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As the business landscape becomes increasingly complex, cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are no longer a luxury but a necessity for companies looking to stay competitive. 

Today’s cloud ERP systems are advanced software solutions that are designed to integrate and automate essential financial and operational functions within a company. They provide a centralised database that allows for easy access to critical business data, including general ledger (GL), accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, and financial reporting.

Modern cloud ERP systems go beyond just financial management. They also provide functionality for inventory management, order management, and supply chain management, as well as procurement, production, distribution, and fulfilment. This allows businesses to manage their operations more effectively and efficiently.

In order to fully leverage the power of cloud ERP systems, companies should have a good understanding of the 12 core cloud ERP features. 

1. Integration 

Integration is a critical component of a cloud ERP system. The primary benefit of cloud ERP is its ability to integrate different solutions in your organisation to provide you with a centralised view of essential financial, operational, and business data in near-real-time. By integrating different data, cloud ERP systems eliminate data silos and provide a single source of truth for the organisation. It will ensure that everyone has access to the same up-to-date information and share the data accurately and efficiently across the company.

2. Automation 

Cloud ERP systems provide companies with the ability to automate repetitive business tasks, such as: payroll, order processing, invoicing, reporting, and more. By automating these tasks, cloud ERP systems can minimise the time spent on manual data entry, reduce errors, and enable employees to focus on more value-added tasks.

Cloud ERP systems also provide the ability to automate complex workflows, which can involve multiple departments and processes. For example, an inventory tracking module could automatically trigger a shipment and invoice when a certain SKU becomes available. This not only reduces the time required to complete the task but also ensures that all departments are working together and sharing the same data.

3. Data Analysis

Cloud ERP systems collect and store vast amounts of data from various functions, such as finance, procurement, inventory, sales, and marketing. This data can be used to generate meaningful insights that can help businesses make better decisions and improve their operations.

According to Brainyard’s Winter 2020 survey, CFOs and business leaders have long recognised the power of data analysis, as it enables them to identify new business opportunities, optimise current operations, reduce costs, detect fraudulent activities, and improve customer satisfaction. With cloud ERP systems, data analysis can be performed in real-time, enabling businesses to stay on top of trends and respond quickly to changing market conditions.

4. Reporting

Reporting is another important role of cloud ERP systems. Cloud ERP systems provide businesses with a wealth of data from various sources, and reporting tools allow businesses to turn that data into actionable insights. Reports generated by the cloud ERP system can help businesses identify problem areas before they become major issues. It can also help businesses optimise their processes and identify opportunities for improvement.

With better reporting capabilities, executives and managers can make more informed decisions based on the data presented in the reports. The ability to quickly generate reports also means that information is more readily available and can be acted upon in a timely manner.

5. Tracking and Visibility

Tracking and visibility are key features of cloud ERP platforms that enable companies to monitor, analyse, and optimise their business operations.

Tracking refers to the ability to monitor and record various aspects of business operations, such as sales orders, purchase orders, inventory levels, production schedules, and delivery timelines. By tracking these metrics in real-time, companies can quickly identify potential issues and take corrective actions to minimise any disruptions to their operations. This also enables companies to make informed decisions based on accurate and up-to-date data, which can ultimately lead to improved efficiency, reduced costs, and increased profitability.

Visibility, on the other hand, refers to the ability to surface and understand business metrics by providing real-time access to data across the organisation. By breaking down information silos and offering reporting and analysis for every aspect of business operations, cloud ERP platforms enable companies to gain a holistic view of their business performance. This allows them to identify trends, patterns, and opportunities for improvement, which can be leveraged to optimise operations and increase revenue.

6. Accounting

Accounting is a critical component of a cloud ERP system that enables organisations to track, store, and analyse financial data. Cloud ERP accounting features typically include capabilities such as accounts payable (AP), accounts receivable (AR), general ledger (GL), budgets, and forecasting. Additionally, many cloud ERP systems may offer more advanced features such as tax management, fixed assets management, revenue recognition, and multi-currency reconciliation.

One of the key benefits of cloud ERP accounting functionality is the ability to decrease the time it takes to reconcile and close monthly financial statements. Month-end closes can be a time-consuming process that involves reconciling various accounts, reviewing transactions, and generating financial statements. Cloud ERP accounting features can help automate and streamline many of these tasks, reducing the time and effort required to complete them.

7. Financial Management

Cloud ERP systems play a significant role in financial management by providing a centralised platform for tracking and managing financial data across a company. As financial management is a critical task for businesses that involves planning, organising, and utilising funds to achieve the company’s objectives, a cloud ERP system can assist finance teams in managing these complex tasks.

8. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) refers to the strategies, processes, and technologies that companies use to manage and analyse customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. Integrated CRM features in a cloud ERP system allow organisations to incorporate customer relationship data into their operations, expanding their business view and enhancing customer service.

9. Sales and Marketing

Cloud ERP systems with integrated CRM features can help organisations improve their sales and marketing efforts by providing better insights, automating processes, and enhancing collaboration between teams. With integrated CRM features, cloud ERP systems can provide real-time insights into sales trends, customer behaviour, and also can provide a more personalised and tailored experience to customers. This can lead to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as increased sales revenue.

10. Human Resource (HR)

The Human Resources (HR) component of a cloud ERP system is designed to manage all aspects of employee management, from recruitment and hiring to payroll and benefits administration. With an integrated HR module, organisations can streamline their HR processes and reduce manual workloads. Therefore, automating HR processes with a cloud ERP system can save time, and reduce the risk of costly errors. This frees up HR staff to focus on more strategic tasks, and help companies to improve the employee experience.

