Drive Revenue During the Holidays with Epicor

The holiday season might be the most wonderful time of the year, but it is also a time of stress. Throughout November and December, consumers scramble for the best deals for holiday presents, often dealing with poor customer service and mistakes with their orders while dashing to buy hot items before they are sold out. Meanwhile, manufacturers scramble as well in their mission to properly manage the supply chain without incurring excess inventory or failing to produce enough supplies to meet consumer demand.

A successful holiday season for manufacturers is best achieved through unleashing comprehensive data analytics for a solid demand planning strategy. However, even with the most thorough preparation, surprises inevitably crop up from time to time, and they must be dealt with swiftly and without threatening other business processes, especially during a busy shopping season. To prepare for seasonal trends and handle sudden changes in supply and demand, businesses should take advantage of Epicor ERP’s advanced analytics.

Demand Planning

Unpredictability is a nightmare in manufacturing. Adept planning is required to ensure enough materials and resources are available to satisfy consumer demands. The advanced analytics of Epicor ERP enables smart planning, which is especially crucial during the busy holiday season.

Epicor’s predictive analytics equips users with the knowledge needed to plan year-round. ERP looks back on past transactions, shipments, sales and more to map geographic, demographic and seasonal trends. With this 360-degree view of historical data, your business has the information to build a comprehensive demand planning strategy that lays out what you need to produce, how much to produce, and where to ship items. Using Epicor to plan ahead for the holiday season reduces the number of customers angry about late orders or sold-out products as well as the number of products taking up space in your warehouse.

Dealing with Surprises

After all this planning, what do you do when things don’t go as planned? It’s imperative to have the functionality and flexibility to make swift changes in production lines or shipping services to meet any unexpected developments. Real-time data analytics not only offers the foundation for smart planning but also enables businesses to make quick decisions when something doesn’t go according to plan. Inventory management data you can trust and 24/7 analysis of production and performance data give manufacturers critical information to keep up with abrupt changes in their supply chain.

Let’s say a product is lingering a bit too long in a warehouse. An ERP system’s real-time analytics gives you the insight to realize that you need to figure out a way to move the product before it begins to collect dust. On the other hand, for a hot item that is filling shopping carts quicker than expected, Epicor notifies you so you can speed up production lines. Epicor provides more than data; with their manufacturing execution system (MES), real-time data becomes actionable strategies to increase capacity and reduce scrap to meet sudden needs.

Wrap Up

The top-notch analytics of Epicor ERP helps manufacturers end the holiday shopping season with high profit margins and low inventory. However, businesses can gain even more revenue by integrating ERP with CRM and/or eCommerce. Datix facilitates these integrations with our flagship solution, Unity. With information all in one place, employees can stop wasting time manually transferring data between systems, and business processes are made more efficient by increased automation. Integrations allow manufacturers to reap even more from the holiday shopping rush. 

As your customers begin their holiday shopping, it might be time for your business to do its own shopping for ERP or integrated systems that can take advantage of data to increase your efficiency and bottom line. Contact Datix today to learn more about our premium software solutions!

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