On the other hand, if your company has a business management system with a single user interface, it can help solve these problems.  Instead of spending weeks training new people on hard-to-learn systems that don’t really work together, you can train them on one system that works in a logical flow across all areas of the business.  From your customer service people to your field reps and technicians, everyone will have a similar user experience even though they are performing different functions. Whether you’re entering an order, receiving a shipment, looking at an inventory report or processing accounts payable, the user experience stays consistent. And there’s no need to leave one system and start using another to get your job done, because different roles are performed within the same interface.

So how do you steer your organization toward a business management solution that operates using a consistent user interface?  Start by looking beyond your separate accounting, inventory control and order tracking systems, and think about the higher level needs of your business and industry. Microsoft Dynamics solutions such as Dynamics NAV, GP, AX and CRM were designed to meet the needs of your business as a whole, not just one part of it. For example, Microsoft Dynamics solutions inherently interface with Microsoft Office and other systems that you already use.  When your systems are synchronized, the result is more reliable data, increased efficiency, and ultimately better customer satisfaction.

For companies using outdated systems that are no longer supported, it may seem daunting to think about the training and change management involved with switching to an easier-to-learn ERP solution. But it’s a lot easier for your company to relearn one new system than it is to continue fighting the same battles every day against multiple disparate systems. To find out more about how to transition your business to a more intuitive, consistent solution, contact OmniVue today. We’ll create a plan to align processes and technologies with your strategic business goals.

“I’m thrilled to have someone of Lee’s caliber on our team. With his successful track record of creating sustainable growth within organizations, I’m confident in his ability to refine and execute our business development strategy,” said Jeff Pyden, President and CEO of OmniVue. “We look forward to using his knowledge and leadership to continue providing excellent service to our clients.”

As Vice President of Sales, Olsen will work closely with companies to find the right business management solution which will increase business agility and profitability in a strategic, efficient manner. His expertise around strategic planning, business development, marketing and leadership development provide him with a unique perspective to fully understand the industry-specific needs and challenges of companies that operate using a distribution business model.

Olsen’s hands-on experience as a C-level executive at a variety of technology companies provides him with a unique perspective on the challenges faced by today’s business leaders. Olsen carved out an impressive 22 year career at IBM which fully engaged his wide range of talents, moving through sales/marketing, development and consulting services to become internationally known. He received multiple awards for his sales achievements, including twice winning the Top Salesman of the Year award. As a Business Partner Manager, he also helped create the MultiMedia division within IBM through the formation of strategic business partnerships, and was subsequently identified to lead the sales and marketing efforts of this new division.  This resulted in over $750 million in revenues for IBM.

About OmniVue
OmniVue creates business agility by tailoring implementation of Microsoft Dynamics solutions and delivering them through on-premise or cloud platforms.  As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, OmniVue helps distribution, healthcare or light manufacturing companies “see their world” with enhanced business intelligence, process consulting, financial software implementation, disaster recovery and support.  Our consultative approach begins with the VueFinder^TM discovery session which is designed to uncover the true business goals and KPIs necessary for successful evolution.  We then combine process and technology to provide executives, managers and end-users the ability to make accurate and informed decisions during rapidly changing market conditions.  OmniVue – helping businesses since 2003.  For more information, visit www.OmniVue.net.

Contact
Emily Wells
Marketing Coordinator
770.587.0095 x 145
ewells@omnivue.net

If you plan to attend Convergence, here are a few questions to help you stay focused during your experience.

1. Is your current Microsoft Dynamics solution helping you run your business? Regardless of your industry, an ERP system should serve as a business management solution – the true foundation of your organization.  And when your other systems interface with your Dynamics ERP or CRM solution, it increases business agility even more. When you have one system of record that governs the other systems in your company, it provides real-time visibility into all areas of your business, allowing you to make decisions proactively instead of after the fact.

2. Are your reporting capabilities meeting your expectations?  Reporting is one of the most important features of an ERP system. Because of this, Microsoft is constantly conducting research on industry trends and market shifts to make sure the reporting capabilities of Dynamics solutions match the needs of today’s businesses.  Convergence is a great place to learn about innovative advancements in reporting for your ERP or CRM solution.

