Kerridge Commercial Systems unveils sustainable initiatives at Konnect

James Mitchell, managing director of KCS in the UK and Ireland, opened the conference and set the scene for the two days, focusing on the company's new and exciting digital solutions. 'We believe that digitisation, sustainability and profitability do go hand in hand, and over the course of the next two days, we would like to share initiatives with you that can significantly help your business reduce its carbon footprint, while delivering greater efficiencies and cost savings and helping you grow your profits – a win/win/win scenario!'

KCS staff conducted in-depth demonstrations and workshops on the company's latest mobile and web solutions, including a range of intuitive apps that deliver their customers' efficiencies in all aspects of warehousing and operation management. In addition, KCS showcased many partner solutions, such as its relationship with Phocas, an integrated BI platform that delivers real intelligence from the rich data held within KCS ERP solutions. It also took the opportunity to announce its partnership with the EFT solutions from Dojo and WorldPay for electronic payments, as well as the robotic process automation tools from Apollo that enable everyday tasks to be automated.

KCS also created an intuitive mobile app for conference delegates to use that enabled them to view agendas and brochures, watch videos and arrange meetings from their smart devices in line with its approach to digitisation.

Focusing on its key market sectors of distribution, automotive and rental, The company also unveiled many initiatives to deliver key benefits to all industries where its customers operate. For example, its new Konnect Online platform will enable KCS to quickly develop and deliver partner solutions that can be made available across all of its markets and core products. This approach underlies the company's strategy of offering its customers best-of-breed digital products that complement its core business solutions. KCS concentrates on developing core ERP solutions that deliver on its commitment to helping its customers embrace their carbon reduction targets and provide improved performance without compromising profits.

“We recognise that our customers need our support as they work to deliver their carbon reduction strategies, and we are proud to develop and to showcase solutions that can help,” said Mr Mitchell. “Our EasyAP solution, for example, enables customers to automate their accounts payable processes and to remove paper, filing and storage. They can extract invoices from email, import and match, and electronically file an image of the supplier invoice. This innovation removes paper and printing, which means there's no storage and results in a more efficient administration process.”

KCS also delivered updates to customers on the latest web strategies available. Customers can choose integrated B2B or B2C web trading products to quickly implement into their business to support their ecommerce strategies, together with a range of sophisticated tools that enable a customer to forge strong integrations with their customers and suppliers.

“Digitisation is not a scary word or strategy for our customers,” said Mr Mitchell. “It's a journey that they have been on for some time. Our customers were early adopters of our cloud technology as a means to outsource their IT infrastructure and reduce their energy consumption. They have been using hand-held technologies to improve efficiencies but, up to now, the high hardware costs have always been a barrier to adoption. However, the emergence of new digital technologies has enabled us to harness the power of cloud computing to deliver cost-effective solutions into areas of the business that staff members manually controlled in the past. This change enables them to greatly enhance efficiencies and grow profits whilst removing much paper, ink and energy waste that results in a significant carbon footprint.

“However, it doesn't stop there,” continued Mr Mitchell. “We are committed to delivering even more over the coming months, and it's been fantastic to see how our customers are embracing this next generation of technology and putting it to use for all of our benefits. Digitisation, sustainability and profitability truly do go hand in hand.”