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Everyone is talking about the cloud, especially manufacturers who are evaluating a cloud ERP solution for their business. However, if you don’t quite follow what they’re saying, it comes down to this—using the cloud is using data and systems through the Internet.
How You Already Interact With Cloud Technology
While The Cloud may seem like an abstract idea, you likely already interact with and use cloud technologies every day.
- Do you update a Facebook profile?
- Do you check your bank balance from your phone?
- Do you stream movies or music?
- What about playing games online?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are using cloud technology.
Cloud technology has truly permeated into our everyday lives. Now ask yourself, is it as simple for businesses to leverage cloud technology? The answer is yes.
Businesses leveraging cloud technology improve operations in a number of ways. Examples include improving your cash flow, increasing business capabilities, and simplifying processes for their workforce. All these benefits are realized through the use of an access-from-anywhere platform that is more reliable than traditional ERP deployments that place hardware on-premises.
How Cloud Makes Innovating Easier
By enabling cloud technology at every level of an organization, businesses remove the anxiety associated with security, backups, and verification of backups. Offsite storage becomes a thing of the past and maintenance of hardware and software can be done away with completely. Troubleshooting and upgrades can all be handled with a fraction of the effort.
Perhaps most importantly, connectivity is more reliable in the cloud. This means teams can remain connected and productive anywhere and anytime they need.
Manufacturers questioning whether now is the time to move to the cloud, the answer is a resounding yes. Cybersecurity, IT projects, maintenance activities and more can be removed from the equation with a cloud ERP solution. This leaves your businesses to take care of the business, make time for customers, employees, and partners.
Simplicity And Dependability of a Cloud ERP Solution
On-premise ERP deployments give businesses a sense of confidence that their data is safely stored just down the hall. While that peace of mind and control is reassuring in theory, in practical terms it can be quite a drain on your IT staff. Maintaining both hardware and software is a headache most IT departments would gladly do without. Cloud enables businesses to shed the tether of physical systems in favor of a more agile and simple solution. With a cloud ERP solution, your teams can focus on running your business more efficiently and taking better care of your customers’ experience.
Cloud ERP solutions operate under the safety of redundancy. Cloud technologies store data securely in multiple data centers locally, regionally, and even globally. This dependability is designed to help businesses maintain system uptime and access no matter what adverse conditions may befall a specific region. These data centers are managed by industry professionals whose sole focus is keeping systems up and running at optimal levels. This frees up resources and capital for your business to focus on growth and improving user experiences across departments. As a result, collaboration among internal teams gets better, the complexity of your information technology resources is reduced, and overall business performance improves.
“The rise of the collaborative workforce and workspace is underway. Increasingly, tech-savvy mobile users are ready for collaborative workspaces with deep integrations to the software they use daily. Collaboration is a key element that helps create the future of work.”
– Worldwide Team Collaborative Applications Forecast, 2019–2023: Collaboration Growth Impacts the Future of Work, IDC, Doc #US44662619, August 2019.
If your business is in t he progress of growing or you want to grow, adopting a cloud ERP solution could be an easy way to increase capacity and output without taking on additional software, hardware, or IT personnel. A cloud ERP solution can be scaled up or down with ease, as well.
Savings found in the Cloud
Cloud ERP Solutions are a cost savings component of business that reduces overhead.
What’s overhead? simply put, overhead is what doesn’t make you money. This includes things like accounting, insurance, and rent.
Antiquated approaches to IT can be a huge source of spending for businesses with maintenance, update tasks, and utility bills, not to mention the extra space servers take up. When working in the cloud, the costs of doing business are driven down. Here’s how.
Reduced Cost of Ownership
Cloud computing removes upfront hardware costs, and the pay-as-you-go subscription model eliminates large initial layouts for software. Easy setup and cashflow-friendly monthly payments make it even easier to see why cloud deployments are so popular—especially when you add the fact that Epicor cloud business software deployments typically cost 25–40% less* than on-premises deployments.
Competitive Advantage
Technology allows your employees to turn on a dime. The cloud provides access to data at a user’s fingertips, ensuring that no matter your company’s size you are able to compete with enterprise-class technology. The time and money cloud computing frees up for your business translates into a lean, nimble, and competitive advantage.
