Seafood ERP: A Luxury Or a Necessity

Traditionally seafood traders were reluctant to invest in seafood ERP as it was considered to be an expense with insignificant returns making it a luxury only high end seafood traders could afford.

This philosophy is the predominant reason why seafood traders were at loss as consumers ended up paying for the standard weight of seafood, not the actual weight. The losses incurred due to the variability in weight were borne by seafood traders. This was when Seafood ERP was given the recognition it deserves.

Why Seafood ERP?

A question often asked is what Seafood ERP brings to the table which makes it lucrative enough for seafood traders to invest in. To answer which, let’s dig deep into the benefits Seafood traders can reap from seafood ERP:

1. Lot Traceability

With Seafood ERP, each product is given a batch number and lot number. This way seafood traders can backtrack the product to its origin. This traceability is particularly useful to track defective products, the lot they were made in so that this particular lot can be disposed of before grievances arise. Thus in terms of Grievance Handling and better CRM, seafood ERP is the go to mechanism to ensure customer satisfaction.

2. Catchweight Management

One of the biggest pitfalls of the seafood business is Catchweight management. Owing to the variability in standard and actual weight, Catchweight management became a liability borne by seafood traders. To counter this Seafood came to the rescue. With Seafood ERP, traders charged for the actual weight of the product at the time of invoice. This way consumers got absolute transparency as they paid for what they received at the billing counter itself and in turn it saved up the losses as actual weight was the only criteria considered to charge for making it a win-win for seafood traders and consumers alike!

3. Quality Assurance

Seafood business is highly regulated with governing agencies like GFSI, FSMA and SQF breathing down the necks of seafood traders. With compliance being the means to survival, seafood traders need seafood ERP to ensure all quality checks and assurances are met with. This not only keeps the regulatory authorities at bay but also gives the trader a shot at brand recognition as food safety is selling like hot cakes among today’s consumers.

4. Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Seafood ERP provides seafood traders a reliable purchasing and harvesting mechanism. With Seafood ERP, traders can rank each vendor based on their performance and manage and prioritise accordingly thus getting the best of vendors on-board and building a long mutually beneficial relationship. With real time information flow, sourcing and harvesting is done efficiently leading to savings making Seafood ERP’s weigh worth in gold.

5. Sales & Distribution

With Seafood ERP, Seafood traders get real time access to the “What” “When” and “Where” for their inventory. As a result not only sales and distribution effectiveness goes up a notch but also the control over supply chain results adds to the savings and profits of seafood traders making Seafood ERP a golden goose for Seafood Traders.

Costing

Historically seafood ERP was considered as an expense, which was only useful to large organisations. However with companies realising the benefits, service providers like iNECTA too have started offering flexibility in terms of subscriptions plans.

The cost structure for installation of Seafood ERP differs based on the following factors:

1. Size of the firm

2. Customisations needed

3. Microsoft Partner chosen

To speak volumes of the role of these factors let’s look at the following examples:

A) iNECTA

iNECTA offers three subscription plans to allow for all sizes of firms to install seafood ERP based on their need:

Small size

$125/month/user (5 users or less)

2. Medium size

$165/month/user (5-15 users)

3. Enterprise

$215/month/user (15 or more users)

B) Wherefour

It provides a standardized subscription plan starting at 399$ per month with a free trial.

It is crystal clear that seafood ERP is required by all Seafood traders no matter on what scale they operate. We have also learnt that costing by certain partners is flexible enough to cater to small seafood traders. Based on these findings, seafood ERP is not only affordable but also an asset with invaluable returns. Hence making Seafood ERP a necessity not a luxury for seafood traders as in today’s competitive and highly regulative environment, seafood ERP is the only means by which seafood traders will survive and thrive.