Priorities for manufacturing companies in 2021 and beyond

In the current environment, becoming a smart business and building business resilience are fundamental for manufacturing companies that are seeking ways to make themselves disruption-proof.

Among the key priorities for manufacturers are:

• Enhanced competitiveness and a level playing field – the ability to manage change in real-time.
• Improved market access – the ability to gain access to new channels and key insights.
• Pro-industry policy and institutional framework – the ability to ensure compliance and traceability.
• Industrial sustainability and resilience – the ability to automate approvals on margins.
• SME development – the ability to efficiently control cash flow and quickly unlock capital.

“Seidor Africa can assist companies in the mid-market sector to achieve these priorities. Whether operating a make-to-stock, make-to-order, configure-to-order or engineer-to-order production environment, we help manufacturing companies to optimise daily operations, remove waste, simplify processes and improve manufacturing flexibility,” says Mala Bhatt, Managing Director at Seidor Africa, East Africa and Mauritius.

Mala Bhatt, Managing Director at Seidor Africa, East Africa and Mauritius, says that in the current environment, becoming a smart business and building business resilience are fundamental for manufacturing companies that are seeking ways to make themselves disruption-proof.

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“The SAP Business One solution is built on a digital core that integrates cloud technologies, internet of things (IOT), machine learning, big data, mobile technologies and analytics,” says Bhatt. “In simple terms, that means information needed to make decisions on the fly is available at the user’s fingertips. It’s this intelligence that can help organisations achieve their priorities for the year and into the future, no matter how uncertain it may look now.”

SAP's digital core is an initiative driven by a digital strategy that enables end-to-end business processes – internal and external – in a new digital paradigm and delivers extraordinary value to enterprises and their customers. It enables business to amplify the customer experience through any new e-commerce channel,” adds Bhatt.

For SAP Business One customers, Seidor Africa has developed Seidor Clarity, an out-of-the-box suite of reports designed specifically for them. It offers cost-effective, real-time, interactive reporting to help manufacturers optimise their business.

“It is designed for companies that spend hours each month manually updating reports, battling to unlock valuable insight from existing information systems, struggling to share the right reports with the right audience, and not always knowing what to do next once the reports are viewed,” says Bhatt.

Seidor Clarity provides reports covering all aspects of finance, sales and stock and purchasing. These are accessible from SAP Business One, Outlook, the Seidor Clarity portal and mobile devices.

Users can view all SAP databases in a single set of reports that are always up to date, and there is no need to spend hours preparing them. What’s more, they are easy to use and highly interactive, enabling the business to spot top performing clusters, sales reps, products, branch units and divisions. It’s also easy to see over-stocked and under-stocked products, including expired or expiring batches. The reports can also draw in information from other data sources to enhance the value of the data. It is all about using information in a meaningful, visual way.

These insights will not only provide manufacturers with a real-time overview of every link in the supply chain, but will enable them to model – or simulate – different scenarios, ensuring they are fully prepared for whatever the future holds.