Modern cloud business management systems provide an array of functions across financials, sales, customer service, projects, warehousing, inventory and supply chain, manufacturing, and business intelligence. The right solution should not only provide the capabilities you need to reimagine your day-to-day operations today, but also support the needs that may arise tomorrow.
As a rule, organizations should aim to get at least 80 percent of the functionality they need from a business management solution “right out of the box,” without needing to make any significant modifications. This leaves the remaining 20 percent to come from solutions from independent software vendors (ISVs) and other custom applications to fine tune the solution to meet any highly specific capabilities. In other words, the solution you select should be one that is pre-configured to include nearly all the capabilities you need from day one.
However, buying a business management solution is not about ensuring it has every feature available in market today—you should focus on getting the right capabilities to drive process innovation and support the business outcomes defined in your initial strategy.
Here are some of the business outcomes and capabilities that a business management solution can support:
- Increase financial visibility and make more informed decisions with better reporting and tracking. Support custom financial dimensions, intercompany transactions, automatic bank reconciliations, fixed assets, cost accounting, financial performance indicators—all while adhering to strict financial standards.
- Optimize your supply chain with a holistic view of inventory, purchases, and orders. Predict restocking needs and engage with suppliers while improving demand forecasting, drop shipments, order planning, purchasing governance and logistics, warehousing optimization, manufacturing production, assembly, and quality management.
- Boost sales with lead prioritization and improved customer relationships through contact, campaign, document, email, opportunity, and sales order management. Easily expand to full CRM functionality when needed.
- Improve customer service with enhanced planning and dispatching while streamlining contract, service order, and price management. Better address customer returns and needs to improve satisfaction.
