Collaborative ERP

WHITEPAPER

Moving Beyond Face-To-Face Communication

Workers, on average, spend 65% of a workday collaborating1 and communicating with others. Our daily lives are centered

around chasing down information in email chains, text

messages, notification alerts, and so on. But with so

many remote and mobile workers worldwide, business

relationships—internally and externally—must rely on

technology to keep people connected.

ERP systems often are inaccessible, which leads to backoffice

workarounds and do-it-yourself workflows. Conversations

and tasks are handled through numerous software and

manual channels. But with customers demanding faster and

higher quality service, businesses must evolve and align

their teams if they want to remain competitive. To continue

accelerating your business and adopt new technologies, it’s

crucial to implement a cloud-based ERP solution—an ERP

solution that is optimized for collaboration, built with real-

world communication needs in mind.

A fully integrated collaborative ERP solution connects

you to your customers and everyone else in your company.

It enables your CRM to talk to your ERP. This system

connects sales, service, operations, and accounting data,

and also serves as the single source of truth for your

entire organization. No more going back and forth in email

looking for the correct information; once your systems can

share data, your employees can quickly access the right

information in a central location.

Collaborative ERP means clear visibility both upstream

and downstream—shared access to the right information

for the right people all the time. As technologies evolve

and your efficiencies increase, a collaborative ERP solution

keeps your engine running smoothly.

COLLABORATIVE ERP

Kenandy, Inc. | 303 Twin Dolphin Drive. Redwood City, CA 94065 | 1-855-KENANDY | www.kenandy.com

Communication rarely happens face-to-face anymore. Within your business, it’s likely you

have a multitude of communication channels, depending on what you’re trying to solve, how,

and with whom. This constant juggling of conversations, tasks, and information can be a

huge barrier to productivity.

With true collaborative ERP solutions, information

technology becomes innovation technology.

You can’t afford to ignore collaboration

Collaboration begets efficiency

Around $37 billion are lost annually2 due to employee

misunderstandings and lack of communication. Think

about how often you’ve had to repeat yourself, hunt down

information, or duplicate data because people need it

in different places. Many new technologies aim to solve

unique collaboration problems, but they in turn create new

challenges for their users. This inevitably slows users down,

causing a decrease in productivity.

According to a web poll released by the Computing

Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), the #1 cause of

project failure, cited by nearly 28% of the more than 1,000

survey respondents, was poor communication.3 (Insufficient

resource planning was the second most-cited cause;

unrealistic deadlines came in third.)

What often happens is that the technologies and

communication methods people use may be specific to

their roles. For example, management may need an at-a-

glance view of information to make decisions, but further

down the chain of command people require granularity.

According to a McKinsey & Company survey, nearly

80 percent of senior executives said that effective coordination across product, functional, and geographic lines was crucial for growth.4 Yet only 25 percent of them

described their organizations as “effective” at sharing

knowledge across boundaries. Organizations either end

up implementing numerous disparate systems,

inadvertently making collaboration impossible, or jumping

through hoops to manually connect all the puzzle pieces. Employees are forced to come up with workarounds

Internal collaboration used to happen in front of a

whiteboard. Today, it’s on spreadsheets, documents, and

email threads, edited and updated by multiple people all

over the world at any hour of the day. It’s sending Dropbox

links and chatting over Skype, sending middle-of-the-night

ideas from a phone, and last-minute updates via email.

Employees may use an inventory management tool to

check for status updates, email to check for manufacturer

information, text messages to communicate with the sales

department, and a host of other tools to pull the right

data on materials, resources, and so on.

But when communication and collaboration are consistently

done in separate forums, business critical information

is often outdated, inaccurate, and inaccessible to key

stakeholders and decision-makers. If you can’t connect

your employees to the accurate information they need,

then you certainly can’t connect them to your customers.

And customer connectivity is key to success in today’s

interconnected world.

www.kenandy.com

COLLABORATIVE ERP

Customer connectivity is key to success in today’s

interconnected world.

Disparate cloud technology solutions form a communication barrier

Although new cloud communication technology solutions

have provided customized channels to connect with

people, none of these solutions serve as a central, reliable

source of information within your business. According

to a study by Econsultancy, 59% of managers miss vital information because they can’t find it or never see it.5

These systems have created an overload of information

in disparate inboxes, driving efficiency into the ground. A

collaborative ERP solution can provide the foundation to

share information across departments and keep employees

working in sync. For example, you can check on the status

of a part, and if it’s out of stock order more from the

supplier—all within one central communication system.

What the next generation of collaboration technology looks like

Work overload decreases productivity by 68%.6 Much of

that overload results from information scavenger hunts.

According to a McKinsey Institute Study,7 reading and

answering emails takes up 28% of an average work week,

followed closely by searching for and gathering information

at 19% and communicating/collaborating internally at 14%.

That’s almost two-thirds of the week taken up by tasks that

aren’t “role-related.”

When your ERP solution becomes the central hub of

collaboration and conversation, employees have more time

and energy to be more productive, more innovative, and

better at serving your customers.

Established single source of truth (and language)

The alignment gained from a collaborative ERP solution not

only increases efficiency but also gives your team a shared

language. Think about how often you switch gears from one

topic to the next, depending on what the communication

channel is. Or how much time you spend going back and

forth on a question regarding the status of a project. When

your entire company is collaborating on the same platform,

using one solution for the truth, that burden is lightened,

and everyone can communicate more quickly, efficiently,

and effectively.

Collaboration, automated.

