Top 5 Signs your Retail Business is Ready for a Cloud ERP
The retail industry is evolving every day to fulfil the dynamic needs of customers, who expect a sleek, seamless, and often personalised sales process. Moreover, against a challenging economic backdrop, operationally and financially, retailers need integrated and live information across their entire organisation to be able to drive efficiencies. For this reason, retailers can’t rely on legacy systems anymore.
The latest Cloud ERP platforms, however, offer retailers access to live sales, customer, product, and stock information at any time, from anywhere, enabling a more personalized and enhanced shopping experience for customers – as well as delivering the detailed information required to run businesses more effectively.
What are the top 5 signs that your retail business needs a robust cloud ERP solution?
1 Retrieving information is difficult
If your business relies on a variety of disparate solutions, or a legacy ERP system that has various siloed modules, it will be very difficult to obtain a complete customer profile, or follow a customer’s path from initial enquiry to sale and onwards.
Retailers should be able to access key customer data immediately, without delays and without having to search for it through a mountain of paperwork or cross-reference a variety of digital platforms.
With a Cloud ERP system, you can have access to live, accurate data at any time, that facilitates effective customers and sales management.
2 The system does not scale with your business
If your current system is not ready for peaks in your retail season, like Cyber Monday or Black Friday, your system may not be able to cope, and lost sales can occur.
For retailers, a robust, scalable ERP system that accompanies the growth and seasonality of business is vital, considering periods, or specific dates, where sales peak and transactions can suddenly triple. Valentine’s Day or Black Friday promotions can only be successful if orders can be made, payments handled, and deliveries fulfilled on time.
A Cloud ERP can handle the vast complexity of stock and sales at any point in time and it can also be scaled as the company grows.
3 Poor Inventory Management
As the business gets larger, one of the biggest challenges is making sure you have the right number of products in the right location at the right time.
If you run out of a popular product, you’re missing out on sales until the next shipment arrives. Further, if a customer asks about the availability of a product and you can’t provide a quick answer, your company could develop a poor business reputation of being unreliable, or poor customer service.
The ability to view inventory in real time is necessary to avoid mistakes in stock control and prevent customers from having a poor experience due to the lack of stock. Your supply chain needs to be visible and available, with in-the-moment information about suppliers, materials, and inventory rates – all of which is possible with a Cloud ERP system.
4 Non-integrated eCommerce
Integrating your eCommerce with an outdated ERP solution is usually challenging and can lead to less-than-optimal financial and operational management.
The payment experience should be easy, instant, and seamless for all common payment types.
By unifying your eCommerce solution with a Cloud ERP system, companies will be better poised to deliver more relevant and optimized eCommerce experiences, enhanced shopper-level personalisation and expand sales opportunities. This results in lower overheads, improved conversion rates, faster processing, and real-time visibility into financial and order data.
Critically, it enables management to better manage cash flow and the margins.
5 Having an Unsupported System
Many on-premises ERPs are becoming obsolete and unsupported, leading to a sub-optimal system with higher maintenance costs and risks of system failures.
A cloud-based ERP system enables access for all users, anywhere, from any device, to provide real-time information. Moreover, updates and upgrades are performed seamlessly as well as guaranteeing greater efficiency in maintenance costs.
Summary
The advantages of having a cloud-based, scalable, ERP solution that integrates with ecommerce functionality and customer information are immeasurable for competitiveness – and survival – in the retail sector.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is one such ERP solution, meeting all the key retail functionality requirements, including an integrated solution for back and front-office processes; invoice issue; inventory management; planning; discount schemes; offers; loyalty programs; and e-commerce integration, amongst other critical financial information and data management requirements.
If you’re in the retail sector looking for greater operational and financial efficiencies as well as better customer management, do contact us for a friendly discussion on how we can help.
About Us Dynamo Global is a trusted Microsoft Dynamics Gold ERP Partner delivering valuable ERP solutions to Clients around the world. We know what functionalities can be applied to best suit the retail sector to make a positive difference to your business.
For more information about us, do visit our website.