You can improve your business intelligence presentations to executives, directors, peers, and subordinates by using tips and techniques found in the world of education. Many people are unfamiliar with the term “learning styles” but understanding this core concept and applying it to your presentation techniques will help you deliver better presentations that resonate with your audience.

What Are Learning Styles?

Educational theorists created a system of learning styles to describe the ways in which people prefer to learn. Your learning style is innate, and you probably recognize your own style in the descriptions below. Most people have a predominant style that they naturally gravitate towards when engaged in self-directed learning. Because the Western school system is heavily auditory (lecture-based) and visual (textbooks), many people who are kinesthetic or tactile learners learned early on to compensate by relying heavily on their secondary preference. No matter what your preference, there’s no one right or wrong way to learn.

The three basic learning styles are described as:

• Auditory: Auditory learners need to hear information to process it. They understand business intelligence most during your presentation and retain information best when it is spoken aloud.
• Visual: Visual learners learn best by seeing information in charts, graphs, or other pictorial representations. These members of your audience will eagerly read your full report.
• Kinesthetic: Also called tactile learners, this group must handle the data in order to understand it. This can be accomplished through role plays, simulations, or even colorful anecdotes that help your audience grasp key points.

Think back to your school days and to the teachers you liked the best. These teachers probably used techniques that appealed to all learning styles, not just one. That’s how the best presenters earn their reputation, too: they use different techniques during meetings or lectures to engage with their audience’s learning styles.

Business Intelligence Reports: Presenting with Flair

Presenting data found within business intelligence reports comes with its own set of challenges. You may need to frame the data with information so that the report makes sense. Setting the stage for the backstory, the data, and the interpretation can all help your audience understand business intelligence data.

You can use learning styles to present business intelligence data with understanding, sympathy for learners’ natural inclinations, and flair that makes them memorable.

1. Provide graphs, especially bar graphs, line graphs and pie charts: These visual representations of business intelligence data are most easily understood by your visual learners.
2. Stage a demonstration: To show that a technology investment will repay the company five-fold, ask someone in the audience for a dollar bill, and hand then back a $5 bill. Your kinesthetic or tactile learners will immediately grasp the concept in a deeper way than just stating the data aloud, which appeals only to the auditory learners in the group.
3. Read key points from a summary document for your auditory learners, and include a Q and A session at the end of the presentation.

When you break up a presentation by appealing to various learning styles, you’ll not only meet your audience’s needs better, you’ll create a truly memorable impression. Staging a visual demonstration of the reports’ impact or acting out a data report may sound corny (and may be hard to pull off) but it will certainly be memorable.

Business Intelligence Made Better with Sage Enterprise Intelligence

Sage Enterprise Intelligence eliminates the time and labor-intensive work needed to build great reports by automating business intelligence in one sleek, streamlined system. Fast reports mean data gets to you in time to make better decisions. When every minute counts to act upon business intelligence, Sage Enterprise Intelligence offers a valuable resource for many companies in various industries.

Business Intelligence Systems from IWI Consulting Group

IWI Consulting Group is a Canadian-based consulting resource group that assists for-profit and non-profit organizations with the difficult decision to choose enterprise resource planning software and related software. These systems and software improve business productivity and efficiency. For more information, contact us today or call 1-866-916-3851.

One of the biggest benefits of cloud-based business systems is flexibility. A cloud-based system such as Sage Live works the way you want to work. No longer do you need to run your business around your software.

Sage Live Expands to Fit Your Needs

Sage Live can scale up as you need more bandwidth for your customers. Manufacturers with heavy seasonal demands may find that cloud computing easily adjusts and flexes to the demands at specific times of year when order volume is high. During other times of the year, when the volume is low, their computer demands decrease. Instead of investing in new hardware to handle the high volume time periods, cloud computing adjusts with the needs easily and swiftly.

