Locus Technologies today introduced its newest platform for environmental enterprise resource planning.
The cloud-based sustainability management software firm says sustainability and environmental managers for organizations of all sizes face myriad options from software suppliers offering various single-domain applications. Challenged with an ever-evolving regulatory landscape, these managers must select a software provider that can adapt to new compliance constraints and the constant changes of existing regulations, often with multi-jurisdictional requirements.
Locus says most software suppliers have rigid platforms or applications that fail to keep up with constantly changing needs, are hard to integrate, and are often obsolete before they are even implemented.
To address this industry challenge, the company says it designed the new platform to provide rich functionality so that it would be easy for customers to make the most of their environmental data management and reporting requirements. In addition, Locus says the platform helps companies avoid many of the costs generally associated with implementing traditional software systems through its simple setup, navigation and configuration options, thereby eliminating the need for expensive implementations, user training and customizations.
Locus addressed common barriers to using environmental management software when designing the platform. Specifically, Locus conducted a gap analysis of current software offerings. It identified challenges through feedback from its end-users and other industry professionals, and through customer surveys conducted by several industry research analysts’ firms over the last two years. The company found users were wary of complex and expensive systems and implementations; a rigid regulatory environment for businesses that made adapting to new systems costly and complicated; and integration of a new platform with legacy systems.
The resulting Locus platform offers an intuitive interface with the flexibility to incorporate features such as drag-and-drop forms creation, visual business-process modeling, Excel import/export integration, and a rich and configurable user dashboards and reporting interface. Locus says it created every feature with the end user in mind to promote quick and easy data capture and task management.
The company says customers should see significant savings over traditional software offerings both at the time of implementation and over the long term. Because the Locus platform’s system, upgrades and maintenance are cloud-based rather than configured on individual user workstations, while users can configure the way they use the software, they do not need to pay for customization at the individual level.
The launch of the latest Locus platform follows the same guidelines and goals that the company established during the original inception of ePortal in 2000. Locus says it offers an integrated solution so that companies can manage all of their environmental, energy, water, waste, carbon, air, health and safety, and compliance information in one place.