Customer-Centric Analytics

• UNDERSTAND Customer Behavior & Profitability
  EPM offers numerous analytical capabilities for measuring customer profitability and for ranking and scorecarding customers across a number of areas. The analytics are designed to help our customers ensure that their most profitable customers remain satisfied and their sales and marketing efforts are aimed at retaining and optimizing the right customers and attracting the right prospects.

• PREDICT Customer Demand
  EPM also helps our customers improve forecast accuracy and the overall Sales & Operations Planning process.  With it, our customers can better predict current and future customer demand at the micro-segment level and align their demand generation, sales operations, and supply chain strategies to maximize revenue.  This is accomplished through collaborative forecasting and demand planning applications, open order analysis, and sales performance measurements.

• INFLUENCE Customer Behavior
  The CRM-focused analytics offered by EPM can help supply chain businesses more accurately segment their customer bases for cross-selling and up-selling opportunities.  In addition, EPM’s marketing-focused analytics can assist manufacturers in better allocating and managing their trade funds and promotions in order to influence customer (retail partner) participation and ultimate end-consumer purchases. 

Supply Chain-Centric (Operational) Analytics

• PLAN What the Supply Chain Should Do
  EPM offers more accurate forecasting down to the product SKU level to allow our customers to more accurately determine safety stock and re-order points by optimizing customer service levels and measuring supplier variability with inventory optimization as the bottom-line result.  The entire planning process is based on current and historical customer behavior, and supports collaboration both within the enterprise and with supply chain partners.  A collaborative process is essential in building an operational plan where demand from customers drives decisions made in sales, marketing, procurement, manufacturing and other areas throughout the enterprise.

• EVALUATE Supply Chain Performance
  By leveraging EPM’s operational analytics, supply chain performance can be evaluated in a number of areas such as Inventory, Purchasing and Manufacturing to ensure that customer demand is optimally being met.  Based on industry research conducted by AMR, reductions in inventory, alone, can range from 2% to 25% with a more comprehensive and accurate view of operational dynamics.
  
  EPM allows supply chain businesses to drive cost reductions on the sourcing side, reduce sourcing cycle time and decrease assets on the balance sheet by providing the technology and applications needed to cross-functionally manage spending, aggregate all spending initiatives, and rationalize and manage the supplier network and how well they are meeting customer fill/delivery rates.  According to industry research by the Aberdeen Group and Center for Advanced Purchasing Studies, analytic applications like EPM can contribute to supplier spend reductions of 5% to 15%.
  
  The analytics offered by ERT’s EPM solutions additionally allows our customers to optimize their assets in the areas of cash, inventory and both warehousing and manufacturing capacity.    Plus, it lets them measure and manage equipment and warehouse utilization, as well as Work-in-Process vs. Plan.

• MONITOR Supply Chain Variances
  Since variability will occur within the supply chain network, EPM’s exception management capabilities ensure that operational performance is monitored in real-time and that any variances that may arise are proactively identified and addressed.  Because of the increased velocity of the supply chain, companies are recognizing that planning and analysis must be tightly integrated.  The growing use of event management (exception management) to spot breakdowns in the process allows businesses to cope with this reality in a very efficient manner.

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