Remember that great scene in Willy Wonka where Verruca Salt’s father has his factory workers looking for a golden ticket? His office had a window that opened onto the shop floor. That’s the only way a factory owner in the 1960s could keep an eye on how his employees were doing.
Times have changed. Today, we work from home when we want. We interact with corporate systems on mobile devices. As of two months ago, the COVID 19 pandemic and stay-at-home orders have resulted in extensive reliance on virtual teams. People who once did the prairie dog move in the cube farm and huddled in conference rooms are now telecommunicating from home and collaborating online.
At many organizations, however, this recent rush to virtual teaming has revealed the limitations of operational software. We can get things done, but it’s not easy. Without the right tools, it can be pretty challenging to have everyone phoning it in.
The Cloud ERP Advantage for Virtual Teaming
Cloud ERP solutions like Acumatica offer functionality and architecture that are well-suited to virtual team collaboration. Being cloud-based, it is natively built to connect with people working from a variety of locations. It was designed to inter-operate with other applications, smoothing the way for virtual productivity.
For example, with Acumatica, home-based salespeople can create leads in Microsoft Outlook and then email them to Acumatica’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) module. They can seamlessly undertake the full quote-to-cash cycle within Acumatica—with multiple employees accessing the same customer data and transactions in real time.
Available business processes include converting a quote to a sales order, checking inventory, running capable-to-promise (CTP), credit checks and more. Working from home, employees can order “pick, pack and ship” processes, issue invoices, collect payments and more. The look and feel of the application at home is the same as it is in the office or in the field. From there, users can take advantage of DocuSign and Adobe sign for remote document management and legal workflows.
Mobility for Virtual Team Members
Acumatica has a mobile app that is geared to virtual teaming during today’s stay-at-home period. It enables your remote workers to handle tasks like time tracking, expense reporting and attendance. The latter, in particular can be a demanding aspect of virtual work. Who’s “at work”? With the mobile app, you can keep track.
Field service technicians, who have always been at least partly virtual, can continue to be part of the extended team even when everyone else is out of the office. They can use the app to access service routes and customer account information. The app continues to assist them in their on-site work, with digital product guides, image uploading and invoicing.
Learn more in Why a Truly Mobile ERP Is More Important Than Ever.
Up-to-Date Data and Analytics
Acumatica works from a single database. This seemingly esoteric architectural detail has significant implications for virtual teamwork. In contrast to ERP solutions that run multiple databases, Acumatica has no latency or synchronization issues. All remote members of a virtual team see the same version of the truth in real time. Thus, if an order gets picked in the warehouse, the diminished inventory count will be instantly available to anyone who needs to know. No one is “out of the loop.” The same unified data architecture also enables streamlined data analytics.
We can help you get your virtual teams working optimally using cloud-based ERP. To learn more, or see a demo, contact us for a free consultation.
Check out how some customers are adapting to remote work with the help of Acumatica:
“I am really thankful we have Acumatica in place right now. If we had been still operating from the old platform, we would have had some significant challenges with people working from home and staying connected. Keep up the good work!” – Alex Craster, Owner, Craster
“Power Storage Solutions is not missing a beat, thanks to our decision to go with Acumatica.” – Derrick Elledge, VP of Operations, Power Storage Solutions
“Palmer FoodService is a Food Service client running Acumatica. Being in Tennessee, we first got hit with the tornados and while the national distributors were out of business, Palmer picked up the slack. Now with the COVID-19, food distributors like Palmer are a lifeline for their regional markets. We are family run business’s that now have superior technology to the national firms.” – Liz Palmer Gibson, VP Sales & Marketing, Palmer FoodService
“Mobility is an important driver for us. Thanks to Acumatica, our employees can connect to the same central system from any site.” – Thibault Riester, President/Founder, Controleplus France
Get the eBook: The New State of Work in Challenging Times
Many business leaders are still wondering “Can my people remain productive if they’re working out of home offices?” The answer is yes—if you put in place cloud ERP technology that powers their collaboration and communication. In this eBook, you’ll learn:
- What it takes to stay resilient in challenging times
- How to give everyone access to your business systems from anywhere
- Why working remotely doesn’t have to mean working in isolation
- How to ensure the safety and integrity of your cloud data
- How Acumatica customers are thriving with cloud ERP