Scaleability and ERP – is your business ready for the future?

In this article on the future of ERP for manufacturing and by extension field service, we catch up with Tony Pottle of Exel Computer Systems. Well-known as an industry expert, Tony has worked in the ERP field providing solutions to the needs of businesses across the UK, Ireland and further afield for in excess of twenty years.

Making data work for makers

On Sunday April 30th, 2017, the Sunday Business Post published an interview with Tadhg Henderson of Profitsflow.com, by Jason Walsh. A transcript of the article in full is below.

ERP: Steering Irish manufacturing through Brexit

The anticipated adverse consequences of the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU last June have been widely documented over the past number of months. Nowhere will be affected by this massive political, cultural and economic change moreso than the island of Ireland. Whether you are located north or south of the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland will determine what Brexit looks like for you, but the consequences of the period of uncertainty that will follow over the coming months and years are in common - that is they too are uncertain!

ERP Information Day - Galway - April 2017

2016 was a great year for us here at Profitsflow. We welcomed a variety of new customers to our growing family of EFACS E/8 ERP and Eagle Field Service users here in Ireland. We won the ERP HeadtoHead Best Vendor Award in October. But the biggest driver of change for us was the launch of our ERP Information Days in June. This year we are expanding the number of events to 4 with April 4th seeing the first Galway ERP Information Day.

The all new EFACS ERP Version 8.6

In October 2016, Exel Computer Systems released EFACS 8.6 at the annual EFACS User Group meeting in Northamptonshire. Irish EFACS users had previously seen a preview at our own customer event in Dublin in September. Although quietly launched, 8.6 is revolutionary. It is fast, responsive,

ERP Information Days 2017

In 2016 we launched our ERP Information Days, with two half day sessions targeted at companies at various stages of the selection process looking at a new ERP software solution. In 2017, we are taking the event nationwide, with four dates in Cork, Galway, Dublin and Belfast allowing manufacturing and field service companies throughout the country the opportunity to see the Award Winning EFACS E/8 at a location convenient to them.

Cloud or on-Premises ERP? With EFACS you can change your mind later!

October saw the official launch of EFACS E/8 Version 8.6. With a brand new user interface building on the deep, integrated and user-friendly functionality of prior EFACS releases, 8.6 sees a clean "Windows 10" style tile based menu system incorporating embedded dashboards and a streamlined menu structure. It has proven massively popular in the market with prospective clients looking at it for the first time in general agreement that it is easy to follow, understand and use for new and inexperienced users.

Best Vendor Demonstration Winner - ERP HeadtoHead

We are delighted to announce that we have scooped the coveted Best Vendor Demonstration - Ireland 2016 award at the ERP HeadtoHead event in Dublin on October 19th, 2016. Fighting off stiff competition from global brand names such as Microsoft, SAP, Sage, Epicor, Infor, Oracle, QAD, IFS and Netsuite is not to be taken lightly!

Profitsflow Customer Day 2016

September 27th 2016 at the Louis Fitzgerald Hotel, Dublin saw the first ever gathering of Profitsflow's EFACS and Eagle Field Service customers. Representatives of companies as far flung as West Mayo, Louth, Cork, Limerick, Clare, Roscommon and even Birkenhead in the UK joined us and some of our Dublin based clients. On hand to launch the latest and greatest version of EFACS yet was Jonathan Orme of Exel Computer Systems, the product's author.

September ERP Information Day Report

On September 27th, the Louis Fitzgerald Hotel, Dublin was the venue for the latest in our series of ERP Information Days. With Tony Pottle of Exel Computer Systems in attendance to launch the latest release of EFACS, version 8.6, the event was well received and all agreed that it was a success.

Your ERP Journey for 2017 Starts Here

The summer holidays are over, kids are back at school and now it's time to start thinking strategically for the coming 12 months. How will your business look for 2017? What major decisions need to be taken in the next month or two to ensure the New Year gets off to a good start?

June ERP Information Day Report

Our latest ERP Information Day, held at our Arklow, Co. Wicklow HQ, was well received by all. With fifteen attendees representing ten separate firms all looking at their options for ERP, the event proved to be an informative and very useful one for all involved.

"We want ERP but we don't want to implement ERP"

This is an all too familiar saying to us here at Profitsflow. Over the years we have had companies come to us looking for information and understanding that they really need to get ERP up and running. They then go through various periods of activity followed by long breaks. These "active" periods are typically grouped

Take the guesswork out of stock control with Materials Requirements Planning (MRP)

Achieving the optimum stock holding is critically important for the viability and profitability of any business, but weighing the competing forces of customer demands versus supplier lead times is particularly troublesome for manufacturers. As the business grows, it becomes gradually more difficult over time to marry the long lead times associated with importing parts, components and materials from the far East to the days or even hours dictated by customers. And none of this takes account of the time it takes to manufacture! However with some planning, there are answers. Try to avoid the short term solution of over-stocking which can literally gobble cash flow. Some tips:

On-Premises ERP or Cloud ERP?

As the cloud has evolved over recent years as the primary delivery model for many business software solutions such as e-mail, CRM, even standalone accounting software, companies implementing ERP have tended to shy away and opt for the perceived safety of on-premises installations. Lately this has begun to change and over the next 18 to 24 months it is anticipated that the wide availability of faster and more reliable than ever internet access will see a seismic shift in corporate attitudes to the cloud. But which is better? How do you determine whether to opt for the cloud or the on-premises model, or indeed does the best approach lie somewhere between the two in a so called "hybrid" solution?

On-premises ERP solutions

The traditional approach to ERP has seen companies pay a considerable sum upfront for software licences. Added to this is the often high cost of the infrastructure to support the system - including servers, network, client devices, backup facilities, routing and firewall, etc. And that's even before you start into the implementation and any possible software modifications. Many companies prefer the comfort of knowing where their data resides, the fact that they own the licences should the vendor cease to exist in its current form and the fact that they are not beholden to the utility company supporting their internet connection. There is also the added concern that where someone else is looking after your data, security may be perceived as an issue. These are the principal reasons the cloud model has not been adopted to date.

Cloud ERP solutions

Over the past couple of years, cloud solutions have begun to expand into the ERP space. Up until two or three years ago, it was rare to see a company putting their entire backoffice business systems online. However, as the cloud becomes the norm for many other aspects of day to day corporate life, more and more businesses are looking to the cloud for the platform on which to deliver their mission critical software infrastructure. This is helped by ever-increasing globalisation. A couple of years ago, the concept that a company operating in Ireland with manufacturing facilities in China and Australia could have all sites working off the same ERP instance at the same time in the same database was considered impossible. Now with cloud and web-based solutions this is a relatively commonplace occurrence.

Hybrid ERP

For many, the ability to dip a toe into the world of Cloud ERP is enabled via the concept of a hybrid solution. This can come in various forms, but typically it involves the out-right purchase of software licences that are installed on a cloud virtual server. This server becomes part of the corporate network via a Virtual Private Network (VPN.) In this way, the company has the option to move the system in its entirety to an on-premises solution, or indeed migrate to a full cloud solution in the future if so desired.

At Profitsflow we provide ERP solutions for Irish manufacturers, and Field Service Management software to teams of engineers. The software is available as a traditional on-premises solution, a cloud solution or on a hybrid model. To help prospective customers decide on which model suits their needs best, we have put together a white paper which evaluates the options in an impartial manner. To get your free copy, register online: On-Premises vs. Cloud ERP Solutions

When is the best time to implement ERP?

This is a question that arises time and time again. If you find yourself asking the question, it is worth considering all of the variables. The answer will probably not be what you expect it to be. Why? Because implementing ERP will take quite an amount of time, usually at least a number of months. Therefore what may appear to be the right time will only likely be a point or a period of time during the process. Therefore it is important to firstly understand how long the project will take, then schedule key aspects or milestones during the implementation period to occur at the optimal time for the business.

Many people have an objective of implementing a new system during a quiet period of business activity. While as a strategy this appears to be sensible, it is important to remember that this quiet period may also be when cashflow is at its tightest. That may not be when you want to see lots of consultancy bills! Some factors to consider:

Seasonality
Most businesses follow seasonal patterns. There are peaks and troughs in trade and production requirements that are to some level predictable from one year to the next. It does not make sense, for example, to go live with a new system at the busiest time of the year. It might make sense however to select the system at this time.

Holidays
It is incredible how many system selection projects are put on hold "until after the holidays" - be it Summer, Christmas, Easter or whatever. The reality is, all you have to do at this point is review the options and make a decision. Whether that is done before, during or after the holiday period in question doesn't make a difference. Do it before the holidays and the elements you have no input in (e.g. prepping hardware, vendors processing orders, scheduling consultants) can happen during your downtime.

Planning
You have a project that will take many months to deliver. In co-ordination with the vendor, map out a plan that takes account of all of the considerations - individual's holidays, busy and quiet business periods, and cashflow cycles. Devise a dated implementation that sees you going live with the new system when it makes sense. And the all important payments schedule - when do you pay for consulting, licences, maintenance. Can this be phased over the duration of the implementation?

Manufacturing ERP: killing the ROI question

Why do so many ERP selection projects stop without choosing a system?

If you're asking the question "Do we need ERP Software?" then the answer is probably yes. Whether you are using an old, outdated and non-user friendly ERP solution or you don't have one at all, there is no doubt that a properly implemented system can save you time and money, and enforce a set of structures and rules for the business as a whole to ensure profitability and a continued focus on efficiency. But the one question that often stalls ERP projects indefinitely during the selection phase is that of measuring a return on investment. Why is that? Let's face it, for high tech maunfacturers and widget makers alike, it is so much easier to justify the investment in production machinery, people and buildings than it is in software. It is the age old question of an intangible product that requires much more thought to provide an answer to.

But software systems really can help, and without being too scientific, an estimate on the conservative side to the following questions will in many cases easily justify the investment:

1. How many spreadsheets are used in the business containing duplications of the same data, maintained separately by different people?
Go count them, it's incredible. If you gather up all the spreadsheets you'll easily estimate how many hours per day, week, month can be saved through simply making this information available via a system report at the click of a mouse.

2. Quality Control automation for manufacturing - how many complaints, problems, manufacturing defects per month by customer and reason code are you getting?
What is the severity level, response time, resolution and accountability of these? I f you can't answer these questions, the chances are the same mistakes are being made over and over. How much is that costing your company by day, week, year? There is a term often used by consultants called Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ). It is worth evaluating.

3. Material Shortages - how much production down time is caused by materials not being available?
Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) is an invaluable tool that will prevent material shortages without overstocking. MRP is an integral component of a good ERP solution.