3. Does your current solution support your strategic goals?  Most businesses have experienced a lot of change within the last 5 years alone, so chances are the business management system you implemented long ago may not align with the current goals and processes of your company.  Even if you already have a Microsoft Dynamics solution, it’s important to conduct an annual assessment to make sure it still supports your new strategy.  The best way to conduct this evaluation is through OmniVue’s unique VueFinder^TM approach, where we analyze your current processes and technology and create a roadmap to achieve increased business agility, visibility and profitability.  At Convergence, you will learn how Dynamics solutions can be customized to meet the needs of your business, instead of adapting your business to technology.

Convergence can teach you everything you ever wanted to know about Microsoft Dynamics products, and probably some things you never wanted to know.  But don’t worry; OmniVue is here to help you navigate through the maze of information to find out what will truly add value to your business. It’s challenging, but we can help maximize the full capabilities of your Microsoft Dynamics investment. Join our team in Houston for Convergence 2012!

When each area of your business has its own reporting system, it can make your month-end very painful – all the reporting must be checked, reconciled, and verified before you can review the final figures and newest trends. The number of hours or days that you’re waiting to review that information is a good bellwether about your data: if it takes two days to compile these critical reports, then every datum you review is as much as two days’ stale.

So how old does the information need to be before it’s no longer strategically useful? That depends on your industry, of course, and how competitive your marketplace is. You can probably remain nimble with stale data if your competitors are doing the same. But most business sectors don’t have that luxury. Information which is slow to cross your desk is information which is costing your company money and cutting off opportunities for growth. It’s just that kind of lag and loss which a comprehensive business management system can avoid.

So if this old method of compilation, reconciliation, and verification isn’t cutting it, what would the end-of-month look like using a comprehensive business management solution? Simply put, it would be:

Faster. Data entered at any level of the organization, across all business sectors, is visible in real time.

More comprehensive. With information from every link in the supply chain, you’ll have both the big picture and the ability to drill down as far as you need to.

Proactive. Trends can be identified faster, leading to more nimble strategy realignments.

Analysis can happen faster when all the information is working together from the get-go. With shorter analysis times, opportunities can be identified when they’re still relevant. Constraints can be addressed before the entire chain is affected. Financial data can be audited and analyzed faster and with more detail.

To achieve this kind of efficiency, you need solutions in place that can provide better visibility and timely reporting without having to reconcile data in multiple systems.  Microsoft Dynamics solutions such as Dynamics NAV, GP, AX and CRM will give you a great foundation upon which to build, and will open up the door to improved business intelligence tools and analytics.

Curious how big an improvement you could see in your operations with a comprehensive solution replacing the many disparate systems that you’re wrangling now? Contact us to talk about VueFinder — we’ll give you a glimpse into what the end of the month could look like if you made the decision to work with OmniVue.

But there’s good news – all these problems can be solved with the cloud.  Here are a few ways it can make your life easier:

• Ease of Maintenance – You won’t have to worry about your systems becoming outdated and unsupported, because updates can be made to your software via the cloud.  No need to pay someone to come out and perform maintenance on your systems. 
• Disaster Recovery – Your disaster recovery plan just got much easier, too – when you host your data in the cloud, backup and recovery services are simple.  As one of our clients found out, you can even stay up and running after a hurricane with web access to your critical business systems.
• Secure Data – In some cases, your company data is even more secure in the cloud than it is right now. How many people currently have access to your confidential business information? When data is hosted, it’s easier to control who has access to what.

One of the biggest benefits of the cloud is that it creates a competitive advantage for your business.  Having the flexibility to grow and expand infrastructure as needed without having to spend money on additional hardware is a huge benefit.  Leveraging the power of the cloud will increase agility and allow your business to respond quickly to changes in market demand.

While we’ve already discussed the benefits of having one business management solution, leveraging the cloud will exponentially increase these advantages.  And if you’re considering moving some or all of your business systems to the cloud, you have several options for how to get there.  The public cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud are all possibilities, depending on the type of data and systems you want hosted.

For our clients, we recommend a private cloud environment because it minimizes risk and allows for more customization to specific business needs.  If you currently have disparate systems, you may want to consider first choosing an ERP solution that is built with the cloud in mind, such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV, AX or GP.   These solutions are designed to act as the system of record, and when used along with Dynamics CRM, you’ll never have to worry about data or processes being out of sync again.  This will put you on the road to true business agility, where you’ll have visibility into all areas of your organization and be able to make better decisions proactively.

The first step toward having a single business management solution is choosing a cloud hosting provider who is knowledgeable of your industry and makes sure your processes and technologies are aligned with business goals.  Contact OmniVue today – we can help you find the path toward true business agility, and put the right solutions in place to make it a reality.

When employees in the field rely on old data, it’s easy to make promises that can’t be kept and that will have a negative effect on customer satisfaction.  This is usually the result of inventory management software and order tracking software that don’t interface with each other. Having one business management solution that provides real-time information will help your sales and customer service representatives in the field be more efficient, accurate and productive.

Think about how agile your business would be if your inventory, pricing and customer data was governed by one system. Field reps would get all their information from the same source, and they would always know the most up-to-date pricing information and inventory on hand. If you go mobile and utilize remote order entry, it increases productivity even more, allowing sales people in the field to place orders in real-time using and avoid duplicate data entry.  Having one system also makes training easier – new employees only have to learn one instead of multiple disparate systems.

When all updates come from one source, it has several positive results:

1. Faster, accurate orders. Access to real-time data will level the playing field and make sure everyone who uses your system has the same information – including customer service representatives at each of your locations, and any field-based sales reps or technicians. If a sales person places an order from the field, the customer service reps back at the office will know about it, and vice versa. Access to real-time information allows your people to make better decisions, and also ensures accurate order fulfillment to customers.

2. Increased Customer Satisfaction.  In addition to maintaining your reputation as a reliable distributor, having one system can increase the time spent with customers. The hours your field reps would normally spend re-entering data at the end of the day can now be spent servicing additional customers.  Wouldn’t it be nice to replace duplicate effort with increased customer satisfaction?

3. Better reporting. When order and inventory tracking take place in one system, you’ll see a drastic improvement in the accuracy of reports. This provides greater visibility into inventory trends, which allows for improved budget and inventory forecasting.

If you want to keep your field sales and service personnel on the same page as the rest of your team, it may be time to evaluate your current software. It’s important to establish one system of record that rules over all your other systems, because integration is the key to achieving consistent visibility throughout your organization. A comprehensive ERP solution such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a good foundation on which to build, because it already includes Warehouse Management (WMS) functionality out-of-the-box.  Having one system that integrates your inventory management and order tracking functionality will provide reliable information so you can make better decisions. Microsoft Dynamics CRM can tie all your sales, marketing and customer data together, giving field employees a dependable source of data so they can place accurate orders and be more responsive to clients.

Working outside the office doesn’t have to mean you’re out of the loop on essential company processes and data.  If you want to streamline your company operations and make sure all employees, especially those in the field, have access to the most up-to-date information, OmniVue can help create a plan to get there. Give us a call today to find out how we can tailor a roadmap just for you.

In an ideal world, your business management solution would allow for easy integration of new applications and other systems to avoid these problems. There are connectivity tools available designed for this exact purpose, and one of the best is Scribe Insight.  We have many clients of different sizes who use Scribe solutions, and it enables them to quickly and easily integrate applications and data sources to prevent duplication of effort and increase data accuracy. Scribe Insight, along with their preconfigured adapters, lets you do this quickly using a point and click interface with no coding required. This allows IT to be more agile and responsive when a new VP needs something, which in turn empowers managers and employees to focus on more strategic initiatives. Other connectivity tools like ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) and SQL can also help connect your systems with data sources to keep data pure across multiple access points. For Executives who want to keep their business competitive, you need visibility into all areas of the organization, and these tools can make that happen.  Being able to view your business data holistically is no longer a luxury; it’s a requirement for success.

Since these connectivity tools are only as good as the systems and databases they connect with, the first thing you need to do is get the right solutions in place.  Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions such as Dynamics NAV, GP, AX and CRM can all work with Scribe, web services or SQL to ensure accuracy of data across multiple systems, resulting in increased organizational visibility.  Also, these connectivity tools will work regardless of whether your business management solution is on-premise, in the cloud, or “partly cloudy,” meaning a hybrid of on premise and the cloud.

Don’t let yourself be limited by the confines of your current technology. To make sure you have the right solutions in place that can interface with each other in an efficient manner, the best starting point is to evaluate all your current processes and systems and identify operational inefficiencies and gaps.  At OmniVue, our unique VueFinder process is designed to do just that.  After all, we believe you should always have a plan before you start renovating your house and knocking down walls.  Let us help you create a roadmap to align technology with your business goals.

Imagine what it would be like if your business management software was always running the latest version. Your company would benefit from the new features and functionality that are included in the current updates.  After all, good software companies spend lots of time and money staying on top of industry trends and market demands related to their solutions.  Here are three good reasons to move your business toward a single system that will streamline your operations:

1. Stay on top of industry trends and market demands – Making sure your systems have the latest features will help maintain your competitive edge, because you’ll be giving your customers the best buying experience available at the time.

2. Upgrade one system instead of many – Avoid the hassle of dealing with multiple vendors to stay current. No more trying to keep track of which system is releasing a new version and when.

3. Save on maintenance costs – By working with one vendor instead of several different ones, you’ll save considerably on the cost of staying current.

The end result is that your company spends less time and money on software and systems, while your processes and operations become more synchronized and efficient every day.

The easiest way to move your organization toward a single, easily updated system is to find one vendor who can create a roadmap for how to get there, and handle all of it for you. While many companies make sure to keep their operating systems and servers, SQL Databases, SharePoint, and MS Office applications up to date, many neglect to also maintain their ERP solutions, such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV, AX and GP.  Many applications within ERP systems are designed to integrate with these other applications, so it’s important to keep it current as well. This will ensure synchronicity across the whole organization.  When your ERP solution is upgraded to be compatible with the latest operating systems and other software, it will result in more agile operations for your business, and easier buying process for your customers.

It’s a complicated process to move your business away from multiple systems, and the headaches that come with maintaining and upgrading them. But letting your company be limited by lack of synchronicity will take its toll over time.  While there are many benefits of having a single business management system instead of multiple disparate systems, one of the most fundamental is increasing productivity and efficiency across your organization.

At OmniVue, we’ve helped hundreds of businesses streamline their operations and processes into a single vendor solution. If you’ve put off upgrading your systems for fear of incompatibility or uncertainty of cost, talk to us about how we can help.

From the OmniVue team, we wish all of you a happy holiday season, and cheers to a great 2012!

Then, your worst nightmare happens…a disaster!  It could be a power surge or virus or a natural disaster that takes down your systems and software.  Now you’re faced with the challenge of getting your network back online and restoring critical business data, but you are at the mercy of multiple software vendors! Instead of the vendors helping you get back up and running quickly, no one wants to take ownership of the problem. Guess who is the target for the finger pointing? YOU!

Other companies may tell you it’s easy to back up multiple systems, software applications and disparate data.  However, when it comes to repairing or restoring, there is only one good option – a single business management software system that will improve and automate processes.  Having a single system increases data integrity, decreases downtime and makes life easier for your IT team.

1. Increased data integrity – In the event of a disaster, your immediate focus is to get critical business systems up and running. If your customer data, financial data and order tracking information are stored across several different systems, guess what? You have to back up and restore all of them, which takes longer and can compromise the integrity of your company data.
2. Less downtime – Ask your CFO if his budget accounts for lost productivity in the event of a disaster. You may have a disaster recovery plan for your systems, but how do your customers and suppliers feel when they cannot do business with you?  Most CEOs and CFOs simply want the systems up and running as soon as possible – having the right technology can help maintain your competitive edge during a disaster scenario.
3. Easier backup – By using a single solution like Microsoft Dynamics GP, NAV or AX, it’s much easier to restore data and get your company back to being productive again. Having multiple systems means dealing with multiple vendors – and multiple plans, processes and headaches as the clock ticks away! Backing up one system instead of many will make your IT team happier, and will also reduce liability on their part.

To avoid the nightmare situation where you are stuck trying to restore multiple systems and keep your business running, the first step is to establish one system as a single system of record.  Doing this may mean you need to change or update your current technology, which can be a complicated process.  It may also be a good idea to explore other deployment options such as private, public or hybrid cloud.  The cloud is especially beneficial for disaster recovery, and it has helped many Omnivue clients stay up and running when otherwise they would not have been able to work.

Depending on your current technology, moving to a single system may not be as simple as it sounds. That’s why we are here to help.  Contact OmniVue today and learn how a single software system will allow you to manage your business as simply and efficiently as possible in the event of any disaster.