As businesses grow, they reach critical points along their journey, where they get clarity of the inefficiencies, waste, human error, and poor business processes that are holding the company back. In some cases, corrections can be made on the human side of things: a better management style or a series of new hires to address critical needs.
The adoption of the right type of smart technology can often make a significant difference to problems in the short term and allow the organization to expand and grow without incurring high costs. This article looks at several examples of where the intelligent application of computing power has made big differences to businesses in the short term, but also technologies that help the organization along the way to a brighter future.
The machine brain
Just a few years ago, artificial intelligence in the form of machine learning was the basis for academic research. But today, AI software can be deployed in practical use-cases in many different verticals.
One such vertical is farming. Lanka Prime Agri had many concerns: high labor costs and indeterminate methods of identifying problems with its melon and corn crops. Managers decided to team with Pristine, a SAP Business One gold partner. Together with its partner, Lanka Prime began to deploy the latest drone technologies to get high-level overviews of crops at speeds that humans walking the fields could never match.
With SAP Business One helping run back-office operations and being the central controlling point of all data, drone footage could be fed to advanced AI algorithms. Pests and crop diseases were diagnosed quickly by software, which could also advise on the right pesticide or fungicide applications.
Furthermore, the ML (machine learning) routines helped identify early signs of poor growth and show human operatives where fertilizers would be most effective.
With SAP Business One helping control costs and automate procedures, Lanka Prime Agri quickly cut costs of human labor and expenditure on treatments.
Farmers’ inefficiencies were cut because SAP Business One helped them form Agriculture Activity Plans for all holdings on a plot-by-plot basis.
And for company managers, there was the ability to draw real insight from the data gathered right across all lands controlled by the company.
Another AI success story comes in the form of Darling Digital World. It used technology to help its staff, leveraging facial recognition in real-time, so customers could be identified as they arrived on premises.
Information was retrieved instantly by SAP Business One’s databases, informing store staff via mobile of each customer’s history and preferences. Instead of every customer being a stranger, teams could hit the retail store running, with highly attractive, tailored offers and packages personalized for all visitors.
And because all retail businesses now operate online too, customers could also easily buy online and pick up in-store, allowing Darling staff to cross- and up-sell.
Darling Digital World’s choice of Avaniko as SAP Business One Accredited Partner proved critically important, as the consultancy business was able to roll out gamification of sales results to staff (to improve performance) and provide managers with stores’ performance metrics.
The human factor
For GMM Coatings, technology has helped human operators make fewer mistakes and increased its access to background information so human employees could perform in their roles better.
Source: SAP Business One
Errors and oversights meant raw materials were often mis-issued and poorly tracked within the business. Inefficiencies in inventory occurred and, therefore, stock valuation suffered. This was compounded by dispatching errors.
The company installed IoT devices (designed and developed by partners) at key points in the business, especially on weighing machines, producing data that resided in SAP Business One. From here, accurate information could get applied and be used in all departments, from operations to sales and dispatch, with precise tracking of weights and quantities pinned against gate prices.
Streamlining operational abilities helped save significant costs, made back-office auditing and checking simple, and achieved low labor costs.
GMM Coatings chose Qnomix Technologies, a trusted partner for SAP Business One implementation and customization. It was able to integrate the SAP stack with other technologies which GMM alone could not have achieved.
Conclusion
SAP Business One is a highly capable product for small and medium size companies that require integrating their core business processes, production facilities, operations, and logistics through technology to overcome business criticalities.
Source: techwireasia.
