Manufacturing

Manufacturers and distributors must achieve and sustain profitable growth by creating and capturing demand by utilizing innovative products and synchronizing the execution of integrated business processes across a collaborative demand and supply network—from the design to the supply to the customer chain.

Manufacturing and distribution are capital-intensive businesses. Billions are spent each year on constructing new oil rigs, building new production facilities, replenishing truck fleets, and the like. Research and development (R&D) is becoming an increasingly important competitive weapon as the market’s demand for new features and functionality accelerates. New facilities, equipment, and innovation require large investments either derived from cash flow, debt or equity. A focus on profitable growth is one of the largest challenges for manufacturing and distribution companies.

Business Trends and Challenges

There are many trends that are driving change in the manufacturing and distribution industries. Today’s buyers are demanding, more selective and increasingly disloyal. They expect the right products available at convenient times and locations. To enable profitable growth, companies are under increasing pressure to rapidly read buyers’ signals, develop innovative products attuned to buyers’ needs, deliver products when and where buyers are ready to buy and all at a profit-generating price that buyers can afford.

These demands are not the only obstacles facing the industry. Other factors such as intensified competition, high materials and energy costs, complex supply chains, regulatory and environmental compliances, and industry consolidation present Allesons of Rochester with huge challenges but also with great opportunities.

Manufacturers and distributors must achieve and sustain profitable growth by creating and capturing demand with more innovative products and synchronizing the execution of integrated business processes across a collaborative demand and supply network—from the design to the supply to the customer chain. As innovation increasingly becomes a core differentiator, more and more companies are leveraging product ideas, lessons learned, and R&D approaches used by other industries.

Information Technology Impacts

• The day-to-day operations
• Productivity and efficiency
• The way your business communicates internally and externally
• The way your business serves its customers, vendors, and suppliers
• The manufacturing and production environment
• The way your business is perceived by its customers, vendors, and suppliers
• The way your business exists in today's Information Age

Utilizing Technology

Technology is at the heart of every manufacturing and distribution entity and IT today plays a part in most business processes. By aligning IT investments with business goals and processes,your business can accelerate business growth, increase efficiency and mitigate risks. Innovation can improve effectiveness, increase communication and collaboration, reduce costs and decrease time-to-market. Technology can not only support the business but technology can power the business. IT can present business opportunities for your business by:

• Creating and capturing demand with innovative products—technology can provide data that will help your business better understand market dynamics and customer needs allowing for more collaborative and streamlined product development and lifecycle management.
• Synchronizing business processes across the supply chain—through timely visibility of the economics of various design, supply, production and distribution alternatives,your business can develop a framework for selecting from this myriad of alternatives and optimize the end-to-end value chain. Enhanced communication and collaboration can help balance supply and demand as well as align processes.
• Mastering execution to drive organizational responsiveness—the ability to measure process efficiencies against multiple objectives or key performance indicators (KPIs) can provide a clear understanding of which business and IT processes are optimal or sub-optimal and how to make improvements that most impact business objectives. Through this optimization, your business can increase responsiveness and effectiveness in response to current business conditions.

Info Advantage can improve business agility, build a powerful platform for innovation, and manage change. By creating an adaptive infrastructure, your business can create and capture demand with new products, synchronize integrated business processes across a collaborative demand and supply network, and master execution to drive organizational responsiveness and cost savings.