4. Fully integrated accounts - can order processing see available credit taking into account existing invoices and outstanding orders?
This is only possible with a truly integrated system - inputting sales orders into a standalone manufacturing system without accounts leaves you open to raising orders for customers not complying with their credit terms. It is a fact that companies operating integrated ERP software have lower debtor days on average than those without. Reducing your debtor days by 5 or 10 days gives a serious cash flow boost.

5. Are you maximising your potential economies of scale?
Again this ties in with MRP, but it also has implications throughout the business. Most suppliers will offer quantity discount breaks or special pricing in return for a well maintained, accurate schedule of estimated requirements into the future. What cost savings could you apply here?

For an indepth analysis including tips on justifying the investment in ERP, register to get our White Paper: Building a Return On Investment Justification for ERP

Ending the pain of spreadsheets with Integrated ERP Software

Used for their intended purpose, spreadsheets are an invaluable tool that enable business and allow individuals, departments and companies to share information with each other. However, the more common picture is one of disaster, where it is not uncommon for the business in its entirety to be put at risk.

Field Service Scheduling: how Eircode can help

Anyone who has been involved in the scheduling of field service engineers will understand the complexity of the task at hand. An engineer with the right skill level needs to attend an emergency call out to keep a production line moving, has to have the parts needed for the job with him, and the specifications for the machine to be repaired immediately to hand. As if this is not enough complexity, add to it the fact that the client is in one corner of the country, while the twelve engineers who fulfil the criteria are scattered across the country, some working on jobs currently, others with jobs scheduled for later in the day.

Service CRM - Increase sales while servicing customers!

Once little more than a contact management system, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for many businesses is now an essential powerhouse of the Sales department. Within the context of manufacturing businesses, this has long been recognised by Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) providers and has become an increasingly integrated element of modern business management software. With the widespread adoption of mobile connectivity, CRM functionality has been extended to the world of the handheld device with vital sales information and customer visibility now being available as and when the mobile sales person needs it.

Selecting ERP in 2016? Here's our top 5 tips

If you have read some of the numerous ERP implementation disaster stories online, or even worse experienced it for yourself first hand, you may be thinking that embarking on a new ERP project for your business is a minefield and that it should be put off until the last possible moment. However, in practice, where this approach is taken it is often left too late and the business suffers badly as a result of inefficient operation, lack of data and poor visibility.

Where budgets permit, bringing in external expertise in the form of a selection consultant is generally advisable, however for the SME this is not always possible. In addition, available internal resource to commit to the project can be limited leading to a less than ideal selection process and ultimately impacting the system implementation and timeline.

ERP solutions for Process Manufacturing

An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution can have numerous benefits to a process manufacturing company. Manufacturers in Food and Beverage, Pharmaceuticals, Cosmetics, Hygiene, or Chemicals are all great ERP candidates.

ERP Webinar for Manufacturers across Ireland on Thursday 14th May, 2.30pm

Profitsflow.com presents our ERP for Manufacturing Webinar on Thursday 14^th May at 2.30pm.

Training is the key to successful ERP projects

A good enterprise resource planning system needs many different moving parts working together to ensure success. Those with ERP experience know that having the support of top executives and getting them to buy into a change or upgrade early on is crucial. Complete and current documentation of business practices is needed on a practical level as well. This makes sure that the ERP partner working with a business is helping to select the right platform and the correct components to boost efficiency and visibility and improve return on investment.

Training and education is another key for a good, useful and long-lived ERP system. Here's a run-down of concepts that businesses need to focus on to make sure adoption and knowledge among employees is as strong as possible:

Consider all the parts of ERP learning: A great ERP partner will help provide the technical education that employees need to access and use a system competently and offer ongoing support and troubleshooting. What an ERP partner can't do is encourage adoption and understanding in the long term. This task necessarily falls on the managers, executives and ERP transition team at a company. Businesses need to start this process before a new system is close to being ready for use. Simply put, major upgrades or an entirely new ERP platform can cause concern and frustration among employees. After all, they have to learn new and different processes, make changes to daily routines and deal with the additional training efforts potentially taking up part of their already busy schedules.

Because of the potential for employees to view the addition of a new ERP system as a negative because of the perception that it creates more work, business leaders have to show their staff the positives of a new system. Acknowledge that there will be more work in the short term, but streamlined workflows, better visibility into business data and other advantages will make their jobs easier for years to come after the new platform has been installed. This is where the implementation team and company leadership need to understand the difference between technical training and employee education related to the benefits of a new system on an individual level. Generating employee buy-in makes it much easier to get the most out of ERP and start realising ROI.

Make sure there's enough time: ERP education can take up a lot of time between technical training and convincing employees to embrace the change. The implementation team at a business needs to make sure that they've built in enough time for all the educational efforts needed. Trying to squeeze training activities into a short period of time or overloading employees is a good way to sour the general opinion of a new system and make adoption and successful daily use much bigger battles than they have to be. This is a relatively minor consideration that can be handled by creating an educational schedule, but can be overlooked in the face of larger or more immediate concerns.

Know that not everyone learns the same way: People have the most effective learning experiences in different ways - some people learn best through visuals, others through hearing and still more from reading or taking notes. Tech Target pointed out that a lack of educational options means it's harder for some staff members to learn. Businesses need to use their resources to provide things like cheat sheets and instructions, hands-on learning demonstrations and other supplemental materials and events. These are the materials that will get the message across to employees regardless of their preferred learning styles.

Top 3 Need-to-Haves For Field Mobility

Across the world, industries are witnessing a push to make full use of the conveniences afforded to us by advancements in mobile technology, weighing risk versus reward in an effort to keep up with the times. Financial, medical, and government industries have all embraced mobile technology, and the field service industry hasn’t been left behind.

Time is money; so is speed. When working in field service, having the right mobility solution is as vital to a Company’s success as the technicians in the field.

Imagine being able to connect with your colleagues and the rest of your staff from any site, communicating in real time on dedicated servers. Imagine having software that allows you to see available personnel on a virtual map and assign tasks and clients to them right on your phone. These scenarios are now completely possible with some dedicated apps. The question remains: how do you choose which service to use? Here are some things that you need to look for when choosing a mobile service to invest in.

Security

Since field service personnel regularly deal with the personal information of clients, it’s of utmost importance that apps come with secure encryption. However, it’s also important to note that one of the appeals of mobile business solutions is the ability to get your work done right through your own device, and striking a balance between securing your company’s data and allowing your personnel the privacy they need is essential to using mobile technology successfully. Many of today’s mobile business solutions have been able to segregate the personal data of employees from corporate data, making it much easier to manage the security of clients’ information.

Ease of Use

Investing in mobile technology is useless if your employees can’t use them. The features of mobile apps are more important than the simple interfaces and fast controls. The basic requirement is that personnel should be able to readily access information, but they should also be able to capture high-quality data while at sites and upload that data to the company’s cloud servers. Cloud services have transformed the way we share data, and it’s essential to have an app that makes full use of this feature.

Accessibility

Because field service personnel regularly travel to places where there is very limited connectivity, it’s essential that your mobile service solution be fully functional even when offline, synchronizing with servers as soon as connectivity is regained. It’s also important to invest in an app that functions across all devices so all members of your staff can have access to both the app and the information they need. Mobile field service solutions are still relatively new, and many companies are able to function without dedicated apps for their businesses, relying on the built-in features of mobile phones and tablets to get their work done. Today’s generation of Smart phones makes this much easier.

Food & Drink Manufacturing Webinar - Friday 8th May, 10.30am

Profitsflow.com presents our ERP for Food and Drink Manufacturing webinar on Friday, 8th May at 10.30am.

10 Key Criteria for ERP Selection

The 10 key criteria successful manufacturing companies apply when buying or replacing an IT Manufacturing System: A Brief Guide to Software Selection

This article is for anyone considering the purchase of an ERP/MRP system in manufacturing, whatever the size of your organisation. As gathered from our experience in ERP implementation, it presents a short guide to the top ten considerations used by successful manufacturers when buying or replacing an IT system for manufacturing. This article is intended to share our knowledge of what we see as key factors to take into account prior to selection.

The value or return on investment of integrated manufacturing and finance systems to manufacturers is well documented but principally includes both ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’ benefits. These can be used to build the business case required to justify the expenditure on ERP. They include:

• Superior Efficiency: Increased annual stock turnover due to the ability to rotate stock more efficiently throughout the year, as excess stock situations are avoided and material purchasing is strictly tied into production schedules.

• Reduction in Annual Stockholding Of Between 10 – 15%: By tying stock requirements into demand (in the form of sales orders and production schedules) streamlined MRP Planning can reduce the average value of stock held by between 10-15% in the first year of implementation.

• Improved Liquidity: Significantly improved cash flow positions, through a) Purchase Invoice Matching functionality that allows only those supplier invoices to be paid that can be traced to original purchase orders and material receipts and b) the ability to start invoice collection immediately upon sales order dispatch.

• Reduction in Manufacturing Costs: Direct and Indirect Labour Costs decline as staff become productive, spending less time spent waiting for overdue raw material shipments to arrive; some staff can be retrained or reassigned to more productive roles; production bottlenecks can be avoided by viewing potential conflicts ahead of time ensuring no delay in customer order shipments.
• Improved Productivity: A single central repository of information for order processing from start to finish eliminates duplication of data.

• Real Time Reporting: Unlimited custom reporting potential using your own data exists, meaning users spends less time having to go searching for information.

With the general pickup in IT spending continuing into 2015, manufacturers considering an ERP system now should consider these very real and significant benefits that accrue.

A recent positive impact in running an ERP has been the ability to allow Irish manufacturers counteract the threat of low cost manufacturing centres coming from Asia. By providing new and innovative ways of interacting with customers via Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and techniques, ERP and CRM together can allow firms to differentiate themselves along customer service factors and help offset the impact of firms in low cost manufacturing centres relying heavily on price.

MRP II / ERP systems now scale to the smallest companies driving competitiveness, and bottom line growth. This article discusses then how to choose a product and vendor that will suit you.

10. Clearly Define The Business Requirement.

The first step in the selection of an ERP Systems is for the management and staff of a company to take the time to agree the objectives of the new system. For instance “Do Goods Received update stock lists? Do people even log Goods Received so that accounts can settle with supplier seamlessly?” When your requirements are clear then decide those that are “Vital” or “Nice to have”. Defining everything as essential will limit your choice and drive up the end price exponentially. This will also give you a false impression of a systems suitability. If a system has all the bells and whistles that’s, great but will you ever be in a position to use them. Don’t overcomplicate your system just because you can.

One well established firm recommends that you don’t specify any changes to your new system for the first year of use following the “GO LIVE” date, forcing users to get used to the new system. After that the specified changes list can reduce by 85%.