Add More Users Easily

Another way in which the cloud can expand to fit your business is by easily adding new users onto the system at any given time. A busy warehouse may need to add temporary workers during certain seasons. The cloud can accommodate more logins without adding unnecessary terminals or additional software packages.

You can also add users from multiple locations. Some companies use freelance office workers, marketing, or sales people to supplement their workforce. With Sage Live, you can add additional workers easily onto the system. They can access the database through their home computers, tablets or smartphones. All you need is a web connection. It’s an easy way to get everyone working from the same data and keeping your systems up-to-date, no matter who accesses them.

Security Is Excellent

One concern that many business owners have when they consider cloud computing is the security level. Cloud computing works off shared servers and companies often worry that their data may be compromised or somehow less secure when it is kept off-site than when it is housed on hard drives within their four walls. Suffice to say that cloud computing companies have some of the strictest security protocols available in place to ward off viruses and hackers intent on damaging or stealing data. You can’t “accidentally” access anyone else’s data on the cloud, so your company’s information is secure. Cloud computing is secure computing.

The Cloud Is Here to Stay

Cloud computing has moved from a “nice to have” to a “must have” as more businesses embrace cloud technology. It’s simple to use, highly secure, and less expensive than older technologies.

Sage Live provides global accounting, personalized business reports, and anytime, anywhere access. A multi dimensional general ledger makes it easier to review your company’s finances. It’s Sage software, with a cloud interface that’s simple to use, yet provides robust business intelligence data for better insights.

IWI Consulting Group

IWI Consulting Group helps businesses gain insights into their operations, inventory, and profitability. We provide software and support for a wide range of industries throughout Canada. For more information, please visit IWI Consulting Group or contact us today.

Sage People for Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3) provides a valuable springboard for transforming your organization into a “People Company”. What is a people company? It is a company that uses data to focus on its employees—the people—first.

Future Trends: People-Based Companies

Sage conducted research among 500 human resources leaders. The company wanted to find out what made leading organizations so strong. Was it their products, services, or employees? It turns out that it’s a little of all three, but a lot of the latter—the people behind the organization. In fact, companies in the Sage software survey who ran far ahead of the pack because of their emphasis on people were dubbed “Gazelles” after the swift-running animal.

These companies have transformed their outlook and strengthened their businesses by focusing on the individuals that make up their companies rather than on outdated human resources policies and procedures. By putting people first, they end up making even more profit.

Human Resources Is Catching Up to the Rest of the Company

One thing that the Sage report noted is that the human resources department in many companies is still playing “catch up” to the rest of the company in terms of using data to make decisions. Marketing and sales use CRM data and other benchmarks to note progress toward goals and to improve their work; accounting, finance and operations also use extensive business intelligence to make decisions. The human resources department in most companies significantly lags behind other departments in terms of using data for its decisions around who to hire, how to manage people, and how to create sustainable personnel policies that support what people need rather than company desires.

The Findings: Leading Companies Use HR Software

Among the companies surveyed, high-achieving companies share one thing in common: the adoption and use of human resources software. Other impressive statistics among the fast-growing companies are the following:

• 80% have HR automation software
• 58% can report on personnel development
• 93% plan to have roles such as People Scientist or other people-focused positions to sustain growth
• 92% are developing a roadmap for “people” data
• 46% are using people data and analytics for staffing decisions

What a People-First Organization Looks Like

As more companies adopt human resources software, people first will be the norm, rather than the exception. People-first companies put their workers ahead of other interests. They know that their workforce is their greatest asset and, if their workers are satisfied, their company will do well in the marketplace.

People-first organizations actively promote their workplace and are always recruiting, not just when there is a job opening. This enables them to attract and retain the best workers all the time, not just when there’s a vacancy available. Human resources in such organizations encompass roles that promote, market and sell the company as much as they attract, recruit, and retain the best people.

Will Your Company Make the Leap?

Will your company make the leap this year to becoming a people-first place to work? If you’re looking for a way to both boost your organization and improve profits, adopting a people-first policy can put you in the lead.

