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ERP is an information system capable of centralizing and unifying data from different business departments to accelerate the flow of information. Both executives and middle managers will have unified real-time information to expedite the decision-making process.

The significance of ERP is centered on what it does for your business. It handles a number of business tasks by streamlining and automating daily business activities. The software produces a leaner and precise procedure and offers a full, 360-degree perspective of the inside and outside of your business.  With the help of ERP, businesses are able to boost both user efficiency and productivity.

Top 10 Benefits of SAP ERP

Here’s why companies around the globe are executing ERP software.

1. Advancer Data Management

Performance metrics and measurements are key to assessing business success and for helping to set future objectives. However, while a business expands, it will become increasingly hard to calculate the sales margin, profit ratios and other such metrics manually. ERP introduces a level of automation to the business by enabling staff throughout the organization to view shared data with no need to retain manual records. This also allows the generation of synchronized reports on important company metrics. Immediate access to information is important for timely decision-making.

2. Cost-Efficient

It also helps minimize the administration and operations expenses by use of accurate and real-time information. It also enables manufacturers to control operations, dissuade delays in production, and break up information, which eventually results in official making decisions much more effectively.

3. Avoids Duplication and Ensures Transparency

When all your business information is shared in a single database, the existence of duplicate records and data entries will no longer be a problem, as the system will automatically report the present system records. This improves the quality of the data that lets you create exact pictures in distinct scenarios.  At the same time, the transparency of your business gets upgraded to new stages. Be it your inventory product level, purchase orders or billing and delivery, the application of the ERP system will screen and monitor every marginal operation and task, providing a clear view of the performance of the tasks with absolute clarity.

4. Revamp Performance Efficiency

The ERP system excludes repetitive operations and significantly lowers the need to manually enter data, which not only helps user productivity but also reduces the chance of erroneous data that could result in costly business errors. The adoption of the ERP system will also enhance day-to-day company operations by streamlining business processes, making it simpler and more effective for businesses to gather information, regardless of where they work. It is kind of an added feature, envisioned to keep businesses on track, to notice every detail and to make working life simpler and more effective, from users of the software to customers.

5. Integration with Other Value Chain Participants

ERP concept goes beyond the limits of business by integrating other members of the value chain: customers and suppliers. The company thus becomes a major partner that can benefit from a competitive advantage by actively engaging in the design and development of new products that add value to their experience. As far as customers are concerned, ERP empowers you to get more information and higher quality that lets you adjust production orders and purchase your requirements. On the other hand, we will get a segmented database of our customers that will make it possible for us to carry out marketing campaigns targeting specific segments.

6. Excessive Mobility

The benefit of enterprise resource planning software is its capacity to put customers at the core of its attention, offering deployment styles that will bring street sales reps the same possibilities as in-office customers to use ERP wherever they need to. With ERP software, users can access a centralized database from anywhere they work and from a range of devices, such as your laptop, tablet or cell phone. The adaptability of ERP software is vital because it improves productivity and makes data available wherever you may be.

7. Highly Customizable

Since the demands of each business are unique, each business gets a tailored system. It takes into account operational and departmental specifications. ERP systems are easy, flexible and adaptable. This implies that it is simple for every employee to use it. It is adaptive because varying system modules exist for different departments, including sales and distribution, product management, finance, and staff management modules.

It is adaptable because the system is available via mobile devices. Employees or management can, therefore, use the software from almost anywhere.

8.Absolute Analysis and Forecasting

It is difficult to depend on people that can provide accurate information evaluation along with reports. The ERP system takes away the risk because there is no duplication of data. The system offers real-time reports of every trivial thing that takes place in a business. It serves risk assessment, as well as performance reports. It reviews purchases and alterations in inventory as they’re happening. Enterprise resource planning software provides customers and, most notably, managers with the tools and resources required to make more exact forecasts.

9.Reliable Customer Service

Adequate execution of the ERP enables us to pay attention to the customer in a very short period of time. Keeping your customers satisfied while handling your sales and inventory effectively can be a daunting job if you have your customer and inventory data stored on separate systems.