11. Supply Chain Management (SCM)

Supply Chain Management (SCM) refers to the planning and management of all activities involved in the production and distribution of a product or service. A cloud ERP system with SCM functionality enables businesses to streamline and optimise their supply chain operations by tracking and analysing data related to demand, inventory, manufacturing processes, logistics, and distribution.

12. Manufacturing

Cloud ERP systems have long played an important role in manufacturing, providing businesses with a centralised platform to manage various aspects of their production processes. With cloud ERP, manufacturers can streamline product planning, monitor production, and forecast demand. The system can also assist with sourcing raw materials and managing the assembly process.

Maximising Efficiency and Growth with Oracle NetSuite Cloud ERP’s All-In-One Platform

Oracle NetSuite is a cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that brings together multiple business functions in one unified platform. This cloud-based software is designed for enterprises across various industries. It offers real-time insights, streamlined customer service, and reduced supply chain costs through the integration and automation of essential financial and operational functions. These functions include inventory management, order and supply chain management, procurement, production, distribution, and fulfilment.

With Oracle NetSuite cloud ERP, businesses can benefit from a centralised platform that eliminates data silos, reduces manual errors, and enhances overall efficiency. The system allows for greater visibility and control over all aspects of the business, from finance to HR to sales and marketing. This integration helps businesses make better-informed decisions by providing real-time data insights and reports.

Financial modelling is a superpower. 

A superpower that lets you test your assumptions and hypotheses across dimensions, versions, and time before executing budgets and plans. 

A well-formulated model lets you run unlimited scenarios across any program, department, or business unit according to your fiscal calendar or other business milestones. In other words, dynamic financial models show you the probable results of pulling various levers (e.g., adding headcount, reducing production time, expanding sales territories) to see likely outcomes. 

Not exactly X-ray vision, but close. 

Yet if financial modelling is a superpower, outdated tools and manual processes that limit the number and types of scenarios you can run are kryptonite. 

Let’s look at how to generate flexible and robust financial models powerful enough to drive strategic decisions and help your business surpass the competition in a single bound. 

Manual processes undermine your models. 

Ideally, financial models should be robust and flexible enough to accommodate current circumstances and multiple queries. If your team is bogged down aggregating data from multiple sources and making sure spreadsheets are accurate, modelling takes a back seat to fix errors and broken formulas. 

According to an Adaptive Insights CFO Indicator Report, 71% of finance teams manage data from at least three sources. When data is aggregated manually from multiple sources and managed in spreadsheets, it’s often laborious, error-prone, and inaccurate. 

Financial modelling that works in today’s fast-paced business models should automate these processes and free your time to test your hypotheses. 

Properties of robust models 

Robust models should let you model everything, everywhere—expenses, capital, headcount, revenue, projects, grants, quotas, and territories—across any department, entity, or function. 

Your financial model is an opportunity to check in with stakeholders, gather information about priorities and plans, and create a set of assumptions that improve decision-making throughout your organization.

 Done well, financial models teach you and the people in your organization something: a new way of doing business, in-depth information about the competitive landscape, or the factors that might support or detract from corporate objectives and KPIs. 

Robust and effective financial models should accomplish the following: 

Establish a single source of truth with Financial Modelling

A single source of data truth that is accessible, relevant, and flexible enough to respond to emerging market conditions ensures that there’s a united front and full alignment behind the same objectives. When everyone agrees on the validity and accuracy of the data, there is less bickering over the numbers and more collaboration between business units. 

Build confidence in the numbers 

If everyone is fighting about the validity of data sources, the process will be caught up in arguments instead of strategic decision-making. From extensive cost allocations, multiple budget versions, and various organizational structures, your financial models and analytics should build confidence in the numbers and the models. 

Automate calculations 

Outdated tools and manual processes take too much time to generate insights. By automating planning, budgeting, and forecasting tasks, your team will have more time to run unlimited what-if scenarios and answer multidimensional queries in real-time. 

Enable collaboration 

Everyone in your organization is modelling—whether they know it or not. By making financial data modelling tools broadly available to business units and ensuring that tools are user-friendly, you’ll allow everyone to weigh in—on assumptions about headcount, product releases, and more. After all, true collaboration results in better financial models. 

Modern modelling requires modern tools

Modern businesses require financial modelling and analysis capabilities that enable on-the-fly queries, limitless what-if scenarios, and testing. Proliferating data, outdated tools, and a rapidly changing market make continuing with the same-old, same-old a strategic mistake. 

The solution? 

An intelligent, scalable, and comprehensive cloud-based planning platform that gives you the power you need to support the sophisticated and robust financial planning, modelling, and analytics modern businesses require.

Cloud-based CPM applications for enterprise planning, financial consolidation, management and regulatory reporting, and budgeting and planning analytics are implemented by us to address the challenges faced by clients dealing with unwieldy Excel spreadsheets and the need for autonomous IT operations.

Companies often try to use a single product to support business processes that are very different. Still, it is essential to note that software vendors often promote their solutions as one-size-fits-all. When encountering such claims, it is crucial to consider that there is typically a conceptual alignment with an all-purpose platform. You should be wary of the very high costs that come with these sites. Frequently, this stems from a lack of understanding regarding how modern technologies effectively support various business processes. We have seen companies spend much money on platforms that aren’t very specialised to solve problems that could have been solved with purpose-built apps for a fraction of the cost. So, in today’s business world, finding the right tool for each business need is more important than ever.

