Manufacture Your Company’s Success

The year was 2014 and Pennsylvania-based manufacturing firm, Worth & Company, sought to update its internal financial applications. Several years later after multiple go-live push-outs, a $4.5M breach lawsuit and, ultimately, no new system rollout, let’s just say things went a bit sideways.

Years were spent attempting to customize the application to the mechanical contractor’s needs and specific purposes, to no avail.

Worth & Co. is not unique in requiring the consideration of specific needs when it comes to the financial operations driving long-term growth and success. At one point, the company’s exasperated CEO publicly expressed his frustration and dissatisfaction with what he saw as a failure in providing a “system compatible for use in Worth’s business.”

It’s worth (sorry, that was just sitting there) recalling that sad struggle in order to examine such business-specific necessities for this industry.

Specialized Needs

Whether your manufacturing organization is involved in the large-scale production of goods for make-to-stock, make-to-order or make-to-assemble, the organizational processes and strategies to arise will require agility, flexibility and performance against high volume.

As with all industries, manufacturers are deep in the throes of digital transformation efforts. By employing the latest technology, automating processes and exploring all revenue models, financial leaders within this sector can realize a whole host of benefits including improved cost efficiency, more productive business models, solid relationships with customers and vendors and a better bottom line.

Let’s consider, say, four...

The Fab Four of Manufacturing Benefits through Automation

1. Improve your cost control 

Your company’s potential for profitability is dictated by the business costs for the systems and materials associated with the products you manufacture. While expenses associated with raw materials can be negotiated only so far, automating functions such as payment processing can help to proactively optimize such costs. 

Staffing resources tasked with basic - yet redundant and time-consuming - accounting tasks can now re-direct contributions directly toward your company’s financial growth.

2. Reduce your time delays 

The system of lean manufacturing, a philosophy derived from production systems at Toyota, focuses on eliminating waste. While the principle of ‘seven wastes’ identified under this system - overproduction, inventory, motion, defects, over-processing, waiting and transport - tends to refer more specifically to the physical process of manufacturing, many can be equally applicable to inefficient internal processes. 

By automating processes such as billing, revenue and partner compensation, accounting teams can capture, calculate and approve critical information electronically and establish a more optimized cadence based on real-time visibility and accurate projected demand.

3. Save on those hard costs connected to paper waste 

It’s understandable the manufacturing industry as a whole remains slow to move away from the long-trusted, tangible hard copy toward a more digitized environment, but the cost savings of paper waste through image capturing, wearable technology and other modern offerings can, over time, be quite significant. 

Statistics indicate a $5 ream of paper actually ends up costing a business more than $150 in additional expenses including printing and printing supplies, hard copy storage and disposal. Eliminating even some of that waste through automation can allow a business to reinvest the savings into functions that could help contribute toward organizational growth and strategic goals.

4. Improve your organizational service levels 

One of the most important ways to establish a competitive advantage as a manufacturer, an industry often built on trust, is through rock-solid relationship management. Lose those reliable partnerships with vendors and suppliers and your company can become quite vulnerable in a number of areas - loss of access to materials and product, inability to source products at competitive prices and challenges meeting demand. 

By automating and modernizing your firm’s most critical financial processes, you can ensure your suppliers and partners are provided the highest possible level of service necessary for the health of your business and ability to serve your own end users.

It all seems quite worth it. (again, sorry)

To learn how RecVue’s agile monetization platform meets manufacturing’s most pressing challenges - from usage-based to complex variable billing, revenue leakage and rigid contract structures, please download our RecVue Billing & Monetization Platform for Manufacturing Datasheet.