Knowing your requirements in advance of speaking with vendors is going to make the choice a great deal easier. The vendor will therefore concentrate on the solution as opposed to teasing the information out of you.

9. Choose A Solution Appropriate In Size To Your Organisation and your Manufacturing Process.

It may be stating the obvious but it is paramount to choose a solution that is right size technology for your organisation - as opposed to one which has been unnecessarily scaled down or ‘hammered’ to fit. Choosing the right fit will result in less cost over the project’s lifetime. Some inscrutable vendors have been known to give the software away at cost, only to make up for it by charging a small fortune in service days!

8. Value The Investment Over 3 -5 Years For A True Total Cost of Ownership

Do you want to be locked into a system two years from now with no way of making even the slightest change unless you pay for expensive custom work every time from the authors? Probably not! Ask your vendor how easy is it to make changes to the system once it’s installed. Some products allow the customers to make changes to the system without recourse to the authors for expensive custom development work. Others do not. This can have a considerable impact on total cost of ownership (TCO).

Always ask for an indication upfront of year 2 and beyond maintenance charges on both software and hardware for a true comparison of vendors. (See also point 4 about whether the software will work if you are not on annual maintenance). Identify how maintenance charges are calculated. This will allow you to accurately forecast running costs in the future more accurately.

Find out too if it can connect easily with existing legacy systems or even just your existing MS Excel or Autocad/Solid Works. The ability to connect and transfer data to or from an unrelated system. Eg. Temp monitoring system for fridges.

7. Find Out What Is The Likely Upgrade Path For Software.

This is one area often overlooked in the selection process. In choosing a solution today, will you be liable for upgrading to a newer version two years from now? In addition, you may find that any existing versions of any third party products required to run with the ERP application may also need upgrading, entailing additional expense here too. What are the software developer’s plans for this current version? Is the software written in a commercially available development language which is still being enhanced and supported by the supplier? This can greatly increase the cost of maintenance to a system if there aren’t many experienced individuals around to carry out the work in a few years. Don’t buy a system that will be a dinosaur in a few years time.

6. Invest in a Dedicated Server(s) to Run the ERP Application

Hardware prices have continued to slide, making the case for a dedicated ERP server considerably more attractive. It has been our experience that companies looking to save a few euro by not investing in adequate IT hardware end up paying more in poor system performance, compatibility problems between ERP and other applications, and general system crashes. ERP can be a considerable hog on server resources to the extent than other office applications can suffer considerably – so invest in a dedicated server! Take the opportunity to upgrade network components if required. A fast server with a slow network connection is a waste of money.

5. Arrange a site visit to an existing customer of the vendor(s).

One of the surest ways of cutting through all the ‘vendor rhetoric’ is to arrange a site visit
to an existing customer and talk to existing users. They are in best position to tell you how it has gone. Look for a clearly defined payback and benefits accrued from running the system. Do they match what the vendor claims? Go prepared with a list of items you want to see and a list of questions you need answered. This is your chance to see the system in action, make sure you see the areas of the system relevant to your company. If possible agree an agenda in advance.

4. Will The Software Work If I Am Not On Maintenance?

Maintenance agreements function somewhat like an insurance contract between vendor and customer, providing access to seasoned product technical experts on issues that the customer’s own staff may not be able to resolve once implementation is complete. Some ERP vendors may tie the ongoing usage of their software in with the issue of whether or not you hold a current software maintenance agreement. In other words it may not be yours to actually own, and if you are not on maintenance the software may refuse to function. Other ERP solutions are sold in perpetuity – i.e. their continued operation is not tied in to whether or not you are currently on maintenance.

In addition, try to find out about the proximity of local technical support staff. Does the vendor have a fully staffed local presence or is it merely just an administrative office? What happens if you require technical support on site at short notice?

3. Database – Proprietary or Standard?

ERP applications that require proprietary databases to run can prove expensive to maintain and lead to difficulty retaining the knowledge base in house to support them. Most IT staff will want to keep their skills profile current, and introducing proprietary non standard databases may encounter resistance that would otherwise act as a hindrance to a successful implementation.

2. Client Server or Web – which should I choose?

A big shift is occurring in the industry, as more ERP solutions are becoming web enabled. In the long term this has the potential to be even more significant than the emergence of NT Server Software over a decade ago. The benefits of deploying a web enabled ERP system lie in the twin areas of cost and time – time in respect of deployment times, from start to ‘Go-Live’ date, can be up to 15% faster as measured in service days, compared to traditional client server technologies; and cost in that web applications allow functional changes to be made much more easily, resulting in less time and less expense overall.

Web applications also offer the long term benefit of technological independence – i.e. they are as confined to, or restricted to work with a limited set of preferred technologies - as would be the case with client server technologies. A technology independent solution therefore can easily be ‘future proofed’ over time. Manufacturers on these systems have more freedom to choose an optimal software & hardware configuration to run ERP, but keep in mind that the system itself may operate best under a particular flavour or type of technology too. Web based systems have the added advantage of substantially lower maintenance for your IT personnel. No complicated software needs to be installed on the users PC. They simply connect through their internet browser. This can also allow your IT dept to get extra life form PC’s as the system requirements will be less.

1. Allow Enough Time For Implementation and Training

A crucial area this one. Whichever ERP tool you choose, you will need the assistance of an experienced ERP implementer. Search for one with a good track record here. Don’t be fooled into believing you can save a few euros by reducing the number of training days. Why have an expensive investment go to waste if you’re not willing to devote time & effort in getting your people trained up? Granted you can spread this phase of the implementation out over several weeks or months depending on complexity, but if you’re really serious you’ll want to budget for this appropriately.

It’s much more effective towards the successful adoption of any new technology that key system users are involved from early on in the project. Try to avoid leaving the implementation in the hands of a concentrated few until the very end – just 4 weeks before go-live! During the implementation, regular review meeting should be held to inform key personnel of progress and prevent the implementation turning into a last minute effort to get everyone on board.

This article then has presented some of the key considerations that successful manufacturers adopt when evaluating IT manufacturing systems. We believe that they will prove useful in their application during the selection process. Following these guidelines will result in a more ‘enlightened’ buying decision so that the final selection of a product can take place in confidence.

ERP Software can improve your Company’s Decision Making Process

This Blog details how investing in ERP software can improve your Company’s decision making process.

We buy tools to make products and to increase the work capacity, we install machines and for designing and selling products, we hire people; because we know they are needed for the business growth. Information Technology and software has become a basic need in our day to day life and when it comes to run a business, whether a small or medium sized, one way or the other we are dependent on them. As long as you can manage spreadsheets and other basic software like Sage for invoicing, account management, you avoid spending capital on other software or technology to materialise the similar need. (That can make your work much easier and quicker).

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software has become very popular among large Industries as they use to run their businesses through it. If you think ERP Software is not affordable or you are not aware of its real benefits then this article will help you to know why ERP is real value for the business.

It is important to highlight a few things about ERP and its utilisation in the business process. ERP is business management software which is developed to manage typical enterprise; it is an integrated application that improves the business decision by creating information from every part available to throughout your business operations. Company’s use to handle and store data from every level of business, starting from product, planning cost development, invoicing, accounting, marketing and sales order entry, manufacturing, shipping and payment, financial, warehousing, payroll. ERP software has the collective source of master data which tracks the record of customers / buyers, vendors, product bill, manufacturing work processes and many other records. By maintaining such records help company to improve consistently with the same set of Information. Most of the small sized companies are used to work on Sage and spreadsheets but as the business grows these software starts impacting business results in actual ways which affects the bottom line i.e. lost data, missed shipments, invoicing and so on.

Although Sage provides solutions to many small businesses and it is the most users friendly software but it has certain limitations and still far from being integrated ERP with proper control of auditing and scale the end to end business operations.

Here are more benefits of ERP:

It uplifts sales performance.

It improves the visibility of organisation’s financial growth.

It helps in managing business operations.

It reduces labour costs.

ERP improves product’s delivery on time.

By consistent business processes and polices throughout the organization it improves customer services and profitability.

It upgrades control and planning record

ERP software is cost effective, affordable and can be easily customised according to the nature of business i.e. General Manufacturing, Retail, CPG, Life Sciences, Process, Distribution, and Service Industries.

Profitsflow.com’s partner Exel celebrates 30 years of innovation.

Profitsflow.com is pleased to inform that it’s technology partner, Nottingham based Exel Computer Systems plc, celebrates 30 years in operation this year. Established in 1985, Exel is a leading force in the provision of integrated business solutions for manufacturing companies and field service providers. Profitsflow.com is proud to work in conjunction with the innovative firm, serving an increasingly diverse customer base, which includes medium and large manufacturing and field service companies. As authors of the EFACS E/8, Eagle Field Service and Eagle Facilities Management systems Exel and Profitsflow.com are well positioned to assist their customers to achieve competitive advantage through the deployment of a state-of-the-art business solution.

It was back in 1985 that Dr John Ellis, Exel's founder and current Chairman, established Exel Computer Systems having recognised a distinct market need for capacity planning systems whilst working on research projects at PERA. This led to the development of the first version of EFACS, a Unix and Informix based software solution for capacity planning and manufacturing. Over the last 30 years EFACS has grown from a capacity planning and production solution into a fully integrated comprehensive business solution, incorporating full ERP, Financials, CRM, Field Service, Document Management, Business Intelligence, Workflow, and Mobile Applications.

Profitsflow.com’s emphasis they place on continued product development and understanding real business needs through continuous support of, and close partnerships with their client base. In Ireland, Profitsflow.com provides local expert support and development services to a number of companies on Exel’s platform. These companies span many diverse industries. It is testimony to our commitment to their customers that all of our earliest customers have upgraded to the latest version in order to benefit from our investment in technology and the new features available.

Main Issues of Facility Management (FM) Software Usability

In the Facilities Management Industry, the value of enterprise software solutions differs depending on the user in question. For the executives and managers who make the decision to purchase these solutions, value is often defined in terms of the bottom line. Enhanced data tracking and reporting enable them to make more accurate assessments of their operations, which in turn make for better decisions and forecasts.

For operations-level staff, the value of enterprise software has more to do with the often loosely defined concept of Usability. Those responsible for choosing which software solution to invest in can easily take promises of usability at face value, effectively checking it off their list of requirements without stopping to look deeper and determine what exactly the term means, which can carry major consequences for staff buy-in. The key measures of usability can be formulated into the following question

Is the program Effective, Efficient, Engaging, Error tolerant and Easy to learn?

