As this year draws to a close and we look ahead to 2018 and beyond, we are rapidly moving towards a time when everything we do will be driven by technology. The ‘smart’ and ‘connected’ factories that were once just a pipe dream may soon become the norm.
The pressures that manufacturers are under to prepare for and adapt to global trends such as robotisation, automation and mass customization are mounting. Automation will, without doubt, play a vital and integral role in enabling businesses to keep up with these industry trends. Without investment in automation, manufacturers’ ability to innovate will come to a halt as they lose out to competitors who’ve had the foresight to keep pace with the changes in the industry. There is also a real risk that manufacturers will panic and rush into buying lots of expensive equipment and software to digitize their businesses, without taking a step back and looking at what they need to implement in order to achieve their business goals and objectives. A detailed understanding of where their business is now – and processes that are in place currently – is the first and most important step that manufacturers can take to prepare for the future.
At SYSPRO we have an abundance of experience in helping manufacturers truly understand their business processes. Our experts spend time in every prospective customer’s business to review how the business operates, undertake a gap analysis and determine what the business needs in order to operate more efficiently and be better placed for growth. We work with our customers at all levels, asking the difficult questions needed to get to the core of, and truly understand, their business and industry.
Celebrating best-of-breed partnerships and collaborations
The needs of every customer are unique: off-the-shelf ERP systems simply don’t exist in the world of SYSPRO! While some customers might only require a standalone SYSPRO ERP system, others may benefit from one or more of the value-added IT and business solutions that can be integrated into SYSPRO ERP. And the reason we are able to offer our customers such wide ranging solutions? Because we can call on our network of best-of-breed strategic partners to develop bespoke solutions that improve and support customers’ current and future business needs.
Our overarching aim is to provide the best products and services that will enable our customers’ manufacturing process to operate at optimum levels, giving them complete
visibility of all their operations and empowering them for growth. We don’t claim to be ‘all things to all men’ and have, instead, carefully selected a number of partners who are highly-respected providers of software products that add value to our customers and their end users – and that give our customers a competitive advantage.
Depending on our customers’ requirements, over and above our SYSPRO ERP system, they can benefit from a range of end-to-end system solutions encompassing document management, HR solutions, global financial forecasting, expenses management, business analytics, compliance software, e-commerce and other business functions. Historically, expert providers in these fields have worked to offer business solutions with a certain degree of crossover, but have approached it from quite different perspectives. This can cause no end of problems for manufacturers who end up with fragmented systems that don’t communicate with each other. A fully integrated end-to-end solution, on the other hand, means that the risks associated with system mismatches and data incompatibility are eliminated.
Partnership in practice
I want to share a couple of examples of how this partnership approach works in practice with two of SYSPRO Corporates strategic global partners: Prophix and Lynq, both of whom delivered really informative presentations at our recent UK Customer Day. Prophix is a leading global provider of Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software including budgeting and forecasting tools and software. Thanks to SYSPRO SA’s partnership with Prophix, customers can access Prophix’s CPM software to help them make better business decisions by integrating budgeting and planning data into their ERP systems. This integration of reporting, financial consolidation, budgeting and scenario planning capabilities at the operational level with SYSPRO, gives customers invaluable insights that enable them to become more competitive.
Another global strategic partnering has been with LYNQ, a leading provider of suppliers of smart manufacturing solutions. Through this partnership SYSPRO now provides Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) aimed at manufacturers across a wide range of industries. Thanks to the partnership with LYNQ, customers can take advantage of SYSPRO MOM, which provides a complete manufacturing lifecycle – from planning, scheduling and publishing, to collecting, tracking and analysing. This solution provides Key Performance Indicators that are essential in helping manufacturers to reduce loss, improve efficiencies and lower costs. Some customers
who have already implemented this innovative solution alongside SYSPRO ERP have described regaining lost production hours and paying back the cost of the software within six months.
Seamless end-to-end integration
These two examples demonstrate that by automating and streamlining our customers’ business processes we can deliver greater operational efficiencies that result in savings of both time and money. Our various partners’ software is fully integrated with the SYSPRO ERP system, so data generated through our partners’ software can easily be extracted and assimilated into SYSPRO.
Customers also benefit from being able to take advantage of direct and easy access to guidance and support from leading experts from across our global partners, all the while having a dedicated point of contact at SYSPRO and the backing of our considerable experience, intellectual capital and support infrastructures.
