In this highly competitive commercial world, businesses need to react quickly to new challenges and opportunities. Having the right business systems in place is more important than ever and can certainly make a big difference to the long-term success and prosperity of an organisation. ‘Future proofed’ business systems not only help in moving the enterprise forward and delivering far-reaching benefits, but also reduce the impact of the unexpected. Equally, if future proofing is not given sufficient attention when embarking on a new system project, the outcome is likely to be much less positive.
Review your business requirements carefully
Choosing a new system, whether initiated by new business needs, supplier support issues or technology-driven factors, is certainly not a quick and easy process. With the need to have a system that will deliver the greatest long term benefit potential, nothing should be left to chance when reviewing alternative systems. Kerridge Commercial Systems believes it’s essential to take time to fully evaluate business requirements and do so in some considerable detail. David Liddle, Kerridge CS Research and Development Director said, “Comparing existing systems with immediate and short term needs is one thing, but it’s absolutely essential to look to the future and give serious consideration to how longer term strategies could be accommodated. Sales, stock and warehouse, CRM, ecommerce, BI, and management information requirements should all be viewed with flexibility, growth and technology progression in mind.”
Other fundamentals to check include ensuring that a proposed system can accommodate a variety of mobile and hand-held devices. Secure, browser-based access is also going to feature even more as a standard facility, if for no other reason that system expansion is more straightforward using a cloud-based, hosted environment.
Think ahead and think long term
Positioned at the cross-over point between product and partner is a system’s product development roadmap; in effect an IT company’s own statement of long term investment - a clear, lasting commitment to serving its customers and industry sectors. If such a roadmap is lacking or in-cohesive, alarm bells really ought to start ringing. Kerridge CS is proud of its R&D track record, the depth and breadth of new applications and how the company continues to improve product functionality and capabilities year on year. In the past two years alone Kerridge CS has invested over 25,000 man days in development touching virtually every area of the K8 system. “We are also continuing to strengthen the expertise and experience of the R&D team through the recruitment of programmers and analysts with latest skillsets. A combination of new fresh ideas and experience is delivering excellent results“, said David.
Kerridge CS has an enduring track record of working with new and evolving technologies – a continuous process that is controlled and fully managed using a combination of best practice and recognised R&D standards. In principle, the company makes changes to product when it can be proven that there will be clear business benefits. With systems becoming more complex with more capabilities than ever, Kerridge CS is also devoting more resource, time and effort to looking after its customers. Ian Bendelow, Kerridge CS CEO said, “Helping our customers to progress their systems with new releases and introducing new applications, is of paramount importance to us. It’s in everyone’s interest for our customers to obtain the maximum long term value from their systems.”
People are important
Clearly, if you want the best long term systems partner, its people are also a major factor – in effect they are the company and at all levels. Taken as a whole, past track record is a great indicator of future performance and that is certainly the case for Kerridge CS. Matched by the company’s commitment to staff training and personal development, you can easily see that there will be a winning team on your side. “There is no doubt in my mind that our success has only been possible because of our highly experienced, customer-focussed staff. Across every department, our people are the backbone of the company, many of whom have been with us for a long time and know our customers very well. Everyone at Kerridge CS is ready to go the extra mile to serve our customers and do so to the very best of their abilities. In fact, our investment in products and services is closely connected with ensuring that our employees have the skills and resources they need for the future,” said Ian Bendelow.
Kerridge Commercial Systems believes it’s vital to start building a trusted relationship with an open two way communications channel from the start.
