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What a Fully Integrated Business Solution can do for you

One of the most frequent problems I encounter is the "fractured" systems of the mid market.  I have worked on them; you know the one you inherited when you started the job.  Accounting is on one system, Inventory is on another, half the sales force is using Gold Mine and the other is using Act as a customer relationship management tool (CRM).  Last but not least they decided to open a web store that doesn't integrate to anything.  This is the least productive of systems, and as more business software was developed in the 80's and 90's, it became a norm. 

I won't even mention the save all; Excel. I have actually asked companies what they currently use to run their companies and Excel is what I get as an answer.  Every CFO, Controller, GM, Accounting Manager, and Sales Manager relies on Excel to manipulate numbers to provide information.  But that doesn't mean it should be the sole methodology of dealing with business needs.

The interesting thing is, business management is really busy and when a manger brings in a solution that takes care of a need they just go with it.  This has been the evolution of software over the past 15 to 20 years.  Business leaders need to understand what a fully integrated system can do for their business so I will explain as best I can.

It doesn't' matter the size of your company if inefficacy is present you are not making the money you could. 

As business managers you need to demand a fully integrated system.  Trust me they are out there.  Because every time you have an employee key something in rather than letting an integration do it for you it's costing you big bucks. You are basically paying employees to be the integration you need which in the long run takes more time and A LOT more money.

For example let's take that web store.  If your web store is not integrated to you inventory, your order entry systems and your credit card processing all that information needs to have human intervention. 

Let's just break that down.  First if your Inventory is not integrated to the store, you have to manually or  import your stock items into the web store.  Next you have to maintain the pricing, description or other information on the web store.  So again that is double entry.  Next how do you handle out of stocks?  Can you tie that web store into an order and pre authorize it and have it automatically charge the card at shipment.  That's right at shipment, which is the rule of merchant accounts.  Now who is keying the order into the system from the web store?  How long does that take, what if there is a problem what do you do?  Do your customers get automatic notification of shipment with tracking information? I hope you are not storing any credit card information on your system, if you do you must make sure that that its encrypted and certified.  (Now that will cost you)

This one scenario can cost you time, people, and money.  Just do the ROI and figure it out.  How long does it take to record a new stock item?  Who makes sure both system are in sync?  Price changes, descriptions, obsolete items; how long do those take?  Credit card functions, who does that and how is it handled?  Is it processed properly?  And the Order Entry function, have you been lucky enough to have someone map the data for export and import into your OE system?  Or are all those orders manually entered?  Wow, how long and how much does that cost and how many mistakes are made? Just multiply that out by the number of orders and it adds up quickly. 

So with all this in mind you need to demand a fully integrated system and eliminate all the duplicate hours of work. You know that more and more people are shopping on the internet and I don't see that diminishing anytime soon; do you?  Will your web sales increase in the next year or two? There are solutions out there that address all this; it can really turn your web store into a true profit center.  My customers who have done this are amazed at how much business comes to them this way and they can track those sales and with the full automation of processes it runs so smoothly and is very profitable.  And isn't profit what we want out of our business?