Tag: microsoft dynamics 365

Trident Information System | Microsoft Dynamics 365 Partner & IBM Business Partner | > microsoft dynamics 365
Uncategorized
April 13, 20200

Reduce supply chain disruptions with AI, IoT, and mixed reality

Disruptions in global supply chains have significantly increased over the last decade, fueled by a myriad of triggers ranging from trade wars, demand surges from social marketing, natural disasters, and most recently, the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

Updates to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management in the 2020 release wave 1 help organizations proactively transform every aspect of manufacturing and supply chain operations to reduce disruptions. These new and updated capabilities drive automation and reduce downtime using IoT and mixed reality, and provide the agility to re-plan production in real time to dynamically changing demand. In fact, the agility enabled by Supply Chain Management is currently being leveraged by a consortium of major UK industrial, technology, and engineering businesses from across the aerospace, automotive, and medical sectors that has come together to produce medical ventilators for the NHS.

Reducing the risk of supply chain disruptions

As the threat of disruptions increase, companies are pressured to ask if the supply chain is ready for the next event, pushing them to build a more resilient supply chain to ensure business continuity for them and their customers in the most cost-effective manner. More companies will start buffering for risks and move from a “Just-in time” mentality to a “Just-in case” mentality. Factories will need to transform rapidly to adapt to change, serving a wider range of products produced in smaller batches with lower set up time, faster throughput, and the ability to quickly respond to fluctuating demand and customer expectations. Companies are likely to move from single supplier to multi-supplier and single location to multi-location models for mission critical parts even if it is cost prohibitive in order to reduce the impact of supply chain disruptions.

To reach this optimal state of agility and delivery speed, manufacturers need to adapt every aspect of the supply chain to enable tools, equipment, and people to become instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent—a state of persistent adaptive learning and optimization as more data is available to tighten links between manufacturers, suppliers, and customers.

The latest release from Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management enables customers to reach this optimal state by proactively transforming their manufacturing and supply chain with predictive insights and intelligence from AI, IoT, and mixed reality—across planning, production, inventory, warehouse, and transportation management—to maximize operational efficiency, product quality, and profitability.

Train workers faster with integrated mixed reality learning experiences

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management is now integrated with Dynamics 365 Guides to help mainstream mixed reality for manufacturing. Companies can deliver a faster ROI by getting the workforce trained sooner with fewer trainers and with an interactive learning experience. Workforce efficiency can skyrocket with step-by-step instructions that guide employees to the tools and parts they need and how to use them in real work situations, available at a glance on a Microsoft HoloLens device that keeps their hands free to do the work.

Dynamics 365 Guides can not only eliminate costly errors in production but also improve workforce safety. Companies can significantly reduce asset downtime by making asset maintenance skillset-agnostic and avoid costly waiting time for a specific expert to perform maintenance on an asset. The guides are extremely easy to author and do not require any coding. A guide can be authored by simply writing the step-by-step instructions on a PC followed by picking and placing the holographic parts and inbuilt icons on the machine where the work is happening.

Learn how to use Dynamics 365 Guides
Introducing Dynamics 365 Guides for HoloLens 2

Dispatch the right resources at the right time

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management is now integrated with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service. Customers can significantly reduce downtime of geographically dispersed mission critical assets by automating field service operations so that the right resources—workforce, machines, parts, and tools—are available at the right place, at the right time, to proactively maintain them.

Companies can improve the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) of their geographically dispersed mission critical assets by performing predictive maintenance based on real-time performance data from IoT and field data from Dynamics 365 Field Service. Traditionally, disparate systems hinder the ability to accurately forecast demand for critical and expensive parts frequently used in both service and new production. Due to lack of forecasting for service demand, companies constantly take parts from production to fulfill the service demand, and vice versa, to deliver good customer service. This often creates a shortage for new production and significantly impacts on time delivery to new customers. As a result, the company is unable to deliver a delightful customer experience on both fronts. This integration will eliminate the need for disparate systems and significantly improve the forecast accuracy of these mission-critical parts due to real time tracking in the service supply chain.

Seamlessly integrate IoT capabilities

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management now offers out-of-the-box IoT capabilities that leverage Microsoft Azure IoT Hub to connect signals from mission-critical assets with business transaction data. Manufacturers can improve uptime, throughput, and quality by proactively managing shop floor and equipment operations with a real-time view of their entire production and stock. This will significantly reduce costly downtime of business-critical equipment by performing predictive maintenance before disruptive failures occur. There is no coding required to implement these out-of-the-box IoT scenarios on your manufacturing floor today.

Learn more on how Majan is using Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management
Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and IoT Intelligence customer spotlight with Majans

Improve on-time delivery with real-time production planning

The Planning Optimization Add-in for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management enables companies to improve on-time delivery by performing production planning in real time, accounting for dynamically changing customer demand, material availability, and capacity constraints across multiple sites and warehouses. It also enables customers to improve inventory turns by right-sizing inventory levels based on dynamically changing customer demand and capacity constraints. This helps eliminate excess and reduces slow moving inventory. Planning Optimization Add-in for Retail and Distribution is available and Production planning is currently in preview.

