Has Industry Built (JustFood) Left Food and Beverage Manufacturers High and Dry?

Today, Aptean announced they are acquiring Industry Built Ltd., the providers of JustFood and the solution used by a number of small and mid-sized food and beverage clients.

What does it all mean?  It’s too early to know for sure.  What we do know is that Aptean is not a Microsoft Dynamics NAV (MS NAV) solution provider. Their existing food and beverage solution (Ross ERP Systems) was a best-of-breed proprietary solution acquired almost 10 years ago when Ross was dying on the vine because their technology was dated and their client base dwindling.  So, it’s difficult to get excited about a merger on behalf of the food and beverage community when we’re dealing with separate code bases and a partner without MS NAV expertise as a core competency.

One might think having the Industry Built team in play for the next 6 months during the transition is a good thing.  It is, and we don’t believe it will be part of the solution in the long term as it’s well known among IB’s install base that they’ve struggled to be responsive to new and existing clients in a timely way as they’ve grappled with high turnover the past 3 years.  So, if you add the potential chaos of an acquisition to the mix, what will this mean for their existing clients?  What about newly-signed clients who are getting ready to implement?

At SYTE Consulting Group, our commitment to the food and beverage industry is to stay on top of this and to be there when you need us.  Though SYTE is solution agnostic (we don’t sell software), we have a bench full of JustFood and MS NAV experts because of our focus on small and mid-sized food and beverage manufacturers. We’ve helped clients implement JustFood for over ten years.  If you need assistance during this transition, or when you’re ready to move to the next generation food and beverage solution, we want to help.

Feel free to reach out to me directly at ekoss@sytecg.com or 541-221-2015.