When cash is constrained, the answer is to look internally
Syscom Plc, through use of its Microsoft Dynamics AX ‘Enterprise’ ERP and Customer Relationship Management CRM software, claims they can revolutionise the way you do business by releasing valued capital from within by cutting out waste, balancing your supply with demand, optimising your production and replenishment processes without any impact to service. Here they explain how…
Ever wondered where your organisation might be had if the banks granted you that all important capital. Or, if your shareholders had offered the necessary investment, what would your business now look like?
Growth relies on the access to funds. So, to be constrained by it will ultimately have a major impact. But, when the bank has shut its doors and investors are nervous about releasing more cash, where do you turn to leverage that additional funding to exploit or take advantage of rising opportunities? The answer is to look internally.
If you remove redundant business processes and idle resources, increase the effectiveness of your remaining business processes you will cut time and effort by as much as a quarter. Coupled with an optimised level of inventory in line with customer demand removes on average 25% of stock without impact to your performance of service levels.
It’s reported that over 3 £billion pounds every year is wasted by companies using inappropriate business processes and working practice no longer suited to today’s environment. Workflow that was designed and embedded is never reviewed or realigned to the way the company now operates coupled with IT infrastructures incapable of the speed needed to meet today’s challenges. Is it any wonder why staff make mistakes?
If your staff cannot access relevant information upon which to make informed business decisions, or they’re not empowered to make change perhaps locked into historical ways of doing things, then the accuracy of their decisions may be hindering your business.
“We’ve always done things this way”
“I do what the system tells me as it cost a lot of money so it must be right”
But, you should not always look to your staff for results. There are three elements to consider if you are to benchmark yourselves against the country’s top performers; good business practice&processes, people and systems. If any one element is misfiring then the whole process is misfiring and often difficult to identify which element is weak.
So let’s test it; if you have not addressed recently any of the following then it is likely that time will be getting wasted:
What steps do you take to counter act demand unpredictability?
What steps do you take to combat supply unreliability?
When did you last check the accuracy of the planning parameters you are using to run your business?
When did you last check that workflow meets your current needs?
Are you carrying to little or too much stock, trunking goods up and down motorway networks from one warehouse to another?
How do you resolve bottlenecks in your process – how do you identify them?
Simply by turning data into meaningful information then into insight, the modern business remains fluid meeting head on the growing challenges of today’s customer who is more informed, has far greater reach to alternative sources, is less loyal and less likely to wait for their orders.
A problem facing many companies is that they simply do not or cannot measure or monitor what is happening outside their own doors. But from experience, the information is always there.
Yet, had you the ability to continually self-analyse, perform critical reviews or adjust workflows as the business expands, measure trend and feed your production plans, or understand and influence customer buying behaviour you will achieve the following benefits;
Operational costs reduced
Capacity is released through gains from time savings
Inventory becomes optimised in line with demand with increased service levels
Distribution networks simplified cutting cost and reducing your carbon footprint
Staff spanning the corporate network will not be making decisions with confidence knowing them to be correct.
How Syscom works; identifying bottlenecks, is always a good place to begin. But, do you know if or where they exist? Do you know the tell tail signs – Inventory piles is an obvious one, but what if bottlenecks are not as obvious – what if the bottleneck was the process itself – how would you know or amend? Ask yourself: have I ever stood back and took a long hard look at the entire business searching objectively to see where time and inventory is being wasted?
There are only so many minutes in a day before it is tomorrow. So ask yourself, how long does it take for information to be derived. Any error has an impact that will need to be reversed in order to resolve. But, if you could shave just 10 minutes of wasted time from staff daily work schedule (using a staff level of 100 employees and an average working year of 270 days), this equates to 562 days saved. Imagine what else you could achieve if you could harness this time. Let Syscom show you how you can first see what waste is taking place then, let us show you what can be achieved.
What makes Syscom PLC different is that we take great care in understanding your business, its goals and aspirations and above all, the way you do business avoiding project crashes and bench marking you against the top companies in the country.
Why Microsoft Dynamics AX? The beauty of AX 2012 is that you need no longer rely on external support. Dynamics AX will expand as you expand, tested safely within the confines of a sandbox provided by Syscom as part of our customer service for you to create a smoother operation no matter how complex your business is.
