Business Automation and Software Blog

It’s no secret that 2020 challenged businesses in many new and unexpected ways. From deeply interrupted supply chains to a near overnight switch to remote work, 2020 made organizations take a critical look at processes to uncover where they were more resilient than expected—and where significant work was still needed.

The manufacturing response to the disruption of 2020 was found by one study to be largely reactive and uncoordinated, with many firms’ crisis communication plans not including management of an infectious disease outbreak. Certainly, there are challenges for manufacturing when dealing with such an abrupt, massive disruption, from supply chain disruptions to shortage of business system accessibility, to a lack of worker availability.

With the lockdowns and recessions that resulted in 2020 from the COVID-19 pandemic, the world of work has changed dramatically. For some, the labor market outlook is considerably more uncertain than it was this time last year as remote work and other accelerated technical adoptions—such as robust business management systems—created a new frontier for the world of work.

There’s no doubt your IT team is talented, but not every business is going to have in-house software development resources with the expertise to take on enterprise software projects. That’s when a software consultant comes into play, providing expertise on the market, business, industry, and of course, the software solutions that meet those needs.

This year, more than ever, supply chain management has experienced seismic shifts and changes. From economic pressures to trade disputes to the global health crisis, change in 2020 has been unpredictable at best. In addition, some problems have compounded as various companies shut their doors for COVID, and others shut their doors for good.

More than any other year prior, 2020 has highlighted the need for companies to look at business operations quite critically. Especially in light of the COVID pandemic, technology has become an essential part of the process of mobilizing the remote workforce and increasing collaboration.

Over the years, the role of the CFO has transformed from “head bean counter” responsible for accounting and reporting past activities and transactions to report on what happened in the past. Now, modern CFOs are asked to focus more on taking the information of what happened in the past to shape the narrative for the future of the company.

At the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, widespread industry shut downs that resulted in a sharp decline of production and efficiency levels in manufacturing triggered fears that the supply chain might suffer collapse. While those fears haven’t come to fruition, manufacturers are still struggling to adjust through a constantly shifting landscape, and the worst fallout might be a continually strained supply chain.

It’s almost hard to believe that 2020 is coming to a close. But Finance and Accounting professionals are already looking toward to the end of the year. For some, preparing for year-end close won’t start until the end of December. But that can involve a mad dash to review data stored in accounting software, contacting vendors to verify information, and then closing the books.

A request for a quote is a key step in closing a sale, especially for manufacturers. But if your manufacturing quotation process involves checking multiple spreadsheets and an email chain for price information, or using an old quote as a template to manually create (or populate!) a new one, or obtaining information that is only accessible so long as the right person is in the office and available to chat, you run the risk of creating inaccurate quotes that could lose business, or worse: profit.