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How Integration Can Improve Your Supply Chain Management

The efficient management of logistics processes involving multiple business partners is one of the main challenges faced by companies in the supply chain vertical.

There are many systems involved in the supply chain such as warehouse management systems (WMS), transportation management systems (TMS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and much more.

However, the use of multiples of business systems and applications does not yet guarantee success.

The most important thing in the supply chain is the flow of information between the different systems, in a timely and efficient manner; this is called “data integration” which is necessary so different heterogenous systems can “communicate” with each other in a close to “real-time” fashion.

What is Supply Chain Management (SCM)?

Wikipedia gives the most accurate definition: “In commerce, supply chain management (SCM), the management of the flow of goods and services, money and information, involves the movement and storage of raw materials, of work-in-process inventory, and of finished goods as well as end to end order fulfilment from point of origin to point of consumption”.

In other words, the supply chain is the delivery of a product to a consumer. Which includes all stages from the transformation of raw materials into a finished product to delivery to the final consumer.

The main goal of the supply chain management is to coordinate all stages of the process to minimize overall costs and obtain the greatest efficiency.

What is “Integration” in the Supply Chain?

In information technology, integration is the connection of data, systems, applications, or devices to improve efficiency, productivity, and flexibility.

The purpose of integration in supply chain management is to combine different business systems responsible for different functions (warehouse, resource planning, accounting, electronic data interchange, etc.) that belong to different business partners to create a single efficient logistics system.

Internal and External Supply Chain Integration

There are two concepts in supply chain integration. Internal and external integration.

Internal integration is the interconnection of various business systems within one company.

External integration is the interaction between business partners through the interconnection of their numerous business systems responsible for various functions in logistics.

Typical examples of companies involved in the supply chain that require integration:
  • suppliers of raw materials and supplies
  • manufacturers of finished products
  • warehouses, 3 pl warehouses
  • transport companies and carriers
  • buyers (retailers, various companies, and organizations)
  • various intermediaries

Platform for full data integration across the entire supply chain

To improve efficiency, all companies involved in the supply chain need to simultaneously exchange data from different business systems. In other words, as previously mentioned, they need external integration.

Why is external integration so important? Integration in the supply chain is important because usually, any transaction goes through multiple systems such as ERP, CRM, financial, or warehouse systems. Normally, data for the same transaction must be transferred to the business partner (customer, supplier, 3pl warehouse, etc.). After receiving the data, the business partner must enter it into their business systems.

If companies have no integrated systems, data is transferred and processed manually or by downloading spreadsheets or files. Those processes are not efficient, they require a lot of resources and time, and there is a high risk of errors and data loss.

With the integration platform, companies can quickly and easily automate the exchange of information.

Useful reading: How to Choose the Right Integration Platform?

Integration platform for automating data entry

The goal of systems integration is to reduce costs and efforts for all participants in the supply chain process.

Manually entering duplicate information into several business systems takes a lot of time. Sometimes it requires hiring additional employees just to perform some of these mechanical functions. Furthermore, multiple manual entries into various systems are prone to human errors and less quality of information.

With the help of an integration platform like Magic xpi, you can quickly automate the data entry process, by reducing the time for entering data and ensuring their accuracy.

Besides, the use of modern gadgets, such as tablets and smartphones, allows data entry directly in the field (for example, when receiving goods at a warehouse), which speeds up information flows and improves customer service.

Magic xpi integration platform for efficient supply chain demand forecasting

Demand forecasting is the process of estimating future consumer demand over a given period using historical sales data and other information.

It is no secret that demand forecasting is very important for effective Supply Chain Management. Demand forecasting affects important business operations such as financial planning, raw material planning, production planning, marketing, and sales plans, as well as risk assessment.

Download Magic xpi product overview

Magic xpi can help you achieve more accurate forecasts by ensuring perfect coordination between your enterprise resource planning (ERP) and Customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

This will lead to increased profits and higher competitive advantage.

Magic xpi integration platform to improve transportation process

ERP integration with EDI, warehouse management system, and yard management software will help to improve transportation processes.

Magic xpi B2B Integration

The integration of these business systems provides instant information exchange and can significantly reduce downtime.

Thus, you or your transport companies will have more time to deliver the goods.

The best integration solution for Supply chain management

Supply chain management is a broad topic in which the integration of business systems plays a key role. Data integration can help manage all the necessary processes to ensure a smooth flow at all stages of the supply chain. It can significantly improve all the processes in the supply chain, ensure fast order fulfillment, reduce cost, and improve customer service.

Being a business partner with Magic Software Enterprises for over 20 years now, we provide powerful integration solutions. We have been helping our clients make their business profitable by integrating systems.

Contact us for a free consultation.

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Systems integration platform to improve business performance

This post was updated to reflect current trends and information.

Information Technology is developing at a fast pace. Many experts call IT the fastest growing area of human activity. Systems and applications integration, play an important role in the IT space, and has a significant impact on a company’s performance as well as the entire industrial and commercial sectors. This is why, we have noticed a surge in companies’ interest when it comes to integration…

What is “systems integration”?

