Why Your Manufacturing Business Should Consider ERP Integration
Walter Little | Product Manager
The Hunt for Efficiency
The hunt for efficiency is an ongoing business quest, with manufacturers looking under every stone. But are you missing the biggest prize? Yes, your ERP. It’s the backbone of your business, but if you’re not pursuing ERP integration with other key systems, you’re leaving dollars scattered on the pavement for someone else to find. And many businesses are.
ERP Integration: A Competitive Necessity
According to a Gartner report, 60% of enterprises now consider ERP integration investments strategic to their business. Modern, integrated ERPs deliver a decisive competitive advantage by enhancing business processes and the overall end-customer user experience. The report showed an integrated ERP is essential to facilitating relationships with business partners, streamlining supply chains, getting products to market faster—and for less. Your integrated ERP is truly an agile tool equipped to meet rapidly changing customer demands.
Benefits of ERP Integration
Connecting your ERP with key business systems shifts your company from having siloed systems requiring manual—and often duplicate—work, to an efficient organization with resource flexibility. You can use your talent to serve your unique business needs, rather than getting bogged down in time-consuming and repetitive system maintenance. How exactly? Well, your fully connected ecosystem will deliver:
Deeper business efficiency and automation
Compelling ROI in months, not years
Better employee utilization, retention and satisfaction
Increased business agility and competitive advantage
With a broad variety of turnkey integrations, as well as ad hoc integrations unique to your business, Strategic can work with you to develop a tailored integration solution. You’ll gain the most business value from your ERP and other technology investments by targeting integrations to optimize your operations, such as with financials, shipping, banking, and QMS.
Dispelling Myths About ERP Integration
Despite its acknowledged importance, common misconceptions continue to swirl about ERP integration. These myths could very well be preventing manufacturers from implementing business-enhancing integrations, so we wanted to cover these head-on:
Myth #1: Too Expensive: Truth is, it’s often more expensive to NOT integrate your systems given the efficiencies and savings your integrated systems will likely uncover.
Myth #2: Too Complex: With Strategic’s turnkey integration products and expert service, the whole project will likely be easier to manage than you think.
Myth #3: Too Risky: Rather than creating risk, integrating your ERP with important systems can enhance security by automating processes where humans can introduce vulnerabilities.
Myth #4: Not Future-Proof: With Strategic’s subscription model, version updates are included. That means your system will always work with your QAD ERP, now and into the future, so your integrations will last.
First in Our Blog Series on the Importance of ERP Integration
Over the next few blogs, we’ll zero in on the five categories of integration solutions Strategic offers manufacturers, focusing attention on each. We’ll detail the benefits each can bring to your organization so you can make the decision that’s right for you.
Integration Product Categories from Strategic
Analytics and Reporting
Financial
Manufacturing Operations
Product Lifecycle Management
Sales Operations