If you’re ready to make the switch, it’s time to investigate Sage software such as Sage People. Given that the most successful organizations responding to the survey indicate they have adopted human resources software, and that HR software rapidly becomes a strong point of competitive advantage, it makes sense to add it to your company’s suite of software solutions that use data for better decision making.

Sage People offers many advantages. It is a cloud-based HR software so you can access it anywhere, from any device that connects to the internet. It can help you manage all your HR operations.

Because Sage People synchronizes with Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3), you can use the data from Sage People to enhance your current reports and analytics. It can give you an even better, broader, and deeper picture of your company when you add the human element to your data. Think about the ease and convenience of viewing all your company’s information in one place.

For more information on Sage software such as Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3) and Sage People, contact IWI Consulting today.

IWI Consulting Group

IWI Consulting Group helps businesses gain insights into their operations, inventory, and profitability. We provide software and support for a wide range of industries throughout Canada. For more information, please visit IWI Consulting Group or contact us today.

Exceeding customer expectations, rather than meeting them, seems like a big hurdle to jump. But with software such as Sage 300cloud (formerly known as Sage 300), keeping customers happy and satisfied is just one of the many attributes of using a comprehensive business management system.

It’s easy to get bogged down in warehouse operations at the expense of customer service. Things like cutting costs, improving accuracy, enhancing productivity, and other concepts, are, of course, important; but, all are for naught if they do nothing to enhance the customer experience.

The customer is, at the end of the day, the person who pays your salary. By their purchases, they decide whether they choose to do business with your company and whether they believe you are productive, efficient, and accurate. If not, they’ll take their business elsewhere.

How can you make the customer the center of your manufacturing universe? By creating a culture that focuses on the customer as the center of operations. Consider the many touchpoints you have with customers now and how each can be enhanced. By focusing on them singly, the collective whole can add up to a big difference.

Sales people can be a great source of information to assess the customer experience. Ask them:

• How quickly are quotes produced?
• Are the estimates accurate?
• How many estimates turn into business?

Now, look at your ordering methods. Examine them from the perspective of your customer:

• How was the online ordering experience?
• Is it easy to place an online order?
• Do the orders flow to your Order Entry Department?
• If orders are not electronically connected to your order entry system, does manual data entry interfere with accuracy?

Another touchpoint is customer service. Find out the following information as part of your due diligence.

• How quickly are their requests fulfilled?
• Is there a standard method for addressing complaints?
• Is it easy for customers to communicate with us?

Lastly, look at the shipping process. A lot can happen between the time an order is placed and the time it is shipped.

• Are the orders on time?
• Are the orders accurate?
• What are the number of return orders and why?

When you begin the task of examining each of these points, it can feel overwhelming. Collect the information into a report that helps you understand where you’re doing well and which areas might have room for improvement.

Customers themselves will be only too glad to tell you where your services aren’t up to speed. Ask, but more importantly, listen to what they have to say. Constructive criticism can be difficult to hear but it is important if you wish to improve your processes.

Little things often make a big difference in the grand scheme of customer service. Your sales team may be wonderful and you may produce the best products in the world. But shipping delays, incorrect orders, and slow responses to fix problems can derail customer satisfaction projects.

If you do feel that your company has room for improvement, we have a suggestion for you. Sage 300cloud (formerly known as Sage 300) offers a scalable, flexible tool to help you keep track of all of your company’s information and, more importantly, use it to improve customer service. Exceeding customer expectations may be as simple as ensuring a consistent, timely response to inquiries thanks to Sage 300cloud (formerly known as Sage 300).

Sage 300 ERP

Sage 300 does more than offer business management and insights into your data. It offers a comprehensive structure for business data so that no matter which touchpoint a customer uses to connect with your company, they receive a consistent response. Formalized business processes can ensure consistent results for your customers.

Sage 300 offers a comprehensive financial management tool with excellent reporting capabilities. You can reduce time-consuming manual tasks, automate workflows, and more.

