What do sales orders, inventory, and customers all have in common? They can either make or break your bottom line. Using disparate, specialty software to manage these critical core business operations can lead to decision-making delays, expensive inventory mistakes, and unhappy customers. Connecting these critical processes with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution can save money, improve customer service, and give you a competitive advantage.

Using separate, specialty software systems can create a confusing network of inconsistent processes and can lead to mistakes with customer orders, inventory management, and lead to unsatisfied customers. For example, a customer may call and place an order with a sales representative who then passes along order information to a manager for processing. Manufacturing may be tasked with scheduling operations and procurement may need to count inventory to determine whether to order raw materials. As paper forms are shared via inter-office mail or transcribed into an email and sent throughout the office, data could be lost, misunderstood, or even forgotten. These types of bottlenecks and disconnects can disrupt the ordering process and you can quickly lose customers. Get all your key people on the same page with an integrated ERP solution such as Sage® 300cloud (formerly known as Sage 300).

A comprehensive ERP solution, such as Sage 300cloud (formerly known as Sage 300), will connect your people and processes and protect critical business data. Customers can place orders online or with sales representatives and data can be automatically shared with procurement, manufacturing, and other key departments. Sage 300cloud (formerly known as Sage 300) streamlines data sharing so that data, such as a customer order, isn’t lost or inaccurately entered into separate systems. Order forms can also be turned into packing slips, invoices, and shipping labels. These automations will save valuable time and improve productivity. In addition, an integrated ERP solution offers easy access to real time data such as inventory levels. You can analyze data for trends such as such as re-stocking the most popular products or scheduling regular customer replenishment orders. You can then leverage this data to your advantage and maintain appropriate buffer inventory levels without overstocking or risking stock-outs.

Disparate specialty solutions may work for individual departments but they introduce a risk for data errors and delays with common processes. Get your team together with an ERP solution that will streamline operations, improve productivity, and improve customer satisfaction. Contact IWI Consulting Group for more information about using ERP to connect your orders, inventory, and customers.

By IWI Consulting Group, Sage ERP Partner out of Canada