Uncategorized
February 29, 20200

When do you know that your business needs a CRM software?

Customer Relationship Management is a process of managing or organizing prospects throughout the sales life cycle. The more the advancement in serving the clients, the more will be the payment stream for the Company. Trident’s CRM software solutions happen to be one of the most effective and efficient CRM software that could easily cut overhead costs and give highlights which demonstrate helpful to different business firms.

Many CRM software programs available have several features that can be used or restricted – so in effect a business can modify to make their own CRM software. However, utilizing CRM software gives various advantages to both organizations and customers and that is the reason each genuine business has implemented some of the other CRM applications.

So who can opt for Trident’s CRM software?

A simple response to that question would be “Any business with customers would utilize CRM“. However, in the real world, it is not just as simple as that. Choosing an appropriate CRM software solely depends upon the business process along with a range of profitable features. Below are the type of Businesses that could gain benefit from using Trident’s CRM software solutions.

1- The business that uses any form of Marketing: 

For any business that uses marketing campaigns to promote, sell or advertise their products or services in the market through various communication mediums such as phone, email, etc. Reaching to customers in bulk within a short period as well as recording the response on the go makes it more effective to manage the marketing process.

2- A business that deals with B2B and B2C Sales:

For any business that tends to cope up with the Customers to sell or cross-sell the products. Maintain relevant sales data such as documents, communication records, etc. Identify the process flow starting from Lead up to the deal gets closed.

3- A business that creates Quotations & Invoices: 

Built-in invoicing module to track the quotations and invoices generated against an opportunity. Efficiency to merge the billing details into the document which can further be mailed to the customer right from the CRM software without any need to switch between the applications.

4 – A business that deals in Customer Service: 

For any business that believes in increasing customer satisfaction by helping them in tracking as well as resolving the issues completely. Managing the cases within CRM as well as auto – escalations triggered on a timely basis not only guarantees better customer satisfaction but at the same helps the Management to track resource performance.

5- A business that wants to increase efficiency: 

Well-organized business results in better output which can be ultimately tracked with the help of various Reports, Dashboards, etc. Well-improved or say the advance level of features incorporating in CRM with the latest release of versions has enhanced the CRM which has ultimately proved beneficial for Business growth.

Thus using CRM software gives you numerous benefits to enrich both Business and Customer Relations by serving your customers better with stronger service and support. To know more about how can CRM software help you, you can check out our CRM software solution on https://www.tridentinfo.com/microsoft-dynamics-crm-software-solution/ and contact to our experts on https://www.tridentinfo.com/contact/.

Retail ERP Software
February 18, 20200

7 Reasons to have a Retail-oriented Solution to Unite E-commerce and ERP

Solely brick-and-mortar retail is gradually have become the exception rather than the norm. Increasing numbers of consumers have welcomed the convenience of online retailers, allowing them to evaluate items in less time and make purchasing decisions rather than visiting various physical stores. In everyday market research, 81 percent of consumers use phones and tablets. In reply to these developments, businesses try to boost revenues by embracing ecommerce and spreading to other platforms.

Yet each new site introduced by marketers raises the difficulty of their distribution chain. To integrate all channels information to make good enterprise-wide choices, they need new digital resources. To establish a consolidated database of all purchases, clients, and goods, several retail businesses prefer to incorporate their ERP implementation services with each of their distribution channels. There are however some clear benefits of using an integrated solution designed specifically for the retail sector over integration solutions for common use applications.

Below are some features of built-in retail integration solutions that show the requirement of customization for a common integration framework:

1- Flexibility Over Retail Vhannels

All businesses move toward cohesive user experiences. Retail-specific integration solutions enable different systems, like your point-of-sale (POS) and ecommerce system, to import and then use product descriptions into your Retail ERP Software. It means you have the same range of products throughout all the product lines, while constantly pricing and discounting those items.

2- Omni Channel Experience

Retail integration solutions offer services for Omni channel purchase-online pickup-in-store (BOPIS) fulfilment which enables customers to buy an item from one channel and deliver it from another platform. They might buy a product at a retail outlet, for instance, and have it shipped to their house, or they might order it online and pick it up at a local retail outlet. The retail-specific integrated system manages ZIP-code searches for shop inventory, and shares shop pickup information between systems.

3 – Inventory Clarity

Retail connectivity solutions provide an accurate representation of product availability by synchronization of inventory data throughout networks and systems on a routine basis. Entities can even merge individual warehouses and shops into satisfactory groups to enhance the control of the distribution chain.

4- Client Information Integration

Your Retail ERP system will exchange customer data with your online store and other channels, using a retail-specific implementation solution. Customer data must stay consistent over digital and physical platforms and will avoid redundant information. Such knowledge could be used to generate and monitor purchase requests, and to improve loyalty program management.

5- Unified Loyalty Program

A retail integration solution makes it much easier to operate a single loyalty program with consumer, pricing, and discount information integrated into your Retail ERP system. You will receive and redeem coupons, gift cards, and loyalty points across all platforms, creating better customer satisfaction and higher participation levels than a channel-specific rewards program.