With the right tools, you can build anything. Sage 300cloud (formerly known as Sage 300) is the right tool for growing your business. IWI Consulting can help you with Sage 300cloud (formerly known as Sage 300) selection, implementation, training, and more.

IWI Consulting

IWI Consulting Group helps businesses gain insights into their operations, inventory, and profitability. We provide software and support for a wide range of industries throughout Canada. For more information, please visit IWI Consulting Group or contact us today.

Sage EM Offers More for Growing Companies

Manufacturers exploring their options for adding enterprise resource planning systems to their companies need to be aware of many factors during the research phase of their project. Understanding just what an ERP system does, the features and benefits of each system, and how the system will integrate with existing systems is critical.

But perhaps, more importantly, is understanding how an ERP system is configured to work for the manufacturing industry. Software such as Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3) is built with manufacturers in mind. It’s been tested with many manufacturing firms who have known, used, and benefited from its attributes over the years. Choosing software that’s used by other companies in your industry is one way to ensure that it has what you need to run your business efficiently.

There are several key questions to ask before choosing your software package. These include:

1. Have you included all internal stakeholders in the software assessment process? The worst thing you can do is begin speaking with vendors and consultants about ERP systems without complete feedback from the entire team back at the plant or office who intend to use the system. Input from all areas within an organization is essential to help you choose the best ERP system for your needs. Without such input, you may be guessing when it comes to what the accounting department needs, for example, or misunderstanding the needs of other critical departments. Invite key managers and support staff to discovery meetings and take copious notes to help you form a “wish list” for a project scope. The more people you can invite to at least the preliminary investigation meetings, the better. They can offer valuable insights and guidance while you’re building support for the project. The more they invest into the process, the more invested they will feel with the outcome.
2. Can you configure the system to your needs? Some systems can be used right out of the box, but others require custom configuration. How easy or difficult it is to make these tweaks is an important part of your decision-making process. It’s also important to consider just how extensive the tweaks must be before you have a system you’re satisfied with. Changing a system to the point of being unrecognizable from the original solution defeats the purpose of shopping for an ERP system in the first place. You might as well build an entirely custom system for the amount of time and money extensive configurations will use. Balance the need for configuration with the need for an ERP solution to meet your requirements as much as possible “off the shelf,” without any tweaks or changes. When the balance shifts in favor of an off-the-shelf system, with minimal customization needed, you’ve probably found a worthwhile solution.
3. Is this a system built for the manufacturing industry? ERP systems can be made for general business purposes or specific purposes, such as manufacturing. If a system is too general, it won’t include the functionality that you require to run your manufacturing business. There are many ERP options made with manufacturers in mind. Don’t settle for a generic option. Too much customization on an ERP system may lead to inefficiencies. It is better to begin with the right solution than to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Features of an Enterprise Resource Planning System for Manufacturers

Some of the features found within an enterprise resource planning software built specifically for the manufacturing industry include:

• Supply chain management and visibility
• CRM (customer relationship management)
• Stock reports and inventory management
• Production planning and control
• Barcode generation, tracking, and routing
• Inventory management and reports
• Billing and managing complex billing cycles
• Managing complicated production cycles

You may need to add your own features to this list. Different manufacturing areas require different things. But, in general, tracking from order entry through fulfillment and production is a “must” for manufacturers.

Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3), ERP Built for Manufacturing

Among the many ERP software packages available, Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3) is built for the manufacturing industry. It’s a powerful, flexible software that grows with your business. Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3) centralizes data for easier management and access and provides excellent reports using multiple data sources. You can integrate business processes into a series of manageable workflows. And because Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3) is cloud-based, you can take it with you—on the road, to your customer’s workplace, on a work from home day, or whatever you need.

Clearly, there are many enterprise resource planning software packages available. But only a handful are created especially for manufacturing with all the tools you need to build a better business. Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3) has this—and more.

