wanted to take this time today to kind of take a look at what’s been going on in the Infor space, and particularly with this, you know, this extension of on-prem support to 2030. It’s 2024 now, and we’re one year closer to that looming deadline. So I’m curious, like, what kind of initiatives are you encouraging our clients and prospects to take? From an SCM point of view to kind of help prepare for that move.

Stephanie (02:52)
Yeah, I mean, that’s a great point. We’ve definitely seen kind of this shift in the ecosystem as far as a sense of urgency with that extension of on-prem support for some of those Infor clients who may have, or were going to start their migrations now have delayed. But with that said, it really does give those users and those current customers a unique opportunity to help position themselves, really to kind of just hit the ground running, be totally ready.

For when that time comes. Recently, you and I had the opportunity to work together on a webinar series. I was joined with a couple of my other teammates, Juan Menendez and Ayanna Brown. We did a three-part series and we actually addressed this very topic. With that, it really started with our team just kind of brainstorming internally what could be some things that would add value to existing loss and customers. And what they could do today, what could they focus on, while they’re still on those earlier versions of Lawson before that CloudSuite migration. I think when we worked on this, our initial list was something like 25 different initiatives or things that could be done.

And needless to say, to kind of craft what that webinar series was, it was pretty difficult to narrow it down because we all felt that they were incredibly important and really beneficial to those users. But we… you know, through a lot of teamwork, we’re able to kind of break it down into categories. And that’s how we approach that, right? So we talked a little bit about how folks might be able to focus their efforts really on process improvements and optimizations in their current state. We then kind of broke it off into like data standardization, cleanup of older transactional data. And those are topics that we cover all the time.
with CloudSuite implementations.

So as clients might be using their loss in system a little bit longer than originally anticipated with that date pushout, those are really areas that they can focus on to improve their day-to-day, even in just current state. So, you know, when we get to these CloudSuite migration projects, those three generally tend to be areas that we find clients have the most challenges during the CloudSuite migration. So I mean, it-

Really just to kind of, I don’t know, break it down a little bit further. When you take the approach of improving your existing process now, right? Documenting what those processes are in your current state. When clients get to that migration, it really helps them kind of shift their focus on designing more of a robust system or taking advantage of more automation where maybe as they weren’t before, rather than having to, you know, quote, or improve a broken process. We find clients who don’t have processes that are working very well for them. They oftentimes tend to lack in confidence when we get to those different stages of projects. And we just spend a lot of time during those CloudSuite migrations, helping them to kind of strip back what they’re doing, take a look at it. And sometimes, I hate to say it, but sometimes we have to start from scratch.

Um, it’s, yeah, it’s a, it’s a pretty, a pretty big level of effort.

Chris (06:16)

It seems like maybe like an inevitable but while it might be painful, it’s good in the long run, right? To kind of like start from, yeah. Okay.

Stephanie (06:29)
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It’s like, it’s one of those things where, you know, you’re going to have to put in, like you said, that level of effort upfront, but you reap the rewards later on down the line. You know, we talked, or I mentioned data standardization. It’s really kind of one of those areas that we encourage clients to focus on the consistency of their data, not just the data in the system, but how it’s being maintained.

Who’s maintaining it, you know, we’re all familiar with the phrase garbage in, garbage out, and that really applies in this type of scenario too. And a CloudSuite implementation project really is this, I don’t know, it could be for some folks in an organization once in a lifetime opportunity to get a shiny new system, right? And you want that to be functioning, you know, top-notch with the best data possible. I think it’s also helpful to point out that

A lot of things are a little bit different in the new world or in CloudSuite as opposed to earlier versions of Lawson. So things that clients may be accustomed to in terms of error handling are generally just different. So if supply chain has the opportunity to focus on item master data, which really is kind of very foundational for supply chain and all the places that item master data touches throughout the system.

Standardizes it, standardizes who’s maintaining it, what their processes are, it’s really gonna go a long way.

Chris (08:05)
I wanted to revisit something you mentioned earlier. So when you were meeting with the rest of the supply chain team, everybody had ideas on what initiatives they can get started with, and you had a laundry list of things they could do. But I’m curious, how do you prioritize what takes precedent and what gets maybe the back burner as you’re preparing for these moves? Data quality is… a big one, but I’m curious what that prioritization kind of looks like or how you, yeah.

