ECommerce and ERP Platform Integration: The Six Most Talked About Challenges

Today, e-commerce drives nearly all retail growth in the U.S. The retailers are developing more immediate and interactive online experiences to retain and grow their customer base. In the age of digital disruption, digital consumers expect goods and services to be available at all times and may choose a competitor if what they are looking for is missing from your digital front. 

Deliver on-demand or be perished!

Imagine start-up retail and/or e-commerce company growing rapidly such as their sales volume increasing to 1000 orders per month. Each new order needs a data entry resource retrieving the customer and following with data entry on the order details from its shopping cart to the back-end platform whether it be an order management system or a fulfillment system or an ERP system. The company would need to spend 5-10 minutes per order and a total of 80-160 hours on manual data processing per month. How many employees would this company need to track all orders from order-to-delivery and how many to follow up on customer experience?

Having an eCommerce website is a part of the digital strategy for many B2B businesses. A well-managed eCommerce website can attract new customers and increase sales. eCommerce business involves many operations right from customer visits to order management, sales, shipment & tracking. 

Is there one end-to-end E-Commerce/ERP system that can meet all business requirements?

This has made the need for eCommerce ERP integration for automated and error-free operations. An eCommerce ERP integration allows you to handle sales from any point across the globe and fulfill them. You can manage products and pricing consistent across all channels. It improves customer experience and frequent sales. On the other hand, you need to consider a few challenges involved in eCommerce ERP integration.

Here are the top 6 challenges to consider before planning ERP eCommerce integration.

Lack of a clear understanding of business goals: Business owners and integration partners should spend significant time to understand business goals. The goals should be quantifiable rather than qualitative. Here are the failure cases of ERP implementation.

Ask yourself

• • • How much automation is required?
    • What records do you want to integrate?
    • What’s your budget and timeframe?
    • What are your top three picks for e-commerce?
    • What features you can’t do business without?
    • Will you need marketing features to follow up with your clientele?

Create a roadmap of the process you want to achieve with ERP eCommerce integration. If the goals were not defined properly and miscommunicated, it eventually leads to project delays and cost overruns.

Legacy data integration issues: Data is important for B2B businesses to understand the business flow and charting growth. It is also important to channel partners, investors to see the value in your business. Some legacy systems sit on massive amounts of hard copy documents that may have never been entered into the system waiting to be decoded. Legacy data includes audience, acquisition, behavior, conversions, and paid marketing activities. ERP eCommerce integration should ensure a perfect data integration strategy across various systems to avoid duplicates.

Time and budgets: Integration doesn’t happen overnight. It needs a lot of attention, strategy, time, and budgets. It is imperative for the integration teams to make sure your business will invest in time and money to automate the business process with ERP integration. Besides the direct costs of software, you will need to consider the indirect costs of the process. Hence, keep your stakeholders motivated until the end of the integration.

Challenges with internal teams and training: ERP eCommerce integration requires a lot of attention from all divisions including finance, WHM, SCM, and front-end. Usually, employees are resistant to change in the current process. Employees have to adapt to new technology and process. Motivate and let them understand the benefits of the new process and how it could transform the way of doing business.

Support: Finding the right supporting partner during and post-integration is challenging. Businesses need support for various reasons like training, reporting, optimizing, and fixing errors. Make sure your ERP eCommerce integration partner extends their support. If you wait for weeks to resolve a small issue, vulnerabilities in the process could impact the entire business flow.

Integrate for the future: With the rising trend of cloud ERP solutions, you can expect more updates in the future. You cannot rely on older-versions or solutions with limited features. Make sure your ERP eCommerce integration achieves short-term needs and long-term goals with adaptability. It will help the organization to spend less time on training for smaller releases.

How Amzur can help you in eCommerce ERP integration?

Amzur helped AMT-USA, an Agricultural Mfg. & Textiles, Inc. facing challenges with its digital presence, inventory management, and NetSuite training. The team helped AMT by revamping its website using NetSuite SiteBuilder and SuiteScript 1.0. Furthermore, we trained AMT employees on NetSuite to explore its full potential.

With a revamped and mobile-friendly responsive website, AMT increased sales efficiency and customer satisfaction. Optimized inventory allowed to forecast demands and brings the process close to just-in-time.
Are you planning to improve your B2B eCommerce shopping experience? Amzur Technologies has expertise in understanding business challenges and goals to deliver turnkey NetSuite ERP solutions. If you’re interested in learning more call us or drop an email today.