ERP helps to keep up-to-date information while making it easier to update all data in real-time. This will help customers to access accurate, up-to-date information and to cope effectively with their customers. It also provides us a much quicker traceability feature.

10. Security Assurance

ERP facilitates enhanced security of the company’s IT systems. Core business data will be adequately secured in two respects: for the purposes of information theft or unauthorized access, and data security. All other alternatives integrate different levels of access or authorization. On the other hand, the information is centralized and the backups are scheduled automatically to prevent any failure. In the situation of cloud solutions, data security is even higher to be duplicated to separate locations.

Staff Augmentation offers companies an economical solution with a limited financial plan. It’s a perfect model for short-term projects with the requirement of fewer resources.

Managed Services offers companies a long-term solution with multiple projects. It’s a perfect engagement to gain professional expertise with assured security.

While making resource management decisions may not be as easy as falling off a log, some choices have yet to be made in this regard. The objective of the exercise is to choose a model that is affordable for the company and will yield the best results for capacity planning and project management planning.

What’s the difference between these two models and how do you determine the best fit for you? Here, we will draw a comparison between the two leading resource management models: headcount and Full-Time Equivalent (FTE).

Headcount vs FTE

While selecting and assigning resources for a project, an organization must think about the product it has to deliver, its budget, and how it can get the highest ROI. Headcount and FTE offer two disparate models for managing the time and cost of venture resources.

Headcount

This model calculates each person, in one role, working the full amount of time assigned for a role (supposedly 40 hours per week). Headcount is a perfect model for HR-related planning and scaling an organization, while companies that use headcount are focused on ensuring they have people in place to perform a general organizational plan. Typically, it seeks to fill roles, but doesn’t come down to aligning people with particular skills to project tasks. Eventually, headcount is more demanding for project planning, because having an individual in a role does not ensure they can or should be the only resource for a wide range of tasks.

How to carry out headcount planning

Headcount planning is a hugely strategic exercise that seeks to address the goals, objectives, and developments a business undergoes. There are numerous steps included in planning the workforce, such as defining your company strategy and outlining business goals and changes within industry with a potential impact on how a company will need to design and grow its workforce. Defining performance metrics to ascertain if you are employing teams with people with skills that can meet existing goals also constitutes part of headcount planning. Another key element of the entire exercise is to analyze your existing workforce and recognize strategic loopholes while using gap analysis findings to formulate a recruitment strategy.

What are the benefits of headcount planning?

One of the key benefits of headcount planning is that a company’s human resource department can align its workforce talent with the organizational strategies and objectives. In addition, loopholes in the workforce can be recognized, which helps focus on hiring efforts. Headcount planning also informs long-term workforce planning while creating performance goals against company metrics.

Headcount planning glitches

While headcount planning can help a company build and scale its staff, it also entails a number of risks.

• The likelihood of not recognizing high-priority skills may compel a team to bring on supplementary resources, adversely affecting the budget.

• It is nearly impossible to plan for the peaks and troughs of business needs, which leads to overstaffing and understaffing during the year.

• There is a likely disconnect in why and how headcount is used. The business (HR) is focused on the model as a tactical tool, while project teams and process owners have to take a closer look at what is needed in reality.

How to calculate FTE

An FTE is the number of hours worked to equal one full-time resource. The model is used to translate the hours worked by part-timers or servicers into the equivalent of a full-timer. There are a number of ways for counting an organization’s FTE requirements, but it’s eventually simple division that is based on your structure. If your organization’s workweek is 50 hours, and you need a technical writer on your project team for 25 hours per week, divide 25/50. The answer, 0.5, is the FTE for that technical writer role.

This formula can be applied using your total number of project hours, or you can really reduce your burden by using a volume management tool.

What are the benefits of using the FTE model?

• If you find project priorities fluctuating, you can fine-tune your resources as required without pulling a full-time person away from larger obligations. FTE offers visibility into the consequences of responding to those fluctuating priorities, such as whether or not you need to hire someone new because the number of FTE doesn’t match the number of hours needed to work each week.

• You can involve resources that specialize in particular fields, and you don’t want to waste a full-time person because you need to overlap resources by hiring a temporary individual with a particular set of services.

• It offers transparency for when you need to hire part-time resources for short-term ventures.

