4 Reasons to add ERP software to your routine exercises

If you are concerned about the efficiency and coordination of your business operations, ERP could provide the ideal solution.

Any business can be broken down into a series of processes, or routines. These processes are like the systems of the body – delivering resources where they are needed, removing waste and sending information to the central nervous system so that it can be turned into actions.

However, not all businesses are aware of their key routines, and even fewer bring them all together under a single IT system like an ERP package. This is surprising, as ERP can have a number of important benefits for any business process.

Poorly Coordinated Systems Lead to Waste

Individual processes might still work well, but if they are not coordinated, information and resources can easily go to waste. This can be seen most clearly in businesses that rely on keeping strict inventories, like small manufacturers or retailers. These inventories require constant monitoring to ensure that stock levels and material orders are sufficient to meet customer demand. At the same time, over-ordering needs to be avoided, and everything needs to be located swiftly when required.

With an ERP system in place, inventory management should become much easier, helping the production line to work efficiently and easing worries about customer relationship management.

Make Chaotic Processes Easier to Reform

When it comes to making wholesale changes to the company structure, there is a much higher risk of difficulties arising if an over-arching IT system isn’t in place.

Think of your accounting, HR, marketing, production and customer management as part of a larger ecology. In an ecological model, if you alter one variable, everything else changes too. The same applies for businesses, meaning that a bigger perspective is always useful.

With the right IT implementation, businesses can break down silos between departments. They can have all of the data they need to fine tune any business process at their command. If they plan to expand, they can do so confidently, with every variable under control.

Make Business Process Management Easier

Tools like ERP also help managers to carry out their jobs in other ways. For example, accounting is a central business process for almost every organisation. A tool like ERP allows all of the firm’s operations to report their financial information to a central department, who can instantly call up accounts and make enterprise-wide management decisions based upon the data.

The same applies for any business process that needs to be signed off across the whole company, like compliance. If you have all of the information available from every department and work site, such tasks become much simpler, and faster to complete.

Adding ERP Can Make Any Business Process Cheaper

One of the most attractive aspects of any IT investment is lower costs. You are unlikely to make such an investment without the promise of a big pay-off at the end, and ERP tends to deliver (if implemented correctly).

IT processes can be made cheaper by rationalising systems and eliminating waste or duplication. For example, a single HR business process can reduce administrative burdens and highlight excess (or insufficient) staffing areas. Raising production efficiency also tends to boost profits by making manufacturing cheaper and cultivating better client relationships.

In the big picture, it makes sense to bring your different business exercises under a single system. This applies to large and small firms as well as public organisations and charities. Wherever a mass of different processes need coordination, an ERP system like WinMan can make a significant contribution.