Business Automation and Software Blog

Every product-based company knows that inventory control is a vital part of the business. Knowing what you have and what you need, how often, and in what quantities helps you make better decisions on how to move the company forward and increase profits. Manual inventory management is time-consuming, tedious, and quite frankly, boring. The good news is, there’s a better way, and that way helps prepare your business for the future.

It takes just the right mix of personality and talent to be a salesperson. They have the skills to uncover exactly what a customers’ needs are (regardless of what they’re told), finding a solution to the problem, and then offering the best product or collection to meet those needs. If that solution can come at a price that makes the customer happy, that’s even better. The best salespeople know that lowest price does not necessarily equal the highest value.

Most people outside of accounting and finance don’t get that excited about ERP data and analytics. Throughout your career, you’ve likely been subjected to eyes glazing over at a cocktail party when you’ve mentioned that your day job is in finance. But as a CFO, you know that while your ERP data might not make for very good small talk, the smallest nuances and trends in that data make for excellent keys to profitability.

As most good business leaders know, practicing lean involves maximizing value while minimizing waste, essentially creating more value using fewer resources. Lean made its first big impact in business with Henry Ford in 1913, before being improved on by a team at Toyota in the 1930s.

Lean is clearly applicable when it comes to manufacturing, but what about accounting?

When most of us think of supply chain, images of warehouses, trucks, and shipping boxes might come to mind. But what doesn’t necessarily come to mind is data.

That’s right: data. Data can also count as part of the supply chain, but in this case, it’s a supply chain that is feeding information into business intelligence (BI) software. And it’s a supply chain that can often be surprisingly overlooked in the consideration of a BI solution.

The next new thing in cell phones has arrived: Major networks are advertising their 5G networks, and the newest 5G-enabled phones are hitting the market. While many will assume—rightly so—that this means more speed and probably a new phone to accommodate that speed, 5G is actually so much more than the chance to load the latest Snapchat story faster. It actually has some significant implications for business technology.

Ask anyone about their current ERP solution, and chances are you’ll get a variety of different answers. Some love it, some hate it, and most of that love-hate relationship has nothing to do with the ERP’s functions. Any ERP can be an incredibly significant solution for business; if implemented correctly, it can create a more efficient and productive manufacturing or distribution organization. However, the best ERP systems in the world—systems like SYSPRO and others—will not make any difference to your rate of collaboration or increase productivity if employees are reluctant to adopt the new software.

Most of us like to think that we are savvy shoppers. We read Amazon reviews, talk to friends, and price compare across the internet. Some even search for coupons, promo codes, and holiday weekend sales events. But contrary to our own popular belief, it’s actually emotion that drives purchasing behaviors. One Harvard professor’s research goes so far as to document that 95 percent of purchasing decisions are actually subconscious.

When most of us learned about clouds in elementary school, we learned terms such as cirrus, stratocumulus, and cumulonimbus. Most of us likely did not learn about clouds that were available “as a service.” But nowadays, when we hear someone reference “the cloud,” they’re likely talking about something technological rather than meteorological.

Today’s CFO role has morphed from that of head bookkeeper to a significantly more strategic role, telling the story of where the company has been and driving the narrative for the company’s future. This narrative is powered by data that helps drive efficiencies, save costs, and generate growth. With more data available than ever before, it’s important that finance teams can find the most valuable insights as quickly as possible.