3 min read

How ERP Integrations Drive Digital Transformation

Nancy Phillippi May 9, 2022 7:36:24 PM

ERP Integrations--Benefits and More...

Digital transformation and the urgency of becoming a connected business are popular concerns. Digitizing the same data silos that exist today won’t achieve the single source of truth that digital transformation promises. What you may find is that ERP integrations are what drive true digital transformation.

Organizations invest heavily in technology to power their businesses, only to discover that their infrastructure cannot deliver long-term efficiency and scalability. Employees struggle with disjointed business processes that increase manual errors and jeopardize customer service.

As a result, they pursue digital transformation to streamline end-to-end operations and prepare for future challenges. Digital transformation eliminates functional silos by integrating external and internal systems into a centralized technology stack and providing real-time insights for deep analysis.

Without integrated systems, organizations cannot uncover insights from different systems or connect related workflows to drive growth. Further, disconnected applications create error-prone manual processes that proliferate throughout the organization.

The benefits of utilizing an integrated cloud ERP solution include having:

A single, core system of record that interacts seamlessly with your preferred cloud service applications, such as Adobe Sign or DocuSign for electronic signing or Smartsheet for project management
Anywhere, anytime access to business-critical applications and data
Automated, bi-directional workflows between systems
More time to spend on strategy due to the elimination of manual data entry

The Modern ERP

Relying on outdated, ineffective, and disconnected software is a thing of the past. Migrating to a connected cloud solution is no longer a scary undertaking. In the end, you and your teams will be able to operate using various third-party applications seamlessly.

Former Acumatica CEO, Jon Roskill, wrote a blog about digital transformation and the importance of being a connected business. In it, he said the transformation happens through cloud ERP integrations and open APIs. He explains that businesses are, indeed, moving from legacy systems to running several best-of-breed cloud applications (e.g. Microsoft 365 for email and collaboration, Salesforce.com for CRM, Acumatica for ERP, etc.) to manage a single organization. Unfortunately, there remains an overlooked and major challenge.

“In my day-to-day world of cloud ERP, we see typical small and mid-sized businesses running on ledgers, spreadsheets, and worst of all, disconnected legacy accounting systems, all of which create silos of redundant or conflicting data,” Roskill writes.

"Digitizing those silos won’t fix the problem. Taking traditional analog processes and making them digital only disguises the dysfunction. For a business to begin to transform (modernize, really, and become fully interconnected), it must become a connected business, one that synchronizes all records, data sources, and systems under a single pane of glass," he continues.

Future-proofed ERP

Acumatica has on-board integrations making it easy to connect with other solutions your organization uses and depends on every day. In addition, Acumatica also presents a modern platform to serve your future needs. Customers receive the value of their investment with updates through bi-annual software releases. Acumatica is a future-proof platform that connects your data in a centralized database and provides your teams a real-time, 360-degree view of each business area. Companies make better decisions faster. The open architecture and native integrations allow companies to connect new software and hardware with the ERP platform.

Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain is the latest innovation from Microsoft. It is Microsoft’s first completely cloud-based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution. Once referred to as Dynamics AX, Dynamics 365 is Microsoft’s business solution for medium to large corporations or enterprises. The software enables businesses and organizations to make smarter decisions quickly with access to real-time insights and Gartner’s Magic Quadrant award-winning business intelligence tool, PowerBI, on nearly any device, anywhere.

Dynamics 365 Business Central is also a cloud or software as a service (SaaS) version of Dynamics NAV. It has over 140,000 customers and millions of users worldwide. Dynamics NAV has the largest install base of any of the Dynamics products. Smart companies like the robust reporting due to the availability of dimensions, which is a key feature of NAV, and now Business Central. This is not available in other similar ERP systems. Financials, Inventory, Distribution, and Manufacturing round out the key modules that drive such a large customer base.

Clients First is an Experienced Partner You can Trust

Becoming a connected business will require automated connections between multiple cloud services with seamless cloud ERP integrations. We have experts ready to help guide you on your digital transformation journey and ensure your integrations support your company’s growth and automate manual processes for your teams.

Nothing compares to a live presentation, so please reach out to us to schedule a demonstration for your business. Call us at 800.331.8382, or send us an email at info@cfbs-us.com today.