IWI Consulting

IWI Consulting Group helps businesses gain insights into their operations, inventory, and profitability. We provide software and support for a wide range of industries throughout Canada. We can help with Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3) selection, implementation, training, and more, as well as other software packages to run your business. For more information, please visit IWI Consulting Group or contact us today.

Transparency, visibility, accuracy, and accountability are all the new watchwords in the food and beverage manufacturing industries. Sage X3, a business management system, is a software tool that offers manufacturers the information they need to successfully compete in the global market.

Global Supply Chain Challenges Solved

The food and beverage industry has become increasingly globalized over the past several years. Product ingredients may include wheat from Manitoba, preservatives manufactured in the United States, spices grown and dried in India, and packaging components from Europe. All of this makes tracking supply chain inputs and visibility into your supply chain vital.

If one link in the chain must be tracked to its source, you need immediate access to the data in your system. Disparate systems or logs kept in spreadsheets can take too long to review manually and can be difficult to cross-reference.

An enterprise resource planning system such as Sage X3 brings all data into one business management system so you can query the database and receive accurate answers. You’ll know if Supplier A provided the food dye or Supplier B, whether Contractor G made the packaging or Contractor H. It’s all easily accessed in the system. In the event of a recall or a problem, you can see at a glance which vendor you need to contact.

Meet Compliance Regulations

Understanding food and beverage manufacturing compliance regulations is vital for your business and it’s likely that you’ve got a good handle on it already. However, it can be challenging to keep up with changing regulations. You must educate your staff, your vendors, and your customers.

A business management system can help you disseminate information more quickly to those who need it. Keeping appropriate information ready to share with regulators, consumers, and others is an important step in the compliance process. Enterprise resource planning systems can help you track, control, and monitor information with the goal of meeting regulations.

Improved Sales Forecasting

One of the major challenges facing the food and beverage industry is sales forecasting. Inaccurate forecasting can lead to wasteful spending and deficits that are difficult to close. Reducing costs, minimizing wastes, and keeping inventory to a minimum are the goals of many manufacturers.

Sage X3 brings together all of the discrete systems in your company so that you can access a comprehensive picture. When financial and sales data are included with production and shipping information, you can make more accurate forecasts about sales, expenses, and more. All of this leads to less waste and improved profits.

Sage X3: Food and Beverage Manufacturing Enterprise Resource Planning

Sage X3 offers your company comprehensive business planning with specific functions pertaining to the food and beverage industry. For example, you can manage recipe formulations in the enterprise resource planning system by lot, batch, or discrete quantities. It’s easier to monitor shelf-life using an ERP system. Systems such as Sage X3 also support flexible measurement and packaging capabilities, so you have the option of changing your product offers based on needs. This quick response to customer demands can set you apart from others in your industry.

IWI Consulting Group helps businesses gain insights into their operations, inventory, and profitability. We provide software and support for a wide range of industries, including food and beverage manufacturing, throughout Canada. For more information, please visit IWI Consulting Group or contact us today.

Controlling inventory can feel like riding a wild, untamed horse across a rocky cliffside trail. At this precise second you’re still in the saddle holding the reins, but at any moment the horse could plunge off the cliff and take you with it.

Inventory control can feel just about as scary. Are you in control of your inventory, or is it controlling you?

Software such as Sage 300cloud (formerly known as Sage 300) can help you take back the reins and guide your inventory to a safer, saner place. There are several other tips and tricks you can put into place to manage your inventory better. With software like Sage 300cloud (formerly known as Sage 300) and these steps, you can sit back and enjoy the ride.

Inventory Control Tip #1: Build a Stock List

Building a stock list can be the first and best step towards inventory control. A stock list helps you keep track of all the items in inventory as well as their costs and retail price points. With a stock list in hand, you can make smart decisions about how, when, and why to sell items.

Let’s face it—your company manufactures products to sell, not to store them in the warehouse. Yet if products are piling up in the warehouse you need to find a way to move them quickly. That’s where a stock list comes in handy.

