With the disparity of the business operations revealed, it became clear that Bedford's new environment needed the full range of financial management capabilities - general ledger, accounts payable and receivable, and so on - integrated with the materials and product management capabilities of a full manufacturing resource planning (MRP) solution. Acknowledging its small to middling size, Bedford began a careful evaluation of tier-three enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

After several rounds of demonstrations, vendor scoring, callbacks and shortlists, Bedford chose Epicor Vantage as the basis for its new information environment. It wasn't a decision made lightly: the whole process took nearly a year.

Forget the past

To head off potential cultural clashes down the track, Ribbons was careful to involve users from right across the business during the system design phase.

It's always helpful to get users closely involved, she aid, adding "I'm very keen on that approach."