Benefits of ERP - A Integrated Business Operating System

And here comes the discussion of ERP, which can be your best companion in your journey by offering you-

• An integrated platform: Where all the departments are synched together!
• Time Saving Opportunity: All the departments or branches can work together from one software that saves your valuable time.
• Creating Strategic Roadmap: Considering the overall progress of your organization and lackings, the platform will allow you to make strategic plans to thrive further.

The more appropriate question should be - What benefits of ERP software can help your organization to boost its productivity?

Well! In the following lines, you will get to know the answer!

1. Enhanced Department Collaboration

Enterprise resource planning and management software act as a hub where all the departments are synchronized. Therefore, you will be allowed to-

• Monitor the individual progress of every department
• Analyze data to find lackings of your organization
• Improve collaboration between all the departments or branches

2. Efficiency in Cost Management

It's another big reason to use ERP software. The extensive facilities of this software will allow you to minimize your organization's cost as you can bring massive efficiency in different sectors, which eventually helps you save your valuable money.

Using an ERP will allow you to experience the following facilities, indirectly reducing unnecessary costs.

• Improved inventory management facility
• Enhanced efficiency in customer support
• The overall daily/monthly cost monitoring facility

3. Data Security and Accuracy

ERP software is not only meant to fetch information from different departments or branches and put them together. Rather, it assures the reliability of your data and keeps it confidential.

Generally, all decent quality ERP software holds the following technology that is always handy in this regard-

• Backup server for secured data backup
• Malware detection and prevention technology
• Real-time data editing functionality to improve accuracy and reliability

4. Smart Supply Chain Management

From the production line to the product delivery, there should be a robust monitoring system in the whole supply chain. Cause cross-checking every part of the whole process manually is extremely time-consuming and hard to do at the same time.

Automating the whole supply chain and monitoring the overall condition of your supply chain with ERP software can significantly reduce your time and efforts! After implementing ERP in your business will allow you to -

• Identify the bottlenecks in your inventory system
• Create strategic and robust planning to improve production efficiency
• Make proper synchronization between the demand and production effectively

5. Enhanced Customer Support

It's not sufficient to constantly train up your customer support team to improve your organization's quality of customer support. There are other minor factors such as - the lack of convenience while working, lack of synchronization with the other departments, etc.

One of the major benefits of ERP software is that it can enhance customer support through its robust ecosystem.

• Swift Response: The customer support managers are always allowed to fetch any necessary information using CRM in the shortest possible time.
• Improves Customer Engagement: People always seek convenience in getting the necessary support. ERP helps in this regard to boost your customer acquisition and retention rate.
• Enhanced Order Accuracy: The responsible customer support manager can always access the necessary order details made by the customer using CRM. It brings extra convenience in service providing.

There exist some other indirect benefits of ERP. But I have put only the major benefits here that can bring massive robustness in monitoring the overall progress of your organization.

Read Also: Key players in the ERP Market of Bangladesh And The Overall Culture

Some Disadvantages

Every invention has some pros and cons, so ERP is not an exception as well! An ERP solution can bring massive convenience to your business, but the fact is, enterprise resource planning advantages and disadvantages both exist parallelly.

Here are some disadvantages that you will have to certainly face. Have a look!

1. Costly Process!

In most cases, the ready-made ERP software will not perfectly suit your organization. Considering the overall condition of your organization and the requirements, in most cases, you have to customize the existing ERP considering your need.

There are several cases where you may have to increase your budget for getting your desired ERP.

Special Requirements: When you will need custom development for adding additional functionalities in your ERP considering your need, you have to put an extra budget for that.

Maintenance Cost: You may need a dedicated expert team to take proper maintenance of your ERP.

Training Cost: Since your ERP will not be the same all time, it needs to be updated. And the people who will be actively connected with it for major purposes will need to be trained on a regular basis.

2. Complexity

The internal environment of ERP is dynamic, but it may seem complex when it comes to the discussion of developing a solid data conversion strategy. Before analyzing data sources, you have to define and examine your data manually.

When Will You Need an Enterprise Resource Planning System for Your Organization?

Well! After reading both the advantages and the disadvantages of ERP, you might have been confused! But what I can say considering the real fact - The popularity of ERP is increasing at a significant rate!

Even the big companies are putting budgets on developing ERP to make their organization more dynamic.

But when will your organization need an ERP?

Ask yourself the following questions, you will get the answer!

1. Are You Confident Enough on Your Business Data Accuracy?

Suppose most of the operations in your organization are manual. In that case, there is a high chance for you that - the report you get every month from your manager or any other responsible person doesn't illustrate the real scenario of your business.

And without accurate documentation, it will be difficult for you to take any necessary decision regarding your business. In this regard, a transparent documentation system is mandatory.

2. What About Your Customer Satisfaction Level?

Customers are the angels for your business. End of the day, they hold the power to take you to the peak or bring you down to the ashes! The fact is - there is a direct correlation between your customer satisfaction and the supply chain, product line up, production, etc.

If you can't monitor the overall condition of your supply chain and keep avoiding the loophole that eventually will eventually affect your supply chain, you will ultimately get an increasing number of dissatisfied customers.

So, it will be the best choice if you can automate the whole ecosystem of your organization. And in this regard, an ERP is the best choice.

3. Is Actually Your Company Growing?

It may seem, your company revenue growth curve is going upwards, and you are satisfied as well. But the questionable matter is - Is your business growing at the expected rate? In most cases, the answer will be - No!

Why? Because you are not actually aware of the following things (that you don't even know!)-

• In your organization, you need to monitor every single detail regarding your employee performance, quality of customer support, etc., that you don't have as the ecosystem is not automated.
• In most cases, the businessmen run their business manual process. So, this is the golden opportunity for your dishonest senior employees to provide wrong data regarding your business when you ask them.
• As you don't have authentic data regarding your business, but you are considering these as authentic, end of the day forecasting and planning for a strategic roadmap will not be that effective!

4. How Much Serious You Are About Cost Management?

Cost management or reducing the monthly cost of an organization doesn't mean reducing your employee's salary, firing some of them for silly issues, or sacrificing some opportunity hilariously like hanging cycling fans instead of setting air conditioners.

Instead, there are some other factors considering what you can filter out the points where you need to focus in this regard.

An ERP solution can solve most of these common issues by allowing you to enjoy the following benefits.

• You can perform proper Inventory planning and maintain higher accuracy.
• As you will get pixel-perfect data of your business anytime from anywhere with ERP, accurate forecasting for thriving your business will be a lot easier. As a result, you will be able to get rid of unnecessary costs.
• Employee management is a crucial part of an organization. ERP can help you out to do this job efficiently so that you can reduce your unnecessary cost.

Wind Up

If you have read the whole discussion, you can now realize the benefits of ERP. And now you know one more thing, this discussion has not covered all the in-depth details of ERP. Honestly, ERP itself is a gigantic industry that is not possible to cover up in one discussion.

But in short, the general recommendation for you is - before choosing a particular ERP, do some research, analyze the user ratings, customer satisfaction, the functionalities that you will get, customization opportunity, etc.

After all, for attaining massive improvements in your organization, a decent quality ERP can play a vital role, which will benefit you in the long run.