GSI
Leading Clients to a Post-Modern ERP Era

The goal of a post-modern ERP strategy is to use the best applications possible in each particular functional area while ensuring they adequately integrate when necessary. GSI accomplishes this by diversifying its offerings based on the needs of its clients, simultaneously leveraging their expertise in Oracle. The company supports the core “backbone” ERP while enabling extension to best in class solutions with appropriate levels of integration that balance the benefits of vendor-delivered integration against business flexibility and agility.

Following is the conversation that CIO Applications had with GSI’s CEO, Kevin Herrig, to get a deeper understanding of GSI and its unique value proposition in the Oracle solutions landscape.

Until recently, how has the Oracle solutions domain evolved? What are some of its more contemporary trends, and how has GSI injected these trends into its solution?

Oracle recognized that the real opportunity for technologies like artificial intelligence & machine learning, IoT, blockchain, containers & serverless, and human interfaces, is to enable companies to embrace innovation on a scale like never seen before.

Companies have gone from experimenting with these technologies in a sandbox to implementing them for mission-critical applications. GSI has embraced this vision and has invested heavily in making machine learning, RPA, low code/no code capabilities a reality.GSI is laser-focused on automation across the board. Anything that can be automated has been automated or is in the process of being automated. Finally, GSI is the leader in using containers to simplify patching, improve security, and optimize cloud compute resources. In addition to automation, Oracle has embraced a cloud-centric model. This includes SaaS-based applications such as Oracle ERP Cloud and NetSuite and also infrastructure such as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

GSI has moved numerous on-premise applications to OCI and has fully embraced both NetSuite and Oracle Cloud ERP. We have implemented multiple clients on NetSuite. This includes clients running off of legacy systems such as Sage and Microsoft Dynamics GP as well as those that are new to ERP coming off QuickBooks. We are also currently migrating some JD Edwards on-premise instances to Oracle ERP Cloud.

What are some of the critical challenges that concern GSI’s clients, and how does GSI address these challenges?

One of the most significant challenges relates to upgrading their core ERP when they have spent years customizing it rather than taking advantage of the investments Oracle has made in industry and process solutions. We have been delivering presentations, webinars, and national on-site workshops that train our clients in embracing best practices, which includes reducing customizations by utilizing low code/no tools.

We also offer advisory services as well as managed services that help them break the mold of traditional ERP development and to move to post-modern integrations of systems and data.

The challenges are different for clients in emerging markets that do not have an ERP solution in place.

For them, the challenges include having the ability to handle multiple currencies in online transactions, managing numerous subsidiaries and being able to roll-up financials, tracking inventory, and fielding a variety of different languages while keeping the costs of IT down and allowing for maximum growth potential.

Often, these clients are small but growing fast. For these clients, we look to implement solutions such as NetSuite that have zero IT footprint and offer maximum scalability while controlling costs. Also, we offer a managed service solution so clients have peace of mind that their new solution will be maintainable with current staff.

Please elaborate on GSI’s capabilities in project consulting and managed services.

GSI recognizes that companies and organizations need to continually strive to work smarter and to find better and more cost-effective ways of doing things. We realize that businesses can benefit from using project management and consulting services and process optimization support.

When working with GSI, our clients have access to a range of skills and experience across the business and technology spectrum and can benefit from the best practices we share with them. We assist our clients with specific projects such as the implementation of software, optimization of business processes, modernization of their software solutions along with leading them to technologies that enable them to be secure, flexible, and agile in today’s world. We offer all of this in our consulting practices as well as in our managed services offerings.

GSI’s managed services offerings cover all ends of the spectrum concerning functional and technical application support, operating systems, hardware, and database support, along with development and integration support for on-premise as well as cloud-native systems.

What makes GSI unique? How does your understanding of Oracle solutions put you ahead of others in the same market?

GSI is unique because we are always looking at what is right for our clients, not what is “right now.” We don’t believe in transactional customer-vendor relationships. We believe in long-term client-partner relationships. This means we must watch out for our client’s bottom-line like it is our own. Not just once in a while; we must do it 24/7/365. As for our understanding of Oracle solutions, we believe that GSI differentiates itself through its out-of-the-box, forward focus in this age of post-modern ERP.

While many providers hone in on one, maybe two, specific Oracle solutions, we have invested in enabling us to work with our clients on the more significant, broader spectrum of the solutions to scale, modernize, and transform their operations, while lowering their costs. In addition, GSI ensures that all of its consultants are certified in their areas of expertise. This includes our Platinum Certification in Oracle, which requires a broad set of specializations. All of our consultants have been in the field for at least 15 years and have business expertise beyond the simple configuration of the software. This enables us to provide additional value for clients looking to implement new software functionality while streamlining their business processes at the same time.

Please elaborate on a case study where GSI helped the client in achieving the desired level of outcome.

We have a client that used the JD Edwards Configurator application to create custom vehicles. Along with the configurations, they wanted to build a process that created a sales order for the vendor to ship against, and a purchase order that was to be used for the receipt processes.

The client needed to view all open vehicles that were being created and edit the purchase order for dates, shipment info, and ultimately update the sales order as well, up until it left the port for delivery and was ship confirmed.

GSI Created a simple screen to view and edit the purchase orders’ details up until the shipment was created for the vehicle; additional queries were built on this view that provided even more information and graphs.

What does the future hold for GSI?

We will continue to invest in and enable Oracle Solutions that will help our clients grow their businesses and lower their TCO. We will do this by continuing to invest heavily in our most important asset, our people, and in emerging technologies like AI, RPA, automation, and containerization. We will use these investments to make all of our products and services better for our clients.