We recently spoke about why B2B vendors should bring their business online and how to help employees during the transition. Now we're going to cover another important part of the transition, successfully integrating the eCommerce platform with your ERP system.
Your ERP system can integrate various departments within your organization and then save a lot of time and energy in getting things done. Your eCommerce platform handles all your online orders, and chances are that if you've taken your business online, you are receiving a big chunk of business from your online store. Although these two systems are critical to the business, many organizations have yet to integrate the two and maximize on the synergies.
If you have not integrated the two here are some of the problems that you might be facing:
• High order volume
If orders are usually being copied or entered in the ERP system from the eCommerce platform, chances are the team takes some time to make the transfer. This causes delays in all subsequent processes from packing to delivery. Integration will exponentially reduce the time taken and help increase speed of processing.
• Costs and errors
Integrating the two systems will be a one-time implementation that will be more cost-effective in the long run and will ensure that data is copied as is without errors in order or customer information.
• Inventory
The eCommerce system will constantly update the ERP; subsequently updating the inventory levels in real-time, so you can always plan and ensure adequate stocks.
• Decision-making delays
Accurate data is critical in making on-time decisions, whether it is to maintain inventory or plan the budget. Employees will not be able to work fast enough to ensure that all the data has been entered on time to extract for analysis and planning. With an integrated system you can be sure that extracted data is up to date and error free.
• Customer satisfaction
Errors and delays in order fulfillment will leave customers dissatisfied. Integration reduces the number of errors to a great extent and delivers what the customer wants on time and correctly.
• Real-time data
Keeping track of which customer has outstanding credit and when their payment deadlines are approaching is important to the business as a whole. Real-time availability of such data to all departments is possible when the ERP and eCommerce platform are in sync. Even as volume and velocity of data increases, the master data is available to all the people who need it.
B2B businesses grow well when they go online and for a small or medium business to find itself incapable of handling orders arriving through the online store can be a huge setback.While a growing staff can work as a temporary fix for these problems, the only long -term solution is integrating the eCommerce platform and the ERP.
