As the new year approaches, you may be looking for opportunities to streamline your operations and get strategic about your methodology for your food and beverage industry business. Investing in a quality ERP for food and beverage industry brands is vital to the sustainable growth and profitability of your business, leaving you with additional perks: such as enhanced organizational capabilities, better recession resistance and greater accessibility and transparency. 

Today, we’re helping you identify why an ERP for food and beverage industry brands may benefit you, possible benefits of investment and tips to help you make your implementation period a success.

Read on to learn more about the benefits of using a quality food business ERP in 2023. 

What is an ERP for food and beverage industry businesses? 

An ERP, otherwise known as an enterprise resource planning tool, is a resource management system that is specifically designed to cater to the needs of modern-day food and beverage industry business owners. 

Your ERP should be equipped with several key areas of functionality, which may include: 

• Supply chain management support (SCM) 
• Customer relationship management (CRM) 
• Financial support and tracking 
• Customer service communication channels 
• Employee management and human resources support (HR) 

It should also be housed in a reliable, accessible format that you can regularly leverage for you business. 

What are the different types of ERP? 

Considering investing in an ERP for food and beverage industry businesses? You’ll get to choose from a variety of ERP types that can be tailored to suit your needs. Below is a short summary of ERP types that can help you to advance yoru food and beverage business. 

On-premise ERP 

This style of ERP is physically on-location at your place of business. While there are advantages to this style of ERP (such as reliability and security), there are significant drawbacks to relying on a physical location-based solution alone; such as higher costs, and potential lack of skillsets for necessary maintenance and upkeep. 

Cloud ERP 

Cloud ERP has been the dominating trend in the industry for several years. This comes at no surprise, as this style of ERP is unmatched when it comes to transparency, accessibility and scalability. However, before investing into this style of ERP, you might want to consider the feasibility of the costs involved, as well as the anticipated migration/transition time – as this will require extra strategy to execute well. 

Hybrid ERP 

A hybrid ERP system is designed to offer you the best of both solutions. It is flexible, and can generally be implemented on a more affordable basis. However, due to the duality of its nature, this solution can provide some significant integration challenges, as well as less security overall (depending on the current failsafes and cybersecurity measures in place). 

With this being said, we believe that cloud food ERP options offer the best possible outcome for many in the food and beverage industry, especially for rapidly scaling businesses who are looking for an appropriate and growable solution for their needs. 

Let’s get into the benefits you can expect from a cloud ERP for food and beverage brands. 

Benefits of cloud ERP for food and beverage brands 

There are many benefits you can gain from your food ERP software. We’ve listed a few of the top benefits below: 

Traceability and flexibility 

In the event of a supply chain disruption or a potential food recall, time is of the essence. A quality food ERP solution allows you to have the agility you need to move quickly and protect your brand perception as you control and mitigate your risks.

Affordability 

Fractionated systems can become expensive quite quickly. Investing in a centralized organizational tool for your food and beverage business is a great way to keep costs down and as singular as possible, providing you with the greatest possible benefit for your level of investment. 

Accessibility and scalability 

On-premise solutions can offer you constant connectivity and may not require an internet connection. While this can be helpful in the starting stages of your business, it may provide additional roadblocks as you continue to scale and grow. A cloud ERP for food and beverage industry brands can help you to rapidly expand and grow your operational reach across locations in a more seamless, user-friendly way, bringing your team together to a single centralized resource that contributes to your management and quality control.

Enhanced communication functionality 

Managing customer service in a fractional way can leave you at risk for gaps and inefficiencies. Relying on a single, centralized source of communication that’s housed in a system with all of the relevant information your team needs to manage help tickets is a better way of doing business – and ensures that you are providing a higher quality service experience to each and every client. 

Inecta provides quality solutions and ERP for food and beverage brands 

Looking for the best solutions for your business in the food and beverage industry? The team at Inecta is here to help. Our experts have had over twenty years of experience leading the industry and providing Microsoft-supported cloud ERP services that are specifically tailored to the needs of food brands. Our goal is to connect you with the right tools and resources you need to thrive in your respective food industry niche – leveraging the power of advanced technology and best ERP practices to grow and scale your business. 

For more information and to get started today, please visit our website. We look forward to serving you!