Everest Software (also known as iCode) had its time in the sun. Once considered an innovator in the early 2000s, the company reached its peak in 2004 before it began its decline, culminating in a 2007 acquisition by a “revitalization” firm who specializes in gutting companies and doing just enough support to keep clients paying a maintenance contract. Today, the platform is held together by rubber bands, custom code, and a small network of companies who do what they can to keep it together.
Last month, we looked at some of the common problems with Everest ERP Software—the lack of innovation, the fact that the last stable version (5.0.2.6) was released nearly a decade ago, and the integration challenges that pervade Everest Software. Today, we would like to discuss some of the common challenges that businesses face when they continue to push Everest (or any other legacy ERP) past its “use by date.”
Legacy ERP Business Challenges: How Long Can You Afford to Use Outdated ERP?
The speed of business has increased, and this is no more prevalent than in ecommerce—Everest’s core focus. In a world of two-day shipping, user-friendly websites, and increased visibility, customers have higher expectations than ever. Legacy systems like Everest were designed for the mid-2000s and fail to deliver much needed automation, functionality, and user friendliness that modern systems provide.
Lack of Visibility
How well do you know your business? In today’s business landscape, when transparency is both a necessity and a business driver, your ability to communicate everything from available stock on hand to customers or accurate financials to board members and decision makers could be the difference between growth and failure.
With legacy ERP, you may see some things, but generating a report takes time to do and rarely gives you the in-depth, real-time visibility you need.
Today’s ERP doesn’t rely on batch processing to do basic tasks, allowing you real time insights, in-depth and customizable reporting, and tailored dashboards. Added to this, end users are able to drill down into specific accounts to identify drivers, indicators, and metrics nearly impossible to uncover with outdated software.
Manual Processes Abound
ERP software is supposed to make your job easier. For many legacy ERP users, such a platform once was a viable alternative to the options at the time. However, when a platform was already considered clunky and outdated in 2009, where does it stand today? No better than it did a decade ago. Business processes have advanced, competitors have advanced, and Everest has largely stayed the same.
While today’s ERP can automate many processes in the business landscape, legacy ERP users still are toiling away in spreadsheets trying to get an accurate picture of where they stand.
When your employees are not elbow deep in spreadsheets and manual processes, they can focus on more strategic tasks, such as using data instead of entering data. Learn more about how automation provides peace of mind here.
Disconnected, Disparate, Disastrous
While lack of visibility and manual processes present their own challenges, lack of integration presents another. Legacy ERP and its inherent lack of integration means that your people have to spend more time just to combine data from a range of sources, often forced to tun back to the aforementioned manual processes and spreadsheets to do so.
The problem with this? Humans are error prone. Any time someone has to type something in manually, there’s a chance something is entered incorrectly. When you integrate data sources and automate the information flow between these, you not only reduce errors, you enable your people to see a bigger picture.
While legacy ERP like Everest does allow for some form of integration, it’s nowhere near the levels of today’s business management applications and often, even the low levels that you get are flawed, hand coded, or easily broken.
Because modern ERP is built to accommodate—and, more importantly, make sense of—disparate data sources and formats, you’re able to collect and glean insights from virtually all of the data generated by your business. For example, all business processes can feed into a single personalized dashboard to give you a 360-degree view of your business. Learn more about modern integration and the importance of a common application language here.
How Much Longer Can You Afford Using Outdated ERP Like Everest?
Everest was built for a different time and already had begun to show its age a decade ago. The business world has advanced since then, and if you are still trying to push this software or any other legacy ERP product more than a decade past its shelf life, you are putting your business at risk.
At Cloud 9 ERP Solutions, some of our most notable (and vocally supportive) customers are Everest transplants, and as a former Everest ERP reseller, we can certainly tell you that we have seen both sides of the argument and feel that Acumatica ERP is the ideal solution to replace it.
Offering better technology, more flexibility, and a vision toward the future, Acumatica provides user-friendly and functional alternative to Everest ERP and we have been the leader among implementation partners helping clients move from Everest to Acumatica.
Learn more about the true cost of ownership of ERP using this helpful ROI guide and schedule a demo by clicking the button below.
Check out some of our Everest to Acumatica testimonials and case studies:
“Cloud 9 has taken our Acumatica usage to another level since partnering with them in 2015. Their response, communication, and knowledge of all modules and many 3rd party add-ons has significantly opened the door to the power of Acumatica beyond our day to day surface-level processes. Cloud 9 is helping us use Acumatica to its fullest!” View Full Case Study
Kelly Burns (COO, M3 Technology Group)
“We decided to move forward with Acumatica in April of 2017. We are more than satisfied with our partner Cloud 9. Gregg and his team have demonstrated a level of professionalism and patience during the implementation process that was second to none. We see great efficiencies compared to our previous ERP, Everest. We look forward to continuing the growth of our company with Cloud 9 by our side.”
Rey Pena (President, Supermarket Source)
