Today’s food industry is experiencing new growth opportunities, as driven by consumer tastes and demands. But, taste is not the only thing this industry has to fulfill. The focus of food manufacturers has been refined by food safety and compliance as per the recent FSMA roll-out and the instant and global nature of today’s media. As the consumer base is largely global, serving the customer while maintaining compliance is a challenge requiring manufacturers to keep a pulse on: deployment options (On-premises, SaaS, Cloud), meaningful analytics based on ever-increasing access to data, and the ability to consume information on mobile platforms that are changing the way people access and utilize business systems.
With this intuitive perception, Joe Blauert, General Manager of ProcessPro comes with a mission to provide a comprehensive ERP solution for Food and Beverage Manufacturers that encompasses every aspect of business, from selling to planning production, to managing to manufacture, to shipping. ProcessPro has been on this journey for over three decades, building experience with process manufacturers and expertise in the ERP marketplace. Coming into this business, Joe strived to best leverage these assets by fine tuning the focus and industry expertise to better differentiate them in the market.
What success means to Joe?
“I think the best word that describes me is curious, and that trait is probably the biggest reason that I’ve been successful,” says Joe.
Joe is driven to learn more about how the world around him works, and that has taken him across a wide variety of roles over the last 30 years in the software business. He held positions that span sales, operations, and finance, and that breadth of experience allows him to coordinate the efforts of every part of the business better and eliminate the internal “silos” that can keep a company from being successful. That curiosity is also what attracted him to ProcessPro and the solutions they provide for food and beverage manufacturers.
As General Manager of ProcessPro, his primary focus is to ensure the company’s continued growth and evolvement to meet the vital needs of its clients and the ever increasing demand for its products and services. Joe has a robust and in-depth knowledge of ProcessPro’s business as he has managed sales, business and product development, and operations. He is a strong leader with an open door policy and brings cohesive leadership across the entire organization.
Previously, Joe held senior executive roles in sales, operations, and finance with HighJump Software, ADP, and Honeywell. He has a proven record of outstanding performance that includes being a significant contributor in building a business from $10 million to $90 million through organic sales growth, acquisitions, and international expansion. Joe’s leadership success has been driven by his ability to balance often opposing factors, such as strategic vision with day-to-day execution, and new customer acquisition with financial discipline.
ProcessPro: A Complete Suite of ERP solutions for Food and Beverages Manufacturers
ProcessPro provides comprehensive ERP solutions for food and beverage manufacturers that encompass every aspect of their business, from selling to planning production, to managing to manufacture, to shipping. Along the way, they provide the solutions needed to manage this complex process while meeting FDA requirements for cGMP’s, food safety and product traceability. Simply put, no one does this better than ProcessPro. The company delivers the software and tools they need to manage recipes, lot tracking, quality, and expiration of all ingredients and finished products, and meet recall requirements. Additionally, their most innovative solution provides manufacturers access to all data relating to sales, production and food safety; organized in intuitive visualizations, dashboards, KPI’s and reports, that can be viewed anywhere on any device.
Teamwork makes the Dream Work
“The best part about ProcessPro is truly the people – the heart and soul of the company.” Joe proudly quotes, “All software is an intangible product that is merely a digital representation of the knowledge, skill, and commitment to quality of the persons who develop it. Without these people and their dedication and commitment, ProcessPro and their customers would not be as successful as they are today.”
Joe’s greater Intent towards his Customers
While asking about objectives towards his clients, this is what Joe says, “As I learn more about the complexity and challenges our clients face, and how we as a company are uniquely qualified to solve them, I become more intrigued by how we could provide additional value. We deliver a comprehensive set of industry specific solutions to this ever-changing, dynamic market, and we’re looking forward to furthering innovation, and that is what drives us as a business and me as its leader.”
ProcessPro’s team DNA comes from the core values of their organization. Namely “Customer Focus,” “Constant Improvement” and “Sense of Urgency.” These phrases provide them inspiration for what they do every day. They permeate ProcessPro from individual actions, through company meetings, through their performance appraisal process, and help direct their actions to improve their business and strive to make their customers more satisfied by providing the solutions they need to run their business better. Delivering those benefits ultimately comes to a full circle and makes them more successful as a result.
Joe’s prelude and strategies which make them outstanding
The primary strategy behind the success of ProcessPro has been to focus intently on a few wildly important goals, ensuring they do them extremely well, and never stop improving. The work they do for process manufacturing companies in highly regulated environments drives ProcessPro to excel in delivering FDA compliant solutions to food and beverage manufacturers. That strategy will not change. Therefore ProcessPro will continue to offer innovative ERP solutions into this market. Many software companies try to be everything to everyone, and that results in mediocrity for everyone involved. Their success lies in their singular focus and the depth of expertise that they obtain by doing so. That is what makes them the best at what they do!
Bigger the Challenge Bigger will be the Achievement
Joe’s favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur is the opportunity to lead people, and share his experiences with employees and customers. “My experience is fairly broad, and that breadth combined with an understanding of how all the pieces of business best fit together as a whole is one of the cornerstones of my success.” The other he believes is the employees of ProcessPro, as they indeed solve the problems the business faces. Their biggest challenges are the obstacles, both internally and externally, that get in the way of accomplishing their job. “My most important job is to remove those obstacles, allowing them to drive the success of the business. I believe achieving that with ProcessPro has been my biggest success,” asserts Joe.
In today’s market, it is important to be ever vigilant in assessing what has made your business successful to date and what will continue to make you successful in the future. Therefore, in some ways, ProcessPro will not change, and in some ways improve significantly to keep pace. They will not alter their company focus on doing a few things very well, but their continued success will provide for expanding the opportunity globally, with larger companies and with the breadth of offerings they can deliver to their existing markets.
The key to their future success is their ability to continue delivering value to the food and beverage marketplace through both software and industry knowledge. “As the leader of this business, I will continue to foster an environment where our employees can thrive and do what they do so well. Through identification and removal of internal and external barriers, I can help ensure the success of our employees, which makes ProcessPro successful and ultimately our customers as well,” asserts Joe.
