Doing accounting, sales, the warehouse and so on, all use different applications? When front-end and brand-end systems run separately, it can wreak havoc on the processes designed to ensure the business runs smoothly. ERP software integrates these systems so every busines function relies on a single database.
What's your sales margin, average daily orders, sales to date, or net profit? For companies that rely on siloed systems and spreadsheets that need to be updated constantly and reconciled manually, it takes ages to find out. ERP delivers greater visibility and sharable, real-time data for faster decision-making.
Often, the first noticeable signs that your company needs ERP software will come from accounts. Paper-based invoices and sales orders, repetitive processes and manual entering. If it takes ages to consolidate or resolve financials across systems and spreadsheets, an ERP solution can make a massive difference.
IF sales, inventory and customer data are maintained separately, serious problems can emerge across your company. If a customer calls to inquire about an order and staff can't track it to see if it's shipped - or even in stock - your company will start to develop a poor reputation. The right ERP can turn this around.
Customising disparate systems, integrating them and maintaining them with patches and upgrades can be complex, costly, and sap critcal resources. Rather then add more software and complexity to an ineffective system, ERP can give you the agility to respond to changing business needs rapidly.