There is no denying that searching for ‘ERP’ brings up an overwhelming amount of information. These search results can also be confusing considering the fact that almost every website offers a different definition. However, as confusing as this can be, it does highlight the fact that an ERP, whichever way it is defined, is relatively flexible.
Techopedia defines mobile compatibility as a site that can be viewed and used on a mobile device, including mobile phones and tablets. This means that the functions of a website have been modified to accommodate the specifications of a smaller screen, including the command functions, interactive functions, the screen loading speed, the colours, and the size of the text. Due to the high number of mobile users in South Africa – more than 21 million – mobile compatibility is an imperative step in effective business strategy.
In March 2017, tracking firm Effective Measure released its Mobile in South Africa Report for 2017, revealing that almost 70% of South Africans use their mobile phones to browse the web. This means that many organisations are underestimating just how much time consumers are spending on their phones. CNBC has determined that, by 2018, Chinese consumers will spend more time on their mobile phones than they do watching television, and more consumers are using their mobile phones to purchase goods online.
Making business decisions are more informed when accurate data can be analysed and applied. Here are some inspirational quotes about data which will give great insight as to why having accurate date is crucial for your business.
Online based learning (e-Learning) is fast becoming a thriving industry in educational technology, with the number of companies using online learning, increasing every day.
Below is a guide to building a successful e-commerce self service environment, for your trade supplies customers.
In the retail industry today, it is not only your products, but your service, that keep customers coming back. Customer retention is an important part of any business strategy, why not improve what you have to offer with a robust solution for your business.
What can an ERP solution do for your retail environment?
ERP offers centralised data and functionality, so that you can improve the flow of data and facilitate business processes throughout the business. ERP enables you to streamline operations, diminish costs, increase productivity and improve overall customer service.
All in one solution
Many retailers still use multiple solutions that don’t fully communicate with each other for different aspects of their business. An ERP solution integrates all business functions, starting with your customer activity all the way to financial reporting, into a single system and allows them to communicate with each other. As a retailer that has multiple stores, you can have a view of all stores, assisting in better reporting and management, giving you the capability to better manage and identify the requirements for your retail store, based on actual customer needs. The Business Intelligence built into an ERP solution, allows you to derive real intelligence from your data, making it a powerful and effective sales tool to your business.
Stock management
With an Integrated ERP solution in place, management of stock becomes easier, with the added benefits of categorising and grouping new items, implementing special offer campaigns, stock counting, automated replenishment of inventory, with the convenience and accuracy of built in forecasting tools that takes the guess work away, as the projections are focused on actual calculations.
Service your customers effectively
With an ERP solution in place, you have much more customer information at your fingertips. Gain insight to your customer buying trends, so that you can build exclusive offers around customer needs and reward regular customers with relevant loyalty programs.
The festive season is just around the corner, follow some of the tips below to make sure your business gets the most out of the festive season:
Make sure your website is festive season ready by updating it with all your current and upcoming promotions.
Shoppers are doing their research well in advance of the festive season, searching online for the best deals, wanting to avoid the holiday rush and to allow for enough time when it comes to delivery schedules.
Are your servers, partners and employees festive season ready?
Test the server load capacity and make sure it can handle the surge of traffic, especially when running your promotions, to not lose out on the holiday rush sales. If you're hosted on-premises, review your past performance metrics and ensure that you have bandwidth and capacity for the expected spikes. Also consider the increase in demand you will experience over the holiday season and make sure you are able to keep up with the demand with contingency plans and having staff on hand to assist shoppers should they experience difficulties online. Make sure that your shipping partner is on board with your delivery expectations.
Is your website mobile responsive?
Shopping trends have adapted to move to mobile, with the majority of mobile shoppers abandoning a website if it's not mobile friendly.
Test your website speed
Web performance is key. Put tools in place to alert you to slow or low performing pages.
Shoppers who purchase online expect faster page loading times and research shows that delayed loading times have resulted in shoppers cancelling their online purchase mid-way during the final checkout.
Stock up
Ensure that you have adequate stock to meet shopper’s demands. Always have a contingency offer available, should you sell out.
Test your checkout
Test payment processes from product selection to check-out to ensure that shoppers have a fast and efficient purchasing experience.
Online product imagery
Image quality is key when making an online purchase decision. Shoppers are not able to test or touch your products. It is essential to have imagery of your products that gives the shopper a sense of feeling, seeing and holding your product. It always helps to have product photos taken from different angles and product descriptions that sell, not just describe.
Run marketing campaigns
It is advisable to keep a shopper database with email addresses and a mobile contact number on hand. Emails and SMS campaigns are a cost effective and easy way of keeping shoppers connected and aware of trading hours and special promotions over the festive season. Consider offering free shipping over the festive season to further incentivise shoppers to shop with you.
Kerridge Commercial Systems (http://www.kerridgecs.com) has been assisting the international distribution sector for many years with the provision of integrated software solutions. Its flagship product is K8, business intelligence software which has found particular success as builders, plumbers and timber merchant software. K8 is much more than distribution software, however, as companies around the world rely on it during every step of the business cycle.
The varied functionality of the K8 system is behind its business intelligence capability. Use K8 as warehouse management software and your company can ensure this vital foundation of the supply chain is organised. Also used as stock management software, K8 helps companies avoid holding too much costly stock while always being able to fulfil customer orders. Leverage K8 as distributor software, as it is arguably best known for within the industry, and the entire supply chain is streamlined.
The point of sale is another area where K8 can assist, acting as highly advanced EPOS software and enhancing the customer experience. Finally, K8 helps all levels of management to analyse essential business data and utilise it in its advanced reporting tools. Acting as business intelligence software, K8 can provide management with a greater insight into both individual areas of the business and an overview of the organisation as a whole.
Kerridge Commercial Systems continues to develop the K8 system, always building on its impressive functionality with every new version released. Every version of K8 is designed to be inherently intuitive to use, but Kerridge Commercial Systems also ensures that a training team is always on hand to answer any questions that may arise.
If your business has a warehouse, then you’ll be aware of the importance of this facility as an essential part of the supply chain. A warehouse which is poorly managed means far more than just a weak link in the chain, however, as poor management can ultimately affect sales and therefore profits. The K8 warehouse management software system from Kerridge Commercial Systems can help your business achieve the 5 main principles of effective warehouse management.
Holding excess stock is costly, while not being able to fulfil orders fails to maximise profitability. The accurate and efficient receipt of stock and returns into a facility enhances warehouse management and K8 facilitates this. The ability to link into the platform’s function as stock management software means that it is easier than ever before to optimise stock levels at all times.
The swift and accurate processing of sales orders doesn’t just happen at the point of sale, it starts way back in the warehouse, when sales orders are first lodged and filled in the storage facility. While K8 also acts as EPOS software, being able to enhance warehouse management further enables fast and accurate sales order processing.
Accurate detailing of stock levels and the correct fulfilment of orders can only happen in a warehouse where both the storage and movement of stock is tightly controlled. K8 helps to model and manage the logical representation of the physical storage facilities, such as racking, bins etc.
All transactions associated with the warehouse have to be processed efficiently for the supply chain to work well as a whole. This is another area the K8 warehouse management system can assist with, helping to process shipping, receiving, put-aways, picking and pick face replenishments.
Given that warehouse management is a vital part of the supply chain, it is essential that it is linked to other operational areas such as sales order processing and logistics management in order to pick, pack and ship products out of the facility effectively and efficiently.
If achieving all five of these guiding principles of effective warehouse management seems a hard task, it isn’t with the advanced functionality of K8 from Kerridge Commercial Systems