FTE planning glitches

While resource needs may be realistically fulfilled by FTE, project management issues can disrupt the effort. headcount. An organization’s resource budget may lack funding, restricting its capacity to bring on the FTEs is the need of the hour. Another problem is the overall project hours that may be under- or overestimated.

Conclusion

Experts believe that both headcount and FTE have their own pros and cons, it’s up to an organization to decide which one of them suits it given its particular resource management needs. However, an organization may be in a better position to decide which model is more affordable and produces the best results for capacity planning and project management planning.

It refers to a model for IT support in which a company outsources strategic IT functions to a Managed Services Provider (MSP), who is tasked with managing the resources, tools, and procedures used to perform both projects and continuing operations. In a managed service model, the managed service provider is responsible for the functionality of the IT service and paraphernalia, with the customer generally paying a monthly fee for delivery of the service. An effective managed services model allows a customer to benefit from expectable pricing and the capacity to concentrate on key business fears instead of IT-related tasks.

A managed services provider offers distant monitoring and organization that is often a rudimentary, foundational service. With the arrival of cloud computing, managed IT services have also grown to include cloud services. For example, service providers are likely to focus on infrastructure as a service, providing managed public cloud services together with cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google and Microsoft.

Like any pricing model, one needs to look for the following risks related to this model, ensuring that they are dealt with adequately. The key risks include:

a) Capacity to define and monitor service levels – Since the model hugely depends on service levels, companies must have the ability to produce and monitor these service levels. Incapacity of an organization to screen service level may lead to a vendor overpricing due to lack of transparency.

b) Single vendor reliance – Once a vendor is entrenched in the organization, they may be unwilling to increase the scope.

Why Make the Switch?

While both models are feasible options for increasing IT support, staff augmentation provides cutting-edge improvement and a growing drive to cut costs and enhance operational efficiencies through technological innovation. This typically converts into an increasing number of IT projects, where a business’s success or failure can often depend on the capacity to complete these projects on time, within budget, and to specification. Developing in-house competences to carry out these projects can be an expensive and dicey undertaking, especially when the IT needs of an organization are continually changing. Furthermore, in today’s business world where lagging behind the IT innovation curve can be catastrophic, only a handful companies have static IT needs.

When Is It Time to Switch?

Given the array of advantages that growing businesses can gain from switching to staff augmentation, the question arises about the perfect time they should make the switch.

When Does an Organization Need Staff Augmentation?

Staff augmentation is a novel concept for large- and medium-sized organizations because in it an organization prefers not to hire a full-time employee. Reasons may include, among other things, cost limitations, the immediate requirement of staff, or the length of the project that barely justifies hiring a full-time employee.

Cost

Business is about making money, which can be done by obtaining better income, or by reducing overhead expenses. Staff augmentation can easily perform both the jobs. A lot of money and time are spent finding the right employee when a company needs additional help. If that employee is only needed temporarily, or quits, that process must start from scratch. Keeping in-house employees trained and up-to-date on the latest technology can also add up swiftly.

Full-time employees can be very expensive, not to mention the risks and obligations related to full-time counterparts. Staff augmentation offers companies the opportunity to pick and choose the specific skills and services needed for their company. If one consultant lacks the skills you need, then you can easily find another that does. You pay for the demanded skill without having to pay for the overhead of hiring or training. Overhead is further reduced as you only pay for the mandatory skills when you need them. Staff augmentation should be seriously considered if a company finds that employees are striving to achieve the work it needs. Hiring the exact skill needed can confirm that a company’s project can reach its milestones. Staff augmentation, while providing a blueprint to accelerate projects, enables employees to zero in on other serious assignments in a bid to grow and earn higher revenue.

Ability to Start Projects Sooner

Executives often if a certain individual is the right resource for the job, whether s/he can do the job, or if they can be trained to do the job. However, the point whether the person in question can learn to do the job holds little significance; what’s important is how long an organization can wait. Staff augmentation allows a company to get the resources it needs immediately. This is significant if a company is not able to maintain an adequate workforce to achieve regular workloads, or a large project needs to be initiated. The capacity to start projects sooner may be just the advantage a company needs to win the speed to market race.

