Cloud Financials for Retailers

Retail business owners are ultimately looking for customer satisfaction. And they for sure know building the customer experience is the step that matters the most. With constantly shifting customer needs and an evolving marketplace retailers are taking aid of technology. 

But Retail IT software applications are hoarding the markets. Hence finding the right retail tech that fits your business needs is tricky. Business owners should look into numerous factors before fixating on a set of standalone applications. If you are looking for a modern retail tech that is capable of scaling and responding to market trends. Oracle NetSuite is the right product for you and here we will discuss why.

Five Reasons to Migrate from Standalone Applications to Cloud ERP

#1 Lack of visibility into business operations
#2 Depending on Manual processes for everyday operations
#3 Inability to access key data
#4 Accounting becomes managing spreadsheets
#5 Frequent ROI drops

Reason #1: Lack of Visibility into Business Operations

The use of multiple applications fails to produce a clear report and the employees get burdened with the spreadsheet. The implementation of an ERP helps to overcome these issues.

When multiple applications are used;

• Reports are unable to uncover the operational inefficiencies.

• Integrating multiple systems with each other that ultimately backfires.

• Consolidated reports take too much time to process forcing you to look for monthly reports rather than weekly or daily.

• Impossible to get a 360-degree view of your entire business leading to poor management decisions.

Data stored in numerous systems will ultimately affect the business when  employees rely on spreadsheets for information, they spend more time looking for data than they do understanding it and making decisions. Another issue they often deal with are management reports that are outdated and full of errors.

Businesses find it necessary to use several manual processes to supplement an ERP system as they grow. This leads to integration of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and accounting systems. The errors in reporting are unavoidable when manual entries are involved, and judgments based on outdated, incomplete, or erroneous data leads to the failure of business processes. 

Without an ERP system, it's tough to gain a holistic picture of all business units. As a company grows, it often keeps one set of financials in a standalone ledger system, while financial data for fresh geographic areas or divisions is stored in other systems or financial products. Moving data across systems is frequently done manually, which can lead to mistakes. An ERP system like NetSuite OneWorld helps solve this issue by merging all your child companies under a single parent.

Reason #2: Depending on Manual Processes for Everyday Operations

• Manual entry errors that lead to unhappy customers.

• Approvals become more time consuming.

• Cross-posting transactions between multiple departments and systems become troublesome.

• Inaccurate Sales forecasting.

Sales orders, invoices and processes that require employees to spend their full working hours manually processing these invoices tend to reduce productivity. A wrong invoice or error in the manual entry may result in an unhappy customer experience. 

Approval processes are another major hurdle. When there is no uniform flow of information between departments in the organization, several processes like claims, contracts and approvals get affected. An ERP system ensures cross functional teams are equipped with key information whenever required. 

Rather than using data, sales forecasting and budgeting processes rely on guessing. Employees put figures in spreadsheets based on guessing because it's difficult to collect historical data in the proper format in a timely manner for trend research. Despite the fact that the actual data exists somewhere.

Reason #3: Inability to Access Key Data

eCommerce has set the bar for customers. They expect real-time stock levels, delivery schedules at the same moment they place their order, and call customer support to add an extra line item minutes after completing their purchase. 

With limited or many systems, however, this kind of real-time responsiveness is unachievable. Businesses can't afford to stutter while others compete at breakneck pace. Here are some indicators that your reliance on numerous platforms is losing you sales:

• Poor customer services lead to low customer satisfaction rates.

• Real-time access to trend analysis by SKU and outlet isn’t available.

• Customers and vendors are unable to lookup information regarding stock, or status.

• Customer data cannot be analyzed for personalized sales campaigns. Lack of customer data also leads to low conversion rates.

Reason #4: Accounting Becomes Managing Spreadsheets

Standalone financial systems are intended to automate only a few key accounting functions. As a result, it restricts how businesses can operate. As your business grows, these systems are not able to adapt to your new processes and often fail to scale with your expansion plans. 

Greater transaction volumes and speed are critical for corporate growth and success, but many financial systems struggle to withstand this kind of stress. Stronger financial controls, better SKU management, and support for more complicated financial operations, such as recurring billing and invoicing, are simply not possible with standalone financial systems.

• Employees are required to learn about all the existing and new systems in order to do their jobs. This splits their attention from productive tasks and the company loses valuable time. Moreover, with different applications, businesses are more prone to errors.

• Adding new sales channels, product lines or locations become complicated. Standalone financial systems are not built with the capability to add new SKU’s, tax rates or capable of handling bills of materials.

• Responding to market opportunities is unthinkable with standalone financial systems. Without advanced tools at your fingertips, handling industry-specific requirements like managing inventory, warehouse or contracts become inconvenient.

Reason #5: Shift to Cloud Financial Management for a Better Safer Experience

• Highly scalable, low maintenance and secure.

• An integrated suite helps manage data and stores all the information in a single platform.

• Suite solutions provide companies with the option to add new functionalities or integrate with other applications.

Businesses require a system capable of handling all key business processes. Standalone systems are riddled with server failures, and malware issues. Businesses should focus on aversing risk by avoiding standalone or legacy applications.  

Most businesses start with calculating ROI while investing in new technology and consider the adaptability of the new software with the existing business processes. NetSuite understands this concern and allows businesses to apply all their unique requirements into NetSuite so that migration processes seem effortless. 

Choosing the Cloud Solution

Understand your business needs and requirements before you approach a vendor. Choose a scalable cloud solution like NetSuite that offers extensive customization and integration opportunities along with advanced eCommerce functionality. NetSuite is the perfect tool to manage both backend and frontend operation seamlessly. 

Hire an experienced partner to help with data migration and customization. With the help of an implementation partner, business executives can seamlessly share their requirements and build innovative solutions for your business. 

Jobin & Jismi is a NetSuite Alliance partner with more than 8 years of experience in NetSuite services like implementation, integration, and customization. Connect with our NetSuite certified experts now.