Comparesoft Podcast

Aissam Drai, ERP Head at the Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC), talks through his journey of selecting, implementing, and adopting an ERP system. He explains how he runs Oracle Fusion across six countries and 38 legal entities, with more than 25 integrated applications covering finance, procurement, HR, and project and performance management, at the largest broadcaster in the Middle East, and why he chose to implement it in-house. In this episode, Aissam talks about: How MBC runs Oracle Fusion across six countries, with payroll configured to each country's labour laws Why he moved from legacy Oracle E-Business Suite to cloud as a phased early adopter, not a Big Bang (plus a comparison between SAP & Oracle Fusion) The three legacy pain points that drove the move: interface, customisation, and upgrades Why he implemented in-house after two external implementers failed, and when that model does not fit How a small pilot in Jordan built the momentum to win management's backing How he uses agentic AI to tackle shadow systems, and where AI and human-in-the-loop automation fit into ERP adoption Listen and read more: https://comparesoft.com/erp-software/podcasts/in-house-erp-rollout/

Lisa Assiotes, Facilities Manager at Ocado Retail, joins the Comparesoft Facilities Management Podcast to explain how she runs facilities management for a busy retail head office, and why building the right team and culture matters more than any single system. Drawing on 25 years in facilities, from the help desk at Lloyd's of London through corporate, charity, gaming and retail environments, Lisa shares how she builds FM functions from scratch, works with an integrated service provider, and decides when facilities management software is worth the investment. In this episode, Lisa talks about: How to build an in-house FM function from scratch in the first 90 days Why culture, engagement and service delivery sit at the heart of FM The advantages of an integrated service provider over managing multiple vendors When a CAFM system is, and is not, worth the investment How AI is starting to streamline repetitive FM tasks, with a human in the loop Managing FM budgets, supplier value and the cost of reactive maintenance 🔗 Listen and watch: https://comparesoft.com/facilities-management-software/podcasts/ocado-retail-fm/

Ibnu Pookkayil, Engineering Supervisor at Gosh! Food, a B Corp-certified food manufacturer in Milton Keynes, joins the Comparesoft CMMS Podcast to explain what running maintenance in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) manufacturing really involves. Drawing on more than a decade of food-industry engineering, from a large plant in Saudi Arabia to a lean one-engineer-per-shift operation in the UK, Ibnu shares the disciplines that keep perishable products moving through tight delivery windows, and what an engineering team needs from a computerised maintenance management system (CMMS). In this episode, Ibnu talks about: What running maintenance at an FMCG manufacturer involves day to day How to prioritise when two production lines break down at once Why perishable products and tight delivery windows raise the cost of downtime The Friday planning meeting that brought maintenance under control Cutting reactive work from around 35 per cent to below 20 per cent How to approach preventive maintenance across older and newer lines The CMMS capabilities a small or mid-sized manufacturer actually needs Using fishbone (Ishikawa) analysis to break the firefighting cycle Listen and read more: https://comparesoft.com/cmms-software/manufacturing/fmcg/

Ashley Birrell-Riley, a change management lead with over a decade of experience on large-scale ERP transformations, joins the Comparesoft ERP Podcast to explore the single factor that most often decides whether an ERP implementation succeeds or fails: change management. 88% of programmes with excellent change management meet or exceed their objectives, against just 13% of those with poor change management. Ashley explains what sits behind that gap, drawing on programmes across local government, construction, and transport, including an award-winning ERP implementation at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. In this episode, Ashley talks about: What change management actually means inside an ERP programme, beyond communications and training How to measure adoption with stage gates and readiness surveys, before and after go-live The difference between a skill gap and a will gap, and how to handle workarounds How to build a change strategy from scratch after system selection Why change champions carry the load when supporting 30,000 employees with a team of four How to make the business case for change management investment to a CFO 🔗 Listen and read more: https://comparesoft.com/erp-software/implementation/change-management/

Josh Clarke, Senior Maintenance and Engineering Manager at Arla Foods, joins the Comparesoft CMMS Podcast to share what good maintenance really looks like in food and beverage manufacturing. Josh runs maintenance at Arla's Aylesbury site, one of the world's biggest dairy factories, where his team handles 500 to 700 work orders a week across processing, production, and a purpose-built energy centre that generates the plant's own electricity, steam, and refrigeration. He has spent his career building maintenance programmes across dairy, bakery, and meat processing, including a 90% downtime reduction during his time as Engineering Manager at Délifrance. In this episode, Josh talks about: What a day looks like running maintenance at a 24/7, 365 dairy site How his team prioritises and moves 500 to 700 work orders a week How food and beverage sites maintain uptime without a shutdown window How he tripled preventative maintenance output by doing one job a day Why plants revert to spreadsheets even when they have a CMMS in place How he cut downtime by 90% at Délifrance, starting from a stabilise-first mindset The three things that separate well-run food and beverage sites from the rest 🔗 Listen and read more: Comparesoft: 👉 https://comparesoft.com/cmms-software/manufacturing/food-beverage/

Laura Pointer, Founder of Pivotal Project Management, joins the Comparesoft ERP Podcast to explain how she has built a 100% go-live success rate across ERP implementations in oil and gas, engineering, manufacturing and facilities management. In this episode, Laura unpacks what ERP go-live actually means, why most buyers mistake it for the end of the project, and the methodology that has kept her record intact. She walks through the checklist non-negotiables, the most common causes of delay, and what it takes to sustain a go-live once the consultants have demobilised. Laura talks about: What ERP go-live really means, and how to define a successful one beyond "the system is on" The honesty-first methodology behind her 100% success rate, including why RAG greenwashing kills programmes faster than any technical issue The go-live checklist non-negotiables, from people-first sequencing to multi-date sign-off on customisations What go-live day actually looks like, including the field-rename incident that almost broke a fully integrated solution Why change management is the single biggest cause of go-live failure, and how to spot the quiet resistors How big bang and phased rollouts compare, and where peer cascade pays off What it takes to sustain a go-live in the first six months, including hypercare, top-down messaging, and letting it settle 🔗 Listen and read more: https://comparesoft.com/erp-software/implementation/go-live/