6 – Single Integration Solution for Payment

A retail-specific integration approach increases time to value by offering preloaded integration with major payment service vendors. The use of one integrated system for processing payments, order processing, customer data, and product inventory offers greater efficiency and lower production costs than multi-integrator dependence.

7 – Managing Multiple Languages and Currencies

Retail integration technologies are planned for retail operations around the world. They have help for managing multiple languages and currencies, so you can quickly set up physical or online stores in new geographical regions.

Conclusion

Integration solutions intended for the retail sector provide many out of the box that would involve many months of costly customization to accomplish using platforms for general purpose integration. Trident Information Pvt Ltd provides a flexible and versatile integration solution which many international retailers use. For more information on the power of retail-specific integration, contact Microsoft ERP Partner Trident Information Pvt Ltd on https:/www.tridentinfo.com/contact/

 

 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM
January 21, 20200

Turn prospects into engaged customers with intelligent sales and marketing

The selling landscape is undergoing fundamental changes, many of them driven by the effects of B2B customers’ experience as everyday consumers. Many retailers have created personalized, nearly immersive, online experiences for each customer. Consumers shopping for goods and services continually experience fresh and delightful interactions, from highly customized offers and recommendations to frictionless channels to 24/7 interactions. Using Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing and Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales organisations are improving  their profit margins.

The impact of B2C on B2B

Today’s B2B buyers have high expectations, and those expectations will not be met if B2B buyers are accustomed to sophisticated consumer interactions in their personal lives. Executive B2B buyers are not impressed by marketing driven by large, relatively impersonal data analysis that leads to inconsistent and conflicting interactions or sales outreach that doesn’t cater specifically to their needs at the right time.

The source of the problem may be largely invisible to the companies perpetuating this issue. Many organizations believe themselves to be customer-centric, while their buyers may not agree. That’s a significant disconnect. Clearly, B2B has much to learn from B2C companies.

Customer experience – the rewards for getting it right

Many B2C organizations have strategically embraced modern technologies like customer data platforms (CDP) and artificial intelligence (AI) to gain a 360-degree view of their customers and follow through on those insights to optimize customer engagement.

The rewards for getting this engagement right are substantial. Many buyers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience. In terms of the potential benefits a great experience can have on sales success, a McKinsey study reported that organizations can expect:

  • 10-15 percent lower customer churn
  • 20-40 percent increase in the win rate of offers
  • Up to 50 percent lower service costs

Take a new approach

B2B companies must move away from their legacy approaches based on large, relatively impersonal data analysis and move to solutions that unify relationship data across the full customer lifecycle. That way, they can gain insights that help build credibility and trust with buyers. They can run multi-channel campaigns to increase sales-ready leads, create personal experiences, and use guided process and AI to anticipate and respond faster to customer needs. They can build the ongoing, high-quality relationships that are necessary for long-term success.

Four principal goals

Turning prospects into engaged customers is a process. In order to achieve these goals, organizations must focus on 4 key priorities:

  • Nurture more demand
  • Personalize buyer experiences
  • Build relationships at scale
  • Make insight-driven decisions

Each of these drives results by using deep reservoirs of data in making technology feel more human.

Nurture more demand

Relying only on conventional, basic email marketing as the primary source of leads is simply not effective enough. In fact, the more focused and demanding the customer universe is, the more essential it is to gain deep insights into what those customers expect. Northrop & Johnson,  a leading global yacht brokerage, competes for multi-million dollar customers using technology its industry has been slow to adopt. Using Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing has created a decided competitive advantage: Vital insights into their customer base have helped to drive a 70 percent increase in charter sales.

In any industry, companies need to generate leads across multiple channels, nurture large numbers of leads while prioritizing each one, and use data-driven insights to deliver leads that are sales-ready. Nurturing more demand is critical to growth.

Dynamics 365 for Marketing helps generate, nurture and prioritize sales-ready leads.

Personalize buyer experiences

It’s time to end friction, inconsistencies, and the “do you know who I am?” part of the customer experience. Companies can acquire a holistic view of buyers, predict buyer intent, and orchestrate a connected, personalized journey for customers.

In an era where guests have more choices than ever for leisure and entertainment, Tivoli delights its guests by using Dynamics 365 Customer Insights to stay one step ahead of expectations and transform the guest experience. With its deeper understanding of guests, it can add new chapters to its long tradition of imagination and innovation.

Dynamics 365 for Marketing enables you to personalize buyer experiences and predict buyer intent.

Build relationships at scale

Mutually beneficial relationships don’t simply happen with more data. Companies need to build credibility to establish and grow relationships with customers.

Together, Dynamics 365 and LinkedIn enable the company to have increased information about, and impact on the sales relationships that are added to its sales pipeline, even as that pipeline experiences exponential growth month over month.

Dynamics 365 for Marketing helps you build relationships at scale.

Make insight-driven decisions

Here’s where sales and marketing can truly align: utilizing data to uncover insights that lead to better-informed decisions throughout the sales process. This can improve performance, empower employees, and enable the company to gain increasingly effective strategic insights.

