Many businesses feel they are drowning in data, even for manufacturers who have implemented an ERP solution. While an ERP system stores data really well, it is often a challenge for a busy operation to get beyond this first step of ERP implementation and move on to generating intelligent data.
Intelligent data is data that can be accessed, analyzed and presented to help a business manage different aspects of operations more effectively and to make faster strategic business decisions. If you have an ERP, you can move towards intelligent data by addressing data access, data analysis and presentation of the analytics.
Access to Data for Analysis
The first step to making your data intelligent is making sure it is stored in a consistent manner with a high level of confidence in its accuracy. If you are using your ERP properly, this should not be a problem, but it can take some time to identify the relevant data and confirm its quality. For example, data needed to fully analyze sales history and trends could include data points from customer records, production, and shipping.
Data Analysis to Create Intelligence
Excel has been the primary data analytics tool of businesses for a couple of decades now, but ERPs have put a strain on this solution. The data in ERPs change constantly, making it hard for manually updated spreadsheets to keep up. The reporting built into many ERPs to replace Excel are fairly basic and few manufacturers have the resources or time to develop custom reports within their ERP. However, it is more affordable than you may think to gain access to the valuable data buried in your ERP and develop views of the data that can drive efficiency, sales and other organizational improvements.
Presentation of Intelligence
Whether your analytics are standard ERP reports or are custom built by Triple Helix’s web application development, the insights developed are only useful if they are used. This requires that the intelligence is delivered to the right employees at the right time. To deliver deeper intelligence in real-time often takes the development of custom applications. This often deters manufacturers from taking this step, but Triple Helix clients have found the process to be more affordable and more rewarding than they originally anticipated.
Ultimately, you must determine if you are using the right data to drive business decisions or employee performance, and whether that data is being presented to the right people at the right time to make a difference. Triple Helix has a proven track record of helping manufacturers and other companies organize and improve access and use of their critical data. Contact us for a no-obligation consultation to see how we could help you.
