Following business process from order placement through to cash is like reading a well written story. Just as a book contains a plot and other key information to help the reader follow the narrative, a business management system needs to provide access to key information. Without this free flow of business intelligence at each juncture, it becomes a challenge for growing small to midsized enterprises (SMEs) to follow through customer orders to cash and find ways to optimize and operate more efficiently. For Envelopments Inc., their story is telling of the many challenges that growing SMEs must overcome to optimize their order to cash flow process. In a recent Vision33 hosted Webinar, SME expert Carl Lewis recounted how this Vision33 client was able to leverage the enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, SAP Business One, to streamline its business processes and optimize order to cash process.
With an intent focus on its customers, Envelopments, the pioneering build-to-order manufacturer of custom mix and match communiqués and paper products, had earned a 30% year over year increase in revenue. However, manual entry of customer over 300 orders per day and an extensive product line over 50,000 SKUs resulted in several challenges that typically face rapid growing SMEs; including order placement, fulfillment and inventory management.
Starting with order placement, Envelopments was without a convenient way for customers to enter their own orders. This required that they manually enter order data; resulting in the increased likelihood of errors that slowed the business down. However, through the SAP Business One solution, Envelopments is now able to empower its customers to place their own orders; reducing the burden on customer service to enter over 300 complex orders with build and material choices each day. As discussed in the webinar, through the extensibility of SAP Business One, SMEs can extend real-time access to the solution through a number of ways including a website, web Portal for employees, or web portal vendors.
Next was the issue of fulfillment. Envelopments manufacturing lead times were uncontrollable since they did not have access to information about how long it would take them to coordinate the necessary materials to meet specific customer orders. To become more efficient, the company used the MRP forecast and MRP wizard of SAP Business One to gather build materials more quickly with a build of materials report.
Inventory management also presented issues for the cash to order process for Envelopments. Without timely inventory reports, Envelopments had to order huge amounts of inventory to prevent the risk of stock-outs. With a product line of 50,000 SKUs, this resulted in high carrying costs. Turning to SAP Business One, the application now handles the production requirement of Envelopments orders with inventory reports that are current and up-to-date. For example an inventory sales analysis report provides business intelligence about what products result in the most revenue for the company.
Common to each of these challenges facing SMEs like Envelopments, is real-time access to business intelligence. This is why SAP Business One provides users with a ‘cockpit view’ – a screen where a manager is able to access and run reports directly in real-time while generating graphics and charts to support sales analysis.
Beyond these advanced reporting capabilities, what SAP Business One provides SMEs can be surmised from a quote from Envelopments; “We now have support for processes and detailed reports that we could not have imagined with other ERP solution providers and know that we can achieve anything with our partner Vision33.” To learn more about how SAP Business One can help your business optimize your cash to order process with a dedicated implementation partner listen to the full webinar: Learn How to Optimize Your Order to Cash Process.
