Nicki Smith

Review more than just your eating habits in 2020.

The New Year is an ideal time to reflect on the previous year, and the shift from 2019 into a new decade has inevitably left people reviewing, not just the last year, but the last 10 years. Many will go on a diet, try and eat more healthy or start a new exercise regime. Lots of these will succeed, but for many, it’s a short-term change.

What about taking the New Year to review your business? Companies are often very good at reviewing staff and products/services they offer – but what about business processes and the IT software systems used to manage them?

So, what does the last year, and the last decade look like for your business? As well as celebrating the successes you’ve had – a New Year is also a great time to take a closer look at what you can do better, slicker even!

eCommerce & Retail Businesses

Many eCommerce and retail businesses experience a rush during the November/December Black Friday and Christmas period. This can cause stock issues (or lack of) and customer complaints if you are not ready for this increased trade. It also puts pressure on your staff if you are handling processes manually. Why not review how this went for you now, while it is fresh in your mind…

• Do you have the tools to accurately forecast stock?
• Is your business (eCommerce website) open for business 24/7?
• Did you have a real-time accurate view of what stock you are holding?
• What about logistics? Whether you use a 3rd party logistics provider or manage your logistics in-house – do your systems integrate fully, giving your customer the best experience?
• Does your website integrate with all your sales channels? (e.g. Amazon/eBay)?
• Is your current website on a supported version and receiving security patches and updates?

Trade Sales

Many trade counters are closed during seasonal holidays and weekends. If your eCommerce trade website isn’t ready for orders to be placed 24/7 you could be missing out if your competitors are!

We live in a fast-paced world, where same-day and next-day delivery is the norm and expected. Many companies selling to the trade tell us that their customers like the personal touch of calling with their orders – but what about the ones who prefer to place orders once they have put the kids to bed?

Don’t get left behind…

• Would you like your trade customers to be able to place orders 24/7?
• Looking to offer bulk discounts, cross-selling and up-selling to your customers online? Good eCommerce websites will do the job of a call centre agent – 24/7!
• Want to reward your best customers with increased functionality online such as building bespoke products and saving/retrieving quotes?
• Would you like your trade customers to be able to log in and see their account and order history details? Also to have access to a price list tailored to their account?

Considering a new ERP Solution?

Are you currently managing your business without a central system? Perhaps you are managing your business using spreadsheets and looking to move to an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solution to manage your entire operation.

• Does the system you are using manage your entire business operation?
• Would you like to be able to have one central repository for your business data?
• Still looking for a single solution to comply with Making Tax Digital (MTD) for vat?
• Want to reduce the duplication of effort? Are you manually keying information or using spreadsheets to upload information from one system to another?
• Need real-time reporting functionality – fully integrated with your website?

Many companies carry on doing what they have always done. We believe that customer experience is the key to a successful business, going above and beyond to make it as easy as possible for them to do business with you.

Take a closer look at our website for more information on our ERP integration and support services.

The competitive edge…

Whether you are buying a service or a product you expect to be able to communicate and order with companies in the way most convenient for you. This may be at 2 am, on your mobile device, or 6 am on a tablet. Are you giving them the best experience possible?

There are other important factors to look at such as making sure that the systems you are running your business on are supported.

An example of this is Magento Commerce 1 reaching its “End of life” in June 2020 and there are many businesses that will need to move to Magento 2 to ensure that they continue to receive security patches and updates to keep their website safe from a cyber attack. It’s another really important step to keeping your customer’s data secure.

KFA Connect have been looking after software systems for our customers for 30 years and our UK-based team design, develop, test and implement software solutions that really help grow your business. We offer ongoing support with a personal touch to our customers…. often becoming an extension of your own teams in the process.

Why not make another New Year resolution – to review your software systems – what could we help you do better?

What’s the point of IT? Apart from the obvious in enabling a company to actually function on a day-to-day basis?

Shouldn’t we be defining IT in terms of being able to develop the business and creating the platform which means that everything, from e-commerce to ERP,  order processing to logistics, can cope with a world of constant change?

So how can that be achieved?

In a book commissioned by KFA Connect, business owners share their thoughts.

You can read the book here…