Driving cost efficiency through technology
If you’ve decided to launch your manufacturing business forward by harnessing the opportunities of the latest technological advances, your next step is choosing the right solution.
But before making a snap decision, you must consider the focus areas of your growth strategy to find a solution that aligns with your business’ unique needs. You can do this by addressing your most common pain points with the following advice.
Prioritise the challenges your business faces
Moving to an advanced software solution allows your business to manage multiple business areas from one place, as well as supporting collaboration between teammates and stakeholders. But every business has unique pain points that they must prioritise to optimise their processes. These might include:
– Outdated reporting methods
Many businesses rely on accurate and on-time reporting to inform their business decisions. When these reports are inaccurate and outdated, the wrong actions may be chosen.
Look for a solution with the ability to:
- Track supply chain activities from end to end.
- Detect unrecorded transactions, locate errors, record corrections, and reconcile books with bank statements.
– Lack of support for collaboration
Stakeholders must stay involved with the business and maintain a consistent level of collaboration. But when they lack effective support, they may be unable to help with optimising the business and realising new opportunities.
Look for a solution with the ability to:
- Select the modules needed to manage stock, projects, manufacturing processes, and CRM.
- Monitor shop floor events to ensure efficiency, while also maintaining maximum productivity, and increasing customer satisfaction and profitability.
How can digitisation help cut complexities and eliminate silos?
An increasing number of businesses are utilising the flexibility of mobile software which provides them with an ‘always on’ approach. But if this is done without connection to the key business software you use, it may jeopardise the accuracy of data transferred between teams. There are a couple of key pain points that may arise as a result, including:
– Lack of connectivity
Without connection to your crucial business applications, your new solution may prove to lack the key features you rely on to move your business forward.
Look for a solution that includes:
- Full integration with popular apps such as Office 365.
- Tracking of business finances, so you can take fast action when opportunities arise.
– Difficulty in accessing data
Without access to important data, stakeholders may be unable to do their jobs and take advantage of business opportunities.
Look for a solution that allows you to:
- View customer and supplier records directly from Outlook, update contacts from within, and sync any changes automatically across the system.
- Hide any bank accounts, nominal accounts, or budgets that aren’t regularly accessed.
- Create dashboards relevant to different teams, individuals, and roles, where reports can be customised by department and staff member.
How can your business management solution help you stay compliant?
All businesses face a range of regulations they must be aware of and comply with. With the business landscape constantly evolving, regulations are changing, and new regulations are being added.
It can be challenging for businesses to stay on top of regulations, but there is no excuse for non-compliance, and those that fail their audits may be subject to hefty fines and penalties for it. This can also lead to disruptions to operations which may impact the business in the long term.
To combat this, businesses must look for management software with the ability to automate global processes and policies, as well as support regional teams to help them comply with local regulations that they are subject to.
Conclusion
Manufacturing businesses must implement business management solutions that cater to their specific pain points. This will not only help to improve their processes, but it will help them remove silos and stay compliant with the latest regulations.
Sage Business Cloud pairs the technology that makes business management easier with the cost efficiencies that positively impact your business’ bottom line. To find out more about how Sage Business Cloud can help your manufacturing business, download our free eBook below:
