Four things to consider when choosing an ERP vendor

July 11, 2019
By Harvest

As the executive of your perishable foods company, you’ve come to the realization that it’s time to upgrade your current supply chain management tools. You are ready to invest in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software because your current software system is no longer keeping up with regulatory requirements, data security, and your need for advanced analytics. So how do you determine the tasks required to select a tool that will support your efforts and scale with your business as you move forward? At Harvest Food Solutions, we want you to know that coming to this realization isn’t unique. There are other executives just like you grappling with these needs and working to define what solutions exist and how they fit into their greater business strategy.</p?>

What is unique, however, is the needs of your perishable foods business. At Harvest, we’ve worked for decades in the perishable foods industry. We know your specific and unique business needs as a process manufacturer and distributor. That’s why we’ve developed ERP solutions that have been created by people who’ve worked in your industry and understand your business model.

As you grow your perishable foods business there are things that you need to consider when choosing your software package, and ultimately, your software vendors. Here are four things that the experts at Harvest want you to consider when choosing to begin the process of choosing an ERP vendor.

ERP Vendor Implementation Experience

Years in development, HarvestERP enables any perishable goods company to optimize, manage, and control every aspect of their operation. Our ERP is built by industry experts with clear implementation guidelines and a strong community of ongoing support. While our competitors use your valuable time to understand your business model, our intimate knowledge of your perishable foods business allows us to focus on outcomes.

When it comes time to implement the ERP software in your business, Harvest has the experience to make the process as easy as possible. We have tools, like Harvest Exchange, available to migrate your data and correlate your business processes into one powerful and robust tool.

With Harvest Exchange in place, we can easily run redundant systems (your old system plus a new Harvest solution), enabling a smooth transition to the new technology. Employing an advanced ETL (Extract, Load, and Transform) will connect to any type of disparate data source you might have.

Cloud vs. On-premise ERP

An extremely important technology factor to consider when choosing your software package is understanding current business trends and forecasting future business needs. A major decision many businesses face is choosing an on-premise-based ERP system versus a cloud-based ERP tool.

An on-premise ERP system is installed and housed on servers located within your physical business location. It requires an in-house IT analyst to manage and maintain the system over several years. The downfall with this type of ERP system is that you need experts on your IT staff trained to successfully troubleshoot and maintain the system.

All of our tools are managed for you and protected in the Cloud. Doing so greatly reduces your up-front investment because there are no servers to deploy and maintain on your end. And who doesn’t like saving money and time? We believe that removing the technical complexities of your ERP empowers you to focus on what is important to grow your business.

 

Scalability and Flexibility with an ERP Vendor

When choosing an ERP vendor you need to consider the ability of the software to scale as your business evolves. Your ERP vendor should have the capacity to accommodate your growth from both a data and a functionality perspective but also from a human resources standpoint.

One way to gauge the scalability of a potential ERP tool is to choose a vendor that has a strong track record in your specific industry. Will the vendor continue to keep up with trends in your industry and ensure the technology continues to thrive alongside your evolving business? That’s where we come in.

Our web-based management software will continue to support your business now and into the future. In addition, your data is protected to the highest level possible and secured by a fully redundant system that does a daily backup of your data. Besides 24/7 data security, our cloud-based solutions offer flexibility unknown to on-premise ERPs. Additionally, it allows us to make necessary upgrades and updates remotely, timely, and efficiently.

Long-term Customer Relationships

Customer relationship management is important to Harvest because we believe that removing technology complexities empowers you to focus on what is important to not only sustain but grow your business.

Our software solution also scales along with your business and continues to offer support, training materials, and tutorials. Whether you have staff turnover and need to train new employees, or just need refresher training for current team members, we are there to work with you to reap the full potential of your ERP tool.

At Harvest Food Solutions we offer purposefully-built solutions specific unique to your business needs. Give us a call today to find out how we can help your business.

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