Business management systems (ERP and CRM) are certainly a major tool for helping medium and large enterprises adapt quicker in the current turbulent environment.

Deploying an integrated software solution not only optimizes the expenses, increases the profit and helps businesses plan effectively, but it provides a wide-angle view of the processes within the company as well.

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems, in general, take care of the full business cycle within a company by synchronizing activities related to:

• Finance management
• Manufacturing
• Supply chain management
• Sales and marketing
• Project management
• Services management
• Human resource management
• Analyses

Furniture manufacturers, however, manage loads of complex processes, regardless of whether they offer boutique or mass furniture. They must also be able to address the constantly changing needs of the client while staying current with the trends. Satisfying customers, staying competitive and maintaining spotless administration and product quality all at once are almost unthinkable without the help of a modern ERP system.

How a reliable ERP system can help furniture companies

Managing custom order combinations. Furniture manufacturers must often cope with loads of custom orders to satisfy their customers’ needs. That involves managing thousands of production configurations of design, style, colors, materials and what not. Such complex orders are impossible to be handled manually, especially when the company is growing and looking forward to realising a constantly increasing the customer base. With the proper ERP software, however, you can configure the product any way you want until you receive the perfect combination in accordance with the customers’ preferences and only then to proceed into production.

Effective resource planning. Furniture manufacturing requires sourcing of large quantities of various materials and, at the same time, dealing with multiple suppliers. Thus so, a single piece of furniture may combine wood, fabric and metal from several different countries of origin, which makes it hard to plan the resources especially with lots of custom orders. You can, however, do that more effectively and avoid administrative hell by monitoring orders and relations with suppliers via a single ERP system.

Reduced production costs. Via ERP, the business processes are automated, which leads to increased accuracy and decreased waste, and money flows are then naturally optimized. What’s more, ERP users can constantly keep an eye on product quality and quickly react when problems are identified.

Higher customer satisfaction. ERP systems help achieve higher level of customer satisfaction rates by providing a platform for faster processing of data, storing history of every client and addressing all their concerns immediately.

For better results, it is highly recommended that a manufacturer has a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software in place. Integrated with the ERP system, the solution closes the cycle prospect -> order -> production -> delivery -> loyal customer in the best possible way.

How to choose the best ERP for my furniture manufacturing business?

The choice of an ERP system entirely depends on your business needs and goals. Begin with writing down the business processes within your organization and then identify the problems and weaknesses you have. This will help you gain an idea of the functionalities you will be looking for in the new ERP system.

After that you can decide on the specific vendor and solution. Make sure you choose a solution that has been successfully implemented in other furniture companies. It’s not a bad idea to research what your competitors are using and whether they are satisfied with the chosen system. As for the ERP vendor, make sure you trust a company that can guarantee stability and has a long-term vision in further developing its own product.

An example of such trustworthy ERP system is Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Microsoft Dynamics NAV is one of the most popular solutions for business management in the whole world, and is being used by more than 120 000+ medium and large companies from different industries in over 165 countries. It’s also one the most widely used high class ERP systems in the world and many leading furniture manufacturing companies rely on it.

If all that sounds interesting to you, let’s talk and see how we can help. Contacts: +3592 8173366; info@isystems-group.com