There appears to be considerable confusion surrounding the term “analytics.” Executive stakeholders seek to adopt a cost-effective, platform-centric BI strategy that experiences strong user adoption. However, they often become perplexed by the array of products and terminologies that sound similar when presented by salespeople. To alleviate some of this confusion, it is crucial to understand the fundamental differences between Corporate Performance Management (CPM), Business Intelligence (BI), and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). These three technologies should coexist harmoniously, each serving their respective roles.

ERP – CPM – BI: the definitions per Gartner

a. According to Gartner, CPM is an umbrella term that describes the methodologies, metrics, processes, and systems used to monitor and manage the business performance of an enterprise. The most commonly used functionalities include financial consolidation, reporting and disclosure, budgeting & planning, and analytics.

b. Gartner defines BI as an umbrella term that includes the applications, infrastructure and tools, and best practices that enable access to and analysis of information to improve and optimize decisions and performance. Commonly used functionalities include data discovery, visualization, and big data.

c. ERP applications automate and support a range of administrative and operational business processes across multiple industries, including line of business, customer-facing, administrative and asset management aspects of an enterprise.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is not Corporate Planning Management (CPM)

The company supported CPM functionalities concerning data collection and data validation through the utilisation of ERP technology. Similar to many companies in Singapore, certain overseas subsidiaries employed a different ERP brand compared to the platform utilised at the head office.

Consequently, data collection became a daunting task for these overseas subsidiaries. The monthly reporting had to conform to a journal entry format to align with the corporate ERP. Mapping the local chart of accounts to the corporate chart of accounts and translating the functional currency to the corporate functional currency were carried out using Excel. This resulted in a convoluted process that lacked transparency and was highly susceptible to errors. The overseas subsidiaries had to exert substantial effort to deliver the monthly reporting to the corporate centre. Non-financial reporting, such as headcount figures, had to be generated outside the corporate ERP and typically relied on Excel.

Business Intelligence (BI) is not CPM

A company sought to use BI technology to help CPM support financial unification functions. However, the BI tool could not cope with the currency conversion of equity at a historical cost. Consequently, their worldwide operations always had to recalculate the consolidated equity and especially the currency translation reserve in Excel.

In addition, the BI tool didn’t have any features for process control. Its database would always have the most current data set, so the business centre would always aim at a moving target. Since reported times couldn’t be closed appropriately, corporate reports usually show data that is constantly changing because prices are always changing.

Shearwater & Workday Adaptive Planning

As you can garner, it highlights the importance of addressing the corporation’s business processes, each with the right technology. Neither EPR nor BI is meant for integrated Business Planning & Analytics applications. With prominent CPM solution Workday Adaptive Planning and Shearwater’s professional service, you can enjoy best-in-class enterprise planning software that gives you the unique power to plan, execute, and analyse in one system. You can make better strategic decisions more effectively and achieve greater business efficiency, agility and growth.

Shearwater Group announced it was named a winner of the FY23 Solution Provider of the Year Award – Rising Star by Workday. The awards were announced during the Workday Sales Kick-off on February 28, 2023.

The FY23 Solution Provider of the Year Award – Rising Star acknowledges Asia’s top-performing Workday Adaptive Planning Solution Provider, achieving the most tremendous year-on-year increase in joint business with Workday. Additionally, the award recognizes the provider that has secured the largest Workday Adaptive Planning deal in Japan during Q4. Workday Adaptive Planning is a powerful tool that facilitates ongoing enterprise planning for finance, workforce, sales, and operations.

The Shearwater Group is a company that specializes in business transformation in Asia. They have offices in different parts of the region, including Singapore, Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. With their expertise, they help other companies optimize their performance by utilizing technology. They have dedicated templates for various industries, such as high-growth technology companies, services, distribution, manufacturing, hospitality, and non-governmental organizations. By using Workday Adaptive Planning, businesses can achieve continuous enterprise planning for finance, workforce, sales, and operations and enjoy its benefits soon after implementation.

With extensive industry experience and a wealth of technical skills, the Shearwater Group also helps companies integrate disparate systems into Workday Adaptive Planning by collecting data from multiple sources and giving one comprehensive picture via Workday Adaptive Planning. 

The Shearwater Group is part of the Workday Adaptive Planning Solution Providers Program that delivers deployment services to a customer base of more than 6000 customers.

The direct vs partner riddle is one that most companies encounter when implementing a cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

At the outset, the choice may seem simple. Why work with a partner like PointStar Consulting when a solutions provider, like Oracle NetSuite, is the maker of the software, right? Well, not that simple.

Businesses in the digital age operate using a variety of best-in-class solutions to address the different pain points they face. Meanwhile, direct sellers may not often offer solutions for all your pain points, beyond their realm of speciality.

In an age where high-growth businesses have stacks of solutions to fuel their operations, there is no single “silver-bullet” solution that can resolve the different challenges businesses face. This is when the variety of specialised solutions and services offered by a partner like PointStar Consulting shines through.

1. Financial Digital Transformation Consultancy

Oracle NetSuite provides you with the world’s No. 1 cloud ERP system to manage critical financial processes such as financial planning and budgeting. Oracle NetSuite has been the flag bearer when it comes to financial processes management. It operates fully on the cloud, offers a robust financial management solution for high volumes of transactions, and automates tedious processes.