With more than 1,500 pubs serving guests throughout the UK, Marston’s launched a business transition by bringing together guest data that was scattered across multiple systems into Dynamics 365. With their locations’ guest data now unified, Marston’s will gain a complete view of guests, which can be harnessed to generate customer satisfaction and strategic insights. This approach helps drive improved performance throughout the company, including the opportunity to empower employees – an often-overlooked aspect of a company’s success.

Dynamics 365 for Marketing enables you to make insight-driven decisions to improve performance, empower employees and gain strategic insights.

Aligning sales and marketing: The intelligent way to succeed

It’s possible to create exceptional experiences, drive more qualified leads, and increase revenue if an organization has the vision, process, and technology to harness all the data available. This requires high-level technology with well-defined business goals and sales and marketing applications fueled by keen intelligence. We have a compelling offering to accomplish just that with Microsoft Dynamics 365. Get in touch with our representative to request a demo for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales & Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing

Blog Reference : https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/bdm/2019/09/19/turn-prospects-into-engaged-customers-with-intelligent-sales-and-marketing/

Retail ERP Software
January 20, 20200

Redefining shopping excellence with an unified E-commerce solution

Over the last decade, the retail sector has experienced enormous change and transition. Many have suggested that conventional brick and mortar retail is dying and that for the everyday needs, consumers switch entirely to online platforms. However, this is not the case. As per a survey from the National Retail Federation, since 2010 retail storefronts in the US have continued to expand at approximately 4 percent annually along with the consistent double-digit growth of online shopping. Almost all of the top 50 online retailers have brick and mortar stores, as well. Although progress in e-commerce tends to outpace physical stores, the rate of progress in physical retail outlets is still much higher. E-commerce is also not a stand-alone medium in most cases but used in combination with conventional and new platforms to meet consumer needs such as buying online pick up in-store or Click and Collect. Physical outlets are still a big part of consumer spending patterns, but with this, we also have seen that consumer priorities have changed around shopping. Trident is offering Retail ERP Software for an outstanding commerce experience that helps in gaining maximum profits.

Gone are the days when store employees are the only experts in information about goods. Consumers already have greater access to product details, price clarity, and accessibility. This means that retailers have to look at customer engagement across all platforms to make sure that their enterprise is capable of delivering on these recent high requirements. E-commerce will no longer be a major differentiator for retailers in the next few years, but will instead allow integrated retail trade to compete in the ever more challenging customer needs worldwide.

So Trident ( dynamics 365 partner) & solution dynamics 365 for marketing not confined to e-commerce, but aims to streamline the process of unifying consumer shopping experiences through an end-to-end business framework that puts together e-commerce, in-store, back office, and call centre. Let’s discuss furthermore how Dynamics 365 for marketing solution helps retailers meet those dominant business requirements.

1)- Grant Excellent and Customized Consumer Experience

Consumer experience is not only one of the top growth factors in the retail sector, but according to the recent survey by Microsoft and Forbes, 33 percent of retail managers are also considered a great business priority. The main task is to identify what constitutes outstanding customer experience for each individual business, as expectations of customers differ by micro-vertical retail, product category, and consumers themselves. It is up to the retailers to better define how their marketing commitment aligns with the experience. When customer experience is established, retailers need to be able to deliver on this commitment by providing technology that allows customer engagement in the next generation and does not limit their ability to evolve and build differentiating consumer experience.

As per the report by Microsoft and Forbes, providing customized shopping has become increasingly popular and over 49 percent of customers aged between 18 and 24 stating they are more likely to purchase from retailers offering custom shopping experiences. The aim of personalization is to form a bond between both the retailer and the consumer by delivering goods and/or services across all retail channels based on past interactions. It enhances the relationship to an encounter more similar to an interaction with a trustworthy friend or partner than a simple transaction.

There is a significant technological dependence to reach this next stage of customization. Networked and real-time visibility into consumers and activities are needed by retailers. Dynamics 365 put together all facets of customer interaction through e-commerce, call centre and in-store as well as simple incorporation into new channels to enable retailers to gain a holistic customer perspective. Couple this with out-of-the-box integration with Dynamics 365 Consumer insights and retailers can not only deliver AI-driven suggestions based on customer shopping history, likes, and patterns but also provide store agents with tools for presenting the customer’s 360-degree view and facilitating rich interaction throughout the selling journey.

 2) Omni Channel Experience   

Nowadays Customers expect to be able to purchase anywhere they want, and by whatever platform. Retailers also acknowledge the importance of Omni channel as one of their top three priorities, with 47 percent of Microsoft and Forbes survey executives rating this.

Most retailers are still struggling in having an Omni channel experience because of the complexity of internal infrastructure and disconnected or fragmented systems. Trident’s Dynamics 365 NAV makes it much easier to offer a native Omni channel solution for retailers, as it was built in the cloud.

3) Flexibility

An integrated solution is important not just for customers to engage and shop in retail, but also for how a unified solution can allow first-line employees to take part better and make sure ideal operational efficiencies across your supply chain. Dynamics 365 for marketing offers retailers the ability to streamline their operations with enriched knowledge that characterizes their business. Employees at the store can gain greater information and insight into stock availability, cross-application support for task management, as well as trade analytics that enable managers to monitor performance and insights to help them make informed decisions.

