The pitfalls of not integrating your software systems

May 26, 2021

Software integrations are abundant and diverse. Whether your business utilizes e-commerce, retail systems, sales, calendar tools, or more, investing in the proper software integrations is crucial to the success of your business. Having the right integrations are a key part of future-proofing your operations and can help you to build on your current success. After all, implementing new channels or processes to capitalize on new growth opportunities are paramount in remaining relevant in this digital age.

 

Here are some of the key areas of opportunity that should be addressed:

 

1. Ecommerce Direct to Consumer (DTC)

Investing in the proper integrations (ex. Amazon, Shopify, and Magento) for your e-commerce business will help to eliminate a lot of manual intervention, such as:

 

• Creation of product catalogs with marketing information and images.
• Accessing portals to update inventory levels; to obtain sales orders; etc.
• Manual Order processing:
  • Duplication of effort to recreate the sales order into the ERP system for fulfillment;
    • or
  • Skipping the ERP system order process altogether and instead manually processing the fulfillment outside of the ERP system.
• Entering the order information into the carrier system for tracking label information.
• Updating the sales order shipping status for quantity and tracking information.
• Manually recording the sales and deducting inventory.

 

2. Self-sourcing Retail Processing (Wholesalers, Brand Distributor with their own retail stores)

Address automation and integration between your wholesale and retail systems in the following areas:

 

• Uploading product information and images.
• Shared information related to incoming purchases and inbound logistics.
• Consolidated view of back-office inventory levels.
• Consolidation of buys between wholesale and retail operations.
• Managing demand from the retail channel through the wholesale fulfillment process.
• Integration of retail sales and manage cost centers between wholesale and retail.
• Inventory availability between wholesale and retail.

 

3. Electronic Document Interchange (EDI) Processing

With EDI automation, all aspects of the EDI transactions can now be fully automated through the ERP, which will eliminate the need for the following manual processes:

 

• Accessing 3^rd party portals to provide and obtain data based on the EDI documents required by your trading partners.
• Labor intensive process of providing the retailer with your product catalogs of marketing information, images and inventory levels.
• Accessing portals to update inventory levels, and obtain customer purchase orders.
• Manual re-creation of sales orders for processing:
  • Duplication of effort to recreate the sales order into the ERP system for fulfillment.
    • or
  • Skipping the ERP system order process and instead manually processing the portals sales order outside of the ERP system.
• Re-entering the order information into the carrier system for tracking label information.
• Re-Accessing the portal to update the sales order shipping status for quantity and tracking information.
• Manually recording the sales.
• Manually deducting inventory.

 

4. 3PL Warehouse Management System (WMS) integration

 

A 3PL WMS interface can streamline your receiving, shipping, and inventory control process in order to avoid these common issues:

 

• Duplication of style information on multiple systems.
• Multiple systems versions of expected receipts to the warehouse.
• Manually preparing and delivering picking information to the warehouse.
• Processing documents related to receipts of purchase orders arriving at the warehouse.
• Data entry process of recording the shipping information related to the picking slips sent.
• Costly manpower validating multiple system’s inventory levels between the ERP system and the warehouse third party inventory system.
• Requiring your operation teams to work within multiple systems instead of one consolidated solution.

 

5. Product Lifestyle Management (PLM) integration

Product Lifestyle Management software can help to ensure alignment in your design and product creation process:

 

• Avoid multiple design and technical team working with multiple different processes and non-connected systems.
• Establish proper efficient workflows to avoid duplication of efforts and ensure data accuracy.
• Eliminate the need to manually recreate the products that made it through the PLM process.
• Establish a clear workflow that works for the entire team.

6. Finance Process
   Separate financial systems require duplication of efforts in administration of basic data and transactions; integration helps reduce these costly areas:

• Sales Posting.
• Cash Receipt Posting.
• Inventory Levels.
• Cost of Goods Sold.
• Single system exchange rate, vendor, and GL controls.

 

These are common issues experienced by companies that hesitate to invest in new integrations and software. Manual interventions can lead to inefficiencies, errors—and in the worst-case scenario—breakdowns in the process. Some companies are also reluctant to introduce a new workflow to the business when the volume of a particular sales channel may be uncertain.

 

Old, trusty methods can lend a false sense of comfort. Long-standing, dedicated resources have likely mastered the inefficiencies and provide an adequate solution to get by. Unfortunately, in the event of a sales volume increase, companies find themselves behind the eight-ball trying to both fulfill orders and maintain a high standard on supplier ranking charts. If these long-standing resources are no longer available, can these businesses maintain their manual process and still deliver high levels of service?

 

When the opportunity strikes, it is often too late to fully realize the potential and instead companies embark on a hectic first season of trying to get by. To be certain, E-commerce has advanced the need to be as streamlined as possible with the sharing of product and inventory information, as well as the need to fulfill orders at the highest efficiency rate. It is important that all aspects of system integration be constantly reviewed to ensure that your business can capitalize on opportunities as they arise. Each business process must be examined to find economies of scale, and to position your team for success.  Through combining processes and automation with your trading partners and various systems, your cost savings will be realized, and efficiencies increased.

 

Identifying the pain points and configuring the solutions will ensure a return on investment for your software solutions. At Momentis we are committed to our goal of providing the best possible solution that our customers require. We have invested and focused our R&D efforts to ensure we can provide our customers with the flexibility and scalability they are looking for.

 

Whether that entails utilizing the Momentis ERP with its built-in suite of solutions or providing our ready-made integrations and applying our experience in finding the best workflow required to suit our customer’s needs, our customers are at the forefront of what we deliver. Contact us today for more information.

 

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The Momentis ERP System was developed for fashion, apparel, footwear and accessory brands, textile, wholesalers, and distributors.  Momentis automates and streamlines processes from design to delivery – Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Sourcing & Logistics, Inventory Management, Warehouse Management, Order Management and Financials – and integrates seamlessly with leading B2C, 3PL, POS and other 3rd parties using EDI and APIs. The Trenza software suite is the latest solution that enables your ERP to effectively communicate with Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) solutions, such as Trenza Shop, Trenza Sell, Trenza BI, Amazon, Shopify, Big Commerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Joor, NuOrder, and more.