Meanwhile, PointStar Consulting provides businesses on a high-growth trajectory with a comprehensive suite of specialised financial cloud solutions that complement Oracle NetSuite. These include solutions such as BlackLine that help accommodate high-value, high-volume transactions by automating bank reconciliations and accelerating the financial close process. 

PointStar Consulting also has strong partnerships with a variety of cloud solutions providers that specialise in other accounting and financial processes management, such as PyanGo, which provides automated budgetary control for users of the Oracle NetSuite cloud ERP system, and Netgain, which is a built-for-Oracle Netsuite native regulatory compliance software that helps companies, especially those in the leasing business to adhere to standards such as IFRS 16, ASC 842, and GASB 87.

2. Presence cutting across different countries and regions

One of the primary benefits of working with a partner is that they have a presence in the region that you are based in, if not the country. PointStar Consulting, for instance, has a presence in Singapore, where it is headquartered, but also in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, China, and Taiwan. While the direct software maker may be available in many regions, partners still carry out the implementation. The competence, experience, and reputation of the partner implementing the Oracle NetSuite cloud ERP system is extremely important as it is a complex and costly undertaking with far-reaching benefits.

The key takeaway here is that when you engage in the services of a stellar local partner, you often experience the intimacy of being served by a team of consultants whom you can always rely on when you need help. Partners like PointStar Consulting also have extensive experience and regional understanding that is decisive as they understand the problems that businesses face that may be unique to the region or country that they are operating in.

3. Comprehensive Set of Solutions Bundled Together to Address Your Different Pain Points

When working directly with a software developer, you will quickly realise that their expertise, while impressive, is limited to the products that they sell. Whereas, for a partner like PointStar Consulting – with 14 years of experience in various countries – the breadth and depth of solutions offered are wide and deep.  

PointStar Consulting offers a variety of cloud systems that, when bundled together, offer you a comprehensive solution to address your different pain points. Our partnership with Workato enables businesses to integrate their stack and unleash automation at scale. Workato’s low-code, no-code platform enables businesses to integrate the different solutions critical to the operations of their business with very little technical expertise required. 

Meanwhile, our partnership with BlackLine helps us deliver a cloud accounting solution that builds on Oracle NetSuite’s robust financial features to automate reconciliations and significantly reduce financial close time.

4. Extensive Experience

The experience of serving customers in Asia for over 14 years has also allowed PointStar Consulting to develop a keen understanding of the common business challenges in the region, and the shortcomings and strengths of different systems. This allows PointStar Consulting to seek partners whose solutions complement Oracle NetSuite and identify gaps to offer a comprehensive solution that addresses a company’s different pain points. 

While it continues to provide stellar services to its Oracle NetSuite customers as evidenced through its dedicated customer success division, PointStar Consulting has also solidified its position as the one-stop consultancy that businesses go to when they undertake their financial digital transformation. 

Our presence at the local level also allows us to hire highly skilled locally-based consultants, who understand your unique needs.

For all their use of modern technology to deliver ease of use to consumers, many fintech businesses still find themselves manually managing their back office processes. These processes are riddled with human errors and data duplications. 

The cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is one that is at the forefront of technologies that are helping businesses automate manual processes and introduce operational efficiencies.

Automation of key financial processes – The manual management of data through spreadsheets result in human errors and data duplication. Mistakes like this can delay financial close time, and affect the financial standing of fintechs, in addition to resulting in costly fines by regulatory authorities. This puts the onus on fintechs to equip themselves with the best that cloud technology has to offer. 

Cloud ERP systems help businesses automate key processes such as bank reconciliations, helping fintechs accelerate their close times. Endeavours such initial public offering (IPO) require businesses to rigorously report their finances. Cloud ERPs deliver robust financial reporting functionalities that ensure fintechs are well prepared for an IPO.

Multi-company Financial Consolidation – Fintechs need cloud solutions that can help deliver a consolidated and global view of all their businesses and subsidiaries in different countries. Cloud ERP systems are equipped with global financial management tools that deliver visibility, and are also preconfigured to cater to different currencies, and languages.

Hardly a day goes by without regulatory authorities mulling the imposition of new regulations on fintech businesses. Cloud ERP systems are also preconfigured to enable financial reporting according to global regulatory requirements, ensuring fintechs seamlessly manage their finance on one platform serving as a single source of truth.

Scalability – Fintech businesses operate in an industry that is presently primed for growth. Unfortunately, legacy systems and other small scale solutions do not have the ability to accomodate the often meteoric growth prospects of fintech.

Fintechs will quickly realise that a system that is built to handle 50 users may never be able to handle 500 users. Cloud ERP systems, due to the virtue of their architecture, cloud ERP systems allow fintechs to scale in parallel to their growth. You can often add users and customise the system in line with the growth of your business.

360-degree, real-time visibility – The financial markets that fintech businesses operate in can often be highly disruptive and volatile. The suite of different, best-in-class solutions that fintechs use can sometimes resemble a mountainous stack. Oftentimes these systems are not integrated, do not talk to each other, and end up in silos, greatly diminishing the value of data.

Cloud ERP systems offer robust integration functionalities that can help the different solutions that fintech businesses use, giving business owners a 360-degree, real-time view of their business processes and customers. This can significantly aid fintech businesses in unlocking key insights that can fuel their growth.