Food Manufacturing ERP
January 8, 20200

What Considerations Should be taken into Account when Implementing the New ERP for Food Manufacturing?

Usually, the decision-making process for ERP for Food Manufacturing is long and complex. From deciding which functionality is most vital to your business, to choosing a system that will make rapid and meaningful changes, it may seem daunting to decide on the appropriate ERP solution for your organization.

But don’t worry, Microsoft gold partner Trident got you covered. As we have 20+ years’ experience and  implemented ERP food manufacturing various satisfied customers like Haldirams, Nik Bakers, etc. Through sharing tips on how to pick and incorporate the right food production ERP solution for your food company, we will make the decision-making process of implementing an appropriate ERP for food manufacturing a bit easier for your organization.

1) – Food Specific Approaches

Tons of ERPs and business solutions are available to choose from. But as a food manufacturer or supplier, you should understand that it is complex to manage a food business effectively and comes with its own set of unique complexities.
Many of the integrated software systems in the marketplace for small to medium-sized enterprises provide the functionality you would expect for sales, acquisitions, operations, accounting and inventory management only. But what about the extra features distinctive to food manufacturing? Once you settle on a standardized ERP solution, ask yourselves how much modification and flexibility a food-specific system will have to go into implementing the following characteristics:

  1. Food safety and compliance
  2. Manufacturing and quality
  3. Recipe development and management
  4. Food recall and trace-ability

2) – Functionality

Recalling that not all food businesses run in the same manner is also relevant. A supermarket bakery operates much differently than a manufacturing frozen food, and a meat processor will have a completely different set of software specifications than a broad line dealer.

So where are you going to start? Try to address the features and functions that your existing system currently lacks. Create a “wish list” of elements that would make operations run better if you had them in the spot. From there, you can filter a lot of ERP providers and can concentrate on only those solutions that are suitable for your organization.

3) –  Easy to Use

Suppose: at your job you’re a warehouse worker or a machine technician. Now your management team has decided to introduce a new software platform throughout the organization, and you are responsible for learning it as soon as possible (and as precisely as possible). Too much load, right?

Moving from manually managing stuff or from a legacy system to a fully integrated ERP solution can be terrifying for everyone in the company. The accounting department now needs to learn how to use a new system to enter figures and run calculations. The QA department now has a new way to set up quality controls and audits. If a new process is too complex, your staff might feel frustrated, disheartened, and underappreciated.

Look for an ERP running on a system that is probably already familiar with most of your workforce (such as, for example, Microsoft Dynamics)

4) – Customer Support

Working with a vendor of an ERP solution is so much more than just buying and using the product to run your business. The ERP solution is implemented, which usually takes five to nine months, and then continued support and facilities will proceed across your software’s life cycle.

It is therefore essential to ensure that the ERP you choose is assisted by a team of people who are committed to ensuring that you are successful. This means for the food industry you need experts who are not only professionals in software but also food specialists. You wouldn’t recruit somebody to work in your warehouse that wasn’t a good choice, correct? Think the same way about the people who are working for your ERP provider. Because they are also responsible for your business ‘ success.

It is easy to get confused as there are too many ERP for food manufacturing service providers, so remember to remain vigilant and consistent with what you want to get out of your solution. Selecting the right ERP means choosing software to help you enhance food security, simplify efficiency or productivity and handle the progress of the enterprise.

If you still have any doubts left in your mind then you can contact to Trident’s ERP for food manufacturing providers on https://www.tridentinfo.com/contact/

Restaurant Management ERP
January 4, 20200

Slash costs in your restaurant with the right software system

How do you manage costs in your restaurant business? Are you operating as efficiently as you could be?

We know how difficult it can be to maintain optimal efficiency and make money in a time of razor-thin margins and intense competition. By their very nature, restaurants are characterized by predictable, seasonal factors as well as by unpredictable ones, including changing customer preferences and fluctuating running costs. But there are ways to get a better handle of your business, helping you to plan ahead more effectively, become leaner and reduce costs in the process.

For many restaurant owners, the answer lies in choosing a modern unified technology platform that provides a complete overview of your business operations from Point of Sale (POS) to back office. Indeed, research by the National Restaurant Association in the US found that over 80% of restaurants are turning to technology like online ordering and reservations and restaurant analytics to help them run their business successfully and efficiently.

The same report found that four in five restaurant operators agreed that:

  • Technology helps increase sales
  • Technology makes their restaurant more productive
  • Technology provides a competitive advantage.

If you’re in two minds as to whether a restaurant management system could help your business grow, rather than simply cost you money, here are some specific areas in your business where the right technology can make a real difference:

Optimize staff management

If your staff schedules are currently handled manually, in spreadsheets or even on paper forms, you could be missing out on a trick. Staff management software has the capabilities you need to ensure rosters correspond with table bookings and helps you plan for the right amount of labor you need. The result is optimized schedules, which means you don’t have too many employees at work during quiet periods, and yet you have enough on hand to see you through the busy times.

