Some time ago, I was onsite at a customer’s facility sitting across the conference table from the management team. We were chatting about the ERP system they were using. The IT manager was there and we talked about the usual things like server requirements and upgrade planning. The accounting manager was there as well. So we talked about improvements to the general ledger and posting routines. And then something amazing happened. The sales manager stopped by. She listened for a while. Then she spoke up. She said, “You know, what I really wish is that you had a way for my sales reps to be able to complete an order on-site in the field without having to call back to the office or make other excuses about why they can’t close the sale. They need something that puts everything they need at their fingertips so that they can get the signature on the bottom line and close that deal.”
Later that same trip, I sat across another table from another group of business leaders. This time it was the office manager that spoke up. She was talking about how much time her staff spent tracking down their service reps trying to get their paperwork so that the billing could go out and hard it was to keep track of what rep was making which service calls when.
Over the course of several months, a number of our staff here at Sage talked one on one with CEO’s and management staff across our customer base. These same sentiments came back to us again and again.
What had become clear to us was the reality that although all the tools these people were asking for were available … they were not in the hands of the people who needed to use them. Instead, they were buried in the depths of some seemingly complex desktop bound ERP system that the majority of the average staff had no clue about how to access or use. What needed to happen was to put those tools in the hands of the people who needed them in a simple, easy, accurate, and portable format.
MOBILITY! We now have mobile applications for both outside sales and outside services representatives! We can put all the information these individuals need at their fingertips on a mobile application, available on a mobile phone or a tablet, to enter the transaction and complete the deal in a connected environment that writes back to the ERP. Those capabilities make transactions easier, reduce errors, and save steps to increase customer satisfaction. Want to hear more? Come see what’s new and exciting for Sage 500 ERP: Moving the ERP Out of the Back Office—Mobile Solutions, Wednesday, July 24th 3:45 PM – 4:45PM EDT at Sage Summit 2013 .
Hope to see you there!
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