REASONSWhy ERP is the only way to future proof your business6

The fresh food industry evolves constantly as demands, regulations, seasons and harvests change. Consequently, the supply chain must be dynamic and agile to enable proactive or reactive modifications to be made.

Increasingly, any discussion about evolution in the fresh food supply chain must also encapsulate evolution of specialist IT systems, the use of which is becoming ever more widespread within the sector.

IT and technology is the driving force behind the evolution of food production, processing and distribution. Within the context of continual evolution, food producers now must take steps to ‘future-proof’ their processes, evading the trap of becoming purely reactionary in updating systems and processes and avoid being left behind.

With a relentless stream of new updates,

apps, and technology to keep up with, IT systems can quickly become outdated.

Food organisations should avoid a scenario where they have ended up with a ‘Frankenstein’ IT system, comprising of lots of separate parts, barely connected, and unable to communicate with each other.

INTRODUCTIONThe journey fresh food takes from the farm via food retailers to our plate changes on an almost daily basis.

Farm

Retailers

WITH DEMAND

Demand is growing, both on and offline. Customers and retailers expect producers to act fast, to have access to data

at all times, and for everyone in the supply chain to have instantaneous access to the information they need.

In a mobile-first world, employees expect to have mobile access to business information from wherever they are from their chosen device. This ability is imperative in a fresh-food

industry characterised by workers operating from remote locations.

As demand for quick responses grows from retailers, so this demand also manifests itself within fresh-food supply chain businesses. Workers need real-time updates, reports, KPI’s,

traceability, QC and inventory information on the go.

The future points towards cloud systems, mobile access, and using

‘big data’ to help streamline business processes and increase efficiencies.

KEEPING UP

WHY

ERP can help support and help support the growth of businesses by providing a single platform for collecting, storing and retrieving company-wide real time business management data.

ERP is currently helping fresh-food organisations move from the physical to the digital by cutting out paper-based processes.

With ERP software, efficiency is dramatically increased so that efforts can be poured into marketing, product development, innovation and growth!

ERP?The aim of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is to speed up information flow through the business; minimising errors, increasing efficiencies, lowering costs.

WORLD-CLASS TECHNOLOGIESERP USES

LINKFRESH ERP enhances Microsoft Dynamics Supply Chain and Manufacturing capabilities with specific functionality providing

solutions to key industry issues and requirements. It enables companies in the food industry to accelerate the velocity of

their supply chains. Microsoft Dynamics is the ideal, real-time-technology base to address the rapidly changing requirements of

the food-supply-chain sector.

Swamped IT departments are currently bottlenecked due to demands, and cloud hosting is helping to lighten the load. A

leading, specialist provider, such as Microsoft, is a very safe bet for well supported cloud hosting. Any innovations made by Microsoft

will also benefit your company.

In addition, the Microsoft Dynamics platform allows us to develop mobile iPhone, iPad and Android apps for your business.

LINKFRESH ERP is built on the Microsoft Dynamics ERP platform, and has been developed by specialists from

the food industry to seamlessly integrate with Microsoft Dynamics providing a single solution.

REASON #1

This can create a ‘domino effect’ – when one element changes, you may have to fix or adapt every part of the disconnected system for every change. This can lead to long implementation periods dogged by errors.

Working with disconnected islands of data creates lots of versions of the truth. ERP creates one version of the truth.

Using ERP helps to simplify your systems, getting rid of complex ‘Frankenstein’ systems and deploying standardised functionality across the business. An ERP system is always ready for change and will adapt quickly to any new innovations or requirements – future proofing your business.

ERP empowers businesses to define their own roadmap and drive forward with the innovations that aid growth.

DOMINO EFFECT

AVOID THE

Legacy IT systems struggle to fit together, and consist of several ‘silos’ of data held within software and applications that do not communicate or integrate together when needed.

REASON #2

It works in the hands of everybody, not just managers and IT experts. ERP works with

mobile devices and wearables, such as wrist mounted barcode scanners or smart

watches, and is intuitively designed for ease of use.

Because our technology is developed by experts in the fresh food industry, we have

taken every member of the food supply chain into consideration – from those who working in fields, to those in factories and

those who transport the produce.

For example, parts of our user interface is designed specifically for those who wear

thick gloves and can operate across a multi-lingual workforce.

CAN USE ITEVERYONE

LINKFRESH ERP is designed so that every employee in the food supply chain can use it easily.

REASON #3

The news has recently been awash with stories of data leaks and hackings, often of customer details or financial data.

The Microsoft stack provides a secure choice, with anti-virus, upgrade and patching support included.

ERP also gives a company complete control over who has access to which data. Specific role tailored user profiles can control access to data based on job function. Those working on each part of the food supply chain can access exactly the information they need, while other parts of the system remain protected.

SECUREERP ISWhen thinking about the future, security is a hot topic.

REASON #4

For example, we can look at the way ERP has effectively adapted to the rise of wearable technology – a development in fresh-food chain technology set to

dominate the industry in 2016 and beyond.

ERP provides support for wearables such as wrist mounted scanners, and ‘smart’ products such as the

latest weigh-scales.

ERP can also integrate and collect data from a third party. For example,

location based services such as GPS mapping can be used on an iPhone or

iPad to record the location of workers in the field.

ERP INTEGRATESWITH EVERYTHING

REASON #5

ERP has a proven track record when it comes to seamlessly adapting to the

very latest developments.

For example, if a major supermarket makes a change to its supplier specifications, or delivery process, these can easily be incorporated into your solution.

Our food industry specialists also focus on issues that are affecting the supply chain and evolving our ERP to help solve them. A current focus is on audit-ready end to end traceability and enhanced inventory management.

As the age of the ‘Internet of Things’ dawns, our focus now falls to incorporating connectivity and technology to tools used in the food supply chain. As real-time data and tracking grows in importance and paperwork dwindles, ERP software evolves alongside technology to keep your supply chain up to date and running smoothly.

ERP ALWAYS HAS THEFUTURE IN ITS SIGHTSERP reacts very quickly to change.

REASON #6

CONCLUSIONERP systems can bring increased

business and personnel efficiencies, lower costs, improved profit margins, and

benefit your competitive advantage and customer service.

As the digital age has progressed, generic enterprise software solutions have been largely abandoned in favour of solutions

that reflect the unique demands of an industry or particular firm, with room for customisation.

The impressive range of supply chain functionality and flexibility in the LINKFRESH food supply chain software allows a solution to be configured to suit your specific requirements and business

processes, while preparing your business to embrace future developments in technology.