According to Wikipedia: “System integration is defined in engineering as the process of bringing together the component sub-systems into one system (an aggregation of subsystems cooperating so that the system is able to deliver the overarching functionality)….”

But, it would be a mistake to consider that “system integration” is only the assembly of hardware and software tools together; the essence of the concept is much broader than that.

“System integration” is an activity to improve the efficiency of an enterprise, the decision-making process and the quality of the information, through an automated process, where “heterogenous” systems can communicate and integrate to each other on a real-time basis.

Most companies in today’s business environment, run lots of “heterogenous” systems and software applications, where each one does not communicate to the other; this kind of environment, creates lots of inefficiencies, poor quality of information, which most of the times results in a reduction of profits, and delays in executive decisions.

Automated “systems integration”, comes into play in creating a “bridge”, where data flows between heterogenous systems, software applications and databases in multiple directions, based on pre-defined business rules, as if the systems are totally “homogenous”

Why companies need “systems integration”?

Companies are increasingly adopting software solutions and equipment to solve specific business needs, therefore adding new “standalone” applications and systems to their software management suite. Most of the times, those software solutions, do not communicate natively to each other.

While adopting a specific software application (either cloud-based or on-premise) might satisfy a business need, and solve a business issue, it will create at the other hand a series of new challenges such as :

  • Redundant data entry; most data already exist in another system.
  • Need to hire more staff to manage more systems
  • Open a door for more human errors when managing new systems.

The above challenges are relevant in any size company, be it small medium or large.

How to solve integration challenges?

To solve integration challenges identified in the previous point, companies should not hesitate to embrace integration projects to synchronize and orchestrate software systems, databases, processes and equipment.

To do so, companies should adopt a capable “integration platform” having the following properties:

  • Easy to use, drag and drop
  • No coding required
  • Quick to learn, develop and deploy
  • Easy debugging and simple errors tracking and handling
  • Multiple options for triggering and launching processes and flows
  • Capable of connecting to most of the databases commonly used in today’s marketplace
  • Capable of connecting to the branded software systems (i.e. SAP, Salesforce, Oracle, SugarCRM…) with certified connectors by the manufacturer
  • Have built-in generic API driven connectors for IoT projects
  • Extensible to go beyond the “out-of-the-box” where you can build your own connectors and drivers for specific proprietary solutions

Benefits of Systems integration

The benefits to implement an API-driven solid integration that is capable of connecting to a wide range of business ecosystems, are valuable. Here are the to 5 benefits

  • Real-Time data synchronization

Having a robust integration platform in charge of orchestrating ad synchronizing data and processes, eliminates the delays in data publication. The data is synchronized between different systems in a real-time basis without the need of any human intervention.

  • Quicker data processing

With an automated integration platform, capable of synchronizing data and trigger flows and processes efficiently based on rules and conditions, processing data becomes also real-time, which eliminates the needs of data extraction, transformation and load (ETL). No need for a separate ETL tool.

  • Improvement of employees’ productivity

Data synchronization and orchestration obviously eliminates lots of time and effort for employees to manage and feed/extract data into one system to another. Employees can focus on business related issues, where they can generate more revenues, rather than entering and manipulating data into “heterogenous” systems.

  • Quicker Executive decision making

Having a robust integration platform in place, with all the benefits identified above, company executives will be empowered with the capability to take quick decisions, and avoid the lengthy process of extracting data from different systems, and merging it together in order to build unified data sheet.

  • Increase of profitability

The above benefits put together, will result in a considerable increase of profitability of any company having heterogenous software systems and applications.

Magic xpi Integration Platform

What are the signs a company needs an integration platform?

Following are the top signs in any company, that will indicate an integration platform is required in order to improve business processes.

1- You company has multiple software systems that are standalone, with no direct link in between

2- Your company has a mix of on-premise and cloud-based software solutions that are not connected

3- Employees spend considerable time on their day-to-day job, to feed multiple systems

4- Your company has an eCommerce site that is managed separately from the internal ERP system

5- The IT department at the company is not capable of delivering reports and analytics on-time

6- Unable to respond to business requirements from your clients, to deliver within 48 hours

7- Data is in great mismatch between systems and solutions, due to its redundancy

8- Lots of employees are working on building reports and data entry work

9- No visibility of company’s equipment data and performance (i.e. production machines, cameras, field service data…)

Looking for an integration platform solution for your business?

For over 20 years now, our company has been an official partner of Magic Software Enterprises Ltd. a global enterprise software company, delivering Magic xpi, a fully reliable SOA, API-driven integration platform for all connectivity needs. Magic xpi Business Integration Platform delivers enterprise-grade integration, business process automation, and data synchronization solutions, with comprehensive security and proven reliability. Implementing a wide range of certified and optimized connectors and adaptors, Magic xpi integrates leading ERP, CRM, finance, and other enterprise systems, such as SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, Microsoft, IBM, Google, and many more.

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