Stephanie (08:38)
I’m glad you asked because I actually had a differing opinion than some of my colleagues. So whereas my focus primarily was on the data, one of our other senior supply chain consultants who has 30 plus years of experience and has been in the industry much longer than myself, his priority was more focused towards that process optimization.

Process improvement aspect of what was currently happening day to day. And we did, we have a, we had a really candid conversation. I was like, you know, well, why do you think that? Like what sell me on it essentially. And just the way that he was able to break it down. Yes, the data is important. That should obviously go without saying, but if you have people who are resources to your organization, who are bogged down with broken processes, you know, you have five people doing something five different ways, it costs the organization a significant amount of money in the time that it takes for those processes just to kind of get through the system.

So he actually sold me on that. And I said, okay, we selected a couple of process improvement initiatives, one of which seemed a lot easier to me to get going. And one seemed a little bit more complex.

It required collaboration with IT, with the clinical areas in healthcare, with supply chain, with finance. And I said, oh, you would do that one later, right? Because it’s more of a heavier lift. He was like, no, absolutely not. I would do that first. So even kind of getting a little bit more granular as to far as which process improvements we had, it wasn’t necessarily a difference of opinion, but he just helped me to kind of see really breaking it down the bigger picture.

Chris (10:31)
That makes sense. And I imagine like it’s probably somewhat of a common occurrence for folks to have, you know, all these different people who work in different departments or like different functions within the department having differing opinions on what’s most important and what can’t wait, what needs to get done now. So I imagine it’s a balancing act. And a lot of what you’re talking about here, it sounds like general good practice anyway, like regardless of whether or not you’re, you know, planning to do a big Cloud implementation or migration, like these are things that are gonna help your business just be more organized, period. Is that right?

Stephanie (10:45)
Yep. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s even, you know, it’s emphasized, right? When you’re planning any type of big project, especially one like a migration or a CloudSuite implementation, you know, just kind of in my experience, most organizations are very data centric. And we have to be, when we’re talking about that CloudSuite implementation experiences.

You know, and trying to standardize that data, come up with a process, clean it up. If you’re doing all of that in conjunction with the actual project itself, it’s a lot. It’s very overwhelming.

Chris (11:46)
It’s like a nightmare. And it also feels like when folks are juggling multiple things at once, it’s a recipe for mistakes to be made. Something’s gonna get overlooked. You can only imagine that your resources are spread thin. And I think that this raises a good point. I kinda wanna make the distinction clear to the audience today is that these exercises that we’re talking about here, are like, this is part of pre-planning, right? Like you’re planning.

Stephanie (11:57)
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Chris (12:16)
Preparing to plan for, like it’s a different phase than actual like planning, right? Do you think you could, I’m not doing a great job of articulating the distinction between the two, but I’m hoping maybe you could do that.

Stephanie (12:18)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so I think, you know, for me…Pre-planning happens, like you said, before the plan. I think if you’re talking about planning, in my eyes, that’s much more specific to the project as a whole. There’s a lot of different components that goes into it, so it’s not just supply chain focused. When you’re talking about pre-planning, you have the ability to really just focus those efforts on maybe those supply chain initiatives, and it’s things that are going to improve your business and your process today that you can carry forward. So to me, that’s the distinction of pre-planning versus planning.

Chris (13:12)
Got it and you’re really just like taking that extra step to get your stuff organized.

Stephanie (13:18)
Yeah, and it really can be a lot of different things, right? So it can be as simple as, like, it doesn’t have to be this huge process that’s being implemented or dissected. It can be something as simple as someone documenting, what are those current processes? There are so many organizations that we visit that all of that information resides in somebody’s head, because they’ve been with the organization for 20 years. It could be collecting the documentation that you use to train folks coming into the organization. Is that documentation up to date? Can we get it fresh? By doing all of those things, it really does lay a solid foundation for yourself and for those implementation partners, hopefully us, and really gives yourself an opportunity to build on what you already have. So by doing that.

You make a positive impact on various larger project stages as discovery, you know, designing of your system and user training. I mean, like literally to sum it up, it’s like pre-planning is getting your shit together before going on this like huge project.

Chris (14:36)
That makes sense. It’s like inception project, project before project, but you’re doing it and it’s a worthwhile effort. It sounds like we’re encouraging all prospects and new clients to take this extra step to get things ready before. The top supply, it’s hard to throw a…

Stephanie (14:37)
I’m sorry.

Yes.

Chris (15:02)
A blanket over it and like, here are the best things that you should do from a supply chain perspective, but data quality is a big one. Process optimization is another. Is there a third one that we could, is like a bucket?

