How To Improve Service While Reducing Operating Costs

How To Improve Service While
Reducing Operating Costs
Eliminating Silos of Data for One System of Truth
INTRODUCTION
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is designed to improve and automate your
business operations. Within medium to large enterprise companies, these processes such as quality, production, inventory, reporting, order entry, accounting, purchasing,
etc... - are traditionally managed by several disparate, or even manual, systems.
Companies that operate with disparate or manual systems often experience many
unnecessary costs and delays. Examples include duplicate data entry, data corruption,
more training, greater IT support and software incompatibilities. However, the largest
impact of disparate systems is the inability to access information timely to enable good
decision making.
As a result, there is a growing trend toward the use of a single ERP system to manage the
entire business.
Through this single software system approach, companies can control the details of their
businesses by linking all departments together. This maximizes productivity, reduces
costs, and increases profitability. With a centralized ERP system, companies can erase
information boundaries and deliver the critical information needed for rapid, effective
decision-making.
This document highlights the top ten business benefits of eliminating silos of data and
utilizing a single ERP software system. By understanding these benefits, companies can
understand how to simplify their operational processes.
BENEFITS
1.
REDUCE COSTS
Challenged to do more with less, many IT departments are finding that the cost of
maintaining multiple business systems is simply too high. With a single software system in
place, companies can eliminate many of the costs associated with IT, including high
implementation, integration, training, and support costs. Additionally, many companies
experience reduction in overall license costs when moving to a single business system
approach.
2. SINGLE POINT OF CONTROL
Another major benefit of a single ERP system is the “single point of control.” A single
software system will be the trusted source of information for an organization. By
integrating all business processes into a single system, companies are able to simplify
business workflow and increase productivity and efficiency.
3. ELIMINATE REDUNDANT DATA ENTRY
Eliminating redundant data entry improves productivity. Companies can also gain
organization-wide insight across the applications through one easy-to-use and familiar
interface. For example, inventory, formulation, production, and lot and batch control
updates are processed once with real-time transactional posting.
4. IMPROVE DATA INTEGRITY
As the sole system for all company data, enterprise wide ERP is perfectly suited for
organizations that require high levels of data integrity and control. With a single software
solution, business information will be entered in one central location and will always be
the same across company departments and locations.
“Users moving from disparate
systems or paper based
processes can expect
Microsoft Dynamics AX user
productivity to increase by up
to 30 percent.”
“Key benefits from Microsoft
Dynamics AX that drove
returns... included improved
visibility, increased
productivity, improved
customer relationship
management, reduced
inventory, improved supply
chain collaboration, and
reduced costs.”
“(Companies) moving from
other disparate applications
can often redeploy hardware,
cut maintenance contracts,
and re-devote IT resources to
other projects. For example,
one customer moving from
Oracle to Microsoft Dynamics
AX reduced its ongoing ERP
support budget by 73 percent.”
Nucleus Research, click here to
read.
5. BETTER BUSINESS INSIGHT
Access to business critical data - no matter where it's located - is needed for rapid,
effective decision making. By integrating all departments into one business system,
companies have accurate, up-to-the minute information about product costs, sales
trends, profit margins, and more.
6. RESPOND TO CHANGING BUSINESS CONDITIONS
Responding quickly to business needs can be the key to gaining and keeping a competitive
edge. But disparate IT systems can get in the way. A single enterprise wide software
system that is flexible and easy to use can play a critical role in helping your business
achieve the agility it requires to respond and adapt to changing business conditions.
7. SPEED AND SIMPLIFY TRAINING
When utilizing a single software system, user training and adoption is easier and faster.
Since employees only have one system to learn and use, as opposed to several different
software interfaces, companies save time and effort during the training process.
8. MANAGE SUPPORT
One software system means one software vendor, which prevents multiple vendors from
passing software issues off to other software vendors. Also, instead of calling multiple
support help desks, there is one support team responsible for addressing all of a
company’s software questions or issues.
9. MINIMAL MAINTENANCE
Overall, since software maintenance is lower, support issues are fewer with a single
system. Rather than juggling support issues for numerous systems, a company’s IT
department can handle the regular updates and backups for one software system. Single
systems also keep network issues to a minimum.
10. EASIER UPGRADE PROCESS
In addition to minimal maintenance, enterprise wide systems are easier to upgrade, too.
Multiple software systems can conflict when one system is updated and no longer works
correctly with another system. These differences are eliminated with single system
upgrades.
SUMMARY