Length of Project

More often than not, a company does not need a long-term employee. For instance, many IT tasks, such as upgrading services, are barely needed on a permanent basis. Another case is organizations outsourcing help to ensure they meet guidelines and other regulatory compliance efforts. While such tasks are significant, they may not be needed on a permanent basis.

Flexible Workforce

Companies may need extra resources for a large forthcoming project and for this they immediate help. Huge resources can be spent finding and hiring an employee with the right skills, which this can take weeks, if not months, resulting in delays or missing out on business deals. According to a report, best practice companies in both the US and Europe evaluate they are overspending by 10% and underperforming by 10% due to their inability to have a fully nimble and flexible workforce.

Companies must not miss out on that latent profit by not having the resources they need, when they need them. Using an Augmented Staff lets companies rapidly up or downscale their workforce based on the needs of the project.

Conclusion

Given the rise in cost pressure in today’s fickle marketplace, more companies are turning to staff augmentation to control expenses, improve performance, and regain focus on their core capabilities. Nevertheless, the switch from managed services to staff augmentation can only be fruitful if careful attention is given to finding the right partner. While previously managed services would dominate staff augmentation for one reason or another, in today’s ever-changing modern business world, staff augmentation is the new name of the game.

A website builder is a software which gives you access to create, recreate or customize a website online. They offer various customization choices, where you need to look for the one which needs your business requirements. Above all, it doesn’t reside on your local computer rather on a web server. Ecommerce website builders have made website designing a relief. Isn’t it?

Top Ecommerce Website Builders

Listed down are the 10 best e-commerce website builder options reviewed for 2019

1.   Shopify Ecommerce Solution

Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce web builders and has become the ultimate choice of some top-notch brands. Although, Shopify is expensive as compared to other builders yet it has catered a huge market. It offers vigorous features which grab the attention of online business executives.

With Shopify, you have access to design your website the way you want because it offers hundreds of templates. In addition, you can custom design a theme meeting your own expectations and a level of satisfaction without any prohibitions of HTML and CSS. Apart from that, it also facilitates the creation of apps in handy ways. It consists of a system that can help you monitor customer information. It keeps a record of information on customers, their purchases, giving you the idea of what exactly your customers need. Shopify offers plugins, integrated payments, mobile support and most importantly multiple platforms for online selling. It is like a one-stop-shop for business owners.

2.  Weebly

Weebly is an easy to use website builder. It involves a uniquely designed page builder that enables you to edit your website without having any coding abilities. All the designs available can be edited with its live page editor feature. It has been recently bought by Square who have made efforts to make improvements in this e-commerce platform. Weebly makes sure that they provide value for your money. It is a comprehensively hosted platform, where you don’t need to install or manage any software.

They’re going to take care of hosting your website and handling all the software that operates on the backend. Moreover, it uses the standard built-in support for e-commerce. This enables you to readily develop an online store and start selling. Weebly facilitates you with built-in features for sliders, contact forms, galleries and more which allows you to easily add features to your website without the hassle of setup processes. This is the reason why it is rated among the top website builders for beginners.

3.   Wix eCommerce

Wix has made web designing an easy job to do. It does not require any coding for the formation of an ideal website. Wix offers a wide range of rich features for your website design within economical prices. Specifically suited for e-commerce webpages, Wix provides dynamic features like inventory management, cost calculation widgets, social media integration tools, and much more.

With highly genius SEO tools, one can get customers by getting featured on search engine results. Also, it has some marketing-oriented features like coupons management and newsletters. Wix can prove to be an ideal web builder for e-commerce owners who gets to operate physical locations. These online store plug-ins necessitate you with all the variety of tools that are needed to ace your business online.

Being superlatively affordable, it is also mobile compatible. What else do you need?

4.   Square Space

Square Space is another website building company which was established back in 2004. It’s a good space for the beginners of web design. Square Space provides a compelling and eye-catching site design to the customers. Giving additional capability to your website, it makes web design super easy where you do not have to encounter any technical or coding problem. It also consists of panels which give you access to put your ideas ideally into motion without bothering about complicated coding.