When facing mounting challenges posed by an increasingly disruptive marketplace, and also a volatile global business environment, there is little time to stop and think of ways to resolve problems, or innovate.

Cloud solutions such as an ERP system are equipped with robust forecasting tools that enable businesses to plan for their future. A cloud ERP solution also unifies data and provides fintechs with key insights for business growth. The real-time nature of the data you receive with cloud ERP solutions enables you to have your finger on the pulse and respond quickly to changing market or consumer trends.

In an age where remote working and work-from-home (WFH) have spawned their own jargon, it may sound a little out of place to accentuate the crucial role that the physical presence of people can have on businesses. 

Yet, Oracle NetSuite partners had learned long ago that theirs is an industry where direct, face-to-face, physical interaction with customers goes a long way towards delivering top-notch services to clients.

An Oracle NetSuite partner that serves various countries will always find itself in good stead. The experience of serving different markets, and helping customers implement the Oracle NetSuite cloud ERP system strengthens a partner’s knowledge of its customers locally. It also allows Oracle NetSuite partners to identify gaps in the solution they provide and venture into partnerships to fill these gaps and offer comprehensive solutions.

To ensure a successful venture to a market abroad, successful Oracle NetSuite partners often invest heavily in hiring local talent who provide intimacy and can relate to their clients’ needs.

Michelle Alphonso, CEO of PointStar Consulting, says knowing a product well enough alone is no guarantee of success. 

“We have learned that it is not enough just to know the product well, but it is important to have a local team,” said Michelle at the Oracle Netsuite Asia Conference 2022 recently.

“You do need to invest when you go out into different countries and encounter different cultures and languages. This will not just help you succeed in closing sales, but also ensure successful implementation of projects.”

Meanwhile, at the same event, PointStar Consulting bagged Oracle NetSuite’s Asia Solutions Provider Partner of the Year FY22, Asean New Logo Rockstar Award FY22, and Asean Top ARR Award FY22 honours.

Michelle paid tribute to the PointStar Consulting staff for their efforts, and added that Oracle NetSuite is an extension of the PointStar Consulting team as both have been working together for 11 years now.

“This award came about because of the hard work of the entire PointStar Consulting team. This is a team that has grown quite big over the years. So this award is really from all the hardwork from the guys in PointStar Consulting covering Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Shearwater for Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan markets,” she said.

“PointStar Consulting was one of the first partners of Oracle NetSuite in the region, and we grew up together with Oracle NetSuite. I see the Oracle NetSuite family as an extension of us because we have been working together for so long.” 

Startups operate in a highly competitive and disruptive business environment. The quantum leap in technology has made disruption the norm, creating a “survival of the fittest” business environment where agile companies that can quickly respond to change, survive and thrive.

At the heart of most successful startups lie cloud solutions that facilitate automation of critical processes, and simplify workflows, enabling business owners to focus on growing their businesses. In a digital age business world that has taken further beatings from the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, companies have the privilege of being blessed with a variety of cloud solutions to choose from that can introduce operational efficiencies. 

The cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is a leading solution that helps businesses automate manual processes, integrate data from disparate sources to provide a single source of truth. 

Below we look at some of the challenges that startups face and how a cloud ERP system helps these startups overcome them.

1. Address Financial Reporting Issues Before IPO 

Hardly a day goes by without regulatory authorities around the world pondering on imposing new requirements on how companies report their finances. As businesses come under heavy scrutiny from regulatory authorities, manually handling tedious financial processes can result in costly fines if errors are found. 

Initial public offerings (IPO) are the sort of endeavours that require stringent oversight of the financial reporting processes. A cloud ERP system helps businesses automate these processes and ensure businesses are IPO-ready through its robust financial reporting standards that include compliance with IFRS, and GAAP, to name a few.

2. Data Silos Due to Lack of Integration

It is common for most startups to have a stack consisting of different best-in-class solutions to address different pain points. However, as your business grows, you will quickly realise that having data from multiple sources strips away the power of data. To make well-informed decisions and unlock critical insights, you need a solution that integrates the different solutions in your operations, and offer you a 360-degree, unified view of all your business processes. 

A cloud ERP system is equipped with solid API capabilities that allow you to integrate other solutions, have one single source of truth, and also prevent you from having data silos. What’s more, cloud ERP systems also provide startup businesses with a real-time view of all their customers and business processes. This ensures business owners have their fingers on the pulse, to respond swiftly to changing market conditions and consumer demands.

3. Unable to Get a Consolidated View of Subsidiaries

Companies who expand and have a presence in other countries often find it difficult to standardise business processes, in addition to manually managing data from subsidiaries. This process causes data duplication and human errors.

Intercompany financial consolidation is a crucial element of managing companies with subsidiaries. Having a unified view of the business processes and financial health of your various subsidiaries helps you make well-informed decisions. A cloud ERP system offers robust intercompany consolidation functions that not just help you run your company effectively, but also help you unlock critical insights to aid your strategic decision-making.

4. Unable to Scale When Workforce Grows 

Startups on a high-growth trajectory often realise the difference between accommodating a workforce of 10 staff and a workforce of 100 staff quickly. As your headcount increases, ensuring all your staff comply with your business processes becomes increasingly tedious. 

By virtue of its architecture, cloud ERPs are built for growth as they are highly scalable and allow you to quickly accommodate your increasing workforce while ensuring total compliance with your time-honoured business processes.

Conclusion

Startups today operate in volatile times. Being agile allows startups to respond quickly to changing market demands. Integration helps startups unlock new insights. Automation of manual accounting processes and robust financial reporting solutions ensure startups are more than adequately prepared for an IPO. 

