20 Jan Business Management Software: Recognising The Right Time For Implementation
All companies are different, have different targets, business models but if you are reading this article we assume you are probably searching for the answer on the most popular question of company owners and top managers not only in the UK but worldwide – “When is the right time to implement business management software in my company?”
This question is very generalised. You may think of different issues that are included in this question and the idea of ERP implementation itself. Namely, how it will affect your sales, your business processes, internal workflows. How will your team react to such changes, how fast will you see the return on investment? And most importantly, if your business will not be disrupted by an ERP implementation.
Companies that benefit from ERP systems have similar issues and problems in business processes management. As you are considering whether to implement business management software, take into account these warning signs that may indicate that you need one. This is a scope of different indicators and factors, and for all businesses, the combination might differ, but if you see at least one of them in your company, be sure it’s the right sign that the time for change has come.
Business Management Software: 7 Signs It’s Time For Implementation
1. Obvious business problems and “black spots”. Implementation of business management software will help to answer questions that can’t be answered precisely without “one source of truth”. Namely, what influences our customer satisfaction? How can we reduce the cost of production or delivery of goods? What will be the predicted sales volumes for the next year? Which months are expected to be more productive and less productive in terms of income? And how to plan production or sales accordingly? And if you are doing business overseas, with several offices in different countries, with warehouses in different continents, you should know the answers to these and many more very important questions. Having “blind spots” like the cost of delivery, time of delivery, time spent on internal team activities, and many more might cause your business inevitable harm. If you find out about the company’s problems after they occurred or you, even being in top management or owner of the company, are the last person in the company who is informed about occurring issues – it’s for sure the sign that you need to integrate and automated “source of real-time information”.
2. Outdated, old fashioned business software. If your company uses a system that doesn’t meet the requirements of your current business model, you need to fix it as soon as possible. A company might have a business system, which was good 5, 10, 15 years ago, but the world changes very fast, companies grow, develop and change the way they operate too. Some companies use spreadsheets to track all processes and analyse corporate data, reports, track performance, incoming orders, manage cooperation with partners and employees. If your company still does it, if you track all business processes manually or your system isn’t good enough to meet all your needs, this may be the signal to consider ERP implementation.
3. Pursuing business growth. As soon as you need expansion and business growth, you may face the situation, when your current approach to business process management cannot be scalable. You might need to manage more employees, or have a constantly increasing number of transactions, or support multi-currency operations across different offices or subdivisions in different places with different laws, taxations, etc. If you want to grow and expand and your current approach and technologies don’t allow it, consider it the right sign for and ERP implementation.
4. Need for “up-to-date” business functions. New emerging technologies and trends, especially in fast-moving highly technological businesses in industries like eCommerce or Supply Chain Management require sophisticated functionality built into the business management software, as well as available flexible integrations and additional modules to meet all the needs of business management in such industries.
5. Use of many business tools to support different processes. When your company uses too many business systems and tools, at some point it becomes uncontrollable, time-consuming and sometimes even duplicating each other, overlapping functionality. Then maintenance of such “octopus” systems which initially were supposed to help to manage business processes more effectively, becomes a nightmare. If you see that your employees use “one million” different platforms, programs and tools to manage their daily activities, it’s the right sign it’s time to join it all into one ERP system.
6. Legal requirements management. Many different legal compliance requirements continue to appear every year both in the UK and internationally. One of the recently introduced laws was GDPR. It has a great impact on how companies within the EU handle personal data of their clients. If you see that your company needs better approaches to personal data management and enhanced clients’ data security it’s the right sign for an ERP implementation. Because even after Brexit, still, GDPR will be valid for those companies, which work with EU-based clients. Or one more example – Making Tax Digital, the initiative of the UK government to make it easier, more effective and efficient for businesses to handle their taxes right. If you want to fully automate this process, it’s also the right sign that you need an implementation of up-to-date ERP, which will support the UK government’s requirements.
7. Poor customer satisfaction. Working in business means working with clients. Doesn’t matter if it is B2B clients or B2C clients, you still deal with people, and they want a good level of service from your company – fast and secure delivery, proper order management, fast communications with the responsible people. If you see that your customers have negative reviews and give to others not good feedback about cooperation with your company, it’s the right time to implement an ERP with built-in CRM for more positive growth-driven relationships.
This list is not full, there are hundreds if not thousands of small signs that a company needs to implement business management software to remain on the market. But it will help you to start “thinking in the right direction”. Each company is unique, and the list of issues will differ, but one thing is for sure, the longer you avoid integrating an automated business management system, the more difficult it is to beat your competitors in the everyday fight for clients.
