A New Manufacturer-Dealer Business Model Optimizes the Supply Chain

In an increasingly digital world, machine tool dealers face the same rising customer expectations as retailers, driven by technology innovations and modern eCommerce. Sales and service dealers are under new pressure to meet higher customer expectations for easy self-service, personalized offers, rapid and convenient delivery, high quality, and transparency throughout the buying process. The Dealer Network Portal in the ERP 10.2.300 release of the multi-dimensional enterprise resource planning system from Epicor Software Corporation (Austin, TX) is a manufacturer-dealer business model that offers significant opportunity for manufacturers to deliver products, services, and support that meet customers’ exact needs and specifications while expanding their market reach.

The Dealer Network Portal is specifically designed for manufacturers who sell or service their products through dealers, to more easily quote orders, manage sales, track inventories, manage warranties and recalls, and provides dealer self-service to their account history all from their ERP system. This system enables customers to create a single, online website to automate and streamline their dealer activity. “While direct-to-consumer (D2C) commerce is not a new approach to retail, there is renewed interest for it among branded manufacturers,” explained Scott Hays, the senior vice president of product marketing at Epicor.¹ “We can help manufacturers transform their dealer experience through a modern eCommerce interface that dramatically elevates their brands to accelerate business growth. Dealer Network Portal works seamlessly with our ERP and eliminates the cost of manual interactions and duplicate data entry, reducing errors, and overall operational costs.”

ERP 10.2.300 helps manufacturers differentiate their brand to stand out by being the first version that utilizes the Kinetic Design Framework, a design-focused, strategic initiative to improve the user’s experience through software applications. With the introduction of an enhanced Home Page developed in the Kinetic framework, users can create a personal layout and then switch it with another published layout, or move from tab to tab for additional views that support faster, more informed decisions through much greater visibility into their business at just a glance. To help users take advantage of these new features, Epicor University now offers a cloud hosting option for ERP application help, as well as education courses with help search being powered by Microsoft Azure that are designed to help remove the burden from users’ IT staff to maintain their own help or education environments. Contextual video help is available for several new ERP functions, including AP invoice entry, job entry, job tracker, purchase order entry, and customer maintenance.

The ERP 10.2.300 platform is flexible, scalable, connects the top floor to the shop floor and, most importantly, allows for change. This is why Epicor also offers other tools that, when combined with ERP 10.2.300, help manufacturers understand how to repeat or avoid certain production outcomes, help them sell more via eCommerce, and gain a deeper understanding of their operations:

• Epicor Data Analytics (EDA) helps companies turn their data stored in ERP into actionable data. With deeper insights, they can grow by reducing cost, identifying new opportunities, supporting specific programs, and speeding up decision-making.
• Epicor Commerce Connect (ECC) integrates eCommerce with other business processes in real-time. But more importantly, users see a modern eCommerce website focused on convenience, ease of use, and repeat ordering.
• Epicor Mattec MES is a real-time manufacturing execution system that monitors machines and analyzes machine-related data, such as Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), run rates, scrap, yield, and energy consumption. The system captures data directly from machines and operators, and delivers real-time production metrics and real-time operations analytics in an easy-to-digest visual manner. It helps manufacturers drive profitability, increase capacity, improve quality, and empower employees on the shop floor to make better decisions using up to date information.

“We talk about the importance of fit, ease, and growth. The question a business must ask of ERP vendors is if their solutions fit into the ecosystem, process flow, and industry sector? We deliver out-of-the-box, industry-specific functionality, complemented by APIs to easily integrate with other apps in the user’s ecosystem,” added Hays. “To keep up with the pace of innovation in this day and age, ERP systems need to be easy to purchase, deploy, configure, learn, use, and upgrade to support business growth.”

Epicor Software Corporation, 804 Las Cimas Parkway, Austin, TX 78746, 512-328-2300, www.epicor.com.