Three Signals that Businesses Get for Getting ERP

The top management of most of the SMEs must have to carefully examine, analyze and react to certain alarms or signals which they often get for bringing ERP on board. Writes Kunal Sighal, Founder and MD, Eazy ERP

When is the time when your organization needs structured and organized systems? This often is a question, which haunts the entrepreneur without being showcased or highlighted.

However, no one hears such question directly but there are scenarios and situations which can be loud indicators for such a situation when it can be understood that the business needs an ERP.

So what are these indicators? Based on my interactions with entrepreneurs from the SME segment, I found following as the key indications when their businesses have raised alarms for having a structured approach towards their businesses processes. Usually, we refer to these alarms as the indications for getting an ERP on board.

Here are the common alarms or signals:

#1: When the Business have Multiple Software for Various Processes

The entrepreneur must have to think about how employees in the organization monitor, track and process information related to the employees. Usually the accounting department follows one system for receivables and payables, and sales department practices another system for their invoicing, customer relations etc. Same goes with the HR department and so on. The entrepreneur must analyze weather these multiple systems are getting frequently tracked by the top management or not. If yes, then the time spent of each process is high. This problem is an ideal and most common problem which almost every non-ERP based organization faces. Moreover, this problem can only be best resolved by the implementation of an efficient ERP system.

While having such complexity in the day to day business operations, the business often struggle to take charge for next level growth. An efficient ERP solution can integrate these systems so that every business process can come on a single database. This allows the top management to monitor such information flow flawlessly. So, as a result, the organization’s top leadership can get better clarity, visibility on business and also help them in building an efficient intelligence layer on top.

Moreover, the information dashboard offered by an ERP solution allows the top management to view the multiple source of information in single console. With single of information that contains accurate, real-time data, an ERP solution breaks up information logjams, helps staff make better decisions more quickly and frees up their time to work on more high-value exercises like helping the business grow even faster.

#2: Sales Cycle is getting Longer and Customer Experience Becoming Negative

Whenever any organization struggles with it’s business processes, that may be internal business processes, it start reflecting in the distribution or service delivery aspect of the business as well. The moment distribution and the sale cycle gets effected, the customer experience is bound to have a bitter taste. This can be a very dangerous situation for any business. This situation also can be experienced in growing organization.

As an example, if inventory management of the organization is getting struggled, it becomes very difficult to ensure the right amount of products at the right location and that too at the right time. The entire chain gets affected leading to the most unwanted situation of unhappy customers.

Needless to say, ERP solves all these glitches. In case of an ERP ready organization, the staff in every department can access the same, real-time information with regards to sales, production etc. Customer-facing representatives can answer the questions of customers regarding the order and shipping status, payment status, service issues, etc., without having to hang up the phone and check with another department.

#3: When Information Access Gets Difficult

This sing or indication can easily by experienced when the top management or the managers of the organization have less clarity on what is going on. The top boss must understand and examine the time which is required showcase the clarity on sales cycle, customer cycle, distribution cycle etc. Other key performance metrics like orders per day or sales per day etc are some of the answers which the business needs.

If your organization is struggling with these questions, its time for you to adopt ERP. The pace of business is faster than ever before, which means employees across your company need immediate access to key data. With an ERP solution, executives can get a holistic view of business operations at any time, while other staff can get the information they need to do their jobs more effectively.