Enterprise resource planning, or ERP, incorporates all areas of a business, including accounting and finance, distribution and inventory management, sales and marketing, human resources, and other operating units. ERP software facilitates combining and automating processes and provides access to data from all facets of the business for analysis and decision making. It provides powerful benefits for the organization from increased profitability to greater job satisfaction for employees.
Benefits – Strategic Planning and Processes
Having an enterprise-wide system that incorporates data and processes from all areas of the company will make your organization more agile and better able to respond on both strategic and operational levels to changing economic and market conditions. It increases your ability to standardize global business operations and enables improved reporting and analysis capabilities for management and compliance. It can help you in the overall positioning of your company for growth and achievement of long-term, strategic goals.
Benefits – Information Technology
Since you will be providing a single enterprise-wide application versus many departmental applications, it will be easier to control access and provide increased security. That is not to say that there will be no other software operating within the company, but it will reduce or eliminate departmental applications that compete with each other and provide nearly the same function in different departments. ERP will provide even more benefits when integrated with other applications and solutions like a customer relationship management solution (CRM) and point of sale systems. There will be an increased reliability of the systems, processes, and data since they will not belong to one department or another and will be visible to all (with permissions). Further, it will be more feasible to upgrade and standardize the technology for this critical application than to try to keep multiple competing systems updated and compatible.
Benefits – Financial
ERP systems provide more visibility to decision makers, management, and staff into the status and results of operations, providing support for financial initiatives like:
- Reduced operating expenses
- Reduced IT costs
- Reduced working capital
- Decreased labor costs
- Integration across locations
- Reduced lead time for ordering inventory and supplies
- Improved supplier communication and interaction
Benefits – Human Resources
ERP systems can make your staff more efficient and more effective. Having a single ERP system will cut down on duplicate efforts and associated errors and make the full range of data available to users (again, based on their permissions). Interaction among users will be more harmonious and meetings will run smoother when everyone is working with the same data and assumptions. As a result, ERP use can lead to increased productivity and decreased frustration as well as better informed, collaborative decision making.
Benefits – Customer Service
An ERP integrated with a CRM and sales systems can provide a 360-degree view of your customers, giving you instant access to current sales opportunities, sales history, open orders, outstanding invoices, project status, and customer service requests in a single place, enabling better and more cost-effective customer service. This alone can dramatically affect your business and your bottom line.
So is ERP a panacea? The answer to all of your organization’s problems? The single strategy for instant success? No. But it can be a means to better performance, improved competitive advantage, and increased customer and employee satisfaction.
For more information about how an enterprise resource management system can help your business call NexVue (now Net at Work) at 203.327.0800 or email us at info@nexvue.com.
Click here to see a short video about Acumatica Cloud-based ERP.