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The Integral Blog

The Integral Blog

To Integrate or Not To Integrate …

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To Integrate or Not To Integrate … Do you need to integrate your order management data?
Replacing Paper with Technology:
Maybe not:
If you process a low volume of orders it’s likely you can get away with manually rekeying your data: Purchase orders (COPY/PASTE), packing slips (COPY/PASTE), invoices (COPY/PASTE), inventory (COPY/PASTE).

And, while that is a cumbersome process and can fall victim to human error, it simply may not make sense for you, right now, to spend the money on integration for a few orders a week.

Maybe integration does make sense for you. Do you:
● Process a large volume of orders (or plan for future growth)?
● Need more work done without adding more staff?
● Face chargebacks due to manual keying errors?
● Demand speed, accuracy and scalability?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above questions, you should likely be integrating your orders with your ERP, WMS and shipping systems.

Large Volume of Orders:
There is a lot of work around the process of managing orders and, logically, proportionately more work the more orders. To the unschooled it may seem like simply keeping track of each sale, but you know that the lifecycle of an order involves multiple people across different departments within your organization. At the end, the process also touches your customers. Integration ensures the integrity of your internal procedures and plays a part in a flawless customer experience.

More output without adding staff:
As a business manager you contend with a whole host of expenses, but likely the single greatest one is paying your employees. You need them, of course – they are pivotal to your successful business. But, like any other precious resource, you want to deploy them with thoughtful care. Are you taking full advantage of your staff’s potential if you have them copying information from one source into another over and over? Manual data entry can be a resource-hog requiring more and more staff as your business grows. Conversely, integrating orders with your ERP, WMS and shipping systems frees up your staff for higher impact jobs where they can add more value to your business.

Financial drain of chargebacks:
You have good people and you’ve trained them well. But still, you find yourself buried under chargeback penalties levied by your trading partners for noncompliance due to document submission errors. These penalties can come as a result of staff mis-keying (COPY/PASTE), or trading partner changes not being properly communicated throughout your team, or simply workload. You understand that people can make mistakes but you’re all too aware that these added costs can erode your already slim margins. Luckily, there is one very simple ‘silver bullet’ solution to address all of these concerns: Integration. With integration, manual keying is virtually eliminated, changes are dealt with and implemented programmatically and, as discussed, repetitive work is offloaded to machines thus freeing up your staff.


Speed, Accuracy and Scalability:
People are great at problem solving, understanding and working together for a common goal; machines, not so much. But, when a machine is programmed for a repeatable task, it performs it flawlessly every time – one time or a hundred times. Machines don’t have vacation breaks, sick days, or other tasks to prioritize. Once your EDI is setup to communicate with your ERP, WMS or shipping systems, the process will happen with minimal manual intervention – accurately, every time. With integration, added volumes are handled seamlessly; during business peaks you don't have to scramble to pull people off other work or need to bring in temps to handle overflow.

All good business leaders carefully assess the needs of their business on an ongoing basis. Your organization may not yet be ready for integration and maybe this is just a reminder of what integration can do for you when the time is right.

Or maybe you are already facing growing pains that could be lessened by transferring some of the burden to the automation you’d get with integration. Like most things, it probably comes down to a cost benefit analysis.

Lee Mrkonjic, Integral Group’s Director of Sales, can give you an honest assessment of the value, and the real cost, of integrating your systems. Why not take advantage of his 25 years of experience working with companies like yours? Give him a call at 905-947-1774 x 110 or email him to find out if integration is right for you. He’ll also tell you how our team of superheroes will make integration an easy process and how Integral Group will provide you with unlimited lifetime support.
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