A stock list is a list of products, annual orders, total quantity ordered annually, and the total annual cost of goods sold. When you begin tracking items in this manner, it’s easy to see at a glance what you should keep more of in your warehouse and what should be liquidated. Knowing the cost of goods (COGS) can help you make smart decisions that won’t break the bank.

Inventory Control Tip #2: Sell Off Old Products

Unsold inventory accumulates dust, not interest. Although on the balance sheet it may be listed as an asset, in truth it’s a liability since it costs more to store unsold inventory over a long period of time than it costs to manufacture it in the first place (in most cases). Therefore, it is to your advantage to sell any lingering inventory as quickly as possible.

How companies determine when to liquidate stock varies according to the company and the products it sells. Some may choose to maintain low levels of slow-selling yet unique items to please specific customers. Others may feel that six months is too long to hold onto anything. You’ll need to develop internal policies that help you create a consistent method of dealing with unsold inventory.

If you choose not to put items on sale or steep discounts, there are other ways of cleaning out your warehouse and moving unsold items. You can:

1. Transfer items to a holding warehouse until you can figure out how to sell them.
2. Recycle parts or materials into new products.
3. Return items to the manufacturer.
4. Use unsold goods as a marketing tactic; add them onto other product sales as a free gift with purchase or freebie to please your customers.
5. Offer items as an incentive (buy one, get one).

Selling below COGS is never ideal. If you’d prefer, you can often donate items to a charity or not for profit. Although not all items can be donated, many can find a home with charities such as Habitat for Humanity, Goodwill, your local food bank, and the like.

Inventory Control Tip #3: Prioritize Warehouse Items Around Best Sellers

A stock list can help you organize your warehouse according to the best sellers. Best sellers or briskly selling products should be located near the shipping area to save time. Other items can be organized in the warehouse according to your stock list. Use the stock list to create a logical pattern in your warehouse where frequently sold items are near the shipping area and bins, racks, shelves, and pallets are neatly organized and labeled so everyone can find what they need.

With a complete stock list in hand, you’re in control of your warehouse. You’ll know where everything is located, how much it is worth, and how long it’s been in the warehouse. With that knowledge comes power—the power to manage your inventory so that it no longer manages you. Take back control of your inventory today.

Sage 300cloud (formerly known as Sage 300)

Sage 300cloud (formerly known as Sage 300) reduces inefficiencies and puts the power of information right at your fingertips. With Sage 300, you can manage all aspects of your business including accounting, finance, marketing, sales and customer service all from one dashboard. It improves information sharing, communications, and visibility while ensuring that everyone can access shared data through cloud-based resources.

For more information about Sage 300cloud (formerly known as Sage 300), visit IWI Consulting Group.

IWI Consulting

IWI Consulting Group helps businesses gain insights into their operations, inventory, and profitability. We provide software and support for a wide range of industries throughout Canada. For more information, please visit IWI Consulting Group or contact us today.

In the brisk, profitable world of chemical manufacturing, maintaining a competitive edge is critical to your company’s success. Sage X3, a business management or enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, can help you keep that competitive edge. It’s a cost-effective solution that can help chemical manufacturers maintain total control over production without sacrificing speed or quality.

Excellent Business Support for Chemical Manufacturers

With over 3,205 chemical manufacturers in Canada exporting an average of $38 billion in products, chemical manufacturing is a vital component of the Canadian economy. Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Labrador are some of the fastest-growing areas of chemical manufacturing. And even though most of the manufacturers or 91% have under 99 employees, some companies have scattered workforces worldwide with offices in multiple countries and continents.

Such a bustling industry needs tools that can keep up with its growth. That tool is Sage X3. Some call Sage X3 a business management tool but others know it as enterprise resource planning software or ERP for short. Sage X3 offers built-in process manufacturing software to help you maintain quality and improve profitability.

Sage X3 enables you to manage every aspect of your company’s business processes worldwide from one central point. It is cloud-based software, which means that you can access it from any internet connection worldwide. An office in London, another office in Paris, and your headquarters in Toronto can all view the same information on the system thanks to real-time data synchronization.

