How Bad ERP Data Destroys Scale, Automation and Customer Experience | The Disruptors #13

Show: The Disruptors Episode: 13

Publish Date: 18 November 2025

Bad system data (especially inside ERP’s) is the underlying reason a lot of digital projects fail.

Before you build portals, automations or self-service tools, your data structure needs to be right — because everything depends on it.

Most businesses blame the software when a portal fails or an automation breaks. But the real issue usually sits underneath: inconsistent, outdated, or poorly governed system data.

In this episode of The Disruptors, Intuji’s CEO Julian Wallis and Aashish Paudel, COO of Intuji, break down why dirty data destroys scale, automation and customer experience — and what leaders must fix before investing in digital tools.

Timestamps

00:00 – Intro – Episode Highlights

00:48 – Why company system data is the real starting point for digital projects

01:21 – Why leaders often underestimate the size and effort of data clean-ups

03:11 – How poor ERP data structure exposes itself instantly in customer portals

04:23 – Broken relationships between customers, contacts, SKUs and items

04:54 – Pricing inconsistencies and how automation exposes hidden flaws

05:17 – Duplicate records and conflicting customer data

07:00 – The super-admin problem and uncontrolled data changes

08:50 – The danger of legacy comfort and resisting needed change

10:25 – ERP vs PIM: when to consolidate vs separate systems

15:18 – Governance over features: why naming conventions and control matter

23:37 – Why reliable self-service depends entirely on data quality

27:09 – Why every business needs a data champion to own it’s quality

Key Takeaways from this Episode

• Most digital failures start with dirty company data, not broken software
• Workarounds hide internal problems but collapse when automation begins
• Governance, naming conventions and access control matter more than system software features
• Reliable automation and self-service can only run on well-structured data
• Every business needs a data champion to own quality, structure and improvement

Transcript

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:00:39:21 – 00:00:45:08)
Welcome to another episode of The Disruptors. I’m happy to have Aashish back. Good to have you back, mate.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:00:45:10 – 00:00:48:07)
Yeah, thank you very much. Good to be back.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:00:48:09 – 00:01:21:20)
Very good, very good. Today I thought we’d jump into a bit around ERP data and why it’s so important. Reason is this actually came from my, one of my discussions last week with, with a potential client and a business that we’re chatting with. So when I sat down with them, they were looking at doing a portal and some other tools, etc. but you know, that had some really good points around their ERP data and why its, you know, they want to get that really, really, solid rock solid, clean, structured well, and I’ll fully support them in that.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:01:21:20 – 00:01:47:22)
I think it’s an incredibly important part of, as we know, of these kind of projects. And it’s if’s we say it’s the source of truth. It should be that. And so I guess I just wanted to touch off with you as to kind of why it’s so important, having that data and, you know, what recommendations, any ideas, etc. we can put out there for anyone, listening that can implement some of these changes.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:01:48:00 – 00:02:12:06)
Okay. That’s a very interesting topic because we have been working with a lot of clients that are dealing with an ERP. And again, once that is a source of truth, it should be cleaned, sanitised because we are going to use data in different applications. So before jumping into creating any application, for example a portal, a front-end marketing website, we need to clean the ERP data.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:02:12:06 – 00:02:36:13)
And if it’s a legacy system with 30 to 40 years of data, then it’s very hard. But again, as a company, if we plan, if you align our business and give us the chance, like us, then we can understand the business, then structure the data properly so that we can disseminate it to the wider application. So yeah, it’s very important, because I have been working with a lot of clients.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:02:36:13 – 00:02:49:03)
We are dealing with different ERPs and no matter how sophisticated a distributor portal we may be, but if what you have is very rigid, then the portal is also very rigid.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:02:49:08 – 00:03:11:22)
Yeah I agree. Definitely. The ERP is super, super important. And I guess a big, I guess is underestimated a little bit from my perspective is that people, there’s a lot of businesses that and even ourselves we’ve learned this. But over time we probably underestimated how important, not the ERP is, because we always know that’s important, but the data.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:03:11:22 – 00:03:35:17)
Like how how much of a big job and how important it is and especially if, like if the portal is running off it or your website’s running off it or you’re running operations software, any of these kind of tools or applications, whatever you want to put up, like, it’s that’s running off the ERP and it’s wrong or it’s dirty or it’s not well structured.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:03:35:18 – 00:03:59:23)
Essentially, you’re giving a live stream, a live, view into your data, to your customers or users, even if it’s internal users. And so it’s just incredibly important and I guess one thing, it’s one of those things over time that businesses just, I don’t know, it just happens, if you know what I mean. When data becomes worse, it’s not as good as it used to be.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:04:00:01 – 00:04:23:18)
And it’s just a maintenance thing that often gets neglected. But I would strongly encourage businesses to focus on, on making sure that data is well structured, and some key areas I think, are relationships. So that could be between contacts or customers. It could be, you know, between child and parent customers or their items or SKUs, any of those kind of things.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:04:23:18 – 00:04:54:11)
Relationships are so important. And we’ve often seen really poor implementations, you know, where where these relationships aren’t structured very well in other ones, pricing. How pricing is handled in the ERP, then, how it’s maintained. When you start, yeah, automating I guess is the way to put it. You find a lot of the flaws, because if the data is wrong at a fund, foundational level, then it’s going to be wrong when it’s automated.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:04:54:12 – 00:05:16:04)
And businesses often, I guess it’s, covered up because they work on, they work on a lot of workarounds. But then, when you go to automate it, it’s not, you can’t hide that, I guess, is the point. And so a lot of it comes to the surface. What else would you say we’ve touched off on, I guess, pricing and, and those relationships.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:05:16:04 – 00:05:17:19)
But what else?

