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The 7 Irresistible Qualities of Cloud ERP
Learn why ERP tools are an critical component for many businesses.
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Cloud Resolutions for the New Year
/in Blog, Cloud /by lindsayThe new year is a great time to review the technology you’re using and make changes, either introducing new technology or improving how you use your existing technology. Here are four things to look at to help you get more out of your cloud technology:
1. Get cloud spending under control
One of the biggest advantages of cloud is its cost savings, but you need to take steps to make sure spending doesn’t exceed expectations. Because cloud is self-service, it’s easy for users to initiate services without much review. Free trials are tempting, but when they aren’t canceled, they turn into ongoing expenses. Buying excess capacity is a good practice when you house resources in your data center, but it’s unnecessary and a hard habit to break when it comes to cloud, where capacity is available on demand. Choosing a more expensive data tier is another source of unnecessary expenses. Finally, remember cloud is pay-per-use, so make sure resources are shut down when not needed. This includes permanently shutting down development and test environments after the project is complete, as well as turning off applications that aren’t needed overnight. Learn more about controlling your cloud costs.
2. Consider going native
Probably most organizations take the “lift and shift” approach to transitioning to cloud. In this approach, you don’t rearchitect applications; you transition them as-is. The approach has the advantages of being simple. It’s also relatively fast and relatively low-risk. However, most existing applications aren’t designed to take advantage of all the cloud’s features. In particular, they don’t usually have a services-oriented architecture and aren’t able to take advantage of automatic scalability in the cloud. If you’ve already migrated applications to the cloud and things are running smoothly, take time this year to review the applications and identify where going cloud-native will offer advantages. Learn more about approaches to moving to the cloud.
3. Improve your security
Cloud security remains a top concern for many businesses, and there’s a good reason: cloud means shared resources and more points of access, meaning potentially greater risk. While your cloud provider takes many steps to protect the cloud, protecting your applications and your data remains your responsibility. Spend time reviewing your security posture, checking the tools and configurations you already have in place, and consider adding new cloud-centric controls such as a cloud access security broker. Learn more about ways to keep your cloud secure or information security basics.
4. Design your hybrid cloud
Almost no one, except for brand-new start-ups, has a pure cloud environment. Everyone else is working with a mix of cloud and legacy infrastructure, resulting in a confusing, difficult-to-manage hybrid architecture. Stop the chaos by taking a step back to evaluate the mixed infrastructure and plan how it can smartly evolve to let all the different elements work together in support of your business. Learn more about the flexibility of a hybrid cloud.
CCS Technology Can Help You Achieve Your 2020 Cloud Resolutions
If you’re ready to tackle any or all of these cloud resolutions in the new year, contact CCS Technology Group. Our cloud solutions help you design, implement, and manage the cloud you need in 2020 and beyond.
Additional Cloud Resources
New Year, New Cloud Choices and Challenges
Don’t Overlook These Aspects When You Plan Your Cloud Migration
Calculating the ROI of Moving to the Cloud
Why Growing Companies Need ERP Software
/in Blog, ERP Software /by lindsayGrowing companies need Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. Put another way, if your business is growing, you may need to upgrade your legacy ERP software. While software alone won’t make your business grow, executing a growth plan without the right software will be a bigger challenge than it needs to be.
What’s New in ERP?
ERP is not new. You could even argue that it’s middle aged. The core of ERP, which was created to help run big factories and logistical operations, came into existence in the early 1970s. ERP’s origins lead some to consider the software to be a “heavy iron” technology, suited to global giants and industrial processes. There is still some truth to this, but we are now into a new generation of agile, powerful cloud-based ERP solutions.
Cloud ERP, as exemplified by Acumatica, makes it possible to deploy sophisticated business management solutions without installing software or buying any hardware. It’s available over the Web, via a browser. Acumatica is an extensible system. It can do basic ERP workloads like accounting and financial management, orders and invoicing and so forth. However, from there, you can add a significant portfolio of modules. These include software for warehouse management, field service, Customer Resource Management (CRM), HR, industry-specific applications and on and on.
