At the start of each New Year, I enjoy reflecting on the successes, challenges, and improvements I have made in my personal and work life. I think we can all agree that 2016 was a whirlwind, not only for the country, but for myself and Global Shop Solutions. I took time to reflect on all the positives that came out of last year for our company. I find it amazing how much growth can occur in 365 days, and the following is good insight to how much Global Shop Solutions has changed and evolved for the better of our customers in the course of a year.

In January of 2016, Global Shop Solutions was only available on premise. Today, many customers are running Global Shop Solutions in the cloud and each passing day more customers and potential customers ask about our cloud service, which is led by our Manager of Technical Service George Thuo.

Last January, customers had no or limited access to data visualization tools, but now we offer 19 (and counting) Key Performance Indicators to help you better manage and visualize your data. Global Shop Solutions customer FIMA Peru says that their “people are impressed when seeing our data on the Dashboard,” and Magnolia Brush Manufacturers “LOVE the Overdue Invoice Dashboard,” available starting with the 2016.2 update.

We have maintained an impressively high service call quality rating and a speed rating with the help of an incredible Service team. Our core code base now runs on 100% on the .NET framework.

We had a ton of additional successes with the completion of our R&D building remodel, the current remodel of our Service building and the construction of our third building that will house our new training facility. We implemented a new training program for ALL new employees through our Service Training Program and brought home 4 awards from the Business Marketing Association for marketing and advertising excellence.

So to answer the question, “Does one year really make a difference?” Yes, yes it does. 2016 was a year to be grateful for, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more from the 230+ employees that work hard every day to simplify your manufacturing™. My hope for all of you is that 2017 will prove to be a successful and innovative year for each of you at work and at home.

Push the Sled blog is written by Dusty Alexander, CEO of Global Shop Solutions, because no matter how good you get (at physical fitness, running a manufacturing business or being an ERP user) you can always work harder, get better, and be humble.