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:05:17:21 – 00:05:40:07)
I think the other most important would be duplicate data. So, for example, NetSuite allows multiple customers to have the same email address, that would be duplicated. But again, if we are using those emails to create an account on the portal, then it should be unique. So in our couple of project, we’ve faced this issue because that was not cleared out earlier.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:05:40:07 – 00:06:11:12)
But when we created the application that required 1 to 1 relationship with the email and account, but while fetching the data from matching it, multiple accounts were really associated with a single email. So it created a huge problem. Also, the other thing that clients often do is, like you said, they create a workaround because they have already a legacy data and they do not want to change it because it’s, again, expensive work and it requires a lot of resources.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:06:11:16 – 00:06:34:07)
So what they try to do is, let’s create a workaround for this, for that. Then again, after two years, if you want to add a new feature on the portal, then again, you have to go down the same hill. So it’s better we clean those up as early as possible, because later on it’s again, when the size increases, it will again create a problem to you, ultimately.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:06:34:07 – 00:07:00:20)
Yeah. And I guess the bigger the database, the bigger the data, the more work it’s going to be. And the earlier you fix it, the better. And I think one of the key things that came up in my discussions was, a governance framework and setting those boundaries and, and restricting access. Even one of the things that, you know, one of the questions I’ve often got, is like, oh, you know, how much access should we give to the sales team or how much access should we give here?

