Scalability in Animal Feed with SAP Business One
This is the third blog in our series, “Top Four Reasons for Choosing SAP Business One in Animal Feed”. In this series, we focus on four key reasons why manufacturers and wholesalers within the agribusiness sector choose SAP Business One as their ERP system to support business growth, improve control and manage sector-specific challenges. In this post, we look at scalability in animal feed and why it’s so often held back by legacy systems.
The problem: legacy systems and scalability
Many companies manage their businesses using a mixture of systems for planning, accounts, inventory management, and so on. This legacy is typically built up over a number of years, each solution developed as the need arises.
Some of these solutions may be manual, others may be bespoke. Whatever their nature, they all share one thing in common: they are not scalable.
Legacy systems:
- Poorly integrated
- Ongoing support and maintenance may be a concern
- They cannot easily be adapted to support changes in the business
In short, they act as a brake on growth and limit scalability in animal feed operations.
An example:
Some time ago we were contacted by an animal feed manufacturer. It had a number of standalone business systems. Key amongst themm was their milling system. Originally developed in-house, responsibility for support and maintenance had been sold on to an external company.
This system was good when it was made. But bespoke systems age badly and this one suffered from many of the common pitfalls:
- Its small customer base limited investment in the system
- People move on so expertise and support had declined
- Integration with other systems required lots of manual intervention
In short, this legacy system offered limited scope for process improvement or investment. Eventually, circumstances forced the company’s hand as support for the system was removed.
How SAP Business One from LAKE can help animal feed manufacturers and wholesalers
SAP Business One gives animal feed companies a scalable foundation for growth. It replaces poorly integrated legacy systems with a single combined solution for production planning, inventory, finance and reporting. Where integration to specialist systems is required, SAP Business One automates the exchange of information in a way that is faster and more robust.
One of the key ways that SAP Business One can help your business is by streamlining reporting. It delivers real-time information from across your whole business. There are no lags due to manual updates or disconnected systems.
With SAP Business One you also have complete visibility from goods receipt to dispatch and all interactions in between. For manufacturers, for instance, you can trace all ingredient batches through production with full forward/backwards reporting enabling fast and efficient recall if required.
SAP Business One is a packaged solution. This was important to the client mentioned above because they needed a solution that was properly supported. They chose SAP Business One because it boasts a client base of more than 83,000 customers. It is also a strategic solution for SAP, the author. Most SAP customers are SMEs and SAP Business One is their solution for the SME marketplace.
Take the next step
In the last blog in this series, we highlight the importance of choosing the right partner for your ERP implementation.
To find out how SAP Business One from LAKE could help your business, download one of our Guides to SAP Business One, take a virtual tour, or contact us to discuss your requirements.
By Paul Barns