The digital economy and customers’ expectations are changing at an accelerated rate, leaving your company struggling to keep up in one or both dimensions. If you’re confounded by your innumerable choices, one of the first you’ll face is whether a suite-in-a-box or best-of-breed approach is better. Let’s take a closer look at the benefits you can gain from the best-of-breed approach enabled by Acumatica integration.
Mint Jutras defined Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) as integrated modules providing the operational and transactional system of record for a business. The main difference between a suite-in-a-box ERP versus a best-of-breed ERP approach is the number of solution providers.
In the case of a suite-in-a-box solution, there is generally one provider constructing the components that comprise your ERP, including general ledger, accounts payable, purchasing, etc. The various modules typically share a common database and will eliminate redundancy. While this sounds good on the surface, if you look closer, what you may find is that you need more agility and specialization to fit your workflows than what’s in the box. It gets worse because the same provider is building all the components. They may be a jack of all modules and master of none. This means they may not go deep enough in areas that are critical like inventory management or manufacturing.
A best-of-breed option allows you to select solutions from any number of providers. Enabled by a strong core, companies can select exactly what they need and easily integrate it. Since you choose the functionality you need, you’re not overpaying for components in a suite solution that you do not need or are not ready for, yet. More importantly, you get to select the best solution provider for that particular operational need rather than whatever the suite has, helping you avoid that dreaded phrase: “The software won’t let us do that.”
Forty percent of companies surveyed recently stated the effort and cost of upgrading their legacy system was prohibitive and kept them from innovating. In that same survey, 35 percent of respondents stated that the ability to add new features and functionality without touching the core was a critical must-have in their new ERP. Sadly, many companies are unpleasantly surprised by broken integrations and APIs that stop working after an upgrade as well, which is another reason why many companies simply stick with what works, sometimes for decades.
With a cloud ERP like Acumatica and comprehensive integrations from experts like EIS Consulting, you get the latest features and functions without ever touching the core. Instead of struggling with old software, you’ll get to take advantage of the latest innovations rolled out on a regular basis every quarter by Acumatica. Ultimately, you’ll have an ERP solution that is dynamic and agile, not rigid and stagnant.
Legacy and suite solutions come with an inherent barrier to critical customization post-implementation: complex coding skills required. Suite and legacy solutions are so interlaced, it’s difficult or impossible to tailor the system for your company or users’ needs. Most companies don't need this deep technical skill in-house but still need support when these types of changes are necessary.
Conversely, with a best-of-breed ERP like Acumatica, the system is intelligently built so that you can extensively configure the system with clicks, not code, to get it to look the way you want and do exactly what you need. For example, you can easily build and modify business rules to improve internal controls like approval thresholds where a purchase order of a certain amount requires an extra approval step in the workflow. This is a stark contrast to the invasive code changes, time, and risk this requires on a suite system.
At Eclectic Innovative Solutions (EIS), one of our specialties is helping companies build custom integrations with Acumatica when you need a verticalized or proprietary solution seamlessly integrated. If you need support integrating your commercial or best-of-breed software, but cannot find a native way to integrate it, our AcuSync Integration Platform allows us to build new integrations in as little as a few weeks that are configurable, manageable, and upgradable.
Our subscription-based services model helps reduce your upfront costs, gives you a faster ROI (return on your investment in ERP), and is designed to help your system continually evolve with you as your business evolves, grows, and changes over time.
Contact the EIS Acumatica consulting team today! Visit our EIS website, call 833-347-5190 or email us.