Profitable Businesses Use Data to Make Decisions

The chemical industry is about 73.5% profitable, according to government figures published online. That means there is room for improvement. The usual truism is that to improve profitability you must decrease costs, increase sales, or both. Sage X3 can help with all of this and more.

Sage X3 enables you to manage data across the supply chain. Keep up to date with distribution data, monitor costs, and use this information to negotiate better rates with suppliers. Real-time information on the manufacturing process helps you maintain high quality which in turn satisfies customers. All of this translates into cost savings, increased sales, and higher profit margins.

Product and Process Consistency

Perhaps one of the most important attributes of the chemical manufacturing industry is the necessity to adhere to standard processes and product consistency. Product consistency and quality are essential to producing high-quality ingredients for a variety of applications.

Sage X3 can help you maintain both consistency and quality throughout your product line. Manage procurement, production, and shipping fluctuations using the data from Sage X3. Keep up to date with compliance requirements and other changes, too.

Financial Management Across Multiple Locations

Lastly, Sage X3 can help chemical manufacturers manage accounting and finance across multiple time zones and currencies. It can keep your books balanced across all lines of business and connects sales with accounting, finance, warehouse, procurement and more.

Chemical manufacturing in Canada is thriving thanks to smart business management, hard work, and an understanding of what drives the competitive marketplace. You can maintain your competitive edge with Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3). For more information about Sage X3, contact IWI Consulting Group today.

IWI Consulting

IWI Consulting Group helps businesses gain insights into their operations, inventory, and profitability. We provide software and support for a wide range of industries throughout Canada. For more information, please visit IWI Consulting Group or contact us today.

Sage People for Sage EM Helps You Understand People to Improve Processes

Consider the Sage software you use at work. It provides accurate, real-time insight into everything from your company’s progress towards goals to its financial health. You can track warehouse and inventory status, customer information, and more.

But what about … your own employees? How much do you really know about the people contributing to your company’s bottom line, the people running the forklifts in the warehouse, and the people answering the calls in the customer service department?

Tracking human resources information is the purview of a new breed of software called human resources information management. Sage software now offers Sage People for Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3), a new generation of human resources software that helps you gain insights into the people who work for you so that you can create a better workplace.

Reducing Turnover Improves Profitability

High turnover rates can hurt productivity and profitability. Compensation Force reports that the average turnover rate in the manufacturing and distribution industry is 16%; this percentage is high compared to other industries, which range from 10% to 18%.

There are many estimates on the actual costs of employee turnover. Certainly, there is a loss of productivity. A vacant position means that work isn’t getting done or that existing employees must work harder to complete the tasks of the vacant position.

Recruiting, screening, and hiring talented people also takes time. Even when you do have someone hired, you’ll still need to wait until they’re fully trained in their new roles before their productivity improves to the point that things are ‘back to normal’.

Understanding your company’s turnover rates and the ratio of voluntary separation to involuntary separation can provide valuable insights on the cost of turnover within your company. Once you understand what the turnover rates are, you can take steps to lower turnover rates and improve productivity.

Factors Leading to High Turnover Rates

What are the factors that lead to high turnover rates? Poor training, little room for advancement or salary increases, and a stressful work environment contribute to turnover. But one little-known factor can influence turnover more than you think: unfulfilled employees.

Employees whose skills aren’t used may feel unchallenged, dull, and bored on the job. These employees may end up seeking employment elsewhere if they feel as if their talents go unrecognized or unused.

It can be difficult to spot employees whose skills are underused. Knowing your employees and the skills that they bring to their jobs can help you determine who may be ready for a challenge.

Increasing Employee Engagement

Another way to reduce employee turnover is to increase employee engagement. Many employees cite professional development, training, and educational opportunities as items that increase their loyalty and engagement with their companies and their jobs.

Adding professional development opportunities to your workplace doesn’t have to be time-consuming or expensive. It begins by understanding your employees. What do they want and need from professional development activities? Planning training and development is easier when you understand what people want and need.

