In industries ranging from retail to communications, transportation, or the service industry, the information -based economy has changed how businesses compete. In fact, those that insist on beating the competition are likely to lose the battle. Instead, the more adept companies, such as Hamilton Telecommunications, understand that winning in today’s increasingly competitive business world means focusing on creating value for customers. One way this private telecommunications company deliver s value is through its strategic use and integration of JD Edwards Software into critical points of its business that may directly and indirectly impact customers. Here are key takeaways on how this growing telecommunications company is leveraging JD Edwards Software to meet their unique market demands and support business growth:

Stay hyper-focused on one’s core market segment.

If you can’t be the Goliath in your industry, be the best David there is. Hamilton Telecommunications – a diversified communications and technology service provider based in Aurora, Nebraska took this to heart. Instead of casting a wide net, they set their eyes on targeting niche markets.

This strategy is especially important for companies that first need to gain consumers’ trust and share the market pie with more established competitors. Founded in 1901 as a local telephone cooperative, the private telecommunications company is relatively small in comparison to some of its competitors, which include prominent national carriers. However, it has seen growth and expansion to encompass eight primary divisions that operate on a local, regional and national basis.

One of the fastest growing niche markets Hamilton has targeted serves individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, deaf-blind or have difficulty speaking. “Hamilton Relay provides telecommunications relay and captioned telephone services for thousands of individuals across the United States,” says Hamilton Telecommunications Senior Enterprise Applications Administrator Andrew Ostdiek.

To accommodate rapid growth, the company tapped JD Edwards as an ERP software solution. “We’ve been running JD Edwards for 11 years now,” Ostdiek says, who joined the company 10 years ago. “During that time, our company has experienced great growth.  Our business and workforce has grown to be five or six times larger than before, and JD Edwards has helped us to reduce the administrative cost of doing that, allowing us to focus more on delivering trusted and quality services that best serve our customers and enhance their communications.”

Anticipate resource challenges and assess the team bandwidth to support the upgrade project.

“In total, it was an eight-month upgrade process. Initially, our steering committee set out for a six-month targeted ‘Go Live’ date,” he says. After evaluating internal resources and discussing timelines and requirements with departmental stakeholders, the company realized that a six-month timeline wasn’t feasible to accomplish. As a result, the schedule was revised to plan for the latest upgrade to go live in late February of this year. To further help them through the process, Hamilton Telecommunications tapped TeamCain to be their upgrade partner and help manage the CNC and Development project tasks.

Leverage functionalities to meet company goals.

To help stay innovative and meet company goals, the company needed to leverage the functionalities offered within the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne modules. Maximizing the integrated functionalities also meant better control of costs as it keeps them from using third-party solutions. As far as managing the company’s finances and keeping a sound financial accounting, Ostdiek says JD Edwards is their primary resource. “We are licensed for several modules, but the majority of the modules we run are in the financial suite.  In addition to Financials, we run HCM/Payroll, Time & Labor, Employee/Manager Self-Service, Procurement, Sales Orders, Inventory, Contract and Service Billing, Project Costing, and Advanced Pricing.”

Although more pressing projects meant less time to explore new features, Ostdiek says there is a lot of excitement around the new features. It is in their plan to continue to identify features and functionality, like Watch Lists or Notifications, which may provide valuable benefits to help streamline business processes.

Get feedback to constantly improve.

It is not wise to think that a technology upgrade ends with the Go Live date. Instead, it should be a continuous process of improvement. As for Hamilton Telecommunications, the best way to improve is to get feedback from users.

“Change can be difficult when you are affecting somebody’s day-to-day job. We have heard from some of our employees who felt that the software change has caused them some heartburn, but that is only one side of the spectrum. We have also had others who have now seen the possibilities of what the latest solution can provide,” he says. To help ease people into change, Ostdiek says educating users on functionality is key. “It’s not always easy, and we don’t always do it right, but engaging in an open and consistent dialogue with our stakeholders is what will help us enable the new tools and continue to most effectively run our business.”

For a company like Hamilton Telecommunications, feedback – whether from its own team, clients, or even JD Edwards user communities like Quest – is what helps them stay current and forward-thinking. By learning how other companies are maximizing their own JD Edwards EnterpriseOne footprint, Ostdiek is able to leverage this knowledge in the back-end side of the business and help the company stay focused on what’s more important on the front-end: Creating value for its clients.