Data isn’t just a means to an end – it’s your organisation’s single source of truth. Data should always be the foundation for operational decisions, yet the widespread existence of data silos limits the progress of all business units. Many organisations today are in a similar position: business-critical data is scattered across sources, making it impossible to get a 360-degree view of business performance.
Data silos are holding you back
Around 80 per cent of companies struggle to unify data assets. While it’s hard to quantitatively measure the impact of data silos on your operations, you can be sure they’re having a negative impact on everything, from strategic decision-making and operational efficiency to employee productivity and customer satisfaction.
Across all industries, teams make slow or poor decisions based on the limited information they can access. For example, a survey exploring the impact of fragmented data revealed that knowledge workers spend nearly 29 per cent of their week, or 11.6 hours, searching for information they need to do their job. This comes as no surprise when you learn that large organisations use an average of 367 different software tools.
Data-driven organisations are coming out on top
To achieve your desired business outcomes, you’ve got to make your data work for you. This is demonstrated by the 2022 Harvard Business Review Analytics survey, which found that 84 per cent of organisations deemed “data-to-value leaders” have a clear enterprise strategy for managing and extracting value from data, compared with just 50 per cent of all other organisations.
This focus on data strategy yields tangible benefits. For example, data-driven organisations are 162 per cent more likely to significantly surpass revenue goals than those relying on gut instinct and outdated practices.
Furthermore, a study by the University of Texas found that a 10 per cent increase in data usability can lead to $2 billion in revenue for a large company. However, the benefits extend far beyond your business’s bottom line, as organisations that connect the right data are also 173 per cent more efficient at complying with regulations.
Customer-centricity relies on unified data
A crucial element of a data-driven approach is a strong focus on customer experience. With unified data, customer communications become more personalised and consistent. Customers today expect connected journeys, with 76 per cent expecting consistent interactions across departments. However, many organisations struggle to achieve this because of fragmented data.
Steel Warehouse, one of Formpipe’s manufacturing clients, unified its data in Microsoft Dynamics 365 as part of an efficiency and customer-centricity drive. Previously, its business-critical data was stored across several ERP systems and legacy archives, and the system didn’t meet the company’s business needs.
By unifying its data in one ERP system, Steel Warehouse was able to leverage Lasernet’s integrated generation and delivery capabilities, to simplify its invoicing workflow as well as creating user-friendly documentation that perfectly aligned with its customers’ needs. Additionally, Lasernet’s archive functionality meant that Steel Warehouse could also create a portal where customers could quickly and securely review their account and product information. Ultimately, Steel Warehouse didn’t just improve efficiency, it delivered a better customer experience.
Don’t let legacy data go to waste
There’s also the matter of your legacy data. Don’t let the valuable insights hidden within it remain untapped, as it can hold a wealth of knowledge that can fuel your AI initiatives. You’ve accumulated countless documents containing vast amounts of data, including invoices, orders, contracts, catalogues, reports and more.
However, much of this data may be unstructured and trapped in formats that are difficult to analyse, especially if it’s scattered across older systems. Many organisations rely on specialised legacy software to meet specific needs, but struggle to merge the data produced, with information from newer cloud platforms. This is one of Lasernet’s most powerful capabilities – pulling data from across multiple systems to allow you to produce 360-degree insights. Imagine the possibilities if you could free business-critical data from these disparate systems, giving AI algorithms the knowledge required to automate previously time-consuming processes, improve efficiency and reduce costs.
Let’s look at the impact it could have on customer communications. You could increase customer satisfaction and boost internal productivity by generating personalised communications, extracting data from invoices and automatically categorising documents, regardless of the source system.
For example, at Formpipe, we’re piloting a solution that trains machine learning algorithms to recognise data patterns in documents – even if designs and layouts change frequently. This removes the need for users to remap data fields once information is extracted from documents, improving efficiency and data quality.
Unlock the full value of your data
For over 35 years, Formpipe’s output and document management software, Lasernet, has been empowering businesses to quickly and easily create personalised, on-brand documents by combining data from legacy and cloud ERP systems. Lasernet works with virtually any kind of data, ensuring your documents always look the part.
But aesthetics is just the beginning. Lasernet also unlocks significant cost savings and efficiency gains – our customers have reduced the total cost of ownership of document processing by up to 50 per cent and increased productivity by more than 35 per cent. By integrating Lasernet into ERP systems, be it Microsoft Dynamics 365, IFS, SAP or Infor, organisations have much to gain from putting data to work.
by Mike Rogers, Executive VP and Head of Lasernet Division, Formpipe
Don’t wait to unlock the full potential of your ERP data. Discover how Lasernet improves customer satisfaction, reduces document management costs, and boosts productivity on the Formpipe website
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