Massive changes are sweeping the manufacturing business landscape and are dramatically impacting manufacturers. To adapt in this dynamic environment, organizations must be able to quickly respond to changes in market conditions and customer requirements. Though they recognize this need to innovate, manufacturers have a remarkably difficult time finding business application solutions that can meet their needs in an affordable manner.
Very often, manufacturing companies have been forced to rely upon a hairball of dangerously unreliable spreadsheets that support aging accounting systems. Many are constrained by solutions that were built for a different time, where the accounting system of record was all that mattered and where systems had limited computing capability. The relatively low cost of maintaining those systems masks the cost of inefficiencies in routine tasks like the monthly close or, more importantly, the dissemination of reliable information upon which business decisions can be confidently made in a fast-paced environment.