Better Human Resources Management Begins by Knowing Your People

Better human resources management begins by understanding your employees. When you understand their skills and strengths, their motivators and their training needs, you’ll be able to create a workplace that will satisfy their needs and retain employees longer. By doing so, you will then reduce turnover, improve productivity, and enhance profits.

It sounds easy but, of course, it takes time. It also takes knowledge. Knowledge empowers you to make smart decisions and actions as you manage the talent around you.

Sage People for Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3)

One way to enhance your knowledge of the people around you is by managing and tracking employees using Sage People for Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3).

Sage People is more than simple human resources management software. It offers you the ability to use data to manage, motivate, and inspire employees. Sage People offers workforce visibility software that can help you track employees worldwide. Review skills, communicate, motivate – it’s all possible with Sage People for Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3).

Built and hosted on the Salesforce App Cloud, Sage People for Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3) connects you at a personal level to employees. Instead of creating one-size-fits-all human resources policies and training, Sage People for Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3) enables you to fully understand what employees need and build tailored programs around their needs.

For more information on Sage People for Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3), contact IWI Consulting Group. We can schedule a demo or answer your questions about the latest Sage software, Sage People for Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3).

IWI Consulting

IWI Consulting Group helps businesses gain insights into their operations, inventory, and profitability. We provide software and support for a wide range of industries throughout Canada. For more information, please visit IWI Consulting Group or contact us today.

Mistakes happen to everyone, but there are some business areas where mistakes can be costly. One of those areas is the warehouse. A single mistake can pile up and create more issues down the line giving your customers a poor impression of your business. Unhappy customers may take their business to a competitor. In fact, inventory management mistakes can cost your business thousands of dollars a year.

If you want to improve profitability by reducing inventory management mistakes, try these four tips.

Tip #1: Automate your warehouse.

Automated warehouses use barcode scanners, inventory management systems, and other tools to log goods into the warehouse and log them out again during fulfillment. Such systems reduce the amount of manual errors made by failing to count items, mistaken counts, and mistakes during data entry.

Tip #2: Add structure to the inventory fulfillment process.

If your warehouse doesn’t have a structured process for receiving orders, picking, packing and shipping, you are leaving the success rate on your order fulfillment to chance. You can reduce mistakes and close gaps in the system by creating a structure and process that details each step for your employees. Make sure that the process is in writing, and train your employees on each step in the process. Don’t leave it to your employees to create the steps in the process or you will end up with many, perhaps competing, processes in place.

Tip #3: Reduce the number of steps in order fulfillment.

Another area that can be problematic for many companies is that the number of steps it takes to fulfill orders is so lengthy and complicated that employees can’t remember them easily. Any process with more than a handful of steps is open to mistakes. Spend some time in the warehouse working alongside your team to actually see what’s working and what doesn’t. Then update the process, reducing redundant steps and making it simple and effective.

Tip #4: Set a baseline to measure improvement.

You may have heard from employees that there are “many” mistakes being made in the shipping process. Just how many mistakes qualify as “many?” Whenever you can, quantify the situation and set a baseline so that you will know for certain whether improvements you make are having the desired effect.

Let’s assume that you know that as of today, 5% of orders have a mistake in them. When you examine this data, you see that employees are mixing up packages, placing the wrong packages in the wrong shipper’s bins. This delays orders because the packages are returned from the incorrect shipper.

Given that 5% figure and an understanding of the nature of the problem, you can now take action steps to rectify it. You can reward employees for reducing the error rate. There are many things you can do to reinforce the positive nature of your improvements. Without the baseline, however, there’s no way to know whether changes made any impact at all.

IWI Consulting

IWI Consulting Group helps businesses gain insights into their operations, inventory, and profitability. Learn more about our software systems for distribution and inventory management. We provide software and support for a wide range of industries throughout the Toronto area. For more information, please visit IWI Consulting Group or contact us today.