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:07:00:20 – 00:07:28:05)
And you, you often find that, you know, in a lot of businesses that everyone just has either near-full admin or super admin or just like, and then honestly, you know, they do a quote, for example, and then they go and change, the description because they want it a little bit different on the quote. But then they don’t realise the, they don’t think about the knock-on effect that that has to the rest of, you know, the rest of the business about the website or about all of this other stuff.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:07:28:05 – 00:07:50:06)
And so it’s just one of the key ones. Again, here I want to raise is the, and the idea of, the least privilege in regards to users that have got access to provide the least privilege you can in order for that person to do their role. There’s no point providing the opposite, where it’s like, oh, let’s give them the most privileges, you know, in case they need it.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:07:50:08 – 00:08:10:06)
That is how you run into issues where there’s unauthorised changes or things happening. And I guess if you’ve got 25 people that have got the ability and are making changes to, you know, let’s just say SKUs or the pricing, then course you’re going to run into issues. No one’s going to know what’s happening, where it’s happening, when it’s happening and why.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:08:10:08 – 00:08:37:17)
And so to me, it’s just super, super important that, that, that governance framework and that, idea of the it is that there’s a central point of control for that data in the ERP. And it all links to the stock, it links to even processes of the business. Right. Because if we’re bringing in live inventory or live lead times and stuff like that, that even might be in the ERP.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:08:37:17 – 00:08:50:04)
But if you take, let’s just say, two weeks to receive your stock in, to the ERP and enter that data in there, then the flow-on effect means that the data that’s live at the moment is actually two weeks old.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:08:50:08 – 00:09:14:10)
Yeah, you that’s a good point. The roll based access is the most important one because, like you said, if we are giving a full access to all the teams from all the departments, then it gives the system a sense that, yeah, you can do anything, and one does one thing, one does another thing. And two years down the line, you have all messed up data.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:09:14:12 – 00:09:35:18)
But I get, what most of the company thinks is, we have a sophisticated ERP then that will work. But again, that is the tech side. The software side. But again, like you said, we need a governance framework on how to run the ERP because it’s not for a day or two. It’s for whole business for the lifelong. So this would be an entity who governs it, who creates a process.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:09:35:18 – 00:09:52:17)
Okay. These are the roles that will be provided to this department. You can do this. The data type of this. So it should have a governance framework. But again at the same time the portal should be flexible. So for example for a super admin, it should be flexible that they can add new data type or again edit something.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:09:52:17 – 00:10:17:17)
But again it should be limited to server and user so that it’s again flexible for the company so that when the business grows, they can evolve the ERP. But again, it is restricting other users to make the changes that are not authorised. So yeah. So these are the non-technical aspect that you also need to think about when you are creating a ERP or a distributor portal, because we often rely on the software so much.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:10:17:18 – 00:10:25:12)
But again, it cannot manage all the human behaviour. So we need to balance the, both the technical and non-technical aspect.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:10:25:14 – 00:10:44:00)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, certainly and I absolutely agree with it. And I think people might get a bit confused as well, which is not necessarily their fault. But they don’t know, like you know, do we put it in the ERP? Do we, do we implement a PIM? Do we have another system? And I think, again, there’s no silver bullet here.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:10:44:00 – 00:11:09:01)
There’s no exact solution for every single business. Because as we know well and truly that every single business is different and the requirements are different. But in general, I guess, you know, we’ve we’ve implemented PIMs, we’ve also got, done stuff in the ERP, etc.. If you can, and I’m always a fan of this, if we can consolidate systems in regards to, you know, the product data etc., it’s better for us to do that.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:11:09:03 – 00:11:37:15)
But in saying that there is some, you know, situations where, you know, external systems may be needed for like, you know, managing the assets and that kind of thing, which we’ve done a range of approaches to that as well. But I guess, have you got any comments on that, because in some instances there are like, you know, some people make the argument that, oh, you know, putting all of this extra stuff in the ERP is just going to complicate ERP is going to make that clunky, make it slow and we don’t want to do that.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:11:37:15 – 00:11:58:06)
So we’d rather have that external. I can see that point of view. And I don’t necessarily totally disagree with it, and what we’re saying here is, not to go and load two-gigabyte videos into your ERP and stuff like that. That’s not what we’re talking about. But more, you know, your text-based data, your more foundational product data, etcetera.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:11:58:06 – 00:12:07:12)
But I just wanted to touch off on the kind of PIM side, and that there is, I guess, there is, a time and place for that as well. But it does depend on the business.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:12:07:14 – 00:12:30:12)
Business yeah, because every piece of software, all the applications have its own objective. Right? So you cannot consolidate all the features into one thing because it’s, again, going to be complicated and it’s not designed to solve it. Like we, when writing a function, you need to serve only one piece of action that functions would do so, like similarly the application also, for example, is ERP.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:12:30:14 – 00:13:01:09)
Then it should hold company’s valuable data that are non-negotiable, for example, pricing, the customer details and everything else. But for, when it comes to product asset, the specification or the things that they’re required to send to the wider applications, like the job descriptions or so, anything, it’s better if we segregate it, because again, if we are trying to disseminate this information from a single source, then there will be APIs hitting to that ERP.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:13:01:11 – 00:13:23:22)
And again, it may introduce security concerns as well. So if you are trying to expand to the wider application, it’s better you divide it. So yes, your ERP would be your source of truth, again that ERP would be connected to PIM. That is product information management system. So what it does is, it fetches the SKU from the ERP and all the assets.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:13:24:00 – 00:13:46:19)
The description, the anything that are related to that product that can be stored on that application and will provide a specific user to that application and that can designate it, so that we are not giving direct access to ERP. But again, it depends on how the business work. If they do not want to give the information to a wider audience, and there are certain admins that are going to update the resources.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:13:46:20 – 00:14:04:13)
Then why complicate it with multiple applications? We can use one. But again, like you said, there’s no one solution for all the problems. So it depends. But again, you need to know exactly what that application’s objective is and if it’s fulfilling that without creating any hurdle then yeah, definitely. We can consolidate it.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:14:04:15 – 00:14:22:15)
Yeah, yeah. No, I agree. And again it does, not to, I guess, provide confusing information, but it does depend on the business’s requirements as to whether or not we, we implement that. I guess foundationally if you, if I guess a simple way to look at it is, if it can be in the ERP and it makes sense, put it in the ERP, right?