Effective: In a computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) it is critical to connect all the dots and see as much of the overall workflow as possible. Doing so will establish a good sense of whether there are problems that may undermine the program’s overall efficacy.

Efficient: Live product demonstrations are a good way to get a feel for how many clicks and data entry points are required to progress through certain tasks. It is important to consult end users during the purchase process to get their feedback, as they will be the best judge of what will work for them in the long term.

Engaging: Engagement is a measure of the extent to which users actually enjoy using the software. The appearance of the program, along with the means through which commands and data are inputted, are two major factors that affect engagement. Growth in smartphones and tablets provide a good example of the role that input method plays in overall user engagement and buy-in. Touch screen functionality, while achieving the same ultimate goal as mouse/cursor input, is highly engaging and intuitive, which is a big part of the reason why mobile functionality has been a big driver of growth in enterprise software sales in recent years.

Error tolerant: Error tolerance is key to user buy-in because it makes users more comfortable using the software. If they know that they can’t make serious mistakes within the program, they will feel free to perform their tasks. And limiting access will make those tasks more clearly defined and easier to learn.

Easy to learn: Familiarity breeds comfort, which in turn lowers apprehensions and increases buy-in. It is thus important that users don’t feel bewildered by the basic configuration. Usability, more than a marketing buzzword, is actually a highly specified measure of a program’s overall quality. Buyers who are aware of its nuances are likelier to make the right choice for their company, which will go a long way toward ensuring its ultimate success.

ERP Solutions that Work

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a constantly evolving field. Every year we hear about new features, support models, and deployment options. But when it comes time to get a new ERP system, what is the best ERP platform?

ERP investments have a long life, typically 15 to 20 years. In order to determine which ERP system is best, we must explore each and every phase of the ERP lifecycle. We have to consider what drives people to actually acquire the ERP system, what leads to success during the deployment, and then we have to consider what IT leaders need to do to administer and maintain the system.

Obviously, an appropriate system has to be able to meet the base requirements of the enterprise. A manufacturing company, for example, must have the appropriate manufacturing modules. The best products, however, have features that address the problems that we see at each stage of the ERP project.

What are the differentiating features?

Data Integration: The ability to incorporate data from across the business.

Workflow: The ability to create and manage business processes.

Financial Consolidation: Functionality to incorporate data from different operating units and from different countries. These capabilities are key to both supporting executive projects and to supporting enterprise growth.

Budgeting: This presents a challenge for many ERP platforms. Budgeting processes require business leaders to review actual data and to make commitments on future spend and performance. Since this data isn’t just a record of an actual transaction, it can really stress rigid data models.

Data Management: Finally, a system should encourage clean data. Dirty data frustrates reporting, business growth, end users, and executives!

ERP Industry Progress

Companies looking to improve their links across various functions, such as inventory control, accounting, and human resources may find the answer lies in ERP software. Enterprise Resource Planning systems allow businesses to improve their operations infrastructure, enabling businesses to share information and make decisions more quickly across multiple departments.

Enterprise Resource Planning has come a long way in recent years and significant progress has been made to modern ERP business solutions. Many Companies spending for ERP projects is expected to keep growing. 52 percent of Companies plan to invest in significant IT infrastructure and computer upgrades. Some software providers are already making evident changes to their ERP platform design to address such concepts as that of automated business landscape transformation

With ERP investments on the rise, some experts have suggested the technology will significantly impact some industries more than others. According to an accounting and advisory firm, the Manufacturing market, in particular, will be affected by cloud-based ERP software. The company went so far as to say that manufacturers not leveraging this technology will remain stagnant. Cloud-based ERP is not expected to just benefit large manufacturers either. In fact, small and medium-sized companies are already integrating their ERP business solutions with collaboration technologies, analytics and mobile applications to stay ahead of the game.

While such platforms are considered ideal for going head-to-head with competitors, Manufacturers with cloud ERP systems can also establish themselves as industry leaders. One to watch for the Food Manufacturing and Engineering industries across Ireland.

6 Common ERP Implementation Mistakes

We have all heard about ERP implementation projects that have failed, gone on long past the planned implementation time, or gone way over budget. In such circumstances, it is all too easy to blame the vendor or the selection team. However, normally the fault in these cases lies in the planning and execution of the plan prior to system selection and purchase. Detailed below are six of the most common mistakes found in ERP implementation projects.

1: Poor Planning/Explanation of New ERP

Planning is absolutely necessary if you want your ERP project to succeed. You simply can't Wing ERP implementation. Companies that explain up front the business case for upgrading, the benefits to the company and employees, and any changes in the end user experience are the most successful. The software will work, the hardware will work, but it doesn't matter unless the users buy in. There is nothing more powerful than user perception, and if they decide the system doesn't work, it won't. If you feel you do not have the in-house capability to properly evaluate ERP systems, consider hiring an experienced third-party, vendor-neutral consultant, who has experience implementing ERP solutions at companies in your industry.

2: Not understanding/Using key features of New ERP Software

Without knowing features of the new ERP Software, companies miss opportunities to automate business processes, complete functions faster, and meet business objectives. In addition upgrades, enhancements, and maintenance are more costly, and less likely to succeed. Create a master list with all features, tracking usage, and periodically reviewing the list to determine which features are being used and which are the most helpful. This knowledge catalogue can be used to train new employees, write test scripts, and assist with audit, compliance, and reporting requirements. The only way to determine for sure is to load test the system. The most accurate way to load test a system is with load testing software and scripts and with real users. If you just use scripts, you won't see the effects of user mistakes, and if you just use people, you can't really simulate the effect of batch jobs and EDI. But if you can't do both, pick one and run with it.

3: Not having the right people on the ERP implementation team

Sometimes Companies do not bring the right people together from the very start of an ERP implementation. Companies should focus on gathering key participants from across the staff force, from finance, operations, manufacturing, purchasing, and the warehouse, in addition to IT staff. The benefits: employees who are actively engaged with the ERP implementation, who have an investment in getting it right, right from the start. A lot of customers think they can save money by eliminating the Project Manager and doing it themselves. For an ERP upgrade, this could be fatal. A consultant Project Manager's focus is on upgrades so they know any pitfalls. Navigating these pitfalls ahead of time will make all the difference in an on-time/on-budget ERP Upgrade.

4: Not investing in training up Employees on ERP

A lack of proper training is one of the most common reasons that ERP projects fail, and it can also result in employees resenting the new system because they don't understand it. Making sure employees have a chance to become comfortable with the new system before it goes live will do wonders for your chances at ERP success. If you make training and frequent communication with users a top priority, it will hugely benefit the ERP implementation. Classroom training and a Knowledge Vault of recorded videos to help employees to adapt to new ERP Software will go a long way in a successful ERP implementation strategy.

5. Not performing a Mock Go Live of New ERP System

A mock Go Live is the time when you find out whether everything will go as planned ahead of time. It is also the point when you capture timings for all the different Go Live tasks. If you don't practice under the same conditions you'll have when you plan to go live (e.g., if Go Live is on a weekend, mock Go Live needs to be on a weekend), you will run into issues that you never planned for, such as: Do I have access to everything on a weekend? Will we run into backups or maintenance windows? Are the offices open? Some of these may sound trivial, but when you are under pressure and have spent thousands on a new system, the last thing you want is to be delayed because you missed something that was easy to catch.

6. Not having a maintenance strategy

By not applying maintenance, their systems will quickly become obsolete (from a technical perspective) as will their business processes. With improvements in installation technology, customers will experience only limited disruption when implementing support packs. ERP upgrades don't happen every day or every year. So it's important to utilise the most experienced technology consultants to keep your system running during the upgrade. If you're like most companies, you probably have several consultants and internal people working on the project. If it is down all the time, no work is done and money is being wasted. Experienced consultants will know the ERP system and will keep it performing during the ERP upgrade.

5 Signs your ERP System could be slowing down your Business

Unable to get data from your system

Your business needs to make important decisions, Poor reporting capabilities can delay a business and waste valuable time in improving the business. Limited reporting capability can lead to a poor user experience which inhibits roll out and adoption of new products. Poor reporting capability also relates to vendor enablement - usually there is no simple way of getting all your suppliers on the system. And poor data which is heavily reliant on the data provided by suppliers.

Old, “clunky”, unintuitive screens

Today’s global business world is more complex and interconnected than ever, constantly posing new challenges on productivity and business agility. There is therefore a growing demand among companies for enterprise applications that are intuitive and easy to use. ERP providers must improve their software in order to meet these demands.

Lack of visibility of customer data

Nowadays, it’s all about Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Do you have it? Is there effective communication with your business customers? Can your business specifically target markets with a marketing/email campaign? Is there inadequate customer contact and call centre support? Are there inadequate service options offered to your customers?

Old systems cost more to maintain

Old ERP systems can take away the innovation from your company’s IT budget. How much of your business IT budget is devoted to innovation rather than maintenance? The mobile workforce can’t perform efficiently with an outdated ERP System. Old ERP doesn’t satisfy the appetite for real-time information. Old ERP systems generally make reporting an onerous and error-prone exercise – leaving organisations to manually generate reports and create budget or forecast spreadsheets. To compete, businesses need modern ERP designed for today’s needs.

Lack of or Poor support

Very often older products go “end of life” with no backup support available. Sometimes, support can be made available via freelancers, old distribution agents for the product, or groups of individuals coming together with the objective of providing a support service in return for a secondary income. Do you really want to put your business on the line? These people may not be available when most needed. And for those cases where there still is “official” support, it is often the case that one or two “seasoned” support consultants are retained to service the few remaining clients on that product or version. New entrants to the support team are only trained on current products. This can mean increased cost, lack of availability when most needed, and ultimately longer down time.

Happy New Year 2015!

From all of the team here at Profitsflow, we would like to wish a Happy New Year to all of our blog visitors. Let's hope 2015 is as good a year to us as was 2014, which saw us complete a number of new ERP and Field Service installations successfully. These companies are now enjoying the benefits of integrated business systems to help them manage and grow their reach in the year ahead.

Eagle Field Service is now in Ireland

Wicklow-based CRM and ERP systems provider, Profitsflow.com introduces Eagle Field Service by Exel Computer Systems plc. to the Irish market. With over fifty active sites gained since incorporation in 2009, this addition to our suite of software products will appeal particularly to service businesses with engineers on the road.

Since its introduction to the UK market in 2009, Eagle Field Service has been hugely successful with some major brand names such as Artform, Triton Showers and many others adopting the software to control their fleet of maintenance, warranty and installation engineers – eliminating manual paperwork and streamlining the business.