A single software system is intended to improve and automate business processes. By
using a single point of control, this goal is accomplished through the benefits detailed
above. Overall, the benefits of a single software system fulfill the original intentions of
ERP as it allows companies to manage their business as simply and efficiently as possible.
If any of these benefit are important to a company’s ability to meet their business goals,
MAXCloud ERP an help. Powered by Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, MAXCloud helps
provide more business value faster, enables agility and insight in your organization, and
helps drive faster adoption, broader usage, and easier maintenance and upgrades through
a continued emphasis on simplicity.
Couple this with a constant focus on pervasive interoperability—the natural interaction of
ERP systems with business productivity applications and IT infrastructure technology—
and MAXCloud ERP will help sharpen your competitive edge and empower your people to
anticipate and embrace change.
“With multiple manual steps
and no overall view of
company operations, closing
the books on operations took
more than five days. You’d
start work on a new month
without even knowing
whether you made money last
month or not.”
“Our processes involved a lot
of manual work - people
running around with bits of
paper. We were receiving a
large amount of charge-backs,
where money was actually
deducted from our
invoice, for not meeting the
retailers’ requirements. But
Microsoft Dynamics AX
facilitated a systematic
approach to shipping,
something our trading
partners greatly appreciated.
The number of charge-backs
we’re receiving is reduced by
80% and our retailers are
much happier doing business
with us.”
“We’re still implementing
Microsoft Dynamics AX, and
it’s already transforming our
business. We couldn’t be
happier with our new system.”
Bringing Your Business Systems
Up To Date, click here to read.
ABOUT MAXCLOUD ERP
Take advantage of the industry-leading capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics AX at a
decreased cost - without the up-front investments in hardware and infrastructure. With
MAXCloud ERP, companies can increase profitability, improve productivity, and reduce IT
costs, all without compromising security or functionality. MAXCloud ERP is based on
Microsoft's most advanced and feature-rich ERP system, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.
Gartner, Inc. has named Microsoft Dynamics AX a "Leader" in its ERP Magic Quadrant, and
Nucleus Research has found that Microsoft Dynamics AX customers achieve returns in
areas of increased visibility, increased productivity, and reduced costs.
ABOUT MERIT SOLUTIONS
Merit Solutions is an Award-Winning mid-sized IT services company with offices in North
America and Europe. Our clients are medium to large enterprise businesses that want to
leverage Microsoft Dynamics AX and surrounding technologies to standardize business
processes and eliminate risk - and then continuously improve their business. Our industryspecific solutions, MAXFood and MAXLife, along with our core Microsoft Dynamics AX,
MAXCloud, and SharePoint offerings, enable organizations to increase efficiency, reduce
costs, and improve service - while maintaining profitable growth! Merit Solutions has
been a Microsoft Gold Certified partner since 2003, and was recently identified as one of
the top ERP resellers of the year.
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
As an IT consulting and services organization, we know our success is directly
dependent upon the success of our customers. That's why we perform quarterly customer
satisfaction surveys to measure our client's success and satisfaction.
The "highly professional
approach to our project
resulted in the results we
expected on the schedule
promised under the budget
estimates. It's hard to beat
that combination. Thanks for
being flexible in working with
our distributed team and for a
great result."
“The consultants have always
met our expectations, and
their knowledge of the
software and our business has
helped us streamline processes… The entire Merit Solutions
team has always been helpful,
courteous, and has done
whatever needs to be done to
make our partnership
successful. I have never been
disappointed by Merit
Solutions.”

94% of Customers agree that Merit Solutions team members are able to
recommend appropriate and creative solutions to my business needs.

94% of Customers agree that Merit Solutions
expectations correctly and deliver on commitments.

94% of Customers agree that Merit Solutions team members treat all of my
(customer’s) team members professionally.

88% of Customers agree that Merit Solutions team members respond quickly to
any of my requests.
“Merit Solutions was able to
handle the intricacies of
successfully migrating our
legacy data, while at the same
time building support and user
acceptance of Microsoft
Dynamics AX within our
organization. More than
anything else, these two
factors are what enabled us to
understand what we have to
do as a company to meet our
goals, and what we could do in
the future to improve upon
our business.”

94% of Customers agree that Merit Solutions team members met project
objectives.
Merit Solutions Customer Quotes,
click here to read.
Below are the up-to-date results of Merit Solutions' quarterly satisfaction surveys for
2012:
team
members
set
To see the full results of our annual scores for the Microsoft Customer
Satisfaction (CSAT) program, view the Merit Solutions Customer Satisfaction page!
Merit Solutions, Inc.
1749 S. Naperville Rd., Ste. 200
Wheaton, IL 60189
W: www.meritsolutions.com
P: (630) 614 - 7133
E: info@meritsolutions.com