Also, you’re allowed to sell or market anything and get overflowing clients from the beginning- all hail Square Space SEO options which automatically creates SEO options for your web page. Besides offering the value services, it’s affordable than the competitors yet the best platform for e-commerce websites that can take your business to the next level.

5.   Volusion

It’s a leading e-commerce platform in 2019 that helps host your online storefront. If you are willing to start your own store but are anonymous to web hosting and managing website yourself, Volusion has multiple solutions for you. You can get innovative with your own created designs. It is supreme choice for both tech-savvies and traders who are a foreigner to running and operating online businesses. Volusion is mobile friendly and very responsive.

The cherry on the top, they do not have any transaction fees currently unless you are taking their monthly plan. It is an excellent solution for individuals who wish to set up a storefront and selling online. Since, it offers facilities like cutting down your responsibilities of hosting your web page, maintaining its update and security, you get the opportunity to focus on other aspects of magnifying your business. Volusion, without any doubt, the best solution for improving focus in all areas of e-commerce.

6.   Big E-Commerce Online Store Builder

Big e-commerce store offers vast variety of e-commerce solutions. Big E-commerce is particularly known for the marketing tools it offers, making it convenient for individuals to promote their web sites. Also, it can develop some remarkable web sites that are comprehensive and offers various visuals that prove to be fascinating for many users. They have a huge number of paid layouts that fills the necessities of all size businesses. Furthermore, it has the various expansible option, you can always add products and services with the help of the control panel to generate new pages and product listings.

Apart from providing a multitude of versatile marketing tools, various integrated payments are supported on BigCommerce sites. They also have a 15 days trial to give you the idea of how it actually works. BigCommerce is quite functional for big as well as small businesses who are looking for a variable e-commerce platform. However, it works best for those who have enough finances because the cost of BigCommerce is high and can get more if you wish to purchase intricate layouts.

7.   Duda

By default, Duda is best for agencies and even hosting businesses, but you can also take online stores to fruition. Its main focus is on white-labeling and reselling web designs, not on creating and developing a website.  In its collection of pre-designed templates, you will explore a variety of materials for different stores. And there is an additional blank layout that provides you the extra freedom you are looking for. In a short span of time, you can be ready and able to go live and begin selling your products. Also, it doesn’t really matter what your eCommerce website is all about, Duda is prepared to work for all types of websites.

As it implies all modern web trends and technology rules, all your web pages will be compatible with mobile devices, cross-browser compatible and incredibly fast to load. All this assures you that Duda is an incredibly versatile and agile web builder with everything you need, to sort out your web presence quickly.

8.   Jimdo

Jimdo is a German-based website builder. In the recent past, it has become one of the world’s leading website builders because of its well thought out features, such as the Jimdo online store. It utilizes the power of AI to offer a highly customized website in just three minutes without the understanding of coding.

They enable website development from beginning to end using their iOS and Android apps. It can allow you to optimize your website for search engines (SEO). All the templates available are fully responsive and well-displayed on desktop and mobile devices. Even their free plan is comparatively powerful, offering features such as password protection and a small e-commerce website with up to 5 products.

9.   GoDaddy

GoDaddy is one of the top-notch hosting companies around, offering their own website builder. Just like Wix, it is simple to navigate and use. It facilitates you with a great number of themes, all of which appear to work with their drag and drop builder. They’re all categorized according to the type of website you want to have. Furthermore, it includes an integrated photo library with professional pictures from Getty Photography that you want to use on your website. You can also upload your own pictures and create an image gallery.

E-commerce is fully supported by many different payment methods, and there is also a useful scheduling feature. GoDaddy provides a one-month free trial, so you can have an idea if this platform meets the needs of your business.

10.   WordPress with WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a different kind of platform compared to the ones we have discussed above. It is a self-hosted plan which gives you complete control on your e-commerce website without any subscription fees. It offers multiple themes with variations for your website that can be customized. Although it is not a drag-and-drop website builder, you can always customize the look and feel of your website. WooCommerce requires WordPress hosting to function. You can get actually started with it for free. but you have to purchase a domain name and set up web hosting.       