Some advantages of Eagle Field Service include

Comprehensive contact management

Warranty Control

Planned Maintenance]

Call Logging & Escalation

Engineer Scheduling

Engineer Skills Matrix

Remote Engineers

Job costing

Invoice generation

Document Management

Task Management Reminders

Mapping Web Services

GPS Tracking

Changeable style sheets

Text Messaging

Integrated workflow

Fully integrated with EFACS business suite

Integrated with MS Outlook

Easy integration with other packages

Find out more here.

Alliance Manufacturing End of Life Support

Exact Software has announced that all support for Alliance Manufacturing Software will be discontinued as of June 30th, 2013. This move effectively leaves hundreds of manufacturing companies worldwide without backup for the software which is critical to the operation of their businesses. Many companies will be affected by this change, and while some will immediately seek to change to a fully supported system, there are various reasons why this may be not are initially possible. These include the cost of implementation, the resource consumption in terms of man hours, and the business processes that have been built upon the existence of the Alliance/MFG software. At profitsflow.com, we can offer a solution to the problem.

If you are looking for a support arrangement for your Alliance Manufacturing Software solution beyond the June 30th, 2013 deadline, then look no further. At profitsflow.com we have more than fifteen years’ experience in Alliance implementation, technical support and development services. We have a range of options available to Alliance users worldwide.

These include:

Day to day technical assistance

Report Development

Migration assistance

Proven "like for like" migrations to EFACS and other ERP/MRP software.

We have developed a number of extensions to the Alliance/MFG standard modules which are based on our ProfitsBridge platform. These extensions operate in real time, are fully configurable and we can customise the solution to suit individual requirements. For companies intending to continue to use Alliance for the medium term, this is a low cost means of getting more from your investment.

Examples of ProfitsBridge modules are:

Real Time Production Data Capture via touchscreen and/or barcoding

Barcode/touchscreen PO receipts

Barcode/touchscreen Shipping/Despatch

Automatic WO Completion/back flush with custom rules

Auto generation of purchase orders from MRP requirements

We work with a number of clients throughout Ireland and the UK to whom Alliance is mission critical. Contact Gerry Dornan at one of the numbers below for full details of our "End of Life" support and functionality extension options or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more information.

UK +44 161 710 2917 USA (617) 682 9213 IRELAND 01-2449580 or 087-2140596

Extend Your marketing Reach

Web-to-Lead Capture Forms Collect Customer Data

Customizable web-to-lead capture forms that feed customer information straight into your CRM enable you to collect data on customers interested in your products and to finally understand who your customers are to shape your company's sales, marketing, and product strategies. Enroll those customers in tailored email marketing campaigns or use the data to assess who your most valuable customers are and to focus sales teams efforts on leads with those characteristics.

Creating and Embedding Web-to-Lead Forms

Customize forms to collect whatever data you need using our easy form-creator and embed the form on any of your websites.

Information filled out by customers feeds straight into profitsflow(quick tip: studies indicate that contacting them within 5 minutes makes them 22x more likely to convert)

Profitsflow captures all of this information in a lead record and can subsequently start automated email marketing campaigns for them.

Use that information to learn about common characteristics of markets in which your products and services are in high demand.

Shine a Spotlight on Your Company's Customer Success

With a strong process in place and the right amount of vigilance on your part, you can begin working with your customers to turn their stories of success into even more success for your business. Depending on the size of your business, your customers may be spread across the city, state, country or even the world.
Oftentimes, it can seem as though they exist on islands unto themselves. If you don’t work in sales, support or other customer-facing parts of the business, you might even feel as though they exist on another planet altogether.
Still, there’s undeniable value in being able to share customer success stories and connect prospects with happy customers. If you work in marketing or communications, there’s a good chance that sharing these stories and collecting references is part of your responsibility to the company. Not having direct access to customers is a challenge, but you can still find ways to connect and utilize their experience to help grow your business. It just takes a bit of strategy and a lot of vigilance.
This article will discuss strategies for obtaining customer case studies and references. These particular items are often critical pieces of the sales process — especially if your business sells to other businesses (B2B). Potential customers need to see or hear firsthand how other customers are deriving value and receiving a return on investment from your products or services to prove to their organization that the expense is justified.

Process, Process, Process

Before you begin connecting with your sales teams — or the customers themselves — to obtain success stories, you’ll want to make sure you have a fully baked process in place. Is there anything more valuable to the company than your customer’s time? Probably not!
You’ll want to give your colleagues and your customers the confidence that you're making the best use of their time. The best way to do that is with a streamlined process that gives visibility into every step. Put this into an attractive, shareable presentation.
Some questions you will want to ask yourself while building the process include:
• Do you need to interview and speak with the customer directly? How will you schedule the interview and how long will it take?
• Does the customer need to sign any legal documentation to participate in a case study or act as a reference for the company?
• What Service Level Agreements (SLAs) can you put in place to give your colleagues and customers an idea of how long the process will take? For instance, how long will it take you to complete a written draft for a case study?
• How much input will the customer have on the final product — whether you’re creating a case study document or video? Make sure they know they will be involved every step of the way!

Provide Incentives

Members of your sales team are most likely focused on meeting their quotas above all else, so you can understand why helping you collect and publish customer stories might not be their top priority. So what’s in it for them?
First of all, make sure they understand and realize that case studies and customer references are often a critical part of the sales process. They probably know this, though, because their customers and prospect are already asking about them.
What if they still need an extra push? What else can you offer your sales team for putting you in touch with happy customers who are willing to share their stories in a document or video, or act as a reference for the company? If there’s room in your budget, a financial incentive can be a great way to encourage your sales reps to look for customer success opportunities. If cash is out of the question, how about entry into a quarterly drawing to win a gift card or new piece of technology? Stoke sales representatives’ competitive fire!
Is there a particular type of case study you need more than others — one from a particular region or industry vertical? Prospective customers want to see similar businesses finding success with your products or services. Make sure your compensation system takes that into account. All stories of customer success are valuable in their own way, but be sure to angle for the ones you need the most. Offering better compensation for stories that meet the desired criteria is one of the best ways to do this.

Evangelize

Once you have your process for collecting customer stories and references in place and your incentive plan is set, it’s time to spread the word! There are many ways to do this, and the larger your organization is, the more creative you will probably have to be in your efforts to reach out. First and foremost: get yourself into weekly meetings. They’re already happening and your colleagues can probably find ways to squeeze you into the agenda. Work with department heads, managers and directors to allow you to present to their team on the process for gathering case studies and customer references for 10 to 15 minutes. This helps the sales team to put a face with your role of shining a light on customer success for the company.
The next time a colleague receives an email from a customer about how happy they are with your products or services, your smiling face should be one of the first things that pops into his or her head. If you need to connect with teams that are globally dispersed, see if you can join a meeting via conference call. There are also plenty of ways to evangelize your program digitally. Rather than sending mass emails, which are so often ignored, how else can you reach your colleagues? Does your organization use enterprise social software like Microsoft SharePoint or Yammer? Post regularly to let your colleagues know what you’re looking for, how you can compensate them for published customer success stories, and how their happy customers’ stories can help generate more business for the company.
Finally, don't discount the power of the printed medium. If your budget allows, work with the design experts at your company to create clever signs that advertise your customer success program and let your colleagues know who to contact to get involved. Everyone needs something to read and contemplate while at the company water cooler or waiting on the kitchen microwave.

Go Social

As I covered in a previous article, your customers are most likely talking about you on social media. Monitoring your social media feeds and keeping an eye on your

mentions on Twitter can be a great way to find customers who are having success with your products or services.
A positive tweet is a beautiful thing on its own, but what can that tweet become? Can it turn into a full-fledged case study? Can that customer become a reference for potential future customers? Get in touch with him or her through a direct message on the social channel where you found the positive review and take the conversation offline. It never hurts to ask and, chances are, a happy customer will be more than willing to help you out.

Shine On

Whether it’s case studies to publish on your website or hand out as collateral at tradeshows, video interviews that can be shared on YouTube and other social media channels, or direct references for prospective customers interested in your products or services — your customer relationships have so much more value than what’s written on a purchase order. Don’t miss the opportunity to tap into the relationship and make it shine!

By Franklin Teagle Apr 2, 2013

PROFITSFLOW celebrates Third Birthday

On June 19th, we celebrated our Third year in Business by expanding our product portfolio to include the hugely successful, UK authored EFACS ERP. Since then, we have had huge interest in this solution and are offering massive special launch discounts on the complete solution up until August 10th. This is a unique opportunity to acquire a proven, successful ERP solution at a fraction of the normal cost. There are hundreds of installation sites throughout the Ireland and the UK with just about every sector covered. We can support sites from 5 to 500 users. Web-based ERP written in flexible, configurable technologies means this software can be deployed in house, over the cloud, to remote users and office based users alike. In the four weeks since launching we have signed up six sites in Ireland, and anticipate further expansion.

We are now running weekly webinars on various aspects of this software, please find the current schedule below:

Monday July 30th, 2012

2:15pm

EFACS ERP system overview

Wednesday August 8th, 2012

3:00pm

EFACS Manufacturing

Monday August 20th, 2012

10:00am

EFACS Document Management

Tuesday August 21st, 2012

11:30am

EFACS ERP Software overview

Friday August 24th, 2012

11:00am

EFACS Workflow Automation

Webinars are typically 45 minutes to 1 hour in duration.

5 Reasons To Take Your Business To The Clouds

Despite all the recent talk about putting your business ‘on the cloud,’ the concept is really nothing new. Chances are you’re already using the cloud in your daily life. Ever use Pandora to stream a custom radio playlist? Yup, that’s the cloud. Ever send or store a file using MediaFire, YouSendIt, or Dropbox? Check, cloud again.

The entire Internet itself could technically be thought of as “the cloud.”

So what do we mean when we talk about moving our business over to the cloud?

In short, small businesses and large corporations alike have historically had to manage their own servers to store all of their company’s information and archives. The drawbacks to maintaining this sort of hardware are numerous, from storing backups to having a contingency plan to keep the business running during a power failure.

Today’s cloud providers take that burden off of the business, shifting the heavy-lifting over to massive remote servers with multiple backups. In short, every computer at your business gets in sync, the chances of a crash are exponentially decreased, and you’re freed up to work from your latest round-the-world adventure. Sounds good?

In a nutshell, here are five basic reasons that cloud utilization makes sense for any business:

1. Increased Productivity

Tell me if this scenario sounds familiar: Employee One writes a draft document and forwards it to Employees Two, Three, and Four for feedback, each of whom reply with their own mark-ups to the document. Employee One struggles to incorporate conflicting feedback and must email the group three more times as he/she makes edits over the course of an entire work week.

