We’re welcoming our partners Patchworks to the table today to share their wisdom on why integrating your Business Intelligence and NetSuite is an absolute must-do for your retail operations. Take it away Patchworks!
Business intelligence (BI) is an essential part of successful eCommerce, but sometimes its importance flies under the radar.
Not only does it show you how your operation is performing, it allows you to create effective, informed action plans to combat problems and boost your profits.
And when you’re using an enterprise resource planning system (ERP) like Netsuite, it’s especially useful for getting the most out of your software integration.
Here’s how a BI tool can help you supercharge your eCommerce business when integrating with NetSuite.
Easily aggregate data across your enterprise
An ERP like Netsuite is one of the most valuable features for any eCommerce business which chooses to implement one. It allows you to manage resources across your entire operation; from finance and sales to HR and payroll.
The problem is, that amount of management produces enormous amounts of data to sift through.
A business analytics tool negates that issue. An effective BI platform will compile all that information into neat sections, easily accessible from a dashboard. From there, you can see an accurate view of each department and form quick business decisions to boost your efficiency.
Make reliable, real-time decisions
Whilst Netsuite ERP offers invaluable historical data and insights, one way a BI tool compliments that is its predictive and real-time capabilities.
That’s because BI captures data and events as and when they happen – so what you’re seeing is a by-the-second up to date perspective of your operation.
That opens up two huge benefits. The first is the ability to make instant, reactive decisions to events in order to maximise profits.
The other is it enables your business to view both your historical ERP reports and present performance in context, allowing you to form predictions of how your business will look in the future. Based on that, you can take appropriate action to fix problems and implement new solutions.
Access to data across the entire enterprise
Even a well-oiled machine isn’t perfect. You could run an efficiently managed operation, but if you’re a large business, it can sometimes be difficult for all of the different components to communicate with each other.
That’s true even when you have an ERP solution. Someone in finance can see, understand, and manage their sector – but might get confused when confronted with data from sales or HR. If you want all of your departments to interact and work together, that can be a problem.
BI alleviates that by compiling massive amounts of data into one spot. That way, anyone authorised across any department will have the same view of that information. Not only that, but the data is concise and easy to understand, so if a report from finance is relevant to your team in HR, you won’t need to squint at the screen for hours trying to understand it.
Free up your team’s time
Hours of work time are spent in data analysis, untangling information – only to spend even more time trying to draw conclusions from that data.
That’s a waste of time and resources which could be spent elsewhere, especially when BI solutions are readily available to counter the issue.
With a BI tool, data collection is automated and everything you need is organised into a dashboard. You’ll still need to look at the data and form business decisions yourself, but the tedious untangling of data is removed and reports are automatically generated.
Better insights into your fulfilment process
Many companies which run their operation with an ERP don’t also have a WMS integrated, instead using the features of their ERP to run their fulfilment.
Although this is an effective business tactic, there’s a few issues that can arise. The most significant is that an ERP typically doesn’t show real-time updates for your warehouse in the same way a WMS does – which can be problematic if you’re running a large and complicated supply chain.
Whilst a BI tool can’t substitute a WMS, what it can do is take the fulfilment data revealed by your ERP and empower you to make more accurate decisions, and provide a better understanding of your supply chain.
If you’re looking for an integration between your NetSuite ERP and a BI tool, Patchworks can offer a free consultation on what you’ll need to move forward.
We’re a dedicated integrations provider, but we’ve also recently released our very own BI tool – Patchworks BI – which is specifically designed for eCommerce businesses to multiply their growth.
Get in touch through our website to chat with a member of our team.
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