If you select a unified system for your restaurant, the staff management functionality can be part of the same platform used to manage the rest of your business. This allows you to make truly informed decisions using historic sales data and drilling down by location, day of the week and time to see patterns emerging and better determine when you will be busy or quiet.

Another factor to consider is how you can use the software to keep track of your budgets and make sure you’re not paying out more than you should be. We know how difficult it can be to check and confirm the hours worked by each of your employees, especially when you are likely dealing with so many. But a staff management system can automate this for you, confirming actual hours worked are the same as those planned and highlighting any discrepancies for you to follow up on, minimizing errors and costs. With the functionality to analyze how much you are spending by employee, work code, shift and role, you can compare actual costs and performance against your business plan, and minimize unnecessary extra expenses, such as overtime.

Simplify staff training

In this industry, we know that workers tend to be transient – maybe you have lots of students or temporary workers on your payroll. High staff turnover can be a real pain point and loss maker for your business, especially as recruiting and training staff is both time consuming and costly. But there are ways technology can help you control this better, and reduce the costs and pain of getting new staff on board.

If the systems you use are intuitive and easy for all employees to understand, you won’t have to spend as long training them on how to use them in the first place. Some retail management systems allow you to set up your POS so it mirrors your menu, making it far simpler for staff to find their way around while also helping to reduce mistakes. To simplify training even further, it could pay off to choose a system that uses a logic your staff is already familiar with. The LS Retail restaurant solutions, LS First and LS Central, are built on well-known Microsoft technology. This means new employees can be up and running quickly, as any experience with Microsoft software such as Office or Windows means they already know where to find menus and information in the system.

Having one enterprise-wide platform, rather than multiple software solutions strung together, also means you only need to train your staff up once. This not only saves time and cost but gives you greater flexibility too. If you need to move staff from the bar to the restaurant floor, you can do so with ease. No extra training required to use a separate system; no time wasted.

Increase table turnover and order value

Is your restaurant floor running as smoothly as it could? There are some steps you can put in place to subtly speed up the process, allowing you to serve more customers without making your diners feel rushed. Mobile POS devices are a great way of doing this. As they connect your servers directly to the kitchen, kitchen staff can act on orders as soon as they are taken at the table, speeding up food preparation. Your waiters can get an alert on their POS devices when orders are ready, and they can also take payments on the device as soon as diners are ready to leave – no waiting for card readers or an available cash register.

If you select the right mobile POS, your staff can also handle conversational ordering, where they take orders in the same way that customers reel them off – extra cheese on their burger and no mayo, with large chips, for example. Everything can be quickly inputted into the POS, speeding up service time and reducing errors. At the same time, because staff have all menu information right in front of them, they can improve their upselling potential by suggesting upsell items and upgrades as they take orders.

Streamline kitchen operations

A unified platform complete with a kitchen management system could help your restaurant serve up food more quickly and efficiently than ever.

In the kitchen, having Kitchen Display System (KDS) screens connected to the system can guide staff through the entire food preparation process. The system can automatically route orders to the correct preparation stations, organizing dishes according to urgency and preparation time. The system can also flag meals that are late, and point out if there are any extra requests, cooking preferences, or allergies to pay attention to. And if you choose a system like LS Central where the KDS are connected in real time to the Point of Sale, your front of house staff can always keep track of the status of each order without having to disrupt work in the kitchen.

The result is a streamlined operation where staff turn out high quality meals quicker, and have less chance of making mistakes and causing customers to complain.

Cut down on waste

Are you making the most of the stock you have? A unified restaurant management platform gives you the functionality you need to monitor perishables and track stock levels by recipes and portions, helping you to keep a close eye on your inventory and reduce the amount of waste you’re putting in the garbage can every day.

Some managers look through their daily waste to determine consumption patterns and check if produce is being used to its fullest, but a restaurant management platform can do all that for you, quicker and more precisely than you could. It doesn’t end there. The best ones on the market can track food production and monitor what is thrown away to identify waste patterns. If the trash is full of fries, it’s likely that your kitchen staff have been making up too many. Or maybe it’s full of half-used vegetables: is there any way you can optimize the waste of fresh produce? From use of food to menu design, there are many ways you can make your restaurant more efficient. A good restaurant management system can help you pinpoint the areas of improvement, so you can plan ahead more effectively and make smart buying decisions.

Reduce IT costs with a unified platform

If your business is struggling along with outdated technology that hinders you, rather than helping you succeed, then now is the time to rethink what you’re doing. Today, modern restaurant management systems integrate all parts of the business, from kitchen to POS to head office and more, into a single platform. This way you get a complete picture of your business, understand your strengths and weakness, and can more easily streamline your processes.

We know that the idea of ripping out and replacing your old systems can daunting. Many restaurateurs worry about escalating time frames and costs. But if you choose the right partner, they can guide you through the process and help you realize a fast return on investment.

 

Blog Source : Ls Retail – https://www.lsretail.com/blog/slash-costs-in-your-restaurant-with-the-right-software-system

Restaurant Management ERP
December 26, 20190

How can Trident’s cloud platform manage your restaurant effortlessly?