With the cloud, there’s a better way. Perhaps your office already uses a service like Google Drive (formerly Google Docs). Similarly, with an internal cloud provider, each pertinent employee can access a working document, making changes in real time. The send-and-wait email process can be eliminated almost completely, making it possible to complete tasks that were once drawn-out affairs in just a few hours.

2. Reduced Power Bills

Even small companies can see big savings from removing their own servers from the office. Why pay to run a server 24 hours a day? That’s not to mention the green aspect: cloud providers typically use state-of-the-art cooling systems that are highly efficient, meaning you’ll reduce your company’s carbon footprint in the process.

3. No Upfront Investment

In the past, a company had to estimate how much server space they needed and purchase hardware accordingly, leaving room to grow. Most cloud providers, on the other hand, offer pay-as-you-go plans that allow your business to grow at its own speed, while only paying for the server space that you’re actually using. That means no upfront investment in costly hardware that you may not even fully utilize.

4. Automation Saves Time

How many tasks do you complete at work each day that an assistant or even a computer could do for you? By storing information in a central location, the cloud opens up options for automation of regular tasks, from invoicing to payroll. The less time that you have to spend crunching numbers and carrying out tedious tasks, the more time you have to be creative and grow your company.

5. Liberation From the Office

Sure, we’ve been able to email from anywhere in the world for quite some time, but since when could we work on a shared document in real time with an employee on another continent? Cloud technology tears down the office walls, freeing us to work from anywhere in the world. It may be hard to open your computer and dive into a spreadsheet while you’re sitting by the ocean in Aruba, but there’s no better feeling than completing the project and diving immediately from the spreadsheet into the Caribbean. And why not? When it comes to telecommuting with the cloud, the sky’s the limit.

The Pros and Cons of SMS Marketing

The increasing mobile phone penetration globally has instantly resulted in SMS becoming an effective alternative to traditional modes of business communication. With over 1.2 billion mobile phones and increasing penetration among semi-urban, rural areas mobile text messaging (SMS) just cannot be ignored by marketing leaders.

SMS Software is an effective tool to send short, instant and personalised text message (SMS) to the target audience. Brand managers like to be in contact with their existing customers and prospects to inform them about new products, features and other value-added offerings for them using SMS Software.

Their main concerns for marketing leaders related to SMS marketing are security of their database, getting a flexible platform to run SMS campaign at a schedule convenient to them, doing the campaign effectively, irrespective of the numbers of messages to be sent.

The critical questions related to SMS marketing, from the perspective of marketing leaders, are as follows:

Whether the platform provided by service providers is secure?

Is the delivery being carried out using reliable channels?

Are the message delivery service levels measurable and is the client data is confidential?

Is there enough transparency e.g. online delivery and real time reports?

SMS Marketing using client application software:

A flexible and high throughput service using client software is the solution to marketing men woes. Such companies provide an end-to-end service using its software products for complete marketing activities which can be done on SMS.

The user is able to devise his own campaign and carry it out without any involvement of the service provider. The client software application products are installed at client premises and campaigns are carried out with clients getting on-line MIS. Delivery reports which are provided by the service provider help the user in cleaning-up his data-base. It is easier to do small campaigns, run contests and advertising agencies can use the platform to carry out simultaneous campaigns for multiple-customers.

SMS limitations: While SMS users enjoy several benefits like sending an instant, personal message which is always read, there are limitations associated with SMS. It is nothing more than 160 characters of text, devoid of sound, pictures and special effects of traditional print media. In spite of the limitations SMS has its own specific uses which help marketers give specific information to their customers. Incoming SMS on 4-digit or 5-digit short codes in conjunction with conventional media has become the most effective tool for generating leads and carrying out contests for promoting brands.

Michael's Hope For Independence Campaign Says "Thank You"

Michael’s Hope For Independence Campaign was established to raise €60,000 for eleven year old MICHAEL TIRON to have a life-changing operation in America that will give him the chance to walk independently with an aid.

“Just over 4 months ago when we started fundraising, €60,000 seemed to us like a gigantic brick wall that was impossible to climb!” says Natalija. “We’ve had an amazing team helping us to coordinate the Campaign and of course a wonderful community that helped us to make this happen! And we are forever grateful to everyone who has helped us to make Michael’s dream come true...”

“Since the launch of the campaign on February 24^th in the Strand Hotel, we have received amazing support from both the Bray and Greystones Communities, and beyond” say both Michael’s parents. “Through all the fundraising events, we have been stunned by people’s support and generosity, in particular the whole school community of St. Cronan’s. It has really brought home to us that no matter how tough the task seems, when people come together as a community, anything is possible!”

“We would like to express our sincere gratitude and appreciation to everyone who has shown their support for Michael’s Hope For Independence in any way” says Natalija. “We could never have achieved our target of €60,000 if it wasn’t for the wonderful support we received from people across Ireland and beyond who donated to Michael’s cause.”

“We are absolutely thrilled to have reached our target of €60,000 and we are also thrilled to announce that recently we received a confirmation that Michael’s operation will be on the 31^st August!” said Michael’s father Marcel. "We are so overwhelmed by everything that has been happening around our family. And we are even more excited to the changes that are waiting for us in a very near future." continued Natalija.

As is the case with any operation, Michael will require a significant amount of after-care. "There are a few events that have already been organised and we hope to continue with these events, and the money raised will go towards the target of €20,000 for the intensive 2-year program of after-care and physiotherapy which follows Michael’s SDR (Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy) operation” says Natalija.

Along with Michael’s after-care, Michael’s family would like to donate €2,000 from these funds towards the “Help Cherie Walk” campaign, to help Cherie Anderson from Leopardstown, who has been accepted for the same operation as Michael. They have also passed on the Bag Packing dates for Tesco in Bray that were originally booked for Michael’s Hope For Independence to the Parents’ Associations of both St. Cronan’s & St. Patrick’s Schools by way of a “Thank You” for all the help and support that they have received.

WITH ALL OUR HEARTS WE THANK YOU...with lots of love from Michael and family.

You can donate online, and keep track of the progress of the campaign along with all the fundraising events on www.MichaelsHopeForIndependence.com

Also you can like us on Facebook !!!

PROFITSFLOW.COM Expands with ERP Services

It is with great pleasure that PROFITSFLOW.COM announces its appointment as Irish distributor for EFACS ERP and Eagle Field Service software solutions by Nottingham based Exel Computer Systems plc. As we approach our third birthday since incorporation in June 2009, this development cements the future of the already successful software business which up to now has been solely focussed on the provision of cloud CRM software services.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is a business operating system primarily geared at manufacturing and distribution companies and provides integrated automation for Stock Control, Sales, Purchasing, Manufacturing, Bills of Materials, Accounts, Document Management and Business Process Automation. Core to the system is the Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) Engine which uses system transactions and pre-defined information to allow purchasing and manufacturing to make informed decisions on what to buy or make without the headaches of manual planning. This ensures that stock levels are maintained at minimum levels whilst preventing shortages.

Commenting on the new agreement, Tadhg Henderson, Managing Director, Profitsflow.com said “The decision to move into enterprise software will broaden the options available to Irish business for software provision. We have always been a service-oriented company, I believe that our excellent track record with regard to supporting our customers and our culture of always putting the client’s needs first will stand to us in this competitive market.”

We are now providing regular web-based overviews of this great software which is installed at hundreds of sites throughout the UK and a number here in Ireland as well. Contact us for information or to see the software.

The Benefits of Implementing Sales Software

Why would you implement a CRM system?

There are many different views and opinions out there on what CRM is and what it is intended for. Firstly, its acronym, what does it actually stand for? Customer Relationship Management. It’s all about managing, and keeping control, of a business’ relationships with its customers. In the good old days this was easy – every business generally had personal contact with its customers. In some sectors this remains true however even in traditional businesses the business dynamic has changed. Sales reps no longer stay in the job for a lifetime, and they are now normally a member of a sales team, with a manager above. Andre in the newer style businesses, such as distributors, internet shops, green businesses, etc. where personal contact is non-existant, good information on profiling customer activities and trends is critical to sales growth. So how can CRM be used to help business?

What does a CRM system provide?

A good CRM system will provide various modules which can be enabled/disabled for certain users. You would expect to have modules for managing contacts, a separate area for leads (firms with whom we hope to do business at some point), facilities for generating marketing material (e-mail and letters), support for raising quotations, orders and invoices, and a shared calendar as a minimum. It’s important to be able to track the sales pipeline and allocate everything to an individual user. Some of the newer systems are beginning to include customer service automation as well – trouble ticketing/fault logging, follow ups and basic stock control are important for keeping customers up to date on where things are at.

What about the customer?

As with all facets of business, the customer is always of most importance. Bear in mind that a computer system is just that – it can’t forge a relationship with clients all of its own accord. It is a very useful tool for helping in the process but users must use it and remember that it is not there to do the job for them, but to help. So prior to implementing, it is a good idea to conduct a review of all customer-facing processes in the business. It should then be possible to identify areas for improvement, and how the system features can be used to this end.

So what about Marketing Automation?

This is one of the quickest immediate gains achievable from implementation of a CRM system. As soon as the data is cleansed and loaded, marketing can begin. But to do it right, it’s important that you target market is analysed and segmented. You can then tune the message depending on sector, region, industry, number of employees, emerging trends or a combination of these factors. This gives a subset of the market to target at a micro level.

And the Pipeline?

By defining a number of sales stages it is possible to review on screen or paper the current status of the sales pipeline. This is a huge benefit of CRM – if the data is input correctly then it is easy to identify what’s coming down the line in terms of sales. Each potential sale should be logged as it arises and allocated to a sales stage. As negotiations evolve, the stage is updated, such that the potential value at each stage can be analysed.

What about reports?

Once the system has been running for a short while, reporting can be used to develop trend analysis and get information back from the system. Sales in a particular sector drop on Fridays. Why is that? What can we do – maybe ensure that customers/prospects in that sector are contacted every Thursday. We can also begin to focus on performance of sales reps, teams and customer service.

The above are but a few of the benefits that can be realised by implementing a well-balanced CRM system. The good news is that for most businesses, it can be a relatively painless process, provided that the steps are followed and there is a willingness to take the implementation one step at a time.

Michael's Hope for Independence in a Marathon...

There are over 160 ladies that have taken out a sponsorship card to participate in the Flora Women’s Mini Marathon on the 4^th June in Dublin this year in aid of Michael’s Hope For Independence Campaign. A big Thank You to the ladies!!!

We also would like to thank Tadhg Henderson, the Managing Director of Profitsflow.com, who will be running a 26 miles Cork City Marathon on the 4^th June in aid of Michael’s Hope For Independence!!!