Employee Productivity and Loyalty
With cloud ERP solutions, you can run your business from anywhere there’s an internet connection. Give your employees the ability to produce wherever they happen to be. This enables better work-life balance that translates to greater loyalty and output. With improved employee loyalty and buy-in, talent turns over less often, this further improves your savings in retaining talent versus having to train new employees more often.
Minimize Downtime With a Cloud ERP Solution
Downtime can cost a company dearly. Cloud ERP solutions can ensure your apps are up and running when you need them most. Cloud-based SaaS applications are proven to minimize downtime, reduce the costs that go along with it, and keep your people productive. Epicor ERP has a service level agreement of 99.5% uptime, but performs well beyond that promise with a historical uptime of 99.98%.
Safety, Stability, And Access
Backups are an integral part of any IT department. However, when your backups are stored on-site, you are vulnerable to all manner of internal and external compromise. This can include natural disasters, fire, rogue employees, malicious actors, and the list goes on. any one of these mentioned exposures could cost you irreplaceable data.
The Cloud is the only truly safe place for your backups, because they are house where natural disasters, fires, and all those other potential pitfalls can’t touch them. True backup—the safekeeping of a redundant set of data—is best left to the cloud. It’s the safest, most affordable, and most efficient way to make sure that if you lose everything, all is not lost.
When it comes to stability, cloud systems are simply more stable, better monitored, and more secure than any on-premises system. Unless you have an impenetrable data center protected by intrusion detection, fire suppression, advanced power grids, backup generators, environmental monitoring, and six separate HVAC units inspected every day—all connected by multiple T3 pipelines from multiple vendors and all in a distant geographic location—you’re not as safe as you think.
Accessibility, as in who you want to have access to your systems and who you want to keep out, is a big deal in IT. Add to that lost devices and you’ve compounded the problem. In fact, lost laptops are a billion-dollar business problem. However, the greater problem is the loss and possible theft of the sensitive data stored on those laptops. When your data is stored in the cloud, you can access it no matter what, no matter where. Not only this, but you can lock out anyone when it comes to using that device and you can remotely wipe data from lost laptops at any time.
Now, are you ready to explore the benefits of a Cloud ERP solution for your business?
This page is currently only accessible to registered members of our website. Please register here to view this content. Thank you.
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This page is currently only accessible to registered members of our website. Please register here to view this content. Thank you.
[ultimatemember form_id="114051"]
This page is currently only accessible to registered members of our website. Please register here to view this content. Thank you.
[ultimatemember form_id="114051"]
ERP for start-ups may seem like a bit of an oxymoron. The nature of ERP is to connect several departments in a unified information system. This allows you to leverage crucial data to make informed decisions that drive the success of your business. When most people hear those three little letters, they tend to think large scale enterprise, multi-national conglomerate, or global entities. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Small And Medium-Sized Businesses Include Start-Ups
The modern enterprise isn’t a fortune 500 company. It isn’t even a fortune 5,000 company.
In the US There are roughly 17 million businesses with fewer than 500 employees. This number represents 99.7% of all US businesses and almost half of total private sector employment.
With that in mind, it would make sense the market for ERP that speaks to the small and medium sized enterprise is ripe for development. In the last 40 years it has done just that with tremendous effect.
Among businesses surveyed in a 2017 Deloitte report commissioned by Google, the top 20% of the most digitally advanced companies:
- Earned 2 times as much revenue per employee
- Experienced revenue growth over the previous year that was nearly 4 times as high
- Were almost 3 times as likely to be creating jobs over the previous year
- Had an average employment growth rate that was more than 6 times as high
- Were also 3 times as likely to have exported over the previous year
Those stats can’t be ignored. However, what were the digital advancements these successful companies used to gain their edge in the market? Here’s how the levels of digital transformation of business is represented among those surveyed:
- Basic – An email address
- Intermediate – Website, basic marketing tools, online directories, and third-party marketplaces
- High – Advanced website, mobile or e-commerce capability, engagement on multiple social media platforms, online marketing channels
- Advanced – Advanced data analytics and applications for business management and customer interactions
It’s clear a business using advanced digital tools to help their business will perform better than those businesses using only basic or intermediate tools. But what does advanced really mean?
In this case, advanced digital tools includes:
- Data analytics used to examine characteristics of customers, to inform business decisions such as online marketing strategies or products offered.
- The ability for customers to make bookings and purchases through online channels, such as enabling payments through the business’ website or use of third-party e-commerce platforms.