Grow Revenue with ERP
Used the right way, ERP can facilitate revenue growth. This happens when you take advantage of sales management tools and functionality like quote-to-order and product configuration. With these capabilities, you can engage more closely with customers, responding to their needs quickly and closing more deals. The order fulfillment and subsequent customer support features in cloud ERP keep the customer relationship on a solid footing—leading to more repeat business and client references. This is possible without ERP, but it will be a lot more work.
Save and Invest for Growth
Modern cloud ERP drives savings across the business, including Operating Expense (OpEx) and Capital Expense (CapEx). You can use the proceeds of these savings to invest in strategies that promote growth, e.g. marketing campaigns, new hires and so forth. In terms of OpEx, cloud ERP enables people to work more productively, using automated workflows to speed up business processes. The connected nature of the extended Acumatica system reduces manual process steps and re-keying of data into the solution.
The ERP toolset provides for improved scheduling of production operations and field service. With data analytics and visual dashboards, the ERP solution can help managers anticipate problems and react before they become expensive to solve. Advanced inventory management features give you the ability to conserve cash and cut down on costly mistakes like stocking merchandise for so long that it expires.
Protect Your Business, So It Can Grow
The last few years have demonstrated conclusively that a cyberattack is a costly distraction that then results in a huge remediation expense. A serious data breach, for instance, will probably put a damper on your growth plans for a good six months or more. ERP software does not guarantee security, however, modern cloud ERP solutions offer a number of security advantages compared to legacy systems. For instance, the system runs in a highly secure data center. The cloud architecture also makes possible a level of redundancy that protects you from outages resulting from attacks.
2020 promises to be a year of growth. ERP can be part of your success story. If you want to learn more about how cloud ERP can help your business grow in the coming year, let’s talk.
Additional ERP Resources
7 Important Qualities of Cloud ERP
Position Your Business for Growth in 2020 With Cloud ERP
7 Benefits of CRM Software (That’s Integrated with ERP)
Recommendations for Selecting a Distribution ERP Solution
/in Blog, Distribution Industry, ERP Software /by lindsayWhat is the right ERP solution for your distribution business? Acumatica Cloud ERP has created an in-depth checklist to help you understand your options. Their hope, of course, is that you choose Acumatica, but the reality is they’ve done everyone a service by publishing the checklist. You could work through it and conclude that a different solution is right for your particular distribution business—especially as the industry undergoes a period of digital transformation.
The checklist is also a good reflection of the way we work with clients in discovering the best solution for their distribution businesses. It’s methodical and allows for the prioritization of needs. With ERP selection, it should never be a simple matter of feature-to-feature comparison. The best practice is to weight features by relevance to your business.
Overview of the Distribution ERP Selection Checklist
The checklist contains five categories of comparison for distribution ERP solutions:
Using the Checklist to Select a Distribution ERP Solution
Depending on your business, you may emphasize some of the five categories more than others. Productivity, for example, is often overlooked, but it shouldn’t be. The checklist forces you to take a hard look at issues like how intuitive the interface is for users. If it’s not easy to learn, people might find ways to work around it, defeating the whole purpose of the solution. Other productivity factors include having a single database, multi-currency capabilities, wikis and so forth.
Functionality is a critical area for evaluation. Even if you totally love a distribution ERP solution, if it doesn’t do what you want, the solution won’t work. Functional check-offs span features like support for multiple entities, financial management and quote-to-cash workflows. Sales order management and cost accounting are on the list, as are purchase order management and inventory management.
In terms of technology, the checklist encourages you to probe whether a cloud-based solution is “True Cloud,” meaning that it was designed natively for the cloud. This can make a difference in how well the solution works and how easy it is to change. Responsive design is also a significant requirement, given today’s mobile workforce and customers. Other technical issues of note include database export capabilities and the presence of a full relational database. This latter technical feature can be important for integration with other systems, audits and more. The value checklist items refer to financial aspects of the solution. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) figures prominently into the value category, but so do non-monetary but value-oriented factors like scalability.
If you’re considering getting a new distribution ERP solution, we encourage you to work with the checklist. We can help you go through it, looking at how your business runs and how it competes to arrive at an informed, wise solution choice.
Additional Distribution Resources
Looking at 2020 Distribution Industry Trends with ERP in Mind
Benefits of ERP Software for Distribution Business Management
5 Reasons Distributors Need ERP Software