And last, but certainly not least, we would like to thank a couple of our international runners this year that will be participating in Stockholm Marathon and Bupa London 10,000!!!

If you would like to support a participant in a Marathon this year you can do so by following the link below.

List of Fundraisers for Michael's Hope for Independence

Once again, thank you for all your support !

You can donate online, and keep track of the progress of the campaign along with all the fundraising events on www.MichaelsHopeForIndependence.com and Michael’s school website www.stcronans.ie.

Also you can like us on Facebook !!!

Know Your Customer Service Rules

You can have every product that anyone could possibly want, but if you don't treat your customers well, you can kiss your business goodbye! Numerous studies have shown that it's much more expensive to attract new customers than it is to keep existing ones, so it's vital that your business focus on making customers happy.

Stay in Touch - Let your customers know you value their business by reaching out. Newsletters, postcards, individual letters, phone calls, and emails are all effective ways to deliver news about products, special promotions etc. Encourage customers to sign up for these communications and make sure you have permission before adding anyone to an email list. Invite them to contact you with questions, feedback, or to discuss additional requests. Focus on letting customers know that you can solve their problems and meet their needs.

Make Great Service a Priority - Excellent customer service requires training that constantly reinforces the message that customers always come first. Start with the little things, such as a standard way of politely greeting people on the phone or online. The best way to ensure that your staff will treat customers graciously is to set the right example. If you do things the way you'd like them done, that will be more effective than lecturing or criticizing.

Store Collective Wisdom - Set up a system for responding to customer inquiries or complaints. The last thing you want is for your employees to provide inaccurate information, or quote policies that may not be achievable. Problems should be resolved during the initial customer contact, or within one business day at the most. If more time is needed, let customers know -- don't leave them hanging.

Empower Your Staff - There is nothing more frustrating to a customer than encountering a frontline company representative with no authority to help solve a problem. Where there is no policy -- and occasionally in cases when the policy needs to be flexed -- you need to empower certain people to make decisions, use good judgment, and be flexible with the rules. Ask employees to document these special cases. Depending on the size of your operation, you may want to designate one person per shift as a problem-solver.

Know Your Customers - A formal method of tracking your customer interactions will help you identify your best customers, as well as those who have stopped visiting your business and need to be lured back. Simple Web-based customer relationship management software applications can help you do this. Simply enter each customer's contact information and notes about their transactions. CRM software lets you sort this data or analyze it to uncover useful information.

Manage Customer Relationships - Everyone loves special treatment. Once you have established a track record and some history about your customers, you can begin to identify and reward your most valuable ones. Perhaps you can offer a special discount or make a follow-up call to those who have needed recent repair work. There are many imaginative ways to reward customer loyalty.

Use the information you've gathered to make customer service a science. Provide a quality experience and complete satisfaction, and they'll keep coming back for more.

From MARKETING to SALE

Without marketing you would not have Leads or Potentials to follow up with, but yet without a good sales technique and strategy your closing rate may depress you.

Marketing is everything that you do to reach and persuade Potentials. The sales process is everything that you do to close the sale and get a signed agreement or contract. Both are necessities to the success of a business. You cannot do without either process. By strategically combining both efforts you will experience a successful amount of business growth. However, by the same token if the efforts are unbalanced it can detour your growth.

Your MARKETING will consist of the measures you use to reach and persuade your potentials that you are the company for them. It's the message that prepares the potential for the sales. It consists of advertising, public relations, brand marketing, viral marketing, and direct mail.

The SALES process consists of interpersonal interaction. It is often done by a one-on-one meeting, cold calls, and networking. It's anything that engages you with the potential or customer on a personal level rather than at a distance.

Your MARKETING efforts begin the process of the eight contacts that studies show it takes to move a LEAD or POTENTIAL client to the close of the sale. If marketing is done effectively, you can begin to move that prospect from a cold to a potential lead. When the prospect hits the "potential" level it's much easier for the sales professional to close the sale.

It takes multiple contacts using both Sales and Marketing to move the prospect from one level to the next. That is why it is import that you develop a process that combines both Sales and Marketing. This will enable you to reach prospects at all three levels; cold leads, potentials, and customers. It's all about balance.

Try this. Take a few moments and divide your prospect lists and database into categories of cold leads, potentials, and customers. Then sit down and identify a strategy on how to proceed with each individual group.

For example you could try the following methods of contact:

Cold Leads - Send out a direct mailing or offer them a special promotion

Potentials - Try a follow-up call, send out a sales letter, or schedule a special seminar or training session to get all of your warm leads together.

Once you've moved your prospect to the "potential" level it's time to proceed in closing the sale. This will be easier to do if you somehow engage the prospect. You can do this by conducting a one-on-one call, make a presentation, or present a proposal, estimate, or contract.

Remember the key to success in marketing and in sales is balance!

Michael's Hope For Independence is HALF WAY There!!!...

We are delighted to be able to tell you all that more than €30,000 have been raised in just 8 weeks !! That brings the fundraising Campaign to the half-way mark !!

There has been such amazing support so far for Michael's appeal for funds for his life-changing operation to help him to walk, a huge THANK YOU to all of you who have helped in so many different ways !

This charity campaign has received huge support from Bray & Greystones local communities, along with national and even international ones !

The Campaign is still looking for raffle prizes / items that could be put into a Charity Auction.

Once again, thanks a million for all your support !

You can donate online, and keep track of the progress of the campaign along with all the fundraising events on www.MichaelsHopeForIndependence.com and Michael’s school website www.stcronans.ie.

Increase Your Company’s Profits by Becoming a REAL-TIME Organisation

Thanks to modern technology, today’s computers and networks are ready for real-time data communications, and the advantages are nothing short of revolutionary. Some industries, including telecommunications, finance, and manufacturing, are already using real-time data in parts of their operations.

But having real-time data is not enough. To successfully compete and increase your company’s bottom line, you need to become a real-time organisation. In other words, you need to use your real-time data to change how you work, how you manage, and how you sell.

Imagine for a moment how much more productive and profitable your company could be if you could track products from warehouse to store shelves in real-time, provide targeted offers the moment a customer calls, and give executives up-to-the-minute reports on critical operations data? When you integrate existing technologies to become a real-time organisation, you can do precisely that and so much more.

The fact is that organisations operating in real-time can deliver better customer service, turn around inventory faster, respond quicker to changes in the marketplace, and better anticipate challenges before they impact the business. Consider the following benefits of becoming a real-time organisation.

You can be pre-active: You’ve likely used the word “proactive,” which means taking positive action now. But how do you know the actions you’re taking will be positive when you have to wait and see? Those aren’t good odds. A better idea is to be pre-active to future known events.

For example, if your real-time data indicates that there was a run on blue jeans, size 32 waist and 34 inseam, in store number 53 and that there is only one pair left, you can safely predict that tomorrow there will be one or more customers who will not find what they want. You can solve this problem before it occurs. When you use your real-time data to be a real-time organisation, everyone involved with keeping the shelves stocked will automatically be informed of the stock levels and the supply chain wheels will turn to make sure no customer is unable to find what he or she wants.

You can have up-to-date information on demand: While many companies offer information on demand, most of the information is not up-to-the-minute. Becoming a real-time organization changes all that. Here is a simple yet powerful example of how real-time data can change even the most routine of chores.

Remember when you were in college and needed to use the school Laundry room to wash your clothes? All too often, everyone else had the same idea you did and all the washers and dryers were taken. Today, many universities use real-time data to change the Laundry room problem. Now students can use their computers from their dorm rooms to see which washers and dryers are in use and which are out of service. The smart Laundry system can even e-mail or send a text message to a cell phone to let the users know that the machines are finished. Ask yourself, “Is my business as advanced as a college Laundry?”

You can conduct event-based marketing: The best time to market to people is when they demonstrate a need. As such, good salespeople do event-based marketing all the time. If you show an interest in something, they grab the opportunity to show you something else they feel you might also be interested in.

With real-time data you can do event-based marketing without human intervention. For example, consider how Amazon.com makes additional sales. If you click on a book about the Lewis and Clark expedition, you will get a list of other top selling Lewis and Clark books on the same page. Does such an approach work? It’s one of the reasons that Amazon’s stock has been one of best performing Nasdaq stocks for many years.

Create a Real-Time Enterprise Today: If you want your company to experience similar benefits, then you need to go from merely having real-time information and use it to become a real-time organisation. The following tips will help.

Know Your Goals: The basic concept of real-time is that when something happens, you want to react to it the moment it happens, not an hour, day, week, or month later. As the speed at which a company can intelligently and automatically respond to change increases, the cost of all their business processes decreases. Hearing this, you might think real-time is all about speed, but that’s only part of the equation. If you don’t know where you want to go, then faster won’t help!

In order to gain the largest ROI for real-time initiatives, they need to be tied to your company’s overall goals and objectives. Therefore, what do you hope to achieve? Are you trying to increase sales? Improve customer service? Enhance your brand? Enter new markets? Whatever it is you want for your business, state it clearly so you can make sure your real-time activities support your overall goals.

Be Agile: Just as there is a difference between strategy and tactics, there is a difference between real-time computing and real-time business. Real-time processing can be seen as event-driven computing. Real-time business, on the other hand, takes business agility—the ability to rapidly respond to changing conditions as they happen—to the next level.

A real-time enterprise is defined by its ability to access information across all boundaries of the organisation. By integrating people, strategy, technology, and processes, real-time organisations are able to recognise shifts in customer demand as they happen and respond accordingly with customer-focused solutions. This enables them to use their higher level of business agility as a competitive weapon, grabbing market share from less agile competitors.

Start Small: Realise that being a real-time organisation is an evolutionary process. An ancient Chinese proverb states that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Therefore, select a place to start and build out from there. For example, Amberwood Homes, a residential homebuilder, has cut three weeks from the five months it takes to build an average 3,000 square foot home by sharing information with plumbers, roofers, masons, and other subcontractors via hand-held devices in real-time. That does not mean that all of Amberwood’s business processes and partners are operating in real time; it means they picked a profitable place to start and will build off that success.

The Real-Time Advantage: There is a clear competitive advantage to having high value, market-based information available almost instantly to the right people, both inside and outside of your company, and using that information to make quicker, more informed decisions.

Real-time business is about leveraging all of your relationships through optimised business processes that can take advantage of nearly instantaneous communications across all the components of a true collaborative network. Delivering up-to-the-minute data with proper context makes all the difference between information and actionable knowledge.

The real-time trend is very real and its impact will be felt by every industry, whether they choose to buy into the concept or not. In today’s hypercompetitive marketplace, there is a great advantage to extending your business processes via the Internet to your customers, partners, suppliers, and employees in real time. Those who take advantage of this trend will emerge as the market leaders and will watch their profits and productivity dramatically increase.

