Where Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform promotes a suite of customer support and experience, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software contributes to enhanced business productivity and efficiency. In every industrial use-case and application, it is critically important to streamline the processes that tend to make difference in business performance. An ERP software manages the core units of a business by rationalizing them in a centralized place. For instance, it includes production, sales, accounting, manufacturing, shipment, and many other modules that need to be monitored at once. To curb any unusual outcomes, ERP software serves the purpose of consolidating every process and simulate them without compromising the performance.
Like for others, ERP software for publishing and printing centralizes all the operations and processes in a unified interface. For book publishers and distributors, ERP software turns out to be a data management system that encapsulates all the features and functions in such a way that the feature-rich system streamlines the distribution effectively.
This article demonstrates some features and use-cases of the publishing industry that an ERP software could incorporate in a highly efficient way:
Role-based Dashboards
Highly collaborative and unified dashboards give an overview of all the critical data and information very effectively. For instance, it includes reminders, reports, and KPIs that help determine the performance. Separate roles and preferences could be customized as per the interests that help the publishing organization incorporate all the required details efficiently on the dashboard. From deadlines to priority tasks and analytical reports, an ERP software is capable enough to customize the dashboard according to the roles and your business’s KPIs.
Shipment Management
Consignment management should be a disciplined infrastructure for the publishing industry. If you have large customers that require consignment sales simultaneously, it is very important to seamlessly automate the process such that any end-to-end loopholes could be mitigated. ERP software handles the inventory and helps organizations keep track of sales in an efficient manner.
Read: Emerging Trends of ERP to Look Out For in 2021
Costing
Accurate management of the authorities and costing is a significant module of the publishing industry. It is important to track the costs and the purchase to keep updated with the revenue and the inventory at the same time. ERP software incorporates this feature through efficient accounts management that ultimately contributes to the success of the business.
Real-time Data and Analysis
Advanced ERP solutions incorporate innovative features that tend to help businesses streamline the process of data analysis. Real-time data analysis employ high-end underlying algorithm and technologies that automate the process of data analysis and help businesses get an overview of business performance at a glance. The publishing solutions can access and track the progress of projects and revenue from analytics reports in real-time.
Product Attributes
For a publishing industry, the management of product attributes is important to distinguish one item from the other. Instead of just considering one distinct item number, the publishing industry take into consideration multiple identification numbers to keep each item completely distinguished from all others. For instance, it includes the ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number), ISBN-10, catalog number, internal item number, ISBN-13, etc.
Instead of manually tracking each item that becomes a cumbersome yet time-consuming process, an ERP system takes into account the lookup handling by incorporating multiple products attributes that define a unique item without any data redundancy and duplication.
Other than the listing of items or products, custom fields can also be generated that include multiple attributes such as formats, authors, binding, edition numbering, number of pages, and other attributes that make cross-referencing and searching an easy task.
Finance and Subscriptions
An ERP software for publishers helps control the process of approvals, invoices, orders, and all the billing needs efficiently. From automatically processing the credit card payments to receipts and invoice handling, ERP software manages them in a consolidated interface. Moreover, the subscriptions can be managed automatically without any need for manual renewal of the subscriptions and delivery reports.
Collaborative Workflow
A seamless collaboration streamlines the workflow of an organization. It helps communicate between departments. With a fully integrated and flexible ERP software, publishing solutions can easily communicate and execute the projects by following the deadline. The workflow tasks, emails, reports, and alerts can be streamlined in the software that eliminates the need for manually checking the linked information as all the data is present in the consolidated interface very efficiently.
Tracking of Authorities
The accumulation of authorities of publishing is overwhelming when it comes to managing them manually. Moreover, the payment of royalties should also be managed efficiently to mitigate the disorders in data management. Tracking of authorities is a key feature for publishers. For this reason, it should be handled separately to keep track of all the authorities effectively. Handling separate author, sales, and publishing can be automated with the help of advanced ERP software.
Enhanced Support
Unlike publishers, many software products are designed to work in a consolidated environment where they either correspond to wholesale or retail exclusively. Whereas, publishers often switch between both and handle both retail and wholesale simultaneously. A streamlined publishing solution incorporates the management of both wholesale and retail business channels that ultimately integrate the high-end tools and apps that tend to control the orders and processes end to end.
To sum up, publishing solutions can employ advanced ERP systems to make their operational environment highly streamlined and automated. To run the operations smoothly, ERP software provides a wide range of features and capabilities to a business that tends to enhance productivity, remove redundancies, and mismanagement of the publishing attributes.
Also Read: Odoo and Cloud ERP – Giving New Directions To Business Growth