Mortality in restaurants is a fact with several young firms shut down. What if the software could transform how restaurants are running by offering profound insights for more profit? Trident’s cloud-based restaurant management solution makes it possible by concentrating on advancing the bottom line and back-of-house productivity.

Trident takes into consideration all facets of restaurant management, including Inventory Management, costing of food and beverage, purchase orders, Table Management, Billing System, Point Of Sale, Vendor Planning, Price Monitoring, Costing of Food, Menu Management, and Reporting/Analytics.

Still uncertain of restaurant management technology premised on the cloud? Like the idea, but don’t know where to start? Don’t worry, we’ve covered you up. Below we will discuss how Cloud-based restaurant management software transforms the industry for seven reasons:

1) – Access information anywhere 

The mobile in your pocket or a laptop with a web browser and internet access are all you need to get started. Simply download the web site’s mobile app or account. To use the app you don’t need to be in the office, live with the hassle of VPNs or private networks.

2) – No more hefty long contracts

Why tie-up with a long, costly technology vendor contract and have technology that may soon be out of date? On-site technology requires long-term investments, contract service, and a much higher Total Ownership Cost.

The food industry is highly unpredictable, with frequent restaurants open and close. If you’re just beginning, you probably won’t be able to commit to fall tens or even hundreds of thousands of rupees on new technology.

Restaurant management technology focused on the cloud removes the need for a big upfront investment and the lower monthly cost helps you to show the ROI from day one.

3) – Flexible Payments 

When cash flow is a problem for your corporation (which is a concern for most businesses), then flexible terms of payment is a big thing.

You charge for your software-as-a-service (SaaS) with cloud-based restaurant management technology. For example, both month-to-month and yearly contracts are provided by some vendors. When part of the contract you are charging for, the latest technology, new functionalities and updates, infrastructure improvements, etc. are all included.

4) – Scale

The advantage of SaaS is that depending on your requirements, you can simply and quickly scale up or down. Open a new site, insert your current contract and get up and running before the end of the day.

You can add users, integrations, locations, new features, etc. with just a few clicks. No technician’s visits. No long cycles of implementation. No significant investment to store servers in hardware or storage.

5) – Integration with POS System

The ability to easily integrate with other applications is one of the strongest strengths of cloud-based restaurant management systems. Through APIs and other methods of integration, the cloud-based restaurant management technology can communicate with each other, share the data, and provide smarter, quicker, and simpler than ever before insights through stores and systems.

6) – Security 

Cloud computing is much safer than data stored on your computer or an internal database.

It has advanced security checks such as two-factor authentication for logging in, deterrent controls to alert potential hackers about protections, preventive controls which make accessing the cloud information more difficult for unauthorized users, and detective controls to react to intrusion events.

If anything ever occurred to your restaurant’s servers – like a flood, a fire, or a theft, you may not see that data again. Restaurant software based on the cloud often comes with built-in backup and redundancy.

7) No need of It professionals

If you are on-premise managing legacy systems, you need to understand what you’re doing. From routing, safety, restoration, debugging, and so on, nobody can go into a database office and start ripping cables.

You don’t need to employ an IT professional with cloud-based restaurant management technology. All you need is access to the provider of internet and software that is committed to supporting and guaranteeing your excellence.

Microsoft Gold partner Trident Information Pvt Ltd grants all of the above-mentioned advantages. For getting all the advantages you can contact our experts on https://www.tridentinfo.com/contact/ and add a query on our website.

Retail ERP Software
December 23, 20190

Don’t let your retail system destroy your holiday season – LS Retail

Holiday season trading is big business for retailers. As retailers up their efforts to draw in more shoppers and take full advantage of “the most wonderful time of the year,” it pays off to be prepared. NRF expects retailers to hire between 530,000 and 590,000 temporary workers during the holiday season, and to spend millions of dollars on window displays and marketing. But many forget one critical aspect that can make the difference between a profit-making and a loss-making season: the status of their technology.

From slow e-commerce sites to out-of-stock scenarios, here are some disastrous but all-too-common seasonal-related problems that retailers face, what causes them, and what can be done to prevent them.

Issue #1: Your technology can’t sustain the high volume of transactions/increased workload

The cause: Tech outages can be extremely costly – but for many retailers, they are a familiar nightmare. A study by LogicMonitor found that 96% of organizations have experienced IT-related disruptions, and 10% of organizations have had 10 or more outages in a three-year period. Common causes of down systems include network failure, usage spikes, human error, software malfunction, hardware failure and third-party outages. An increasingly common cause of outages are disconnected legacy software systems.

“One of the issues for some retailers is the fact that systems are, in fact, a patchwork of different technologies and functions added over time,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, said to RetailWire. “As the demand put on them increases, they occasionally fall over. For others, it can be about capacity – which is why a lot of retailers have failures at peak times such as Black Friday.”

The solution: Retailers should look to replace their technology siloes, which are complex to maintain and costly to support, with a single retail system. A unified system can provide them with a complete overview of their business and all its data. On top of that, the technology is delivered by a single provider, which means full support, and simpler and quicker upgrades.