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:14:22:17 – 00:14:39:05)
Yeah. It means it’s, it’s a consolidated system. It means you’re not trying to manage multiple systems. And it means that not only that, you can have it in your quoting, you can have it in the for you for all the different things and functions that are going on there. It’s not just about when we’re doing the API and stuff, right.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:14:39:05 – 00:14:59:06)
So if it can be in there, then we have it in there. If it’s going to cause issues and it’s not, you know, it’s a lot. It’s large files, it’s a lot of assets. There’s, it’s more of a, I guess, what do we put it, a storage thing, thing like that there then. Yeah. We wouldn’t, wouldn’t recommend putting that in the ERP obviously, you know, there’s, there’s other solutions out there for that.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:14:59:06 – 00:15:18:09)
So, I guess just going back a bit as well, I want to touch off on the human aspect of just, inside the businesses themselves, because we’ve had these conversations with businesses before and even said, hey, your ERP data needs to be clean, it needs to be set up, and they’re like Yeah, yeah no worries, we’ll sort it out and we’re like, no, it’s a big job.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:15:18:09 – 00:15:52:02)
Like, like, you need to sort this out and it’s going to be something that comes up. Yeah, yeah fine. We’ll sort it out. You know? Not a problem. Then they’ve realised I think, they’ve severely underestimated the amount of work that it actually takes in order to do that. And I guess, the time and effort that’s required in it and, it really is hard because you need someone that is, to a degree, somewhat inside the business and knowledgeable about the business itself.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:15:52:04 – 00:16:15:04)
In order for that to, because it’s really an indexing of, I guess, of the company knowledge to a degree, without overcomplicating it. But have you got any comments on that? I guess it’s just about a word of warning or making sure that teams are prepared and don’t try and cut corners with it, because you cut corners with it and you feel it in the end, you know, whether it’s in the portal or whatever else.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:16:15:04 – 00:16:34:05)
But again, the whole point of it is, if you’ve got the information indexed or you’ve got the information right, set up correctly, then we can automate based on that, or we can be confident that it’s correct. If it’s not, then your automations like going to consistently have issues.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:16:34:07 – 00:16:56:14)
Yeah. To touch base on the human aspect. So when you start using an application so you tend to get comfortable with it, so even though it’s very hard complicated or it’s creating problem, if you give a year you start using it, then you become comfortable. And when the comfort evolves, for example, 5 or 10 years down the line, then the company are.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:16:56:16 – 00:17:19:14)
It’s very easy for the business or the people running the business to operate thisERP. We do it like this, so we don’t want to touch it. I think that is also another human aspect that we need to consider, because yes, being comfortable is good. But again, with what you are being comfortable, if it’s not creating an asset for you, for the long run, like you said, the knowledge base, then it’s again creating a problem for you.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:17:19:14 – 00:17:39:13)
It will not create a problem right now because you are comfortable in that position. But again, the tech industry is growing. You want your, this portal or marketing website, the applications there are a lot of things. So when you try to bring everything together, then you see, oh we messed up because we have been using the system for 50 years.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:17:39:13 – 00:18:02:12)
We have been comfortable. What’s wrong? And now we cannot change it, or it will take a lot of time and resources to change it. So I think, with one of our clients that I have been closely working within, they have a legacy ERP? So they have a set of things and also they are used by multiple companies. So whenever we say, okay, let’s add this thing.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:18:02:13 – 00:18:24:21)
No, no, no, this is a lady in the place. We are comfortable with using this. You need to create a workaround. So yes, for the time being, we change the logic on our back end. Now what happens if we create a new application? Same problem. So the comfort that people are in ERP, I’m talking about the companies that are working for 50, 60 years.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:18:25:01 – 00:18:44:10)
So, these are the company who are, a little bit resistant to change because they are comfortable. The business is growing like that. And there will be a couple of guys, old guys who are using the ERP and all the information are all in their head. So if they retired, if we do not have a proper succession planning, then again, it’s going to create a problem.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:18:44:10 – 00:18:56:01)
So, there is a balance, the human and the technical side. So yeah, I think that’s another aspect that we need to look after. If we are planning to run ERP for the long time.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:18:56:03 – 00:19:17:00)
