In a world where security and efficiency are paramount, staying ahead means embracing innovation. If you haven’t transitioned your business management systems to the cloud, you’re not alone. Clinging to in-house servers for data protection might seem like the safer option, but it ultimately holds your elevator business back — leaving it vulnerable to financial, operational, and reputational risks.
Embracing cloud ERP isn’t just a move towards modernization; it’s a strategic step towards safeguarding your assets while empowering your business to thrive in today’s competitive landscape.
In this blog post, we’ll explain what cloud ERP software is and outline 7 ways it mitigates risks and unlocks opportunities for elevator field service contractors. You’ll learn how it can not only help you grow your contracting business but also secure your data, deliver better customer service, and become a leader in the elevator industry.
7 Risks to Your Elevator Business Eliminated by Cloud ERP
Cloud ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software is a suite of integrated applications hosted on a cloud computing platform over the internet. This software is designed to help businesses manage and streamline their core processes in areas such as finance, HR, manufacturing, supply chain, services, procurement, and others — all within a single system.
Unlike on-premise ERP software, its cloud counterpart is hosted by a third-party cloud provider and requires no need for expensive hardware or upgrades. Using a centralized database accessible from anywhere, cloud ERP solutions also offers a distinctive ability to scale quickly and easily. In the field service industry, cloud ERP software is also referred to as field service management software.
For elevator field service companies, cloud ERP offers a modern, agile, and cost-effective solution to streamline operations, improve process efficiency, and remain competitive in today’s fast-paced digital landscape. The elevator industry comes with many risks and liabilities, and relying on outdated technology or disconnected systems increases the likelihood of excess costs, data breaches, unhappy customers, and lost revenue.
By moving to cloud ERP, here are 7 risks your elevator company can reduce or eliminate entirely:
1. Simplify Compliance with Industry and Government Regulations
Keeping pace with government regulations, industry standards, and corporate quality initiatives has become an overwhelming challenge for elevator businesses. In addition to the many levels of standards and regulations your organization needs to comply with, the electronic data handling laws continue to evolve.
Cloud ERP makes it easy to streamline compliance with industry standards, government regulations, and corporate quality initiatives. Through automated workflows and audit trails, a fully integrated cloud business management system provides the documentation and user-based security to reduce the risks and costs of compliance.
Built to support compliance, cloud ERP systems implement data security, privacy, and portability protocols, provide thorough documentation and security for audits, and assign, track, and record compliance and assessment-related activities.
2. Protect Customer, Employee, and Corporate Data
No business can afford to ignore the security risks that can destroy a hard-built reputation and cost millions. In today’s risk-filled digital environment, few organizations have the internal resources necessary to provide the level of security required to protect business and corporate data electively. A ransomware attack can virtually close a business down without taking proper precautions.
Cloud ERP makes it easy to protect customer, employee, and corporate data. Supported and managed by security experts, cloud ERP keeps data safe from electronic threats using reliable data backup detection tools that identify suspicious behavior using real-time analytics.
3. Improve the Customer Experience
Your employees can’t deliver great customer experiences if they are burdened with disconnected systems. With cloud ERP software, you can centralize and connect data from across your organization to support better customer experiences. With access to key information about customers at their fingertips, employees can provide efficient, personalized service. Connected systems bridge department silos to eliminate the bottlenecks and miscommunication that undermine good customer service.
Cloud ERP systems with connected data streamline customer experiences by consolidating information into a single source, enabling quick responses from employees, empowering field workers with relevant resources and customer context, and providing insights into trends and preferences for agile responses to evolving customer needs.
4. Uncover Opportunities to Build Revenue
When your finance team spends all their time entering numbers into spreadsheets, they don’t have time to put that data to work. Data provides a strategic advantage, and your competitors are ditching the spreadsheets for analytics that turn digital information into profits.
Cloud ERP centralizes your business data and integrates disparate systems, eliminating redundant spreadsheets and departmental silos. With consolidated data, you can use cloud-based analytics and machine learning to understand customer trends and explore new revenue opportunities.
Harnessing data as a strategic asset unlocks a multitude of opportunities, from leveraging customer preferences and market trends to drive innovative product designs, to exploring digital business models that capitalize on emerging markets. Additionally, utilizing machine learning to prioritize leads can significantly boost sales win rates, while proactively resolving emerging service complaints can foster customer loyalty and prevent potential negative impacts on the customer base.
5. Improve Operations with Data-Driven Decisions
If your business data is spread across systems that don’t connect or are locked up in spreadsheets, you are making decisions with incomplete information. Separate systems used to manage sales, finance, and operations make it impossible to have a single comprehensive view of the business. To keep pace in the digital world, your organization needs to connect systems so that data can flow end-to-end.
By connecting data across accounting, sales, purchasing, inventory, and customer service, cloud field service management software gives leadership teams and managers a holistic view of the business. With an end-to-end perspective, you can identify bottlenecks in processes, compare location performance, and spot emerging product trends.
Connected data provides the critical reports to enhance decision-making across various facets. This includes streamlining ineffective business operations within finance, sales, service, and operations. Additionally, it facilitates optimizing inventory management by leveraging forecast data.
6. Modernize Your Workforce
Using paper-based systems in the modern technological world makes it harder to attract and retain good employees. This is because consumers and employees want quick access to information and prefer to do business with companies that make the process easy.
Through cloud-based ERP, workers can connect to the systems and information they need to produce high-value work. To ensure employees who prefer working from home, in the office, or while traveling have convenient access to secure business systems, you require a platform that accommodates mobile devices and diverse work preferences.
Regardless of your company’s size, establishing a secure, mobile business environment is within reach. This entails offering digital applications that facilitate productive tasks such as data entry, information access, and transaction approvals.
7. Automate Tasks to Reduce Human Error
Whether it’s entering data into spreadsheets, providing price quotes, or purchasing inventory, if your employees are working outside of automated systems, they could easily make mistakes. And those mistakes can cost your business customers, profits, and reputation.
Eliminate your dependency on error-prone spreadsheets by automating key tasks and digitizing information made accessible to your entire team. By streamlining workflows, you ensure that service requests are processed efficiently, and customer or ticket information is available to those that need it, when they need it.
As you improve productivity and reduce errors, your employees will be able to manage higher transaction volumes—allowing you to grow the business without growing payroll.
FIELDBOSS: Microsoft Cloud ERP for Elevator Companies
Cloud ERP software, like FIELDBOSS for Dynamics 365, can take your elevator field service operations to new heights. The best way to ensure a successful cloud migration and choose the right cloud ERP solution is to work with an experienced software partner who has navigated the intricacies of the elevator industry and understands your business.
FIELDBOSS helps elevator field service organizations of all sizes and complexity get maximum success and ROI with cloud ERP software. Our team of experts put together The Elevator Field Service Selection Guide to help elevator companies with the software selection process.
In it, you’ll discover how to find and select a long-term cloud ERP solution in only 6 steps. We’ve also included a detailed comparison of the top 4 field service solutions on the market today, as well as a helpful field service software evaluation checklist to start your cloud ERP selection journey!