Stephanie (15:06)
Yeah.

Big one.

Yeah, yes. So it’s like once you have that data cleaned up or, sorry, standardized, what are you doing with it? I think when some of our clients, I think one of our colleagues, they implemented a client this summer and they had been on Lawson since like the late 90s.

So they had great processes in place, they had their data standardized, but what they didn’t have was a method to kind of eliminate some of that transactional data that was essentially bogging down their current system. So cleaning up, right? The data standardization is cleaning up and then it’s like, all right, let’s clean it out. What don’t we need? This specific client that I’m thinking about, just as an example, because they had been on the system so long, they had in their current loss in system something like, I don’t know, it was like 20,000 plus.

Vendor agreements, and that could be a huge underestimate just because of the sheer amount of time that they had been on the system. And their subject matter expert worked with our consulting team and they were able to say, along with leadership of course, hey, what do we not want to bring into this new shiny system? Do we really need this pricing agreement from 1998? No, we don’t need that.

You know, so it offers up this other opportunity to say, what do we want to archive? What do we want to just maybe eliminate from the system? There’s this timeframe, right? Like you want your data to be in the system for a certain amount of time for regulatory, legality issues, things like that. But you definitely don’t need to bring data from 1998 into your system. So get rid of it.

And so I think that initiative, I’d have to confirm my numbers, but ballparking it, I remember the consultant telling me they were to able to get rid of like 10,000 records that they just didn’t need anymore. And even that had an impact on their current day, right? Cause during their project, they’re still operating in that current loss in system. But when it came time to migrate and came time for go-live, it impacted, it reduced the amount of downtime that they experienced from their system.

It made their data validation go that much quicker. So it just snowballs into having all these other benefits that can sometimes be difficult to identify upfront.

Chris (17:40)
So I imagine it’s, is it maybe sometimes challenging to like, I don’t know, when you’re working with these organizations to let them know that, hey, you can delete that piece of data from 1998. Is there resistance there? Like, do people get, what is that?

Stephanie (17:56)
Yeah, I think sometimes it depends. I think that the main thing that people want to know is if for some reason I need to get at that data that I can. And that’s where like, you know, a data archiving solution comes into place. So it’s, it’s taking that data and it’s kind of storing it elsewhere, um, rather than having it in your current system. So if, if something were to happen and somebody needed to audit something from 1998, their IT or their tech team could get access to that information.

Chris (18:28)
Got it, okay, so it’s, you’re deleting it, but also sort of moving it so that it’s not actively like a part of your system today. And okay, and I think that there’s usually some, I don’t know, it probably depends on the type of data that’s being stored or archived here, but there’s some general like timeframe for what you should keep and what you can retire. Do you know what that looks like?

Stephanie (18:33)
Right. Correct. Yep. Hmm.

So it’s funny you ask that because I’ve had clients ask us that before. And I recently had a conversation with our team and I believe the general consensus was something like seven to 10 years. We couldn’t really land on a specific number, but that’s kind of the approach that’s taken. Seven for sure. Seven is like the lucky number everywhere, right? Like.

Chris (19:20)
Hmm.

Stephanie (19:21)
Hold on to your tax records for seven years, just kind of like the same thing. Hold on to your system data for at least seven years. So yeah, so I think that’s kind of the rule of thumb.

Chris (19:31)
Okay, got it. Well, thanks for kind of side barring with me there. And this is super valuable, both like not only for like supply chain professionals, but for anyone involved in like ERP management, it just seems like this is stuff that you should be thinking about, planning ahead for, and recognizing that, you know, buying this new solution and like, it’s not like out of the box ready to go. There’s a lot that goes into it. You think about.

Stephanie (19:35)
Yeah. Yes.

Chris (19:56)
The length of these projects for move everything over, especially for those clients you mentioned who’ve been on Lawson for 20 years. It’s like, you gotta really reconcile what’s been going on internally and how you’ve been doing things and what that process is gonna look like on the new system. Yeah, thank you. So we’re getting close to our time here, but I’m curious if you could offer the audience today.

Stephanie (20:12)
Yep. That’s a great summary.

Chris (20:24)
One piece of advice regarding supply chain and pre-planning, what would it be?

