Amplifying Single-Pane Visibility and More Efficient Processes with a Robust ERP Solution Suite
What do Super Bowl LVI, Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee, and The Cheesecake Factory have in common? Audiotonix.
A pioneering market leader, Audiotonix designs, engineers and manufactures professional audio mixing consoles and ancillary products for use in live sound, broadcast, theatre production, house of worship, film production, music creation and recording studios. With nine brands—and growing—the company needed a single 360-degree view of the business to eliminate siloed systems, improve visibility and control, and drive efficiencies. Epicor Kinetic deployed in the cloud answered the call.
The largest provider of audio mixing consoles and accessories in the world today, Audiotonix is comprised of an expanding roster of award-winning brands covering a range of professional audio markets. With each new acquisition, it became more challenging to establish a single source of truth for the entire business.
“The principal driver for us was to have all our data in one place,” explained Gerry Finnon, Business Systems/ERP Manager at Audiotonix. He continued, “We needed the visibility across the business and the ability to speed up month-end close.”
Each of the Audiotonix brands ran on their own legacy ERP system, and several had different, separate financial systems. As a result, each business financial controller produced spreadsheets from their own system and delivered it to group management. That team would then consolidate the spreadsheets. Finnon shared, “As part of our Epicor journey, we developed a new chart of accounts across the group and as each company migrates onto Epicor, they also adopt account organization structure. The end result is better financial visibility from a single core data set and a much faster month-end close.” Today, three Audiotonix brands have migrated to Epicor with the remainder on track to be on-boarded by 2025. Finnon predicted, “As more of our businesses move online with Epicor Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), it is an essential tool to ensure an accurate, speedy financial close and consolidated management reporting.”
Another benefit of a single source of data is a greatly improved insight into R&D ROI. Finnon elaborated, “Audiotonix is a research and development-led organization. We have roughly as many people in R&D as are in production and sales, which is reflected in our relentless innovation. And we are always looking to measure the return on those investments. Epicor gives us the power to do that.”
The discipline that comes with using a mature ERP solution creates better processes and greater accuracy.
Epicor Kinetic also helps to enable real-time inventory management. “One manufacturing site had been heavily driven by backflushing processes, often dating inventory based on production quantities and creating a constant reset of the stock quantity,” Finnon highlighted. “We introduced Epicor Mobile Warehouse and now everything is in one system. Every pick goes on the handheld device, forcing a physical process. Not only has it given us a much better grasp on real-time inventory accuracy, but it has also created a cultural change that nothing leaves the shop unless it goes through Epicor.”
Epicor has also enforced better processes, Audiotonix teams that are on Epicor are now cycle counting. Finnon acknowledged, “The discipline that comes with using a mature ERP solution creates better processes and greater accuracy.”
In addition to Epicor Mobile Warehouse, Audiotonix has adopted several modules to extend and enhance the benefits of Epicor Kinetic deployed in the cloud.
For instance, Epicor Data Analytics (EDA) has been deployed for sales and operational information. Finnon’s team utilizes the capability to create a real-time copy of the Audiotonix database and extract data in whatever form the business needs and feed it into the analytics tool. Finnon revealed, “EDA allows our sales teams to access data and to very quickly and easily sort or restrict data by brand. We can build a single model and then identify who can see which brand. This enabled us to take ownership of all our data models and manage them in a remarkably simple and seamless way.”
“We have become self-sufficient and in control of our data. If someone asks for a certain view, we can quickly and efficiently drill down on KPIs and deliver exactly what is needed.”
Another example is Epicor Enterprise Content Management (Epicor ECM), which gives the business the ability to store documents such as shipping notes, terms and conditions, and customer-facing materials in the system. “Epicor ECM has accelerated our initiative to reduce or eliminate paper trails and given us a single repository,” said Finnon. He cited one example: “Every machine runs on a test bed before shipping, which provides diagnostic information. With Epicor ECM, those test files are attached to the serial number of the product so if there is ever a support issue, our service engineers can easily access the initial factory diagnostics.”
Simply being in the cloud, and on an Azure cloud in particular, offers many sustainability gains . . . Plus, having Epicor in the cloud keeps us current on features and capabilities, as well as areas such as governance and security which are continuously changing.
The next module slated to on-board is Epicor Automation Studio, to be integrated with Zendesk. Today, customer support is managed with Zendesk. If a customer reports a problem, a ticket is raised in Zendesk and if a replacement or RMA is needed, the information needs to be duplicated in Epicor. “With Epicor Automation Studio, Zendesk and Epicor will speak to each other, eliminating the need for duplicate data entry,” Finnon explained.
He continued, “We see a lot of other potential benefits with Epicor Automation Studio. For instance, we receive a high volume of products from offshore contract manufacturers, thousands of pieces, each with their own serial number. Today, it’s a manual process to get those numbers into the system. Epicor Automation Studio will automate that process and save many man-hours.”
This frees Audiotonix employees to spend more time to focus on addressing customer needs and give customers a much smoother after-sales experience.
Above and beyond the advantages that Epicor Kinetic helps to deliver, cloud deployment has generated additional benefits. A major one is supporting Audiotonix’s sustainability initiatives, a key focus for Audiotonix. As an example, Finnon cited that several of the company’s manufacturing facilities are equipped with solar panels, saving approximately 35% in energy consumption.
Finnon shared, “Simply being in the cloud, and on an Azure cloud in particular, offers many sustainability gains. We don’t need to run hardware on-site, eliminating all the overhead that accompanies an on-prem footprint.”
“Plus, having Epicor in the cloud keeps us current on features and capabilities,” he added. “Running on current versions of any ERP system is always a good practice, purely because underlying technology, governance mandates and security credentials are continuously evolving. Having the latest version in the cloud really pushes us along.”
Epicor Kinetic further allows harmony between standardized processes and agility to meet discrete business needs. Finnon elaborated, “At the outset we developed a blueprint of common processes for each of our businesses to follow within the constraints of the Epicor solution. However, they all present slightly different challenges and needs. As a toolset, Epicor Kinetic gives us the flexibility to tune to those specific needs.”
And, if the Audiotonix team ever runs into any issues, award-winning Epicor support is just a click or call away. “We're direct with Epicor from a support perspective and I have to say that the support is excellent. It's really good. The support system, EpiCare is also very good” Finnon said.
He concluded, “At a recent user event, I was sharing how great it is that we don't really need to manage the system, test upgrades, or worry about infrastructure. It is a huge advantage.”