ERP For Food & Beverage Companies

We will define your needs and wants as well as how you would ideally use new automated solutions across your entire company.

We will guide you through selecting the best fit, most cost-effective business applications, and implementation partners.

After finalizing your food and beverage ERP software and services contracts, EAG stays with you to oversee your implementation until you successfully go live. We will oversee integrations, data migration, change management, budgets, design and configuration, walkthroughs, training, testing, and go-live cutover, and will provide executive and project sponsor support throughout the duration of your project.

• Forecasting relies on the aggregation of numerous data points from across systems and is largely influenced by sales fulfillment history rather than actual historical customer demand.
• Manually traced origin data and other vital producer information, causing inconsistencies and errors.
• Lack of visibility creates cumbersome inventory location transfers.
• Current system is unable to provide meaningful customer information across a range of requirements, from order status and purchase history to pricing product identification information.
• Difficult to track food lot traceability between raw materials and finished goods.

• Inventory management and planning are bottlenecked by reliance on multiple systems and complex rules/approvals surrounding order allocation.
• Disparate data across systems leads to missed pricing opportunities.
• Manual process for planning manufacturing capacity, demand plan, raw material lead times, etc.
• Poor visibility across systems complicates the management of transportation and logistics operations.
• Insufficient integration between internal systems requires duplicate data entry and creates fulfillment difficulties.

Our food and beverage clients are very busy with their day jobs and do not have time to become ERP experts. Though your key people still have to devote some time to an ERP initiative, hiring an ERP consultant frees them up to make the important ERP decisions while staying focused on their day job.

The more complex your business, the more likely for difficulty when selecting and implementing software.  ERP Advisors Group will help you uncover your true needs and will only vet the most viable options for your size, requirements, resources, and strategy.

We will create your requirements document and demonstration script with your food and beverage industry best practices in mind while retaining what is unique to them, leaving out the manual workarounds.

Many clients hire us to help when they suspect there will be a business case for new software, especially in a food and beverage company on legacy applications. ERP Advisors Group helps stakeholders buy into what is best for the company by getting their input at multiple stages including the Needs Analysis, Selection, and Implementation.

A frequent complaint we hear from prospects who tried to select software on their own is feeling confused about the software's capabilities.  We have vendors show your requirements during their product demonstrations.  This ensures you feel confident about selecting the best products to meet your needs.

We negotiate tens of millions of dollars of deals every year for our clients.  We provide contract reviews on all terms and conditions, including software, services, and every agreement embedded throughout the contract. Our clients receive price protection for many years to come on their purchases. While we don't guarantee it in writing, we normally save our fees on this step alone. Check out our Guide to Contract Negotiations.

Food and Beverage companies typically have complex requirements. When you combine government regulations with supply chain needs and recipe formulation, it creates a perfect storm that is difficult to contain without the right tools. It is possible that a robust best-of-breed solution for your batch process or product lifecycle management could improve some of your manual processes and delay or avoid an entire ERP overhaul.

An ERP helps manage and maintain the chaos in a single source while also opening a door for future growth through robust ecosystems of third-party solutions and native modules. The regulatory compliance that an ERP provides Food and Beverage companies is also invaluable and will ensure they can deliver high-quality products while meeting governmental demands.

Without that core source of truth, your specialized Food & Beverage solution may not modernize your business the way you would hope. We highly recommend prioritizing the foundation of your business operations with an ERP before you select an industry-specific solution to address your manufacturing, packaging, or other needs.

The best ERP for Food & Beverage companies must include lot traceability, FDA compliance, recipes, and expiration date management among other key functionality. Other capabilities Food and Beverage companies need may include quality control, allergen management, or even deeper supply chain optimization. On top of that, if the business packages their food as well, they could be juggling nutritional labels or safety caps. Some companies already have a point solution they are vested in, which may give them more flexibility to find an ERP with fewer features. But keeping a point solution may complicate your software footprint.

Food ERPs can take anywhere from 9 months to well over a year to implement. Various factors can impact that timeline, including project complexity or the need for additional third-party solutions in Phase 1. For a clearer view of your timeline, speak to your implementation partner or an advisor who can help facilitate the process.