Integrated data tools like ours let you monitor your business in real time. This is critical when you’re looking for ways to increase cash flow. After all, increasing sales isn’t the only way to increase the assets that you have available.

In addition to monitoring your accounts payable and receivable, managers and executives who are using our solution within their organisations are able to:

-Evaluate supplier relationships. The more that you know about the costs of working with various suppliers, the terms of your purchasing agreements, surcharges, and minimums, the better the position that you’ll be in to negotiate. Whether you opt to work with a supplier who offers better terms or request a better arrangement with current suppliers, having all of the right data available allows you to identify ways to cut costs.

-Identify wasteful spending associated with production. By using our solution to monitor production costs, you will identify other ways of saving and increase the amount of cash you have on hand for other necessary spending.

-Identify excess warehousing costs. When you store product prior to shipping, you have overhead. Some of this may be able to be avoided by changing the date you receive product from suppliers, minor adjustments to the production schedule, or be based on where you store your manufactured products. By monitoring these costs over time, you can identify and eliminate waste.

By taking advantage of our solution, you will not only be able to monitor your company’s spending habits in one area, but across the board. As a result, you will have an increased likelihood of identifying waste and finding alternative ways of meeting your needs.

Pursuing opportunities to save – especially when you are able to predict the impact of your options and avoid making decisions that will harm your business – allows managers and executives to take control. If you’re looking to increase cash flow within your company, this awareness is essential.

Production, purchasing, and sales: improving the timing of all of these things can serve to ensure that you are able to grow your business. Each element, when functioning with maximum efficiency, has the potential to cut your company’s costs – and, as a result, improve your organisation’s bottom line.

However, in order to determine where your company is already performing efficiently and to identify areas where there is room for improvement, having access to the right data is essential. Monitoring your production line and considering storage and shipping costs can help you to manufacture products just in time – reducing the costs associated with warehousing or, on the opposite end of the spectrum if products are not ready on time, the costs of expedited shipping. Evaluating your supplier relationships can help you to identify whether you are purchasing with the right frequency and help you to identify opportunities to lower costs. Knowing when your customers are most likely to buy and timing marketing messages effectively can help to increase sales.

Ultimately though, in order to make improvements in any of these areas, you need to know how you are doing now. Especially when your business is in a growth period, having access to data and information that is accurate and current prepares you to make the right adjustments – and avoid the risk of making a costly mistake.

Some tools allow you to access financials, supplier information, details about your production line, and data related to marketing and customer buying trends. With this information, you will have the power to fully understand your business and to chart the course from where you are to where you want to be. SAP Business One provides you with the data you need to analyse your situation in real-time, weigh the benefits and risks of decisions, and track your successes as you strengthen your organisation.

Build 66 is a mandatory update and includes legislative changes for production of Payment Summaries for the 2010/2011 Finacial year as well as several new features. Build 66 also contains the lastest version of the OHSpack (Occupational Health & Safety Management) and some new HRpack functionality.

A new HR3kiosk (V2.2.1.0) has also been released to go with HR3pay Build 66. More information about Build Version 66 is available from support@hr3.com.au

I recently attended a seminar on the topic of organisational change impact of cloud computing. Whilst the seminar was very specific to cloud computing the subject of change management is an important issue for our customers whether it is a cloud solution or not. In this post I will look at change management in a broader context and then in relation to cloud computing.

Change management for all projects

Now, I am no expert on organisational change management and I won’t go into best practice as that is not my area of expertise, however, I can give a bit of insight into my first hand experience. And what I would suggest is engage someone that has those skills!

Brad made the comment at the seminar that if you don’t start with change management in mind then you are in trouble. I tend to agree with his statement, the projects we are involved in that achieve their objectives as planned are those where all staff accept the necessary change……and well before implementation begins! How do you do that? I hear you ask. From my experience there are a couple of things that are essential.

• From the outset the benefits need to be sold to all staff, whether that be better reporting or saving them time, it is essential they can see what’s in it for them.
• Have them involved in the project. If you tend to be a “dictator owner” and believe you are the only one that could possibly design the best system then you will struggle. Like it or not you need to have input from your staff. Not only does it give “buy in” to the project you will end up with a system that actually works as your staff do.
• Make them use it! Believe it or not I have been involved in projects where the system has been designed and implemented and it works as requested, however, the staff have decided they are too busy to use the new system. I hear you argue (and I agree) that if change management was effective in the organisation this wouldn’t be an issue. Having said that we have all worked with an individual that doesn’t like change and they need a lot of persuasion to do so.

As I have said I am no expert on the subject. If you would like to read further I suggest reading “Organizational Change for Corporate Sustainability” by Dunphy, Griffiths and Benn. In particular Chapter 9 which deals with leadership and organisational change management.

What about the cloud?

First let’s just consider what is meant by cloud computing. It is a term that is relatively recent in its popularity but it really has been around since the inception of the Internet. In really simple terms it is using the Internet to deliver computing services. It could be anything from a hosted server to accessing a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application such as SAP ByDesign. If you want to get a more in depth definition have a look at the Wikipedia definition here.

It was interesting to hear Brad talk on the subject and he mentioned a lot of which I hadn’t really considered.

• The traditional role of the IT employee is likely to change from a technical role to more of an advisory role as the technical aspects would be outsourced to cloud operators. Actually, it was interesting to observe the defensive nature of some of the IT employees in the room. To them it was inconceivable that their role could be outsourced. A perfect example of why change management is essential!
• Policies around the acquisition of cloud services need to exist. Cloud solutions are so easily accessible it is important that staff know what they can and can’t do. The example Brad used was an employee going out and subscribing to project management software with his corporate credit card without his supervisor knowing. Everything related to the project existed online, however, what happens if that employee should decide to move on?!
• Security in the new paradigm. One of the forensic accountants in the room raised the issue of greater difficulty in tracking a fraud committed using the “accessible anywhere” financial management system.

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