Yeah. Absolutely. I think another way to put that there is, is the cost of change is the cost of, you know, the risk even of getting it wrong. We know how, to be honest, like every ERP implementation has challenges. And some go better than others, but most of them have challenges, even for the most well-planned ones.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:19:17:00 – 00:19:43:20)
And we know that through experience of just, you know, working with businesses that have gone through that process. But, I guess a lot of, which is understandable for the business if they are working, you know, if it’s doing okay and helping growth, it’s that risk, it’s that, that fear of that change and disruption to the business that they, you know, with the actual system itself, which I can understand, but at some point is going to come a time where you, you know, you’re going to evolve, especially from that legacy ERP.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:19:43:20 – 00:19:57:23)
And if we’re building, you know, if it’s going to the backbone of the business and our systems and we’re building out other systems off it, then yes, that, that legacy thing, as you said, comes in and, and holds you back. And I think another thing, Ritesh, kind of the way he puts it is, yeah, a lot of ERPs.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:19:57:23 – 00:20:17:17)
I feel like they held together with duct tape and there’s been so much custom work done. There’s been so many different people coming over the years and, add all of this different stuff. Again, the principle comes back to there’s no governance right? So someone comes in, adds a new custom field because they want to add a new custom field.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:20:17:19 – 00:20:45:16)
Big whoop, so suddenly that custom field is now, three years later. Half the data is in one custom field, half the data’s in another custom field. Like, what I mean is just it becomes this, never-ending cycle of trying to manage the structure and the data, because there, hasn’t been from day one, a consistent, entity or person or whatever you want to put it as, responsible for, for governing that and managing that, that particular part of the ERP.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:20:45:18 – 00:21:03:05)
And, when it’s the backbone of the other systems. It’s a backbone of, but even saying, it’s a backbone of the, your, ERP automations and all that kind of stuff, well when it’s wrong. Yeah, you’re going to, you’re going to run into those issues, and it’s a significant issue for the business.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:21:03:07 – 00:21:36:15)
Yeah. Interestingly, yesterday I was working on NetSuite application mapping for one of our new project and for a data model of customer there were tons of custom field. So custom field one, custom with two, without any description. So yes, they might have created a long time back to cater to some requirement. But now, if that person has left and there is no proper documentation, then we are not sure what custom field two is going to store, what its data type, whether its required or not.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:21:36:18 – 00:21:59:02)
So again, it’s these are the small friction that are going to be created in the long run. So yes, again, like we discussed earlier, yes, it should be flexible for the company to add in new custom fields, custom tables. But again, there should be governance like naming convention about, like you said, the relationship. So yeah, it was interesting yesterday.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:21:59:02 – 00:22:12:10)
I work on it and I saw a lot of custom field. And also, when the business grow, they again change it. Change the, the ERP. And it’s, if you see five years down the line then you have more custom fields than the original fields.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:22:12:12 – 00:22:34:06)
Yeah. Well unless they get it right, sometimes they get it right. And, you know, they, they implement it, right. I guess, a key part of this as well is that to a degree, within reason, you know, software these days in regards to ERPs and stuff, they all do similar things. Yes, there’s different particular features, there’s different skills that, or like enhancements features in within certain softwares.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:22:34:06 – 00:22:54:04)
Don’t get me wrong, they’re not all just identical, but the general principle of them, they all kind of have the exact same stuff, but so many times things go wrong because people just haven’t managed it or structured the data properly and stuff like that, but they blame the piece of software. And this isn’t just for ERPs, I’ve seen it with CRMs.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:22:54:05 – 00:23:16:19)
I’ve seen it with everything, where the software isn’t a silver bullet, it’s not a piece of magic. Right? As in, it’s, it’s a it’s a framework. And you use that framework however you, you know, you use it, how well you use it, how well you don’t use that kind of thing. And, it, it’s that’s just something for people to understand that it’s just not a, any pieces of software, goes for anything in the business.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:23:16:19 – 00:23:37:20)
It’s not a, not a magic piece of software. And I guess one kind of way to think about this simply, for anyone listening that, you know, has this in their business, is, imagine you’re trying to create a self-service portal or you’re opening up, whether it’s internally for an operations piece of software or externally for a self-service portal, whatever.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:23:37:22 – 00:24:14:22)
