For years, many small organizations have had no need for an enterprise resource planning solution. Their needs are typically limited to the tracking of sales and financial data, as well as the provision of customer records and simple inventory management. However, the needs of a small business often change over time. As such, it is important for companies to be flexible and evolve in their approach to systems management. here we take a look at a few reasons why small businesses should invest in an ERP solution.
Small businesses often overlook ERP systems and think that the technology is only for large sized companies. However, these organizations can reap a number of benefits and advantages from using an ERP system.
The following article outlines five distinct advantages of investing in an ERP Solution.
Increased Productivity & Efficiency
Maximizing productivity and enhancing efficiency is crucial for small and large businesses alike. With an Enterprise Resource Planning solution, you get the information you need to make smart, data-driven decisions.
The importance of having a right ERP solution for your business cannot be overstated. An effective ERP solution not just helps you streamline the flow of business operations but also makes important information available on demand thus avoiding unproductive effort by employees.
The hassle and manual intervention involved in accessing and utilizing the right information at the right time is saved when you have an effective ERP system deployed in your firm.
Reduce costs
Reducing the costs of your business is one of the most important goals you can have. It gives you more room for mistakes, more money to spend on marketing, branding, and recruiting, and more funds put away for rainy days! There are a lot of great ways to cut costs in your business, but one of the easiest and most effective is implementing an ERP solution.
Eliminating a large part of the administrative process is one of the common ways to reduce costs overall. With an ERP solution in place, employees are free to perform other, more profitable tasks.
Insight & Control
If you are not currently using an ERP system, chances are that your current business reporting tools do not help you to gain real insights into how your company operates and are only offering a very limited picture of the bigger picture. You may find yourself copying data from Word documents into spreadsheets and piecing them together with other sources of information in order to try and gain better visibility into important aspects of your business, such as sales, stock levels, costs and profitability.
Getting these insights into your business doesn’t just help you understand what is happening now, it also allows you to improve on future operations. With an ERP solution, you can make faster decisions, resolve problems in real-time, and improve overall operations. Knowing what is happening in every area of your business is the key to constant improvement.
Scalability and flexibility
Your small business is unique. You have different needs, resources, and goals than your competitors. That’s why it’s important to find an ERP system that supports the way you do business. A flexible ERP system gives you the flexibility to make changes as your company grows.
When your business grows, you can easily change the configuration with the help of the ERP package. And you can also add functionality to meet new requirements hence aiding businesses in their growth and expansion plans.
Better Customer Service
A major part of every small business’s goal is to acquire new customers and keep their existing customer base happy. However, most small businesses lack proper infrastructure in place to handle customer relationships efficiently and are thus losing potential revenue. Tracking customer communications when dealing with multiple orders, requests, invoices, problems, or anything else can be a tiresome process that leads to lost customers and eventually affects your business’s future earnings.
ERP solutions can help you see customer behaviour and understand when and why you lose clients. This insight helps you retain clients, get new customers, and create a culture of excellence and quality care.
Conclusion
An enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution is a business management software package that can offer numerous benefits to small businesses when implemented adequately.
While small businesses might find the initial investment costs of an ERP solution daunting, the benefits to a small business on implementing an ERP solution easily outweigh the investment costs.
Rather than thinking about the cost limitations of an ERP solution, small businesses must carefully evaluate the potential returns on investment an ERP system can bring in the form of new clients, increased efficiency, scalability, and reduced costs.
Factoring in the costs of not investing in an ERP is also important. Without an ERP solution, small businesses will likely spend more on time spent maintaining their current systems, and that does not even consider lost revenue opportunities.
Download the Signum guide ‘Tell-tale signs you have outgrown your accounting system’ to help you decide if it’s time for your business to invest in ERPÂ
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