Predictive analytics has emerged as one of the key components of efficient management of the supply chain. If you are a startup involved in retail, or other areas that require warehousing, chances are you may have experienced a deeply troubled time of late. 

A cloud ERP system is one that caters to a wide-array of industries. It is now more important than ever for startup businesses on the high-growth trajectory to implement a robust business management solution such as a cloud ERP system.

There is plenty to admire in the longevity and vitality of the manufacturing industry as one of the most enduring and vibrant sectors in propelling economic growth. One of the key drivers behind the success of this industry is its continuous evolution, growing in parallel with the quantum leap in technology.

The nascent manufacturing industry was characterised by workers slogging away to meet manufacturing demand, which in turn was driven by consumer demand for certain products. However, the turn of the 21st century ushered in a period of significant advancement which saw manufacturing shed its image as a heavy-duty, cheap-labour, product-churning juggernaut, to become an industry driven by cutting-edge technology, providing high-income jobs, catering to an endless stream of new demand brought about by the various by-products of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR4.0), such as the Internet of Things (IoT), automation, and artificial intelligence (AI).

In Singapore, the manufacturing industry makes up between 20% and 25% of the island nation’s GDP. The Singapore government has signalled its intention to get fully onboard the advanced manufacturing sector by setting a target to grow this industry by 50% over the next 10 years. 

“Beyond the 50% increase in value, we want to see a greater proportion of our manufacturing going into advanced manufacturing, where the competition is not based on cost but based on the intellectual property that we can generate, the quality of the products and the precision that we can provide for the sector,” said Singapore’s Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing, earlier this year.

The Hitachi Solutions’ research titled 11 Trends That Will Dominate Manufacturing in 2021 predicts IoT to become one of the dominant technologies in the manufacturing sector, driven by its ability to enable factories to make informed decisions using real-time data. A third of production mechanisms incorporate smart devices, with 34% of manufacturers indicating their intentions to incorporate IoT into their processes and 32% of companies planning to embed it into their products. 

The production of semiconductor devices is expected to further fuel the growth of the manufacturing industry. This is largely driven by digital-age necessities such as the prevalence of semiconductors in everything we use in our daily lives such as mobile phones and computers. In addition to this, manufacturers are also increasingly becoming cognizant of their responsibilities towards the environment, as exemplified by the increased importance placed on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices.

As manufacturers transition from a labour-intensive environment to a high-skilled working environment, there is plenty that cloud solutions have to offer to optimise their workforce and operate efficiently. Manufacturers are increasingly finding themselves operating in a highly competitive environment where early adopters of technology are reaping the full benefits of the digital revolution. The emphasis on ESG also requires manufacturers to make full use of technology in order to operate in an environmentally sustainable manner. 

Below we look at how cloud technology in its present form can help manufacturers compete on an international level and carve out a niche for themselves.

Total Visibility and Single Source of Truth

The Deloitte 2022 Manufacturing Industry Outlook underlines visibility as an imperative capability for manufacturers in the post-Covid-19 world. As illustrated by the recent supply chain bottlenecks, having best in class technologies such as a cloud ERP system can help businesses deal with the uncertainties unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Cloud systems offer manufacturers unprecedented visibility over their business and act as a single source of truth. 

Easy Low-Code/No-Code Integrations

Manufacturing businesses often deal with various stakeholders such as distributors, vendors, and suppliers who use different business solutions. Having a dedicated IT team to deal with each and every system that a factory encounters can be a tedious, costly and heavily time-consuming process. Systems integration solutions provide manufacturing businesses with easy low-code/no-code integrations that in turn enable workflow automation.

CRM

Cloud solutions offer manufacturers a real-time, 360-degree view of their customers. They also offer solutions that provide manufacturing businesses with a seamless flow of information cutting across the entire customer lifecycle, from lead through opportunity, sales order, fulfilment, renewal, upsell, cross-sell and support.

Product Data Management

Product-based cloud solutions come equipped with robust functionalities to help manufacturers create and manage master data critical in the running of manufacturing, entailing items, customers, partners, and vendors.

Order Management

In a fast-paced, digital business environment, manufacturers need solutions that can help them respond swiftly to consumer demands. Solutions such as intelligent order management systems help businesses automate order processing, allocation, orchestration, and execution processes that are critical when operating in a global business environment. 

Planning and Scheduling

Planning and scheduling is now a pivotal component for all manufacturing businesses. Planning and scheduling help companies to correctly estimate the allocation of resources, operations and processes required in order to create goods and services. Cloud manufacturing software can help manufacturers perform real-time scheduling, which helps their companies operate efficiently. 

Procurement

For product-based manufacturing businesses, it is of vital importance that key components in the production process are in adequate supply. The recent pandemic only further highlighted the importance of manufacturing companies to equip themselves with the best that cloud solutions can offer. These solutions ensure that manufacturers are equipped with the right materials, at the right time and at the right place.

Production Control

With manufacturers’ wide array of systems, businesses can create, release, update, and monitor work orders throughout their production process. Best in class solutions for manufacturing give businesses the flexibility to manage their production process exactly the way they want and ensure the production process fits their facilities and data requirements.

