Food and Beverage

Challenges

You need to offer great products, deliver them on time, and navigate the ins and outs of the industry with ease. Without a robust business management system, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by strict regulations, a complex supply chain, and the need to keep pace with increasingly efficient competitors. Unfortunately, understanding new technologies and choosing which to adopt in this morphing environment can be perplexing.  

A recent Forbes study found that 90 percent of businesses recognise the importance of technology, but only 40 percent believe they’re providing their employees with the best tools. As the economy swings wildly in 2020, food and beverage companies must select beneficial technology that simplifies business processes and improves efficiency to grow the company.

The increased demand from consumers for more information about your food and beverage products – particularly regarding country of origin and organic status – is pushing you to gain better insights across the business. Your customers also want to respond rapidly to consumer demands; to help them profit, you need excellent visibility into your supply chain, lead time information, inventory levels, fulfillment/production capacity, and delivery capabilities.

There’s never been a greater need for an ERP solution like SAP Business One to increase visibility into every aspect of your food and beverage operations and solve your most difficult challenges.

The Four Critical Food and Beverage Industry Challenges

1. Business growth
2. Food recalls
3. Food fraud
4. Food safety

Benefits

The Benefits of SAP Business One for Food & Beverage

For over 17 years, SAP has continuously upgraded SAP Business One with a focus on helping food and beverage businesses grow fast while maximising profit. SAP Business One’s features and capabilities are specifically designed to deliver the key benefits you seek from a business management software platform.

With this platform, small and mid-sized food and beverage companies can:

Adapt faster – Adapt to changing market demands around traceability and transparency, regulatory compliance, and risk. Reports that took months to complete are now available in minutes.

Continuously improve – Track and respond to key performance indicators comprised of accurate, real-time data.

Reduce inventory – Use improved insights to gain inventory efficiency and reduce ingredient and product spoilage/expiration.

Streamline operations – Accelerate order flow and shipping times.

Increase customer satisfaction – Lower occurrences of out-of-stock items while cutting wasted expenses to keep prices low for customers.

Maximise profits – Differentiate from competitors by optimising service to boost revenue and margins.

Readiness is critical for success in the food and beverage industry, and SAP Business One provides a single source of information that unifies your organisation and allows you to work faster, smarter, and more efficiently.

Centralise Data From Quality Management Systems and other one-off production systems - Our system allows you to integrate online ordering and shipping systems, drive route management and delivery and Streamline EDI and 3PL processes

Recipe for Success

Capture and store detailed inbound and outbound information – Use batch attributes such as country of origin, harvesting dates, and quality class to record detailed information at every step of the supply chain.

Stage frequent mock recalls – Practice your recall procedures and test your company’s responsiveness quarterly. Prepare your employees to respond to emergencies quickly and effectively to uphold your company’s reputation.

Use PTI-compliant labels – Easily apply GS1 labels to properly identify your produce and provide full traceability from farm to fork.

Set strict quality controls – Catch problems before they start and set alerts to notify executives of deviations to ensure your customers get the best quality produce.

Perform FEFO picking and shelf-life management – Reduce produce losses by distributing the products with the shortest shelf life first.

Obtain advanced, real-time reporting – Get answers in minutes, not hours. Gain a complete understanding of order statuses and produce history to ensure customer satisfaction.

Optimise inventory management – Reduce waste without losing sales from out-of-stock produce inventory.

Automate administrative processes – Automate administration functions – from purchase to invoice – to give your employees more time to devote to customers.

Create dashboards – Monitor warehouses, docks, storage areas, zones, bin locations, and production areas with custom dashboards to ensure quality and monitor progress.

Leverage catch-weight management – Save time by using a system that supports dual units of measure, quantity and weight registration during goods receipt, inventory moves, and picking.

Selection Process

Enterprise Technology Selection Process

Deciding to migrate your food and beverage company to an ERP solution is one of the most important decisions you can make. Invest in the right solution, and your business can compete beyond its weight class with formalised processes and accurate inventory. You’ll connect the data silos that prevent information sharing, enable controlled growth, and systematically reach your business goals. But do your research – choosing the wrong system could lead to unnecessary downtime and lost revenue.

As you consider your ERP solution options, familiarise yourself with the technologies that underscore the differences in available platforms. We strongly recommend starting your journey by reviewing our comprehensive ERP software selection guide. It provides six critical ERP selection steps to help you find the system that best matches your business needs.

Integrations and Add-Ons

Features

Features of SAP Business One for Food and Beverage

SAP Business One incorporates a wealth of features that will drive your business efficiency and position your company for profitable growth. The platform’s 12 key features deliver unsurpassed operational benefits.

They include:

SAP Business One incorporates a wealth of features that will drive your business efficiency and position your company for profitable growth. The platform’s 12 key features deliver unsurpassed operational benefits.

They include:

PTI-compliant labels and GS1 barcoding

Create labels compliant with strict industry standards, including the Produce Traceability Initiative and Food Safety Modernisation Act.

Automated processes & workflows

Streamline business operations and manage your supply chain efficiently.

Capture batch attributes 

Manage and track variations related to individual batches of product.

Batch control and traceability 

Comply with strict industry standards.

Mock recalls

Track ingredients throughout the supply chain to handle recalls efficiently.

Quality controls 

Plan and execute quality tests from raw materials to product packaging.

Production management

Improve end-to-end operational efficiency.

Inventory management

Track by products, co-products, yield, wastage, expiry dates, FIFO, and FEFO.

Warehouse management 

Track warehouse movements forward, backward, and on demand

Quality controls 

Manage quality by setting specific controls and performing frequent mock recalls.

Real-time, cross-functional reporting

Use accurate data to make faster, more informed decisions.

SAP Services

With over 400 employees deployed throughout office locations across Europe and North America, the Vision33 team has unmatched experience delivering solutions and services to the food and beverage industry. We’re the only SAP Business One partner that holds the AWS SAP Competency, and our Global Services group routinely helps SMEs expand into new geographies, making us the ideal implementation partner for growing businesses.

Post-implementation, Vision33 continues to deliver value through our industry-leading support program, TOTAL Care, and ongoing ideation and implementation services from our world-class consulting team. The team helps customers continuously innovate using the best industry-specific add-ons and integrations to support new business initiatives and evolving market demands.