Accommodate More Customers and Unlock Greater Profitability with Food and Beverage ERP Software

The most recent Food Price Outlook, a monthly report by the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), projected that all food prices would increase by approximately 6.2% in 2023. That’s a slower growth rate than that seen in 2022, but still above the historical average, and it’s hitting the pocketbooks of both everyday consumers as well as food and beverage businesses.

Three factors—rising raw material costs, inflation and the labor shortage—lie behind this development, and none of them have an easy fix. That means that your company, as a manufacturer or distributor of food and beverage products, must find new ways to bring in new customers and bolster your margins if growth is to be achieved despite challenging circumstances.

It might surprise you to learn that making an investment in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for your organization is one of the smartest moves you can make as you take on this endeavor. The key is to select a system that’s purpose-built for the food and beverage industry, as generic solutions tend to lack critical functionalities and don’t deliver benefits and return on investment (ROI) of the same magnitude as their industry-specific counterparts.

That reality is borne out by the numbers. IDC research commissioned by Aptean revealed that food and beverage businesses with a specialized ERP saw increases of 5.3% in revenue and 4.9% in profit over the past year, while their peers with generic ERP software saw increases of 2.9% and 3.7%, respectively.

But how exactly can advanced food ERP software—like our own Aptean Food & Beverage ERP—help your company secure new business and drive greater profitability? In this post, we’re going to cover three of the features of our award-winning solution and the ways by which they can help your organization on this front.

Advanced Pricing

Standard pricing features of “one-size-fits-all” ERP platforms typically aren’t designed to accommodate the wide variety of scenarios and schemes seen in the food and beverage industry. Aptean’s food ERP includes advanced pricing functionalities that offer the flexibility your company needs to create compelling offers and win over prospects that you might not otherwise be able to bring in.

With the capability to create and apply hierarchical pricing structures with multiple tiers for different individual customers or customer groups, you can use the rates that are right for the client you’re dealing with. Enhanced discounting methods let you go beyond markdowns based on percentages and instead use specific monetary amounts, quantity or weight as the determining factor.

What’s more, our software’s algorithms can determine whether it is most advantageous to use the order, shipment or requested/promised delivery date for calculations. And to simplify matters from the user’s end, reference customers can be established so that the same pricing strategy can be applied to additional customers with just a few clicks.

With this module, you'll also be able to prevent unauthorized changes by freezing a sales line while using manual pricing and discounting features; and access an Advanced Sales Price and Discount record to better understand the calculations behind rates.

Trade Management

Your food and beverage organization likely has many different trade agreements with customers, each with its own parameters determined by what works best for the client and your company. Effectively managing these agreements and creating more for future customers demands a versatile toolset, and that’s just what Aptean Food & Beverage ERP’s Trade Management module provides.

Our solution’s features allow for the creation of multiple trade plans under one agreement, each with different trade rate configurations and specific price calculation parameters. The software also lets you use flexible pricing terms, including mark-ups and mark-downs based on the item/item group, customer/customer group, ship-to address and/or unit of measure.

Additionally, our advanced algorithms can optimize the sequence in which trade rates are calculated, and promotions, rebates, commissions, royalties and billbacks can all be accommodated. By leveraging these functionalities and working closely with trade partners to understand the best way to structure agreements in a mutually beneficial way, you’ll be more able to expand your client base and keep revenue flowing in.

Two more capabilities of our Trade Management suite worth mentioning are the option to manually enter unit prices or discounts during sales order entry for greater control; and accrual-based agreements that automatically post to the general ledger for enhanced visibility.

Business Intelligence

Making progress toward your business’s profitability goals takes an in-depth understanding of the many variables that affect your bottom line and how your strategic decisions can impact it. That’s where Aptean Food & Beverage ERP’s integrated Business Intelligence (BI) tools come in—these robust functionalities can yield actionable insights that can accelerate the achievement of key business goals and unlock new opportunities.

It all starts with automated data collection via connected equipment and real-time calculation of important metrics. Our BI platform comes with built-in tracking for more than 500 key performance indicators (KPIs), 300-plus of which are specific to the food and beverage industry. The software also deploys automatic alerts if anomalies are detected, helping you to quickly course-correct in the event of an unforeseen downturn.

Furthermore, Aptean’s BI technology uses machine learning to model scenarios and predict future performance given a set of internal and external factors. That allows you to test whether certain changes will produce the desired results, informing your approach and helping you to both get the most out of your resources and protect (or boost) your margins.

Accelerating Your Digital Transformation with Aptean

The features of Aptean Food & Beverage ERP discussed above can effect a meaningful difference for the financial health of your food and beverage company. By utilizing sophisticated pricing tools, working with customers on terms that suit both parties and keeping your finger on the pulse of your performance, you’ll be better positioned to bring on new business and make smart, data-driven decisions that drive profitability.

But there’s more to us as a provider than just the software we sell and the benefits delivered. We’re committed to the food and beverage market—our team has decades of collective experience in the industry, which has afforded us deep knowledge of the unique challenges and best practices across the many sub-verticals.

We also strive to act as a guide during the implementation process and approach the journey collaboratively with our customers, helping to sketch out a project roadmap with observable milestones and a realistic timeline. Furthermore, we offer flexible cloud deployments on the Software as a Service (SaaS) model that afford clients greater scalability, stronger data protection, tougher cybersecurity and broader accessibility.

Finally, consider the recognition we recently received from Frost and Sullivan, which named Aptean the winner of their 2023 Customer Value Leadership Award in North American ERP Software for the Food and Beverage Industry. That underscores our best practices in creating new solutions that meet our customer’s changing needs.

Now, if you’re ready to learn more about Aptean Food & Beverage ERP and its advanced pricing, trade management and Business Intelligence features, reach out to us today. You can also request a personalized demo.