Supply Chain Management

Hardly a day goes by without news of supply chain bottlenecks causing mayhem in different parts of the world and creating massive inconveniences for customers. In an increasingly uncertain world where Covid-19 is an endemic disease, businesses do not have a choice but to deploy best in class technology that will help them navigate through choppy waters. Cloud technology for the manufacturing industry ensures that the concept of where your product is manufactured and who it is manufactured by becomes irrelevant. These solutions give businesses a global view of all their inventory, regardless of where it is or who it is being consumed by.

Shop Floor Control

Shop floor control (SFC) is a set of software that helps manufacturing companies track, schedule, and report on the progress of work in a manufacturing plant.  The selection of cloud solutions available in the market will help manufacturing businesses easily gather real-time information from the manufacturing process through user-configurable tablet applications that allow users to optimise the system on the fly. 

Quality Management

Delivering products of the highest quality to customers is often the purpose of any business, and this requires the combination of company-wide commitment to the cause and the usage of top-notch technologies. Quality management systems come with features that help businesses define and maintain inspection plans and deliver high-quality products with minimal overhead.

In this article we look at how digital transformation is gathering pace and we also take a look at how Oracle NetSuite compares against its competitors.

The quantum leap in technology in the last 20 years has driven the meteoric rise of E-commerce  and other digital businesses. If anything, the Covid-19 pandemic served as a bolt from the blue for companies who are yet to undertake digital transformation. 

While plenty of column inches are often dedicated to news on consumer technology, the same cannot be said about enterprise technology which serves as the unsung hero facilitating the seamless delivery of products or services to customers.

For businesses in the digital age, these technologies are not an option anymore but a necessity. To respond quickly to changing customer needs, companies need to be agile and equip themselves with cloud software solutions that offer scalability, in addition to helping them automate key processes. 

In an ocean of software solutions in the enterprise technology market, ERP is one of the most important systems at the heart of businesses. ERP stands for enterprise resource planning, and it helps companies consolidate disparate systems in their organisation, to deliver a unified view of their businesses.

A result of the evolution from the material requirements planning (MRP) system originally intended to serve the manufacturing industry, ERP systems have come to symbolise the efficient running of businesses through their ability to integrate disparate systems and automate key processes. The ERP in its modern incarnation is a robust system made to handle complex transactions as required by the E-commerce environment. 

The global ERP market is expected to be worth US$47.9 billion by 2023, up from US$33.6 billion in 2017. A Gartner study reveals cloud ERP as the leading investment priority for businesses, with 64% of companies indicating plans for implementation in the next three years.

Ninety-seven per cent of businesses have cited improvements in operational efficiency as the key benefit of ERP implementations, followed by improved reporting and visibility (86%) and an increase in growth and competitiveness (68%). 

NetSuite’s early foray into the ERP market has made it a leader in the field. The Oracle NetSuite ERP system is used by 27,000 customers worldwide and is widely recognised as the only true-cloud ERP system. Although Oracle NetSuite has always had its competitors, in recent years, more and more software solutions providers have emerged to add stiff competition to the market, in addition to providing customers with the luxury of choice. 

Below we pit Oracle NetSuite against its closest rivals and look at how NetSuite’s strengths as the only true-cloud ERP provider ensures it stands in good stead to deliver customers with unprecedented visibility of their businesses, in addition to helping them automate workflows. 

Oracle NetSuite vs Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Built for cloud and experience

The most important differentiator that elevates Oracle NetSuite above Business Central is the fact that NetSuite is an ERP system that is built solely for cloud, making it the only true-cloud player in this market. The Business Central ERP system in its present incarnation is not a system that was built for cloud, but is merely an iteration of the on-premises Navision (NAV) system. 

The Business Central ERP only came into existence in 2018, making it a relative novice when compared to NetSuite which has been around for more than 20 years. As an evolution of NAV,  Business Central was not built in a single line of code, making it a rigid system that is not easily customisable, making the availability of a unified view of your company difficult. 

Robust suite of solutions

Oracle NetSuite comes with a comprehensive suite of solutions that cover a diverse range of functions in a business such as customer relationship management (CRM), finance and accounting, warehouse management and a whole host of others. 

Although Business Central comes with native CRM components, it is less robust when compared to Oracle NetSuite, and often requires its customers to spend extra money to purchase additional modules.

User-friendly, no-code customisations for advanced reporting

Many customers of Business Central still use Microsoft’s Excel spreadsheets for their bookkeeping. This results in the manual entry of data, a process that is often riddled with human errors. The basic Power BI licence that users of Business Central are given is limited in its functionality and customers often have to fork out additional sums of money to purchase the Power BI Pro licence. In addition to this, users of Power BI require a basic understanding of the data analytics expression (DAX) programming language. This often results in the need for most users to seek technical expertise.

Oracle NetSuite, on the other hand, is equipped with reporting functionalities that arms finance and accounting teams with powerful tools to analyse and display data. Users are also given the flexibility to customise reports according to their needs with their desired layouts. This helps companies unlock new insights on their businesses which assists them in strategic decision-making. These customisations can be easily made by the end-user without the need for coding or any other form of technical expertise.

Multi company consolidation

Oracle NetSuite’s OneWorld allows businesses with subsidiaries or companies who operate in multiple locations to consolidate their data in one system to provide a single source of truth. OneWorld supports 27 languages, and 190 currencies. It has also been deployed in more than 200 countries and dependent territories, and it is adjusted for taxes and reporting in more than 100 countries, with more than 90 bank payments formats. 

