It Takes Two to Tango. E-Commerce and Enterprise Resource Planning

Time and tide wait for none, they say; and so does technology. Reminiscences of not long ago remind us of the dotcom uproar in the nineties as a turning point for the internet-based economy. The gradual seeping in of the internet into the way we work and live is a discussion held more than many times.

The evolution of technology right from the basic internet enabled computers to the smartphones, to the wearables and almost everything connected to the internet of things points out a fact. Businesses and enterprises have no choice but to keep evolving their ERP software system development approaches to remain in sync with the expectations and technologies of the day.

e-Commerce services conceptualized with an aim to make shopping easy by including online shopping as an option to the brick and mortar stores; soon included other tasks like banking, booking, paying bills and the list is endless. Businesses can no longer keep their e-Commerce approaches isolated from the ERP systems to function. Enterprises then combine the powers of e-Commerce to fuse with the abilities of the ERP systems and we have a power-packed system on hand leading all enterprises including startups to fortune.

eCommerce and ERP – An Interesting Combo

ERP systems have an increasing significance because of the integrated and centralized approach to facilitate business functioning in core areas like Finance, Production, Procurement, Sales & Marketing, Customer Relation, Human-Resource Management and so on. A mature ERP system combines solutions to a huge number of requirements into one.

When e-Commerce is folded into the solution, Sales & Marketing gets a completely new meaning and the way of doing business becomes a combination of on-field to off the field from the buyer’s devices directly. Synergy is a vital part of these contemporary solutions which fuse comfortably into each other.

A Toast to the Best of Both

Improved Accessibility
e-Commerce offers 24 * 7 solutions to the patrons of the businesses. Making this a part of the ERP system simply means that the business opens up to the world in a completely different manner and accessibility to the product line through the virtual stores means more sales because of the practicality of it all. The system is then only a click away for consumers in any part of the world.

The anytime-anywhere approach is perfectly integrated.

Lower Costs of Operations
e-Commerce development services succeed in moving away from a brick and mortar store model to a virtual store model for businesses. This quite simply means lower costs of operations because of lower investments and reduced manpower.

Custom ERP software development is known to assure returns on investments to businesses. Integrating the e-Com approach into its strategy, especially when an organization is a customer facing set up like a store, a restaurant, a bank or the like, succeeds in offering quicker RoIs than being solo.

Better Interdepartmental Sync
Right from the inventory, prices, orders, predictions, customer feedback, shipping the order and tracking it; all the functions are better inter-related with the help of ERP. Simple tasks like revising prices, announcing offers, stocks and ordering can be a nightmare if isolated from the central ERP.
A single mistake can lead to nightmarish situations like overbooking or over ordering are completely avoided when the systems are in perfect sync with each other. Automation of manual and mundane processes helps to maintain the precision of these two powerful systems.

Leveraging Business Analytics
With IoT becoming a reality and various devices becoming a way of life, e-commerce, and m-commerce fuse into the new commerce allowing prudent approaches to gathering data from various mediums over the internet.

• Social Media
• Email Exchanges
• Communications

Big Data and Analytics is the key to a predictive marketing strategy and an intelligent way of doing business. Organizing relevant data allows businesses to exploit the power of bright analytics tools to arrive at various better business decisions through systematic analysis of carefully curated data gathered from multiple channels and sources.

• The effectiveness of marketing campaigns
• Predicting the best sellers
• Analyzing social media traffic
• Judging peak & lean seasons
• Visualizations through Dashboards & Charts
• Analyzing the KPIs for best practices of e-Commerce

Enhanced Customer Relationship Management
Customer relationship practices benefit by the inputs obtained from the listening tactics on the e-Commerce tools. Combined with modern techniques of social media other multiple channels, CRM gets a completely new perspective when integrated into the ERP powered by E-Commerce.

Better Delivery Chain
A delivery chain is of the utmost importance in e-Commerce setups concerning the delivery of products. Integrated into an accurately designed ERP system means efficient order taking, procurement, production and deliveries, all packed into a single comprehensive system.

A good ERP system gives a push to the e-Com approach by integrating the much-needed vehicle tracking systems into the solution as well to keep a track of the actual ongoings on the field and the cargo.

Assured Regulatory Observances
E-Commerce functions expose a lot of private data entered by the customers to the system. When combined with a prudent ERP, it is easier to observe the regulatory compliances for the sensitive data related to the users right from personal details to the payment facilitating details.

Technologies for the Impeccable Performance

Contemporary technologies give a boost to the power unleashed by the combination of e-Commerce and ERP.

Mobile Technologies
The new age users are equipped with the savvy and cool mobile devices. The combo of ERP & e-Commerce gears up to be available and compatible with diverse devices with contrasting operating systems and sizes. Availing the benefits of concepts like mobile app personalization helps to engage the users better.

Cloud
Putting the business on Cloud Vs keeping it On-Premise is a raging debate. But, the flexibility and scalability offered by the Cloud is an accepted fact and the duo of ERP and e-Commerce certainly has an edge when on a Cloud. Scaling up and down in terms of services and storage is a cost-effective solution desired by most.

IoT
The IoT approach binds every device, every medium that exists today. It facilitates practical combinations like ERP and e-Commerce and offers better and reliable data capture and relay mechanisms.

On a Parting Note
ERP software system development today wisely integrate e-Commerce development services into the solutions offered to offer indispensable solutions across domains and industries.

Perfect partners. It does take two to Tango!