Increase your TOP Line with automated Customer Service

Many businesses today are so focussed on getting new sales that they forget about the easiest of all, existing clients. We've all heard it said that existing customers are (or should be) the easiest to sell to, as they have already bought and have an established business relationship with us. But before we can sell to them again, we have to ensure that they continue to be happy customers. This is acheived through effective customer service. Below are some reasons why automating your customer service process can help increase revenue.

Note: these same tips apply to all businesses, regardless of size. The idea is to put in place a system which effectively does the work for you - all you need to do is follow the steps.

Outstanding customer service builds brand awareness and brand confidence.

We have all heard the phrase "building brand awareness" from advertising agencies. However, let's turn this on its head. Think of the big name brands that spring to mind when you think of quality. Is it advertising that puts them to the front of your mind? Thought not. Things like reputation for quality, word of mouth, durability and long-lasting products are the common perceived values of such brands. And the one thing these companies tend to have in common: A well thought out customer service strategy. This leads to customers who have the expectation of a reliable, repeatable, pleasurable experience with a brand, which in turn means their loyalty increases. Customers have good role models for excellent customer service and their expectations continue to rise.

Building staff confidence which results in happier employees.

Since happy employees mean happy customers, progressive companies emphasising customer service and customer experiences are more likely to have a career path for customer representatives. This means lower employee “churn” and lowered staff costs. It also has a more hidden benefit in building confidence in the product, which feeds into the sales team. A sales team confident in the backup service provided to new customers is much more likely to deliver the goods on an ongoing basis, thus creating an enriching circle of positivity.

The customer service experience is more important than price.

Customer service is more important than price to many buyers, which makes it a revenue enhancer. Many people no longer put up with cheap, shoddy product. Over the past number of years, quality has become more important than price to an increasing percentage of most markets. How many business meetings see the price question raised anywhere near the beginning? Even in FMCG markets, quality products are gaining market share.

Well-executed customer service encourages “customers for life.”

Customer service can help make it easier and more graceful to cross-sell, up-sell, and migrate customers within the product/service line, making them “customers for life.” Think about it, you have a customer who has a complaint or problem relating to one of your products. By automating your customer service processes, you can turn that negative story into a positive. For example, log the call on the system. Straight away the customer receives an e-mail confirming that the issue is being investigated. The complaint may have to travel through a number of stages to resolution. By keeping the customer in the loop, without us having to do anything, we are putting our best foot forward. Not only are they aware of changes in status and able to track the call, but we are now at the forefront of their mind when it comes to other products. And when the issue finally is resolved, we have a mechanism to get feedback from the client on their experience. This all promotes a feeling of goodwill, which will often lead to the brand building benefits mentioned above.

Outstanding customer service can help the marketing and sales budget.

Don't forget, it costs less to keep existing customers than it does to create new ones. The biggest mistake many companies make is ignoring their existing customers. Example, you have a sales rep who has a target of €100,000 for the quarter. We have 500 existing customers. By getting a repeat order for €5,000 from just 20 of those existing clients, our sales rep has already acheived the target. But, and we are all guilty of this one, we tend to focus on new business and forget about the people and companies who have already spent money with us and are happy and willing to do so again, and all we needed to do was ask. Customer service has a crucial role to play here: Companies can boost profits by almost 100 percent by retaining just five percent more of their customers, whether you are a multi-national, an SME, or a "one man band" sole trader.

Thoughtful customer service encourages advocacy and evangelism which act as turbo boosters on social networks and other non-traditional channels. You simply cannot beat a client who had a major problem turned around quickly. A few tweets or posts on the various social media sites will see these comments appearing in all the major search engines for months. Repeat a number of times per month and you have suddenly boosted your web search traffic without even trying.

Problems tracking your sales process in Excel?

Yes it's true - Microsoft Excel is a genius tool for many purposes of everyday business work. Starting from quick calculations up to complex lists with various formatting rules it seems as if nearly everything can be done with it. People got used to it over the years and learned the ins and outs. Whenever a new task arises that needs to be solved with a PC you automatically think about how it could be done in Excel.

That's where the problem starts: Because we know how to use Excel and we have started it so many times before, we tend to leave out the question for an alternative to it. Is that program really the right thing to manage your customers? What do you do if you want to edit the list on the way? You take a copy of the list (if you knew that you will need it - otherwise you can only create a plain new file) and make your changes. If two or more people do this it gets really hard to merge all the new data to back to the original.

It's not all about avoiding the major problems that you will face. Let us have a look at the benefits we gain by using real CRM software. Imagine how helpful it would be if you can assign your appointments to contacts. Everyone then can have a quick look into the journal to see what has been done with a selected customer in the past. If many users are working with the program it will soon get essential to have a solution that let you manage user profiles and access rights, just to make sure that only the appropiate users are allowed to make changes and see the detailed information.

These are only some benefits you gain by using a CRM system. Working in such an environment is totally different from the boring and endless lists of data that get more and more complicated to handle the longer they are. Modern software really energizes your business. All important information becomes visible with a mouse click or some keystrokes. Communication needs to be easy - otherwise it simply won't take place. You can't overestimate the power of regularly sent out personalized emails. From a CRM this happens with a few clicks.

So why do we need to think about all this? Isn't everyone using such profitable software? No - even nowadays most small to medium size companies rely on the usage of standard tools like Excel. And this is mainly because people do not know that there are solutions to this problem. And they don't have to cost a fortune either.

CRM is the company’s solution

CRM is the company’s solution to make the most of its customer relationship and organise it's sales teams. However, CRM systems are predominantly used as a sales reporting system and for the segmentation of target groups, to create sustainable and profitable relationships with customers. Embracing all aspects of the relationship between the customer and the supplier, CRM is a structured process with which a company can maximise the efficiency of all customer related activities, ultimately increasing revenues.

For most companies, CRM is a tool for organising a dialogue within their sales environment, strengthening the perception of the company among prospects and customers thus enhancing reputation and brand value. The customer oriented processes of CRM are typically supported and automated by an IT application known as the CRM system.

We think of CRM as a collaboration between marketing, sales, customer service which optimise how a company most effectively interact with its customers. It should be much more than a technology tool and requires a clear viewpoint on value creation. Our experience suggests that those organisations that excel at CRM share a number of characteristics. They invest in superior insights taking a segmented view of customers and have a deep understanding of the value drivers; they use CRM as the basis of focused sales and marketing activity, aligning marketing and sales resource with opportunities, and understanding, which in turn should be optimised to capture those opportunities; they tailor customer service to the needs and value of segments(groups); and they link CRM to overall business unit strategies and continually measure impact.

The main benefit of a CRM system is that it enables companies to increase the efficiency of all customer related activities, enabling them to grow their revenues without expanding their resource spending. For example, a well updated CRM system allows the company to see if its sales efforts are working effectively by measuring both the influence on contacts as well as hard sales facts.

Implementing the right kind of CRM helps coordinate collaboration between Sales, marketing, and regulatory and customer service departments, presenting one face to the customer. This ensures that sales representatives and marketing keep the company in the top of mind of customers and other prospects.

A CRM system is pivotal in maintaining the greatest asset of a company – its reputation. In the business world, the negative experience of one customer that has an interaction with the company may ruin the hard earned reputation of the company for years to come. Having a CRM system that is used optimally will counteract this.

To sum up, CRM is extremely important for the professionalism of communications and a cornerstone in maintaining the company image and brand.

Scaleability and ERP – is your business ready for the future?

Making data work for makers

ERP: Steering Irish manufacturing through Brexit

ERP Information Day - Galway - April 2017

The all new EFACS ERP Version 8.6

ERP Information Days 2017

Cloud or on-Premises ERP? With EFACS you can change your mind later!

Best Vendor Demonstration Winner - ERP HeadtoHead

Profitsflow Customer Day 2016

September ERP Information Day Report

Your ERP Journey for 2017 Starts Here

June ERP Information Day Report

"We want ERP but we don't want to implement ERP"

Take the guesswork out of stock control with Materials Requirements Planning (MRP)

On-Premises ERP or Cloud ERP?

When is the best time to implement ERP?

Manufacturing ERP: killing the ROI question

Ending the pain of spreadsheets with Integrated ERP Software

Field Service Scheduling: how Eircode can help

Service CRM - Increase sales while servicing customers!

Selecting ERP in 2016? Here's our top 5 tips

ERP solutions for Process Manufacturing

ERP Webinar for Manufacturers across Ireland on Thursday 14th May, 2.30pm

Training is the key to successful ERP projects

Top 3 Need-to-Haves For Field Mobility

Food & Drink Manufacturing Webinar - Friday 8th May, 10.30am

10 Key Criteria for ERP Selection

ERP Software can improve your Company’s Decision Making Process

Profitsflow.com’s partner Exel celebrates 30 years of innovation.

Main Issues of Facility Management (FM) Software Usability

ERP Solutions that Work

ERP Industry Progress

6 Common ERP Implementation Mistakes

5 Signs your ERP System could be slowing down your Business

Happy New Year 2015!

Eagle Field Service is now in Ireland

Alliance Manufacturing End of Life Support

Extend Your marketing Reach

Shine a Spotlight on Your Company's Customer Success

PROFITSFLOW celebrates Third Birthday

5 Reasons To Take Your Business To The Clouds

The Pros and Cons of SMS Marketing

Michael's Hope For Independence Campaign Says "Thank You"

PROFITSFLOW.COM Expands with ERP Services

The Benefits of Implementing Sales Software

Michael's Hope for Independence in a Marathon...

Know Your Customer Service Rules

From MARKETING to SALE

Michael's Hope For Independence is HALF WAY There!!!...

Increase Your Company’s Profits by Becoming a REAL-TIME Organisation

Increase your TOP Line with automated Customer Service

Problems tracking your sales process in Excel?

CRM is the company’s solution

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Monday July 30th, 2012	2:15pm	EFACS ERP system overview
Wednesday August 8th, 2012	3:00pm	EFACS Manufacturing
Monday August 20th, 2012	10:00am	EFACS Document Management
Tuesday August 21st, 2012	11:30am	EFACS ERP Software overview
Friday August 24th, 2012	11:00am	EFACS Workflow Automation

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Monday July 30th, 2012

2:15pm

EFACS ERP system overview

Wednesday August 8th, 2012

3:00pm

EFACS Manufacturing

Monday August 20th, 2012

10:00am

EFACS Document Management

Tuesday August 21st, 2012

11:30am

EFACS ERP Software overview

Friday August 24th, 2012

11:00am

EFACS Workflow Automation

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