Auckland, New Zealand
Ostendo ERP for New Zealand manufacturers, distributors and service businesses, implemented by the person who will still be answering the phone in three years.
One consultant, 20 years of ERP behind him, working directly with your team. No account manager, no offshore support desk, no handover to someone you have never met.
Where this usually starts
The stock figure on the screen and the stock on the shelf stopped agreeing some time ago, and everybody has quietly learned to work around it. The people who know what is really out there are the ones who walk past it every day, which is fine until they are on leave, or they quote off the system, or a customer asks whether you can ship on Thursday.
Jobs are the other one. You find out what a job actually made after it is finished, invoiced and gone, when someone finally lands the labour, the extra material and the subcontractor charge against it. By then the only thing you can do with the number is feel bad about it. The jobs that quietly lose money look exactly like the ones that make it until the very end.
And every month you rebuild the picture from scratch. Exports, a spreadsheet somebody built years ago, a couple of numbers that have to be asked for, and two days of work to arrive at a version of the truth that is already out of date. That is not a failing of your accounting system. It was built to keep the ledger, and it is doing that. It was never built to run the operation.
Who you would be working with
Kevin Long
Kevin has spent 20 years putting business systems into New Zealand companies. Before specialising he worked across Greentree, Sybiz, MYOB EXO, Sage, QlikView, Xero, MYOB and MoneyWorks. That matters for one reason: he recommends Ostendo because he has seen what the alternatives do in a real business, not because it is the only thing he sells.
If you have been through an ERP project before, you already know that the software is rarely the part that goes wrong. What goes wrong is that the people who scoped it are not the people who build it, and neither of them are the people you get on the phone eighteen months later. Javelin is deliberately small so that the person who sits in your first meeting is the person who configures it, trains your team, and picks up when you call.
What the engagement covers
Implement it
Working out how the business actually runs before touching any configuration, then setting Ostendo up around that rather than asking you to change to suit the software. Data comes across, the ledger stays where it is, and you go live on a date that was agreed rather than hoped for.
Teach your people to use it
Training is done with the people who will use the thing daily, on your data, doing the jobs they actually do. A system that only one person understands is a risk, not an asset, so the goal is a team that can answer its own questions once the project is over.
Keep it working
Businesses change. New product lines, new processes, a report someone needs by Friday. Ongoing support means the same consultant who built it makes the change, without a rediscovery exercise every time you pick up the phone.
Where Ostendo fits
Manufacturing
Bills of materials, work orders and the real cost of a production run, including the labour.
Wholesale and distribution
Stock across locations, purchasing that keeps up with demand, margin visible per line.
Job costing
Hours, parts and subcontractor charges landed against the job while it is still open.
Service and maintenance
Scheduling, assets in the field, and service history that stays with the equipment.
Retail
Point of sale sharing one stock file with the rest of the business.