Regardless of how COVID-19 continues to develop, food distribution remains an essential system and service for everybody, no matter what economic background or perspective. As a result, management of the modern food system has to adapt to multiple changing factors including fluctuating workforce levels, shipping challenges and blockages, and increased safety measures to prevent continued transfer of the COVID-19 virus. All of those elements highlight just how critical the human resource is in food distribution organizations as well as how valuable timely supply and demand data are as well.
Unfortunately, many older systems do not match current or near-future data demands in the COVID-19 environment and are showing themselves to be very hard to modify to adapt. It’s in the personal separation conditions we are all facing that a modern ERP and data-sharing environment becomes so much more important now.
Solving the Food Business Information Challenge
Granted, there are some elements of food service that have to be supported in-person and hands-on. However, technology has come a long way from the simple inventory tracking software programs from yesteryear, and a lot of tools are available now that can really push businesses in hyper-speed with digital capability. A key example is Prime FoodService Software, a complete food distribution software solution built into the Acumatica Cloud ERP architecture.
Prime FoodService Software combines all the critical operational elements of a food service distributor from ordering and inventory fulfillment to shipping criteria and product movement. The toolset also includes route planning and trip management as well. Orders go in fast, product stock planning can be managed to the moment, and managers can see real-time what’s happening across the system versus just parts or partial views that often hamper good strategic positioning.
Scaling for Seasonal or Emergency Surges
Beyond the features and functionality that have been built for the food service distribution industry, the whole nature of the Acumatica Cloud ERP platform makes Prime FoodService an ideal choice for food distributors.
Because it is deployed in the cloud, companies implementing Acumatica avoid the hated “sunk” costs typical with large systems that require hardware installations.
Unlike other cloud ERP solutions, however, Acumatica and Prime FoodService are priced based on data usage, rather than the typical per user per month subscription. This difference is key in times of demand surges because it allows a company to add staff and give them full access to the system without adding to their license costs. Easily scale your workforce up during surges or down when business returns to normal while still giving everyone access to necessary customer and business data so that everyone is operating off of a single version of the truth.
Even with tight budgets and slim margins, food suppliers can gain tremendous value through the flexibility and scalability of the cloud.
Don’t Hesitate to Reach Out and Learn More
Although times are tumultuous now, you can learn more about Prime FoodService built in Acumatica at your convenience by viewing this on-demand webinar.