Stephanie (20:31)
I think my one piece of advice in supply chain and pre-planning is really, for me, collaboration is key. The more team members that can be brought into some of those pre-planning initiatives or projects, definitely are going to have a greater success. There’s no surprises there. And I think it’s really important just to kind of emphasize that

Supply chain impacts so many other work streams within an organization. Finance, most specifically, if you’re in healthcare, there’s an impact to your clinical side, materials management. And so when you have that level of collaboration with the appropriate parties, it’s mutually beneficial to literally everybody involved. So that would be my one piece of advice.

Chris (21:21)
It’s a solid piece of advice. And when you think about it too, it’s like, how many times throughout a professional career have you started a project, made progress, and then later throughout that timeframe, you bring in new people and it’s like, they go on the board and they rewrite the whole script and it’s like, man, this would have been really helpful to know from the beginning. So it just goes to show you that more stakeholders is-

Stephanie (21:40)
Yep.

Chris (21:48)
Maybe not always better, but especially for a situation like this, it’s like, you need the people who are going to be in the system, who’ve been using the system, who are going to be a part of the new system to be there, to have a seat at the table and to work together. Like you mentioned too, even within your own practice area, supply chain, it’s like the folks that you’re working with have different ideas of what needs to be prioritized at what time. So love it. Super good.

Stephanie (21:59)
Yep. Yep. And it’s, I think it’s exactly, but I want to just quickly emphasize, cause you said something about, you know, bringing in more people. And I think sometimes people are afraid to do that because there are different points of view. And so it’s this balance of making sure you get the right people at the table at the right time.

Chris (22:33)
Hmm.

Stephanie (22:35)
I recently had a conversation with a previous colleague, this is even before RPI, and they were going through a large project and the leader, he’s amazing. He’s very forward thinking, he’s very collaborative. He’s one of the ideal leaders that you would want to work with over the course of your career. And when I asked him, I said, well, who are your, essentially your subject matter experts that you’re gonna be including in the project? And he hesitated. And I was like, wait a second, you don’t…

Chris (23:05)
Uh oh. Yep.

Stephanie (23:05)
you’re not going to bring in an SME. And it was, well, they’re busy. Well, yeah, they’re busy, but those are the people that, you know, hold the keys to the kingdom. Yes, you might be the leadership or you might be the stakeholder, but chances are there’s somebody who’s doing that task or those series of tasks every day that could tell you every bit of what you need to know and get it right the first time.

Chris (23:30)
Dang, I’m surprised that there was like, they wouldn’t think to include them from the beginning it’s like, this is the person who’s gonna be in here all the time, you need their buy-in

Stephanie (23:37)
Yeah. He definitely was like, Oh no, they’re going to participate and they’re going to, they’re going to test and this and that. And I was like, no, you need, and because I had worked with these people before, I knew their area of expertise. And I was like, you need this person to cover this. You need this person to cover that. And it really was only like three people, but they had such a wide range of knowledge that it was everything that he needed out of those, you know, three people. So hope he adhered towards my advisement because we’re, we’re friends too. Um, but when he said that I was like, what I was, my jaw probably hit the, hit the floor. So.

Chris (24:13)
From a professional perspective and also from like a personal lens, like, dude, what are you doing? Nice. Okay, well, thank you for making that clear because that’s an important nuance to take note of here. You want the people who have the breadth, but also like, you know, not everybody from the same group needs to be there. Okay, okay.

Stephanie (24:17)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yep. Yeah.

Exactly. Yep. You got it.

Chris (24:40)
Okay cool, well we’re getting to the time here. Any closing remarks you want to share with today’s audience?

Stephanie (24:47)
I mean, I just, I really appreciate you asking me to participate. It’s always fun kind of chatting with you and, and sharing what might be beneficial to our audience. So, you know, I hope we’ve left people with some really thought provoking information for them to consider, you know, and, and I would say, you know, I’ll plug our, our webinar series. If you want more information, go check it out. It’s out there somewhere on the, on the ether, but there’s definitely.

A lot of good information out there. So I just appreciate you asking me to participate in this.

Chris (25:19)
Of course, well thank you for joining us. Your stories from the consulting road are invaluable. People need to hear what it’s like from your shoes and what’s been going on in the world. So I appreciate your time. For those of you listening in today, if you need help with supply chain initiatives or pre-planning or a combination of the two, feel free to contact us at podcast@rpic.com. Again, that’s podcast@rpic.com.

Stephanie (25:31)
Absolutely.

Chris (25:47)
Until next time, I’m Chris Arey and this is RPI Tech Connect. Thanks for stopping by!