When you purchased your JD Edwards ERP system, you expected to work more efficiently. After all, it would be a central repository for data from which you could easily extract information to write reports. As it turns out, that hasn’t been the case.
While JD Edwards is powerful, it’s not user-friendly and it doesn’t produce easy-to-understand visuals. You want to get the most out of your investment while being able to efficiently and effectively obtain real-time information. So what’s the solution? Business performance reporting and JDE reporting tools make it easier to derive value from your JDE system.
JDE Reporting Tools
Think about what your current business reporting process looks like. How long does it take? How manual is it? Can you easily get the data you need out of JDE?
The answers to the above questions are most likely “too long,” “very manual,” and “no.” That has a great deal to do with how JDE works. The JDE ERP system excels at recording thousands of data entries and transactions across your entire organization in real time. However, getting information out of JDE is time-consuming and laborious.
There are a number of integrated JD Edwards reporting tools that promise faster reporting. But do they deliver? In a report published by Bloor Research, analyst Philip Howard notes that many companies currently use piecemeal reporting tools based on a combination of ERP software, some products that claim to offer faster reporting, and static Excel spreadsheets.
Many so-called “reporting solutions” on the market don’t hook into JDE properly, so you can’t get data in real time. Moreover, they actually slow down the reporting process, forcing users to turn to the IT department to run reports. In today’s world, you can’t wait days or even hours for information from your ERP system. To maintain a competitive advantage, you need JD Edwards reporting tools that actually deliver faster reporting.
The Right Way to Integrated Reporting
What features should an integrated JD Edwards reporting solution possess in order to be useful across the company? The integration must be absolutely seamless; information must be accessible and in real-time. In addition, the solution should also generate a variety of financial reports, produce data visualizations, and support budgeting and strategic planning.
Streamlined Business Performance Reporting
We’ll use a case study to examine how integrated reporting is indeed a faster reporting solution.
Havelock Europa PLC is a supplier of design, manufacturing, and fit-out services to the interiors marketplace. They service some of the largest companies in Europe, such as Primark, Lloyds Banking Group, and M&S International. Havelock’s footprint is significant.
The supply firm uses JDE’s ERP system. Havelock’s ERP implementation took two years, but even after that, users discovered extracting data to create reports was difficult and time-consuming. It took days for the IT department to fulfill requests for report writing, completely unacceptable to decision makers who wanted to maintain the company’s competitive advantage.
Havelock needed a single reporting solution for its JDE system that also connected to other disparate data sources. Its dream business performance reporting solution also had to be easy to install, feature beautiful and easy-to-understand data visualizations, and be intuitive to use. Moreover, the integrated reporting solution had to support 15 line-of-business departments, not just Finance.
Hubble was the perfect fit for Havelock. It took a bit over a week from the beginning of the sales process to the system setup. Havelock didn’t have to wait until the implementation’s go-live to evaluate its reporting options. The company was able to find anomalies among its 20 million data records.
Shortly after implementation, the project team created 73 unique Hubble reports for all of Havelock’s 15 departments. The ability to easily produce reports saved the supplier having to employ a permanent team of report writers. Hubble’s capabilities allowed Havelock to achieve its goals quickly and affordably.
Integrated reporting for JDE doesn’t have to be complicated, expensive, time-consuming, or disappointing. Choosing the right integrated JDE reporting tools makes the process simple, fast, and user-friendly. To learn more about a faster reporting solution for JDE, download our report on Financial and Business Reporting for JD Edwards.
