#1: You Have Lots of Different Software for Different Processes
Spend a few minutes thinking about how employees at your company
record, track and process information. Do accounting staff use one
system for receivables and payables, and sales use another to enter in
customer orders? Is the process of taking those orders and getting them
fulfilled and into accounting a time-sucking manual process? Do
employees in your warehouse use a completely different solution to track
shipping and receiving?
When various front- and back-end systems run separately, it can wreak
havoc on the processes that are meant to ensure your company is running
smoothly. Without accurate data from sales, inventory management may
suffer, while not having the latest information from accounting can
trigger a ripple effect on everything from marketing budgets to payroll.
ERP software integrates these systems so that every business function
relies on a single database. With one source 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: No easy access to information about your business?
If someone asked you what your average sales margin is,, how long
would it take you to find out? What about other key performance metrics,
like orders per day or sales to date? For companies that rely on siloed
systems and spreadsheets that need to be constantly updated and
reconciled manually, it could be a long wait.
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. For example, sales representatives should
be able to view a customer’s full transaction history and more
proactively improve renewal rates while increasing upsell and cross-sell
opportunities.
#3: Accounting is an endless process
Often, the first noticeable signs that your company needs
ERP software
will come from your accounting department. If your employees rely on
paper-based invoices and sales orders—and spend hours every week
manually entering them into different accounting and sales systems—you
need to consider how much time is being wasted on tasks that ERP
software can handle in an instant.
The same goes for financial reporting—if it takes ages to consolidate
or reconcile financial information across systems and through countless
spreadsheets, an ERP solution can make a significant impact. With all
financials in a single database, accounting staff won’t have to spend
hours cross-posting information, rekeying numbers, or reconciling data
manually. Your accounting staff will be more productive, freeing them to
deliver critical reports without delays and frustration.
#4: Sales and the Customer Experience Are Suffering
As companies grow, one of their biggest challenges is often inventory
management. Ensuring that the right amount of products is in the right
location at the right time is a vital part of business operations.
When sales, inventory and customer data are maintained separately, it
can create serious problems across your company. If you run out of a
popular product, sales will be off until the next shipment arrives.
Meanwhile, if a customer calls to inquire about an order and employees
can’t track it to see if it’s been shipped—or if it’s even in stock—your
company will start to develop a poor reputation for reliability and
service.
With an ERP system, on the other hand, staff in every department will
have access to the same, up-to-the-minute information. Customer-facing
reps should be able to answer customers questions about order and
shipping status, payment status, service issues, etc., without having to
hang up the phone and check with another department. Better yet,
customers should be able to simply go online to their account and view
status information. Meanwhile, the warehouse manager can see that stock
is getting low and can reorder.
#5: Your IT Is Too Complex and Time-Consuming
One of the biggest downsides of having multiple systems across your
business is that IT management can become a nightmare. Customizing these
systems, integrating them and maintaining them with patches and
upgrades can be complex, costly and sap critical time and resources.
If your patchwork of systems includes on-premise, legacy business
software, system upgrades can be more trouble than they’re worth. Not
only are these updates expensive and time-consuming, but they may also
undo customizations implemented by IT staff. Given that, it’s no
surprise that two-thirds of mid-size businesses are running outdated
versions of their business software.1
Rather than adding more software—and complexity—to an already
ineffective system, ERP technology can give you the agility to respond
to changing business needs rapidly. That’s why selecting a cloud-based
ERP provider like Exceloid is critical. With Exceloid, system updates
are no longer an issue, and new functions are easy to add as your
business grows and changes.
