Distributors Offer Customized Products with Integrated ERP Software
Tons of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are now offering their customers the option to personalize products. Personalization can range from a simple engraving to a brand new product built from the ground up to the customer’s exact specifications. It’s a great way for wholesale distributors and retailers to offer their customers something they won’t be able to buy anywhere else. However, adding custom products to your inventory can be incredibly challenging. It requires ultra efficient management of materials, comprehensive accessibility to enterprise-wide data, and even a little bit of clairvoyance. Fortunately, an integrated ERP software (enterprise resource planning) can provide business owners with all of these necessary abilities–even the power of prediction.
Integrated ERP Software is an All-in-One Business Solution
The right integrated ERP software solution includes applications for extensive business administration and information management. It boasts cutting edge accounting and customer relationship management (CRM) programs, tools for efficient inventory management and material requirements planning (MRP), and even dynamic business data analytics capabilities. As the owner of a wholesale distribution enterprise, you probably already utilize many of these applications every day. If they are not unified on the same system, however, those apps lack the collaborative power vital for fast business growth. Critical business data is diced up and locked away in different departments, preventing each area of the organization from effectively communicating with one another. Each member of your team, whether they work in customer service, accounting, or the warehouse, must have access to data from all over the enterprise in order to quickly complete their daily work. Without integrated data, your business cannot run nearly as fast or smoothly as it needs to.
If your company is struggling with separated ERP systems, you’ll have a hard time hopping on rising trends and sales opportunities. Product personalization requires a high level of coordination across the entire business. Accountants must be able to keep track of the value of raw materials and finished custom products, as well as plan adequate budgets for material purchases. Customer service and sales representatives have to know exactly what is available in the warehouse at all times, and the various options for personalization available for each individual item. Inventory managers need an efficient way to control stock and quickly complete MRP processes in preparation for customizable goods. All of these tasks require total alignment of the enterprise, easy access to accurate information from anywhere in the organization, and laser-accurate analysis of business data. Only integrated ERP software can swiftly accomplish these feats.
Distributors Need Insights from Business Data Analytics
But increased business efficiency and cooperation is easy to achieve compared to the precognition seemingly necessitated by the custom product trend. To maintain the perfect amount of materials and consistently fulfill customers’ unique orders, business owners must be able to predict demands and sales before they happen. In the past, this “sixth sense” was essentially impossible. Today, however, integrated ERP software systems offer powerful business intelligence and predictive analytics applications that can create the exact insights you need into every area of your business. With these data analytics tools, you can forecast sales and even identify the products and customization options that will interest your customers the most. The insights provided by integrated ERP analytics foster efficient and cost-effective inventory management and MRP, helping you keep the right items in stock at all times. This advantage is critical for distributors, retailers, and manufacturers no matter what kinds of products and services they offer.
Even if you don’t think your business will benefit from product personalization, you still need integrated ERP software if you want to thrive in this increasingly competitive digital economy. Combining all of your business applications, processes, and data on the same simple system streamlines and speeds up operations across the enterprise. It allows significant increases in productivity and efficiency. It vastly improves company-wide communication and teamwork. It provides crystal clear enterprise visibility and helps business owners make smarter, faster decisions. All in all, integrated ERP software helps businesses significantly boost performance and profits and grow faster than ever.
Ready to streamline and simplify business operations with integrated ERP software? Cornerstone Consulting helps growing mid-sized wholesale distributors, online retailers, and manufacturers across the United States optimize and accelerate operations with the highest quality ERP software products and support services available today. We are an award-winning value-added reseller (VAR) of SAP Business One, the fastest selling integrated ERP solution trusted by thousands of small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) worldwide.
To learn more about Cornerstone’s SAP Business One implementation and configuration services, or for details on our special ERP discount for midsize businesses and SAP B1 demonstrations, us right now.
