What is good to know about jewelry management systems

Changes and new challenges in the jewelry industry

We just came back from the JCK show in Las Vegas. It was interesting to hear the opinions of other exhibitors regarding the future of this and other similar jewelry shows: many of them mentioned that the number of visitors is less and less each year. It is not surprising that several exhibitors started to question their presence on these shows.

What’s happening with the jewelry industry? – we asked each other.

One of the potential answers is the virtual space. Yes, the online space has an increasing influence on the jewelry industry.

Implementing a jewelry management system (or any other ERP) is a huge undertaking and inevitably comes with a certain degree of risk.

A recent study from an independent ERP consulting organization, Panorama Consulting, revealed that 26% of the organizations reported their ERP implementation as a failure.

For most, the risks are manageable if they are known ahead of time. Identifying what problems may arise and addressing them early will certainly help mitigate them before they become a point of failure for your project.

Software implementation researches showed that price is amongst the top five deciding factors when companies choose an ERP software (it's the number 1 factor in the case of first time buyers and number 5 for second time buyers). That's completely understandable as companies are worried about the ROI.

But what the ROI means when implementing an advanced jewelry software?

Jewelry ERP vs generic ERP

This article suggests ways to simplify your ERP selection process and points out the differences between jewelry-specific and generic ERP solutions.

As I mentioned in our previous post the jewelry industry was lack of an industry-specific software in the recent past. Those jewelry companies who felt a need implementing some kind of solution to automate some part of their business processes had no other choice than using different systems for inventory tracking, customer tracking or production tracking.

Two major problem they had to face:

"I just don't get it"

While two decades ago an ERP system was mainly available for bigger enterprises, but today an increasing number of smaller companies are using ERPs. In fact, there is a wide variety of viable options for different industries: for manufacturing, for distribution, for food and beverages, etc., so ERP is just an umbrella term.

Despite the expansion of ERP systems in many different industries, the jewelry industry had a much narrower choice of selection in the recent past. It’s more than obvious for us that the jewelry industry is still looking to understand how a jewelry software can improve their business. As one of our MJSA Expo visitors said:

"I just don’t get it how this jewelry software can help my business, and why we should invest money in such as system."