Disparate vs complete systems

When starting your dream business, growth doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of hard work, time and drive to build and sustain a successful business. One of the things many new businesses find difficult, or sometimes do not consider at all, is finding an information system that will support the entire enterprise, both now and into the future.

Many companies initially opt for systems to cater for a specific need or business function, and continue to add new systems to their business as it grows. The result is multiple, disparate systems that are designed to operate on their own. Integrating all the data can be difficult and expensive, and can often cause efficiency issues down the line. Real-time vision of business activity is compromised and uncovering business insights becomes slow and time consuming.

The alternative is to opt for a ‘complete’ solution that allows organisational data to be housed and managed in a single, central system. These all-in-one systems are designed to manage end-to-end business processes and collect all data from activities across the entire business.

They provide business managers with increased efficiency and organisation, as well as the ability to monitor business growth. This white paper will look at the benefits of complete systems, as well as explore some of the key problems disparate systems create.

Running multiple disparate systems — what is the real cost?

Data integrity is critical for any business — being able to accurately maintain important company information is essential. Disparate systems make it difficult for businesses to access real-time information and business insights.

Operational efficiency is also impacted with duplicated data entry and management, and data integrity is reduced due to more exposure to human error.

Typically, larger businesses with multiple disparate systems find themselves in a position where they are slower to identify and act on important business information.

Some other disadvantages disparate systems could be bringing to your business include:

• Wasted employee productivity;
• Lack of real-time visibility;
• Integration complexity and cost;
• Higher cost of customer acquisition.

For any business, controlling and containing costs is paramount. Not having the right systems that can scale with your business can inhibit growth as well as profitability.

What is a complete system and how will I benefit?

Complete systems, as opposed to disparate or integrated systems, are solutions that are built within another. There is no need for integration or sharing of data, as all of the information is held and managed centrally.

Complete systems have a number of other benefits that improve business functionality. They include:

• No data migration required. Data is automatically carried over to the new system, reducing input time and duplication of work.
• No re-keying data or maintaining data between two systems required. With a single system solution, information doesn’t need to be maintained across multiple systems as all data is housed centrally.
• Field service management (FSM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems work seamlessly together. Investing in one central system means your FSM and ERP systems work seamlessly together, allowing your field service technicians to access your ERP on location.
• Reduced IT costs. Complete systems reduce IT costs as you avoid having multiple vendors, maintenance agreements and upgrade costs.
• Other reduced costs. A single system solution results in improved employee efficiency and can even lead to a reduction in the number of staff required to maintain and manage the database.

The system in action — Headland Machinery

Headland Machinery has over 60 years’ experience in the manufacturing and wholesale distribution industries. The family-owned business has certainly come face to face with the negative impacts disparate systems have on business functionality.

Headland’s number one priority is customer service. The company provides services and support throughout the complete lifecycle of their customer’s machinery — from sale to operational availability, productivity and usage optimisation, and finally to redeployment once the machine is replaced. With over 25 service technicians assisting customers around Australia, finding a solution that would enable the company to manage and deliver timely, high-quality customer service was of paramount importance.

From 2004 to 2007, Headland tried and tested multiple service management systems, at one stage running three systems simultaneously in order to gain organisational efficiencies. Richard Kloe, managing director of Headland Machinery, said implementing a number of systems caused significant issues to the operations of the business.

“We experienced a number of pain points, such as the duplication of work, additional administration functions, cost of systems management and IT support required,” says Kloe.

It wasn’t until the company chose to implement NetSuite’s cloud-based solution that things began to turn around. Although Headland minimised the number of systems it was using to two, there was still a need to find a system that would assist with field service management (FSM).

The FSM solution at the time worked, but not well enough. The company needed a system that could communicate with its ERP; keep track of customer needs; assist the accounts department, which was struggling to keep ahead of the manual invoicing; and, most importantly, manage the service technicians. This is when the company decided a complete system was essential.

Headland employed the services of a software development team to build a custom solution within the NetSuite architecture. NextService was created to fill the void that other software couldn’t fill. This cloud-based solution utilises the NetSuite platform, offering service technicians full access to the company’s ERP system, accessing customer details in an instant. Not only did it provide a field service management solution, it also gave Headland Machinery a 360° view of the business.

The NextService software features a scheduler that has enabled service managers to monitor and visually see the progress of each job a technician is at. The software’s mobility function allows technicians to be able to finalise invoices with a touch of a button.

This complete system improved productivity and increased efficiency. Headland’s ROI was in excess of $320K in the first year and has allowed the company to grow. The seamless flow between the two solutions enables the company to manage its technicians, increase employee productivity and, all importantly, see the areas of growth within the company.

“NextService delivers Headland’s scheduling of maintenance and repair work, project installations [and] breakdown support with increased speed and clarity, ultimately benefiting the customer with greater accuracy, faster response and problem resolution,” Kloe says.

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