- Digital technologies and tools utilized internally in order to improve business processes or worker productivity (e.g. cloud-based software, video conferencing, corporate social networks).
Epicor ERP For Start-Ups Facilitate Sales Excellence
Let’s start with the first benefit of ERP for start-ups. It’s no secret that sales are top of mind of a start-up.
Whether you are in it for the long-haul or just long enough for get an offer, proving viability through sales is key in attracting investors and securing longevity.
Epicor ERP CRM and Sales Management tools drive intelligent marketing and provide insightful data about what products are and are not moving. Add to this the ability to collaborate with internal teams as well as customers externally through one unified system and you have a recipe for success.
With Epcior Sales Management tools Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your sales team. By giving your sales teams the ability to manage their opportunities and automating administrative tasks, you free up their time to focus on building lasting, profitable relationships. It also enables your sales team to:
- Produce accurate estimates
- Streamline your order-to-cash cycle
- Fulfill perfect orders and ensure high customer satisfaction
Components of the sales management module include:
Estimate and Quote Management – Easily generate and track all customer or prospect requests for quotation (RFQs)—from the time of receipt until an order is placed. Create estimates and get quotes out more quickly with more accurate pricing and lead times with a wide range of powerful tools.
- Generate accurate and timely estimates and quotes
- Import data from a variety of customer and system sources
- Check inventory availability during quote entry
- Manage the sales cycle with dynamic task lists that ensure the right people are working on the quote at the right time
- Automatically cross reference customer part numbers to your part numbers during the quoting process
Order Management – Order Management drives the Epicor system. From the time an order is entered, its progress is tracked through final shipment—producing perfect order fulfillment on demand for maximum customer satisfaction.
- With the Order Job Wizard, generate appropriate jobs for new orders in a single step
- Check customer credit status online at quote entry, order entry, and shipment entry
- Using blanket orders, establish multiple releases for each sales order line and pull parts directly from inventory
- Link sales orders, jobs, purchase orders, field service calls, cases, tasks, milestones, and budget information to manage projects
EDI/Demand Management – Entrust EDI/Demand Management secures your competitive edge by incorporating electronic data interchange (EDI) with demand scheduling.
- Get full flexibility and control for setting up customer contracts and handling their schedules in the Epicor ERP system
- Reduce lead time and effort for planning and procurement
- With Demand Management, set up contracts per customer with such agreed-upon parameters as pricing, initial demand schedule, and contract end date
Point of Sale – Epicor Point of Sale (POS) extends the power of your Epicor ERP to a customer-facing sales environment—regardless if you need a single POS station or if you’re a multinational chain.
- Feature-rich system that empowers store personnel to deliver an enhanced customer experience
- Comprehensive functionality includes electronic gift cards, gift receipting, customized receipt per transaction type, coupon redemption/issuance, layaways, special orders, suspend and resume, item marking for various functions, additional input fields, multicurrency, start/end of day functions, cash management, and more.
Epicor Commerce Connect – B2B and B2C eCommerce are the new norm. Epicor Commerce Connect (ECC) provides your buyers and sales channels with a simple online shopping experience that encourages repeat purchases and sets your brand apart.
- Launch an attractive, simple-to-use eCommerce site with your own branding in less time
- Manage only one product database with tight integration into Epicor ERP
- Simplify channel support by letting your partners make payments on accounts, access pricelists, and place quick re-orders
Epicor Customer Connect – Today’s customers want new access to information. Epicor Customer Connect helps you improve customer loyalty and online commerce.
- Special promotions and pricelists
- Enable your customers to make repeat purchases
Startup Growth And Innovation With Advanced Digital Tools At An Affordable Price
Epicor technology is powered by industry-leading innovation and expertise. The software empowers businesses of every size and is modular to fit the needs of a start-ups, no matter their stage of growth. Epicor solutions feature seamless integration with thousands of existing software applications, web-enabled platforms, and fully configurable interfaces and reporting systems.
Utilize the components of Epicor ERP your start-up needs here and now. Add more functionality as you scale, customize the framework to fit your unique business components, and take as much control of your technology as you like with on-premise, cloud, and hybrid deployment options. Mobile solutions can further be utilized to access the system from Windows, iOS, and Android devices.
Epicor ERP for start-ups is designed to be both accessible and affordable for the small business and start-up. Financing, subscription models, and even tax write offs are available for Epicor ERP software purchases.
About Encompass Solutions
Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, and renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of Industry.