Business Central is not an ERP solution that is targeted at providing solutions for multi-country consolidation. It is a system that operates in silo and lacks native financial consolidation ability. Users of Microsoft Dynamics will need either multiple spreadsheets or invest in separate Business Central accounts in order to accommodate the demands of multi company consolidation. 

Oracle NetSuite vs SAP Business One (SAP B1)

Ease of customisation

Users of the Oracle NetSuite system can benefit from its low-code/no-code modes of customisation that allows users to make changes to the system according to their needs without being involved in the heavy lifting act of coding. 

The SAP Business One, on the other hand, requires the services of a technical expert when its users wish to customise the system to suit their business needs. This can sometimes result in the incurrence of additional costs.

Scalability

By virtue of its agile cloud infrastructure, the Oracle NetSuite is a system that future-proofs your business by allowing you to add functionalities as and when required, in line with your business growth. NetSuite’s native financial consolidation facilitates the smooth management of multi company management. 

As a system that was initially built for less than 350 employees, the performance of the SAP B1 system goes on a downward spiral the moment the number of users exceeds the stated amount. As businesses expand, the need arises to have in place a system that would be able to handle complex transactions. The limitation of SAP B1 is thrust to the spotlight through shortcomings such as its inability to use multiple datasets as sources. Complaints levelled at the system often centre around a muddled user interface (UI) and also on a data model that lacks intuition. For businesses on the cusp of rapid growth, using the SAP B1 is akin to taking a pitchfork to a gunfight.

Robust Reporting 

Oracle NetSuite’s robust reporting functionalities serve very well for businesses in the digital age for whom valuable data can help them edge ahead of their competitors. NetSuite’s powerful native and end-user configurable reports and analytics means customers can put together customised reports with drill down and drill through from summary to detailed levels.

SAP B1 customers are required to get additional software called SAP Crystal Reports in order for them to be able to customise their reports. However, technical skills are required if maximum benefit is to be reaped from using Crystal Reports. This puts customers at a disadvantage as not all of them are tech savvy, meaning there will be a need to get the services of an expert to help customers get the reports they want. Inevitably this will incur additional costs.

Multi-company consolidation

The benefits of Oracle NetSuite’s OneWorld have been espoused in the earlier comparison with Business Central. The OneWorld enables businesses to consolidate multi-company financials, in addition to benefiting from a solution that is built to ensure businesses adhere to the regulatory requirements that are imposed for operating in different countries. Meanwhile SAP B1 requires one or more add ons, that will incur additional costs, in order for its systems to be able to offer multi company consolidation. 

Oracle NetSuite vs Sage Intacct

Financials

Oracle NetSuite offers the perfect cloud ERP system to customers whose businesses are at the stage of maturity where it is now time for them to wean off their dependence on spreadsheets and move on to more robust reporting solutions. Statistics bear testament to this, where “of the last 100 technology-focused IPOs, 65 were NetSuite customers”. 

While the upfront cost of purchasing Sage Intacct may be lower, users may soon find that Sage’s licensing structure means that the solution that customers get when they implement the Intacct ERP system can often be out of its depth when it is required to handle complex transactions. In order for Intacct’s customers to utilise functions such as value-added tax compliance and advanced reporting, they will need to fork out extra money to purchase additional modules.

Multi company consolidation

The need to have at your disposal multi company consolidation solutions is not anymore confined to corporate behemoths with subsidiaries all over the world. E-commerce businesses are increasingly shipping their products to different parts of the world and it is now of paramount importance that they are equipped with a system that will help them adhere to regulatory requirements imposed by the countries they are selling their products in. The Oracle NetSuite ERP system supports 27 languages and 190 currencies, and it is also adjusted for taxes and reporting in more than 100 countries, with more than 90 bank payments formats.

The limitations of Sage Intacct becomes clear quickly very early on as this system only supports English and thus, does not have a considerable presence outside of English-speaking nations. In addition to this, each business entity requires separate licenses, and access to real-time data becomes a challenge due to the subledger architecture of Intacct.  

CRM

The Sage Intacct does not have a native CRM solution, instead relying on integration with Salesforce.com. Meanwhile, Oracle Netsuite comes with its own in-built CRM suite that performs sales force automation, customer service engagement and marketing automation. Its reputation speaks for itself,  having bagged the CRM Solution of the Year accolade at the Cloud Awards 2018-2019.

Reports and dashboards

Both Oracle NetSuite and Sage Intacct come equipped with pre-built reports and dashboards, presenting customers with analytics and business intelligence. However, Intacct’s options are limited to 69 pre-built reports, as opposed to the 200 provided by Netsuite.

Sage Intacct does offer a report writer that gives users the ability to combine operational and financial data, although this is hamstrung by the fact that extra costs will be incurred for this. NetSuite’s pre-built dashboards also come with real-time data that is sorted by role and industry.

In a Nutshell

In an increasingly disruptive business environment, companies that are able to use technology to simplify their workflow will benefit best. The business intelligence that the Oracle NetSuite cloud ERP system offers will help businesses unlock critical insights for strategic decision-making. 

Oracle NetSuite also benefits significantly from its glowing reputation in the global ERP market. 

For companies that use multiple systems to manage their business processes, it will be pleasing to note that most business processes solutions come with the “built for NetSuite” tag, enabling low-code/no-code integrations. This provides companies with an unprecedented view of their businesses. 

Oracle NetSuite’s true-cloud platform is one that is built for growth. Its flexible architecture ensures scalability, giving businesses the liberty of adding features or customising the system according to their business needs.