Facebook has 1.56 billion daily active users. Which is almost the 5X the population of the United States, 20% of the world population, and they are still increasing. The things we used to imagine at a period of time, i.e. auto and rapid responding via chatbots, 360-degree visuals, selling products, interacting on fingertips throughout the world, are all made possible thanks to Facebook! And if we talk about emails, they are a boon to businesses. It is an excellent way to reach out to your customers and prospects and keep them updated about your brand. Since it is a great technique for marketing, we are witnessing some ever-evolving trends like typography, machine learning, gamification, hyper-personalization, etc., which makes it a go-to for your marketing strategy.

Facebook and email marketing are both quite efficient, and the overall outcome is much higher when used in combination with each other rather than independently. Being a marketer that incorporates email marketing campaign with Facebook will give a boost to your business.

Why Is It Necessary to Integrate Email Marketing with Facebook?

The notion that Facebook is an ultimate tool for reaching new customers is a myth. Facebook and email marketing are two entirely distinct kinds of marketing. Both can encourage sales, but they also offer a number of different advantages. Successful digital marketing is not just about getting an email opt-in or a single Facebook like, but rather about getting both. The connection between building a social media and an email relationship cannot be understated as if you were asking for one; you should be working towards the other.

Although different marketing platforms function very efficiently on their own, joining forces and incorporating both Facebook and email marketing can significantly boost overall performance. As marketing campaigns for both Facebook and email work together, you will get to see an increase in likes and followers on Facebook, more email sign-ups, and more overall engagement and response.

How Does Your Business Benefit from Integrating Email and Facebook?

• The more the subscribers sharing your content on Facebook, the higher will be the open rate and the CTR of emails sent. Furthermore, as Facebook is the channel, the primary purpose of which is to engage, it will further help you drive more email conversions.

• Email service providers offer statistical data on the sharing of social media emails. Take into account this information to segment your mailing list and elaborate customized content based on user engagement.

• By offering subscribers the chance to choose the channel they prefer to interact with your brand, you can build a more active, dedicated customer base.

Ways to Integrate Facebook and Email Marketing

There’s really no better time than now to begin managing your advertising spending better by using your email list to deliver better targeting for Facebook ads. Here, we will discuss ways you can use both of them collectively to boost your marketing success.

• Include Facebook Icon in Emails

Adding Facebook icons on your emails is a must. These icons must lead the users directly to your Facebook page. Moreover, it can improve your reputation and brand awareness. Thus, featuring icons and links to your Facebook page in each email campaign is indeed an excellent way to integrate both marketing campaigns.

• Add Share Buttons

It is always more convenient to click a ‘Share’ button rather than forwarding the link to your friends. Either they are blogs, announcement or any other stuff. With the presence of a ‘Share’ button, it is always easy to tweet, like or share. It is one of the tried and tested way of extending your reach.  Thus, the more trust you build with the audience, then more probably they would open your emails, click through your landing pages, and convert.

• Provide an Email to Sign Up on Facebook

Just as you would like to promote Facebook through your email, you want to promote email sign-ups and off-Facebook leads on your Facebook page. A lot of people simply will like your Facebook page before they see a place to sign up for email. And that’s particularly true when they’ve found you on Facebook.

• Announce a Facebook Contest

Hosting contests that feature contest apps can result in a significant increase in email sign-ups when properly implemented. There have been a lot of great Facebook contest applications that focus on email sign-ups and off-Facebook leads instead of Facebook likes. It’s a brilliant way to motivate your followers to sign up for your email list.

• Run an Email Campaign to Promote Your Facebook Page

An announcement is necessary for every initiative you are going to take, whether it is the creation of a Facebook page or anything else. Users quite often ignore icons or merely don’t scroll down to the bottom of the email to see a link to social networks. So, make an announcement of your Facebook page through email and encourage them to follow you.

Concluding Note

Emails will continue to become even more personal, and Facebook will remain home to millions of users around the world. If you’re not integrating the two until now, you’re losing out on a massive business opportunity. As a marketer, you’re used to set targets. However, most of the time you set micro-goals for particular campaigns, such as planning to hit a certain conversion rate on your most recent promotional email. This time, take a macro approach and set goals to make the most of email marketing campaign with Facebook.