Simplifying IT, Empowering Businesses

When there is a noted growth witnessed in the adoption of digital technologies across various industries, manufacturers are also gearing up for much-needed digital transformation. It is now a necessity to have a robust ERP system in place, to achieve operational and business efficiency. However, for entrepreneurs, while planning an efficient ERP solution, it is an extremely cumbersome exercise to figure out the necessary beneficial functionalities of the ERP software.

First things first, no enterprise application can be implemented as it is — a ready-to-use software product. An ERP solution has to be a custom-developed application depending on the unique requirements of the organization as well as the industry the organization belongs. It should be able to effectively address the challenges faced by the organization.

Manufacturing companies today are in dire need of a single and all-encompassing business solution platform that would help the organization manage all business functions seamlessly; integrating the supply chain with manufacturing, quality control and financials. In a nutshell, they needed a modern ERP solution that would help manage their core business functions – financial accounting, budgeting, production planning and shop-floor control, job costing and cost sheets, inventory, Accounts Receivables and Payables, EXIM (Export-Import Management and Compliance), Statutory Compliance for Taxation, etc.

1. Industry Challenges

Here are a few challenges that have been identified, which I hope you will be able to relate to as a manufacturer:

• Lack of visibility of raw materials stock across manufacturing and subcontractor locations leading to excess stock and blocked financial resources.
• Inefficient tracking of AR and AP leading to unrealized revenues and ad-hoc, unplanned payments. This leads to a disaster in Cash Flow Management.
• Manual calculation of job cost components leads to miscalculations and errors in determining the exact cost for a job run.
• Manual preparation of export-import documentation leads to a complete disconnect between the realization of import exemptions against deemed export sales.
• The shop floor calendar was planned and tracked manually across all work centers and this led to frequent breakdowns in job runs thereby affecting delivery schedules for manufactured products for different clients.
• The data residing in disparate database systems causes non-uniformity.
• Inability to forecast a credible sales pipeline.
• Inability to determine potential revenue and profits.
• Inability to determine aging assets and their maintenance.
• And many more…

So, when you plan to implement ERP software for your organization, you need to hunt for the features and functionalities that help you address the above challenges. This undoubtedly becomes the first and foremost must-have for an ERP implementation in your organization. A Microsoft Dynamics ERP Implementation helps overcome the above challenges as well as aids in becoming an automation-driven organization.

2. User Experience

Did you know that most ERP Implementations fail because of lower user adaptability?

The employees working in the manufacturing industry may not be the ones with technical know-how. Therefore, when developing an ERP solution, the manufacturer must ask the ERP Consulting partner for a user-friendly system so that all the employees can easily adapt to the ERP solution.

3. Improved Operations

A manufacturing company needs an ERP solution to have intelligent process automation in place. The ERP should reduce their manual efforts and automate most of the important processes. The ERP software solution should enhance the areas including procurement and purchase cycles, inventory management, production management, waste management, sales orders, financial accounting and many more functions across the organization.

4. Business Insights

Business insights drive productivity in ERP. The ERP solution must provide business owners an optimized visibility across their organization geared to boost productivity and efficiency by surfacing useful insights. The insights should be intuitive and self-explanatory, representing the information of an individual task or whole business process relevant to an organizational role.

5. Cost vs Value

Remember: Price is what you pay value is what you get.

Ultimately it all boils down to money. ERP requires a handsome amount of investment. In today’s environment, it is difficult for manufacturers to select the most appropriate ERP software. So, the overall cost becomes an important decision-making factor for the manufacturers.

Need help with the evaluation of the right ERP solutions for your organization? Click here to get your free consultation. Our Microsoft Dynamics ERP consultants have more than a decade of experience in providing Microsoft Dynamics ERP advisory, acquisition, design, implementation, integration, maintenance and up-gradation services.

Apart from those mentioned above, what do you think are the features, functionalities and benefits that you are looking for from an ERP implementation? Feel free to mention them in the comment section.