“The solution is unified commerce, one version of software servicing all channels,” retail industry thought leader Ken Morris said in the RetailWire roundtable. “Until retailers wake up and embrace this vision, we will continue to see these types of outages as it is almost impossible to keep this multi-tiered Frankenstein’s Monster running without more people or less complexity.”

Issue #2: Part of your system goes down, and you can’t promptly pinpoint which part, or you don’t have the resources to fix it quickly

The cause: Again, the cause are ageing, disconnected systems unable to communicate with each other, with unsupported hardware and software. Outdated tech will complicate the day-to-day running of your organization and put a strain on your resources. On top of that, if a part fails, it can be extremely hard to identify where your system is down. Without knowing what to fix or when the disconnection happened, how can you get your system back up and running, and minimize disruption to your business?

One of our clients, discount fashion retailer Gallo Clothing, faced this exact scenario one Christmas eve – its busiest sales day of the year. The store was full of shoppers when suddenly the cash registers stopped working. Gallo’s systems had stopped communicating with each other, but where had the glitch happened? The company couldn’t identify and fix the problem straight away, so managers instructed staff to process all transactions manually. With cashiers forced to write every item and price and calculate the total for every single shopper down, each sales transaction became painfully slow, and the queues grew longer and longer. Customers began to complain, and others left the store to shop elsewhere. Some never returned, unwilling to give the business another chance.

The solution: Retailers no longer need to put up with unreliable, siloed software systems that threaten the smooth running of the business. But they must be willing to invest in their future, rather than patching up old systems and hoping they won’t fail when they need them most.

“Retailers have spent years not spending enough on technology and building a robust future-proof architecture,” roundtable panelist Oliver Guy said to RetailWire.

The good news is that modern, unified commerce technology platforms aren’t as expensive as retailers may think, and they can also deliver a fast return on investment. Gallo Clothing now uses LS Retail technology as the foundation for its businesses. Not only has it not experienced any issues since the implementation of the solution, but it has also achieved record profits. The company says it’s because the system is so fast and efficient. Gallo’s president told us: “In the years since implementing the LS Retail software, we’ve seen more customers, sold more products and had much shorter lines.”

Issue #3: You can’t react fast enough to customer demand, and end up disappointing customers with out-of-stock items

The cause: Out of stock items are one of consumers’ biggest gripes. They’re also hugely damaging to a retailer’s bottom line. The “Out of stock, out of luck” study by global research and advisory firm IHL Group found that retailers are missing out on nearly US$1 trillion in sales because of out-of-stock items. And almost a third of shoppers ended up turning to Amazon when the product they wanted wasn’t in stock at their local store

Many retailers admit that the reason they experience out-of-stock scenarios is because they don’t have a complete view of their inventory, their data is unreliable, and they lack the tools to analyze their data and make accurate forecasts.

The solution: You can no longer get by with running weekly or even daily reports to keep track of their business. Today, you need a real-time view –  especially during busy trading periods.

Luxury fashion retailer Club 21|Armani Exchange gained this visibility when they upgraded their financial, admin, warehouse management, buying & merchandising, CRM and POS systems to a single software environment.

Clare Vella, retail director, told us about the first Black Friday after implementing their new LS Retail software. “It was 10pm on Friday evening. We were watching the sales hourly, and one store was seeing an enhanced level of trade coming through,” she said. “We were able to respond to this by calling the warehouse and getting an emergency delivery to that store, which was critical at that point. We increased our sales by well over three times the amount we could have done within that store that weekend by being able to respond in real time.”

Issue #4: You can’t easily accept returns across channels, or see where the item a customer bought/wants has ended up

The cause: While many retailers claim to have a true omnichannel strategy, meaning all their channels are seamlessly integrated, the reality for most is that they operate their physical stores and e-commerce as separate entities. But this siloed approach throws up a number of challenges, including a disconnected customer experience, lack of visibility across the organization, and an inaccurate view of inventory.

When a customer buys something online and then wants to exchange or refund it in store, your systems may be holding you back even if you’d like to facilitate the transaction. Perhaps the customer has paid online using PayPal, and your in-store staff can’t see the transaction, or don’t know how to issue a refund. Or maybe a shopper comes in specifically to swap an item, only to find that it is out of stock. All of these issues are caused by a disconnect between retailers’ online and in-store systems.

“The underlying issue is making sure that systems can talk to each other in near real time, which is needed to ensure that transactions and inventory can be fully reconciled, and that the business and its customers have reliable information on their accounts,” the ECR Community said in its report “Buy online, return in store”.

The solution: When you manage all channels using a single system and database, each customer account can be kept updated in near real time. And because inventory, logistics, sales and returns systems are linked through individual product identification and customer accounts, each item can be traced and located at any point in time. The result is that you’re able to work at speed, minimize product losses and ensure all transactions are reconciled.

Importantly, regardless of the channel they use to browse and shop, customers won’t be disappointed by out-of-stock scenarios as your online store draws from the general ledger to pull up real-time stock information.

Blog Source : https://www.lsretail.com/blog/dont-let-your-retail-system-destroy-your-holiday-season

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