You are spending more and more time trying to gain insight into the right figures for your company. The sales forecast is based more on feeling and assumptions than on numbers. You are having an increasingly difficult time handling growing order volumes, and customer satisfaction keeps declining. You have no idea exactly how much inventory you have in your warehouse, and it is difficult to look this up easily.
If this sounds like your company, then it is wise to consider an ERP System. Your company is on the verge of drowning!
Every company is unique, and there is no specific indicator that says: “You need an ERP system now.” However, the companies that benefit most from ERP Software are often faced with similar problems and frustrations. Read on for the top 5 signs that your company is ready for ERP.
1. You have many different software packages for different processes
Just think about this for a few minutes. How do your employees record information, how do they find it again, and how do they process it? The accountant uses accounting software for accounts receivable and accounts payable management. The sales department has a separate package for CRM and sales orders. Is transferring sales orders and up-to-date customer information between sales and accounting a time-consuming manual process? Do they use yet another system in the warehouse for creating, sending, and tracking deliveries?
When different front-end and back-end systems are not integrated and all run separately, this makes the process inefficient and prevents it from running smoothly. Without the right data from the sales department, problems can arise in inventory management. Meanwhile, not having the latest data from the finance department has a direct negative impact on, for example, marketing and sales.
ERP Software is the software that integrates everything, so that your company can rely on one database, with all the right information. All source information in one place, always up to date, and in real time. With ERP Software, you always have the right information available to make the right decisions.
2. You do not have easy access to information about your company
If someone asked you what your average sales margin is, how long would it take you to find out? What about other key performance indicators, such as the number of orders per day or sales to date? For companies that rely on outdated systems and Excel spreadsheets that constantly have to be updated manually, looking up this data can take quite a while.
Things move much faster these days than they used to. This means that your employees must have direct access to the most important information within your company. With an ERP solution, managers have a helicopter view of the operation, and employees have the right information they need to perform their tasks as efficiently as possible.
3. Accounting is taking more and more time and becoming increasingly complex
Often, the first signs that your company needs an ERP system come from the finance department. If your employees are still spending a lot of time processing paper sales orders and invoices from one system to another, ask yourself how much time is being lost.
With ERP Software, this waste of time is no longer necessary. The same applies to preparing financial reports. All figures in a single database give you the ability to present all reports easily and on time.
4. Sales and customer satisfaction are declining
As companies grow, one of the biggest challenges is often maintaining good inventory management. Ensuring that the right quantity of a product is in the right location at the right time is one of the most important tasks.
When sales, inventory, and customer information are managed separately, this can cause major problems in your company. If you run short of fast-moving products, nothing more can be sold until the next delivery from the supplier arrives. If, in the meantime, a customer calls to ask about their delivery and the employee has no insight into inventory or customer deliveries, your company will gain a bad reputation. Your reduced reliability and service will become a major problem.
With an ERP system, the authorized people from every department have access to the same up-to-date information. Representatives can answer customer questions about order status, delivery, status, inventory, payments, etc. immediately, without having to hang up, call back, or transfer the call. Better still, it is now also possible to show this information to the customer online in a customer portal. Meanwhile, the warehouse manager can immediately see when inventory is running low and order products in time.
5. Your IT is becoming too complex and taking too much time
One of the biggest disadvantages of multiple systems within your company is that IT management becomes a nightmare. Managing, modifying, and integrating these systems is complex, time-consuming, and costly.
Implementing patches and other updates for outdated local software systems (on-premises) sometimes costs more than it delivers. These updates are not only expensive, they also sometimes unintentionally undo local customizations to the software. It is therefore no surprise that many companies work with outdated systems that are no longer up to date.
Instead of continually adding new software, and therefore complexity, to an already inefficient system, modern ERP software allows you to respond quickly and flexibly to changes in the market. That is why many companies nowadays choose a Cloud ERP solution. Odoo Experts implements and maintains the system for you and gives you the service and support you need.
What does the software landscape in your company look like?
If you think about this for a few minutes, how many systems do you count? I would love to hear your response.
