With a distributed enterprise solution, companies with multiple distribution centers can use industry-specific ERP systems at local divisions without changing the corporate ERP.
Many industrial equipment manufacturers and rental distribution companies have several smaller operations and distribution channels. These operations could be the result of mergers and acquisitions, expansion into new geographies, or the outcome of a need to serve customers of a large geographical area.
Managing a company with multiple entities is not easy. To add to the complexity, multiple ERP systems with disparate compliance and reporting structures make it more difficult to get a unified view of financial data. So how do you track and manage financial reporting and workflows across multiple entities efficiently? The answer is to adopt the distributed enterprise ERP system.
Companies adopt the distributed enterprise or multi-layered ERP system to connect ERPs across multiple entities. Under this system, they have a centrally located standard ERP at the parent organization and smaller ERPs at local divisions and distribution centers.
Let’s say you are a company with the parent organization corporate office located in Europe, but you have a smaller equipment rental division in North America. Your corporate office uses SAP as the global standard, but it may not be suited to meet the local budget requirements, compliance standards, or size of the division in North America.
In such a situation, companies opt for a smaller, localized ERP system for their distribution centers for the following reasons:
If you are a rental organization looking to deploy an easy-to-use, rental-specific ERP at your distribution centers, here’s what you should keep in mind when choosing your ERP.
Integrating data between the centralized parent ERP and the smaller distribution center localized ERPs provides an accurate 360-degree view of information across your organization, resulting in the efficient management of finance, people, supply chain, and operation processes. A unified view helps you access sales and revenue data in real time and get complete visibility of operations across all distribution centers.
Although these distributed channels ERP solutions are located in different geographies and operate independently, they are integrated with the centralized ERP and report their operational and financial data to the corporate entity (See illustration below).
Integrating the parent ERP with the local ERP systems and making them communicate is a complex process that requires expertise and can only be done by experienced system integrators. There are a number of system integration solutions in the market.
A global Independent Service Vendor for Microsoft Dynamics 365 business applications with over 19 years of experience, STAEDEAN has developed the Data Integration Solution ― a highly configurable solution in Dynamics 365 F&SCM to help you rapidly configure, execute and manage data migration and integration projects.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM works well for smaller operations and divisions because it can exchange information with any Corporate ERP and share financial and operating data with the parental organization. It also provides subsidiaries and local divisions a better operating system at a lower cost while still integrating and communicating with the central ERP.
With the help of Data Integration Solution, which operates inside Dynamics D365 F&SCM, every table and related fields from the manufacturing, operations, and rental divisions can be exchanged by setting up a mapping between the local ERP system and the parent ERP systems.
You can report all the appropriate data ― such as rental, manufacturing, sales, procurement, and supply chain ― of the division to the parent. Data Integration Solution provides field-level integration and security and does not require any development.
STAEDEAN has over 600 customers using Data Integration Solution, a platform to integrate Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM and other third-party disparate solutions.
You may use ERPs like SAP and ORACLE as the primary corporate ERP at your parent organization to manage global financial and accounting. However, if you are an industrial equipment manufacturer or rental company with multiple entities, you should be able to connect your operations and rental-specific business data from your local ERPs to the parent ERP to get an accurate view of your overall financials. Integration of corporate and local ERPs is critical to ensuring a 360-degree view of company data, which results in the smooth and efficient management of your business.