Many companies struggle with the decision to invest in an ERP solution and determining the best time to implement a system. The answer to this question depends on your business plan, long-term strategy, and outlook for your company. For those companies in the midmarket that are looking to stay competitive and increase market share, an ERP system can be pivotal in helping you keep pace as the amount of data you need to gather, store and process grows.
Here are 5 signs that show whether your business could greatly benefit from an ERP investment.
1) You are struggling to consolidate information across systems
According to TEC, one of the top three reasons businesses implement an ERP is to consolidate disparate apps and systems. These silos result in countless hours of manual cross-checking and updating data from multiple department databases and software systems, leading to reduced productivity and unhappy employees.
An ERP system provides a single source of truth which spans across multiple departments. This can help improve team alignment, communication, and deliver real-time data and trusted reporting that your teams can use to make informed decisions.
2) You are unable to gather useful data and report
As you grow, so does the amount of data that have. As this data becomes more and more critical in managing your business, it’s important to design efficient workflows and processes to help you extract meaningful insights to make timely decisions. With disparate systems, it’s almost impossible to generate complete reports, and instead you are left piecing together information from multiple reports, databases, and spreadsheets.
ERP systems provide useful business intelligence tools for gathering insights whenever you need them. You can easily create dashboards which update in real time, providing quick and accurate insights that empower your teams to make the best decisions.
3) You lack automation and rely heavily on manual processes
Automation enables companies to streamline mundane work, resulting in increased efficiency and employee satisfaction with more value-driven tasks. According to McKinsey, half of the activities that employees are paid to do could be automated, amounting to $15 trillion in wages. This money could be redirected to investments such as R&D to help build competitiveness.
ERP systems make it possible to automate processes from finance to operations to sales. Many of our customers have cited automated reporting, sales order creation, inventory management and financial reporting as key areas where an ERP has helped save their team time.
4) You have inaccurate inventory management
The amount of inventory can often be a double edge sword, especially for growing companies. Too much inventory can result in oversupply, which can lead to lost profits. Too little inventory will impact your customer experience and can often tie up your supply chain.
ERP systems provide critical inventory tracking tools to ensure you know how much product you have in real-time. In addition, there are ERP extension tools such as our wholesale distribution solution, Resolv, which can provide a proactive approach to procuring stock items with automated formulas and forecasting built into an ERP to estimate demand, lead time and trends. An ERP with these features can not only improve your customer experience but empower your teams to operate much more efficiently.
5) You are unsure how your current system will support your growth plans
As a growing company, it’s important that your technology infrastructure can support your short- and long-term growth plans. Many companies reach a point in which their systems are holding them back and hindering their ability to scale. This can often result in a hasty and impulsive ERP selection process.
If you’ve started to develop a business plan that indicates the need for a more robust system, it’s important to make sure you conduct a thorough evaluation and formulate a detailed decision process months before you expect the project to go live.
If you are facing any of the above challenges, it might be time to consider investing in an ERP system. Not only will it help you make better business decisions, but it will help you grow and stay competitive. To learn more about the benefits of ERP, check out our guide ‘How to Grow with an ERP: A Guide for Midsized Companies’.
Ready to get started on your ERP project? Reach out to our team today.
Tags:
ERP
November 22, 2021