You’ve got to think in systems, in processes, and you imagine that, okay, let’s say a customer comes in to the business and is, wanting to place an order, and they sit down at your computer and actually go through your ERP and enter the data and enter their, their order. Now, obviously, that wouldn’t be the greatest user experience for them to do that, but the point I’m making here is, is all of the information there, is it well structured, to where they had all the information accurately, where they could very easily and consistently, and reliably, I guess, go through and, and enter that information and process that order.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:24:15:00 – 00:24:44:00)
Now, when you think of a self-service tool, all you’re doing is making the user experience better, right? Because we all know ERP’s user experience, typically are pretty trash. Right. That’s just, that, they’re a glorified database with functions on top. So, we essentially are making that user experience better. So you select the same principle with that self-service portal and you’re like, okay, what information do they need to know, in real time, without any human reliably, consistently.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:24:44:00 – 00:25:07:07)
And then what actions should they be able to take reliably consistently easily and that pushes information back into the ERP. It’s a systems, it’s a processes thing, right? For example, if your stock levels are always inconsistent, right. Whether that’s through integration or through you not entering data in ERP properly or whatever else, the customer cannot rely on the stock levels.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:25:07:09 – 00:25:26:08)
So something is wrong, right? So, this is the point I’m trying to make. You’ve got to think in the processes, in the systems of like going, okay, what do we need to do to remove that friction? What do we need to do to enable that self-service? And, you’ll find that 80% of it will come back to the data in the ERP.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:25:26:10 – 00:25:54:05)
Great. Yeah. The, another example that I want to place is, it might be a small piece of information, but again, with every data that you are storing on the ERP. So if you have a updated date field on there, then it would be very easy for the portal to fetch the updated one, because I have seen a lot of ERPs that do not store the created and updated date.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:25:54:07 – 00:26:20:00)
So whenever we want to do an increment thing we don’t know from where we fetch it? We don’t know if it’s updated now or it’s updated five years back. So, these are the small, or the nuances that are missing from the ERP data that is not helping the customer to get the real-time information. Like, for example, you update the stock, but again, your ERP doesn’t store the updated date information.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:26:20:06 – 00:26:45:21)
Then how does your portal know if it’s updated today or yesterday? So yeah, these are the nuances that needs to be taken care like from the data angle. So you might think that this information is not required. But again, the more data you collect, the better information you hav,e and you can do better analysis. And your customer portal will have more user-friendly experience for your distributor or any other user.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:26:45:23 – 00:27:09:15)
Yes. No, I certainly agree, and I think just probably layering on top a bit about what we discussed regarding the governance, the stuff and the, the control or the privileges etc. within the ERP, is have, have a champion, have an owner of, of the data. It doesn’t mean that, that individual person does everything. You know, if you’re if you’re a very large business, then obviously you’re going to have other team members and stuff like that there.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:27:09:15 – 00:27:32:21)
But someone should ultimately be responsible for that data, whether it’s master data person or something. Yeah, a database, individual, etc., whatever it is, you know, the roles look different in different businesses. But at the end of the day, someone that, that’s over that, that data, kind of overseeing the governance, either overseeing the management of it and making sure that, you know, it’s a continual improvement thing.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:27:32:21 – 00:27:51:03)
It’s not just a, you know, it’s not just a, oh, let’s clean it up once and forget about it, but it’s just someone that is responsible and managing that on an ongoing basis. It doesn’t have to be, depending on the size businesses. Doesn’t have to be a full-time thing. It could be a part-time thing, especially if you put a lot of frameworks and systems and processes in place.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:27:51:05 – 00:28:19:18)
Obviously, it becomes a lot easier because it kind of self-manages. But again, it is someone ultimately responsible for, okay, what are we doing here, and what are we trying to achieve? And if you do that and you get that data right, the rest of the systems that we, we’re essentially just layering functionality on. We’re layering presentation layers, we’re layering UI’s on top of the ERP to extend functionality, and that is the, that extended functionality is obviously what we call your Edge Factor®.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:28:19:18 – 00:28:35:01)
But it is, it’s the, what makes the business unique in regards to, you’ve got this ERP data, and then how do we now layer on self-service tools and internal tools and things like that there to push and pull, to supercharge the business’s efficiency basically?