In a multi-channel environment, you must go through several

communication channels to get information. If someone

needs approval on a purchase order, you may need to search

through several systems to find what you hope will be the

right information to send in an email. This often leads to a

back-and-forth conversation, draining time and resources.

With a collaborative ERP solution that directly connects

with your CRM, you can automate these communication

and business processes. All the front- and back-office

information is in one location, and approval logs are tied to

specific documents. There’s a record of all communication,

which means you’ll never have to hunt down information in

emails, texts, and so on. Everyone has the same information,

and it’s all at their fingertips.

The value of automating collaboration and creating a

connection between your CRM and ERP empowers your

team to move faster and make more informed decisions.

www.kenandy.com

COLLABORATIVE ERP

ACCORDING TO A STUDY BY ECONSULTANCY,

59% of managers miss vital information simply because they can’t find it or never see it.

Increased productivity and innovation

When employees aren’t bogged down with communication

issues, they can collaborate and communicate effortlessly,

and as a result they can stay focused and work more

efficiently.

When communication skills are prioritized and supported

by organizational technology, company innovation and

capacity increase. Merrow Manufacturing is a small

family-owned business in Fall River, Massachusetts, that

was the country’s first manufacturer of knitted cotton

goods—some 185 years ago. The company invented the

overlock stitch—and the sewing machines to mass produce

it—which still holds together most of the garments we

wear in the 21st century. By implementing Kenandy’s

collaborative ERP solution, Merrow has innovated more

aggressively, most recently by inventing the world’s first

branded stitch—the ActiveSeam—that is revolutionizing

the manufacture of textiles and clothing, including in the

multi-billion-dollar activewear industry.

Moving from information technology to innovation technology

To compete and grow in the digital age, organizations

need an ERP that is highly flexible and adaptable. As your

business evolves, it needs a collaboration infrastructure that

can flex and bend based on how your teams communicate

and collaborate with one another.

Kenandy enables increased alignment across your

departments. Gain a single source of truth and 360-degree

view between your organization and your suppliers and

customers. Use Salesforce Chatter to follow key business

processes between sales, purchasing, and suppliers.

Control supplier portal data access with Kenandy security

profile settings.

Empower your teams to collaborate

Collaborative ERP solutions enable your entire workforce

to communicate faster, smarter, and more efficiently.

The improvement is especially dramatic for global

manufacturers, in which thousands of employees speak

different languages but must collaborate within one

solution. Blue Clover Devices is an international original

design manufacturer (ODM) that produces Internet of

Things (IoT) power and audio accessories for some of

the world’s most popular digital devices. It has offices in

China and the United States. The company faces challenges

related to conducting business in multiple languages

and currencies.

“Our prior ERP system only let us use one language,”

says Blue Clover Devices President and Co-founder Pete

Staples. “Kenandy’s global capabilities are a real benefit

for us because everyone can use the system in his or her

own language. Now we’re all on the same page, but in the

language each of us fully understands. And Kenandy’s

multi-currency capability also makes it easy for us to do

our purchasing in Chinese renminbi and U.S. dollars.”

Improve the customer experience

Decreasing communication barriers improves cost

efficiency, not only through employee-to-employee

communication but also between employees and

customers. Implementing Kenandy’s collaborative ERP

solution enables your organization to spend more time

solving problems for your customers and less time parsing

words or researching statuses. As customer demands

continue to evolve, you can use Kenandy to adjust your

workflows and systems to fit your business needs and

better serve your customers.

COLLABORATIVE ERP

www.kenandy.com

The value of automating collaboration and creating a connection between your CRM and ERP empowers your team

to move faster and make more informed decisions.

Adapt your ERP to the evolution of your business

Kenandy ERP works the way you work. Instead of matching

your operational workflows to a system, Kenandy maps

to your existing business processes. Because it is a

cloud-based ERP solution, Kenandy can connect to new

technologies that are coming onto the marketplace.

Kenandy Cloud ERP on Salesforce implements in months,

compared to a year or two for legacy ERP. Faster

implementations dramatically reduce up-front costs

and ongoing outside consulting. And due to Kenandy’s

advanced product architecture, less time is spent on

data integration or complex customizations.

Implement Kenandy within your business today

With Kenandy, you can configure and connect your

systems for greater visibility, make better business

decisions with easy access to real-time data, and stay

agile and mobile by collaborating with business partners

and suppliers everywhere.

It’s time to trade inefficiencies for added productivity,

complex programs for customizable solutions, and costly

legacy products for scalable modern technologies.

Upgrade your ERP solution today to start upstaging

your competition.

See how our Cloud ERP can transform your

business by requesting a personalized demo at

www.kenandy.com/schedule-demo/. Or contact us

directly at info@kenandy.com or 1-855-KENANDY

COLLABORATIVE ERP

Kenandy, Inc. | 303 Twin Dolphin Drive. Redwood City, CA 94065 | 1-855-KENANDY | www.kenandy.com Copyright ©2017 Kenandy, Inc. All rights reserved. Kenandy, the Kenandy logo, and Business Ready Objects are trademarks of Kenandy, Inc. Other trademarks are those of their respective holders, and should be treated as such.

Footnotes

1 http://blog.twoodo.com/1088/snackable-stats-about-company-communication-and-collaboration-today/ 2 ibid 3 https://www.comptia.org 4 http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/mapping-the-value-of-employee-collaboration 5 https://se.insight.com/en-gb/learn/articles/2014-08-10-amazing-stats-collaborative-working 6 https://www.cornerstoneondemand.com/company/news/press-releases/new-research-reveals-biggest-productivity-killers-america’s-workforce 7 http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/the-social-economy