Have you ever felt that time spent on redundant data handling tasks has been eating up your productivity?
Since your eCommerce store would be up and running 24/7, it’s not practical for your team to keep track of all the customers and order data in real-time, leading to missing data or errors in data transfer.
So is there any perfect way out?
Of course, there is! Data automation is your confidante that helps you streamline all your data management processes in a snap and that too without any errors. Go for eCommerce ERP integration with the ideal integration platform that offers automated data synchronization, and take proper control over your data.
Still unsure? Read on to know why data automation is the next big thing in B2B eCommerce.
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4 Reasons For You To Automate Your Business Process
1. Streamlines order procurement
More than 48% of the B2B decision-makers have already begun to rely on automating order management processes. Smooth order processing gives an indirect advantage to your business in terms of delivering a hassle-free customer experience.
As you have to deal with large volumes of order information, automating its data entry can save you from the exhaustive and time-consuming process of entering data manually in all your systems. You don’t even need to worry about any data entry errors. With an integration platform or a middleware solution in place, you just need to enter data in only one of your systems and the integration platform will automatically update the same in all the connected systems.
No matter how complicated your order processing is, the automated integration platform will synchronize all complex orders like:
- Offline orders
- Backorders
- Standing orders
- Quote requests (and many more!)
2. Error-free data management
The guarantee of error-free data management is the biggest benefit of eCommerce automation. You must already be clogging your heads with large chunks of data. And with such large volumes of important data that requires human hands to work on, mistakes are sure to happen. You cannot keep up with updating each and every data into eCommerce, ERP, CRM, Marketplace and other systems on which you operate.
This is where automation comes in.
As eCommerce automation takes care of all data updates, you need not invest your precious time into exhaustive data management. Automation also frees you from all potential errors. High-performing integration platforms also spot errors that must have occurred in your past data entries and notify you before the troubles spiral out of control.
3. No more workflow friction
In the absence of a centralized repository for data handling, procuring accurate data and keeping in mind the exact information will be difficult. These frictions in workflow can lead to the delivery of inaccurate information to customers, incorrect shipping information and untraceable orders.
By way of integrations, data transfer and synchronization will be automated, thereby maintaining data consistency and uniformity. Through timely data updates, you gain a single source of truth to access data in just a click. With the automation of business processes, you would no longer work in silos. Streamlined workflow eliminates operational gaps and ensures better connectivity
As you depend on various applications to carry out different operations like order processing, sales, fulfillment, marketing, and shipping, you need a centralized and automated system through which you can effortlessly manage all these varied functionalities.
4. Process all your data in real-time
Tackling and manually entering all your data related to inventory, customer follow-ups, shipping, etc. can be troublesome. Automating this time-intensive data handling can save you a lot of time and errors. The ultimate goal of data automation is to eliminate your need for manually pressing buttons to enter each and every data or entering data into spreadsheets. An integration platform brings about real-time data synchronization that populates any data that you enter into your integrated systems whether it’s ERP, CRM, Marketplace, or any other application.
As your business grows, ensuring data accuracy should be given its due importance. You already know what can happen even if a single piece of data goes wrong. So automation and bidirectional data synchronization are two great pros to maintain accurate data as you only need to enter your data once and your middleware will do the rest of your job.
How To Automate eCommerce?
Identify your gaps in business flow
The most basic yet the most crucial phase. It’s so important to go deeper into the way you run your business. Your ultimate route to success lies in identifying the flaws and rectifying them before they stifle your business.
Understand the tasks that are generally exhaustive and check for the possibility of automation. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Are there any business processes that are extremely time-consuming?
- Are there any repetitive and redundant tasks?
- Do you require manual data handling?
- Are you fed up with manual data entry errors?
- Are your order processing and inventory tracking seamless?
If you find yourself constantly nodding your head to these questions, then it’s high time that you automate those business processes for a smooth workflow.
Have a clear idea of what to integrate
After you have identified the gaps, you need to sort out which systems should be integrated.
Of course, you have a lot of systems in place to make your eCommerce operations flawless. They may be your ERP system, PIM, CRM, or any other leading applications. Now, all you need is a proper integration of your eCommerce website with all these systems that you use.
When connected with the right integration platform or a middleware solution that offers automation, your systems will interact with each other without the need for any manual intervention. With a proper integration platform, you only need to enter data in any one of the systems and it will be automatically updated in all your integrated applications. So assess what you need to integrate and let the iPaaS do the work for you.
Be choosy with your automation solution
You can find a lot of integration platforms in the market. You should go for the solution that has the best features that fit your eCommerce needs. Gauge what the pros and cons of each solution are with respect to your integration requirements. Also, go through their case studies and testimonials to get a better understanding of their work.
Examine how each feature of those integration platforms will impact these areas:
- Product information
- Order processing
- Inventory data
- Order fulfillment data
- Customer information
Choose solutions with pre-built connectors. The process of automating your integrations is easier if your systems already have ready-made connectors. Pre-built connectors will help you integrate databases, industry-leading applications, and many more swiftly through simple configuration steps.
3 Success Stories Of Automated eCommerce ERP Integration
Driving Growth With Data Integration
Expanding your business can be exciting and taxing at the same time. You need to incorporate new operations, products, processes and many other eCommerce functionalities too for successful scalability.
C.W. Hayden, a noted industrial, marine and safety products supplier, wanted their products to be available on multiple touchpoints, finally setting out to sell their products on 3M Marketplace. By connecting 3M Marketplace with their P21 ERP through DCKAP Integrator, our integration platform, they opted for automated data sync, accelerating their order-to-cash workstream, order fulfillment, invoicing process, etc.
Want to know more about their integrations? Dive in here.
Advanced Operational Flexibility Through eCommerce Automation
How about taking a trip through the success story of owning a high performing B2B eCommerce business by eliminating manual data entry? It’s the story of Bosch Hydraulic, a leading supplier of Hydraulic hose fittings that decided to focus their time on revenue generating activities rather than on repetitive, time-consuming data management tasks.
So naturally, automation was their viable choice and automation is what we offer. DCKAP Integrator integration provided for bidirectional data sync for customer data, products, and order information. As they were dealing in thousands of products with a large number of SKUs, we integrated DCKAP PIM, our Product Information Management system to streamline their product data.
To learn more, access their case study.
Power Of Integrations For eCommerce Success
Being a full-line distributor of laboratory products, Midland Scientific was grappling with the lack of up-to-date data. Manual data handling was taking a lot of time and there were searching for a solution that will not only update data automatically but also increase flexibility.
Integrating important business use cases, DCKAP Integrator eased the shopping experience that Midland Scientific provided for their customers. Midland Scientific can now add new APIs quickly and make customizations more rapidly now that all of the data is automatically synchronized across critical business use cases. They can also examine the log through Integrator and resync in the event of an issue, so there’s no room for data mismanagement. DCKAP has made it feasible to improve workflow in order to increase productivity and develop the business.
Get to know their story of success.
DCKAP Integrator – Best-Serving ERP Integration Platform For B2B Distributors
DCKAP Integrator, being the distributor-specific integration platform, integrates eCommerce websites, ERP, CRM, and other applications for streamlined and automated data transfer. It has been more than just an integration solution for distributors. Considerably easing their eCommerce hurdles, our integration solution has paved the way for digital growth in a highly competitive market.
Our skilled integration experts are all set to kick off your automation journey to achieve the growth that you’ve always dreamed of. With us, optimize your eCommerce ERP integration and provide the best possible digital experience for your customers.