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:28:35:01 – 00:28:59:09)
Yeah, the role, the permissions are very important. Like you said, there should be an internal champion who looks after the data, the quality of it, and sanitises it. Yes. Again, depending on the business, there can be an internal champion that is working full time. But again, if it’s a small size, then they can again hire a consultant six months down the line.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:28:59:13 – 00:29:15:07)
Check whether all the information or the data collected are correct, sanitise it and then move forward with that. We don’t want to wait five years and realise that, oh, we made a mistake. It’s better we realise it in six months and do a check and balance, and then update it if required.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:29:15:09 – 00:29:33:13)
Yeah, totally. Well, I think it’s been a really good discussion. It would be really insightful for a lot of people listening, just in regards to, you know, how they need structure that ERP data and stuff. And we could go on for quite a long time about this and specific stories with businesses, but it does get a bit nuanced when you start talking to individual businesses and things like that.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:29:33:13 – 00:29:42:22)
With the position they are in. But hopefully what we’ve shared today is giving them some, some good insight. So I appreciate you coming on and have you got anything else to add before we finish up?

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:29:43:00 – 00:30:04:09)
Yeah. So we are not trying to say the ERP, all the ERP on the market are wrong or you need to structure in this way, like we said, it depends on the business. But again, if your company is not capable of doing that, then you should hire a consultant who understands your business and then implement the ERP, structure it properly so that it will be beneficial for you in the long run.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:30:04:12 – 00:30:24:13)
We are not saying that you cannot add this, you cannot add this, but you can obviously do a lot of things with the ERP, but it should be again structured. The data should make some convert to information. Again, if you are inputting a garbage, you will get the garbage out. So that’s the basic principle. So yes, there is no one-stop solution for all the problems.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:30:24:13 – 00:30:42:21)
But again, it’s a customised thing. So you need to understand the business. You need to understand what business is catering, what are the distributors that are associated with the business and based on that, we can obviously customise it on, create a governance framework and then help you excel in the market.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:30:42:23 – 00:31:02:00)
Yeah. Very good. Thanks. Thanks, Aashish, I appreciate it. And thanks everyone for listening. If you want to check out, there is more episodes here on The Disruptors, YouTube channel or any other, you know, Spotify, etc. you can get the, all the episodes and then, as well as you can check out, Pulse, our other podcasts on YouTube and Spotify, etc., as well as our learning center on intuji.com.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:31:02:02 – 00:31:06:21)
But, appreciate you listening. And, yeah, if you’ve got any feedback, feel free to reach out. Thank you.

Aashish Paudel, COO at Intuji (00:31:06:23 – 00:31:09:21)
Yeah. Thanks, mate. See you next time.

Julian Wallis, CEO at Intuji (00:31:09:23 – 00:31:10:18)
Thank you.

Ritesh Shah, CTO at Intuji (00:31:10:20 – 00:31:39:13)
That’s a wrap on this episode of The Disruptors. If you are serious about unlocking your EdgeFactor®, the thing that sets your business apart and helps it grow sustainably. Don’t forget to follow, share and leave a quick review. We will be back next week with more real-world insights and no flop conversations on how to rethink your systems, modernise operations, and build value that lasts.

Ritesh Shah, CTO at Intuji (00:31:39:15 – 00:31:43:19)
Until then, stay safe, stay focused, and keep disrupting!