Greek philosopher Heraclitus said it best: “The only constant is change.” In business, companies are on the relentless pursuit of improvement, which usually means change. The systems they work with are no different. In order to grow and change along with the businesses it serves, SYSPRO ERP recently announced the newest version, SYSPRO 8. This latest release continues to add to the existing industry-built capabilities and is adding to the modules that support manufacturing operations management, quality management, and corporate performance management.

SYSPRO has always gone to great lengths to provide customer choice and flexibility. This release extends those choices. Customers can choose how they wish to deploy the software (cloud or on-premises), to pay (subscription or perpetual licenses), and to access the system (mobile, desktop, and now the Avanti web interface, discussed in this post). 

In a recent survey of SYSPRO users, more than 75 percent of the respondents indicated that the new generation of ERP users “will increasingly demand or be drawn to vendors that let them do business ‘their way.’” Additionally, some 71 percent of respondents ranked speed and flexibility as important factors for current and next-generation ERP users. 

Enhanced User Experience 

User experience and engagement is a key focus of the latest release. The revamped user experience starts with a redesigned user interface (UI) but is extended by several other key elements. These include “actionable business insights,” which display key business metrics to allow users to take action with a single click. It also adds an enterprise social ERP tool called Harmony. These elements are all rolled together under role-based workspaces. 

The role-based workspaces have added another dimension to the role-based user experience. While most ERP systems allow user interface objects and elements to be grouped under a user role, SYSPRO has extended this concept to allow individual users to create their own workspaces that they can use when shifting roles. For example, the finance manager may need to use a particular set of business insights and functions during the majority of the quarter but will need to switch to another set of tools when performing the financial close. SYSPRO now allows a user to have these different tools grouped in workspaces they can switch to as the need arises. 

New Technology Connections 

The new release brings an impressive set of innovative technologies into the SYSPRO ERP platform. These technologies include IoT connectivity and management, an interactive and intelligent bot, refinements to Harmony (a SYSPRO social enterprise tool), and more. 

IoT—IoT connected devices are already yielding tremendous savings for traditional manufacturing lines of business. IoT data will also drive entirely new business models. SYSPRO 8 has made it possible for its customers to bring IoT data back into their system and turn it into actionable data. 

Bots— The use of bots, along with other hands-free wearables, is the future of the user experience. With this release, SYSPRO’s bot (named Ken) will start off with some 60 different skills. Many regular daily operations—from customer service to warehouse management operations—can be handled easily via this interactive bot, as opposed to having users key commands into a device. 

Social ERP—SYSPRO’s Harmony enterprise social tools help round out the user experience by bringing all the common social media interactions into the ERP system. A user is able to “follow” objects in the system, such as an important order or manufacturing job, and collaborate on the progress. SYSPRO 8 has taken the social interactions one step further by using machine learning, cognitive service, and analytics to track trending objects in the system that can surface important business insights. 

Industry 4.0—The SYSPRO 8 release features more than 140 native drivers to support the connection to the most common factory floor devices. These drivers enable a manufacturer to plug and play devices into SYSPRO ERP. Having access to shop floor machine data and real-time ERP operator inputs from mobile devices provides a rich set of tools to support the smart factory of the future. 

The addition of all these new innovative technologies (IoT, bots, social ERP, ML, and AI) to the SYSPRO ERP platform brings all the latest tools for meaningful digital transformation into the hands of the SYSPRO users. 

Ready to experience SYSPRO 8 in your business? PositiveVision has more than fifteen years’ experience helping customers implement ERP and other business software. No matter your organization’s size or needs, let PositiveVision get you the insight you need with SYSPRO 8. Contact us today to upgrade.