What are you waiting for? – Look at what “IM&C in a Box” can do for you today!

What are you waiting for? – Look at what “IM&C in a Box” can do for you today!

SAP ERP is the most powerful business system available, helping the vast majority of the largest industrial companies around the world run their businesses better.

Small and medium size Industrial Machinery and Component (IM&C) manufacturers can also benefit from the power of SAP ERP, as it helps companies of all sizes focus on their customers, become closer and better trusted advisors, and generate healthy profits.

Since product, service, and solution bundles offered to industrial customers need to be extremely flexible, it is critical for all industrial manufacturers to have a stable set of business procedures firmly in place to deal with increasingly challenging and extremely dynamic customer requirements.

A stable business process foundation leads to minimal surprises from inside or outside the business and facilitates greater transparency and efficiency.  Standardized and repeatable business processes can help answer questions like:

• “Is the business executing according to plan and does it have a positive outlook?”

• “Have all the right components been ordered at the right time to meet customer demand?”

• “Are all partners engaged and do they have access to the information they need to deliver?”

• “Are Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable transactions in line with expectations?”

From the perspective of a small or medium size industrial manufacturer, how could this type of business process foundation work to support a true solution provider network business model?  The answer is to leverage the highest automation level for all relevant business processes that occur in a typical IM&C company.

By standardizing internal business processes and executing them with minimal effort, an industrial manufacturer can focus its attention on unforeseen exceptions and unavoidable external issues generated by customer, partners, and suppliers.

In the past, obstacles like high total cost of ownership, confusing vendor selection processes, long implementation times, ineffective consultants, and extra IT staff needed to run the system made it difficult for all but the largest organizations to deploy a standardized ERP system.  The idea of tailoring a fully functional system for a small or medium size industrial manufacturer seemed unrealistic.

Today, the possibilities are quite different.  I would like to show you a path to an ERP system which can do all the heavy lifting needed for your business without the pains and difficulties mentioned above.

SAP has created a new solution called “IM&C in a Box,” so-called because it is a unique, single offering containing all the foundational elements needed by a small or medium size IM&C company or even a subsidiary of a large industrial company.

At the heart of the offering is the support of all core business processes in Sales, Order Management, Planning, Material Management, Manufacturing, Purchasing, Subcontractor Management, Customer Service, Finance and Controlling. IM&C in a Box allows you to standardize, automate, and manage the critical processes needed to improve customer service, increase customer intimacy, and boost overall profit.

The IM&C in a Box offering can monitor and analyze the progress and status of the above mentioned processes intuitive information displays and easy to use applications.  The system is set up in a way that all users can enter or retrieve the information they need on their own, without any assistance from IT required.

To simplify things even further, mobile devices and internet browsers can be used as interfaces to make the solutions extremely easy to use.  Additional capabilities ensure transparency as well as clear-cut authorizations, so people can work with the relevant information they need to do their jobs, but cannot access information that is not necessary or appropriate for their particular role.  Easy integration to existing IT systems and easy authentication for approved users are embedded as well.

And one of the best things about the IM&C in a Box offering is that all of the capabilities mentioned above are available in the cloud powered by SAP HANA.   All the tedious implementation prep work has already been built into the IM&C in a Box package by SAP, so you or your partners do not have to start from scratch.  Getting started can be as easy as signing up, implementing standard processes, determining what processes differ from standard, accommodating those differences, entering master data, and then going live.

So why wait?  Take a look at what IM&C in a Box can do for your company today.

About the Author

As a Solution Manager for SAP, Johannes Papst´s main focus is align SAP solutions with today´s business needs especially in the Industrial Machinery and Components Industry. Johannes has over 20 years of experience in the discrete manufacturing world. His main area is Manufacturing processes and working will small and medium businesses.