Your business is growing. As you expand your product range, with this growth comes more employees, more data transactions and more historical information to store. There is more weight on the decisions you make, and you need to be more responsive than ever before.
We work with companies facing these exciting challenges every day to make sure they get the ERP system that works for their business.
Whether you are purchasing an ERP management system for the first time or replacing your current system, selecting the best system for your business is a significant and often rigorous decision.
While it is unlikely that any system will meet 100 percent of your requirements, before you start your research, make a list of your top ERP priorities and ‘must-haves’.
Here are our top tips of what you should be thinking about when you upgrade your business management software:
- Scalability – Think about the amount of users you need now, but also what your potential requirement could be. Choosing a solution that suits your plans now, and in the coming years, will help to future proof your investment
- Supporting your business across multiple locations – As a growing and successful business you have expanded your operations domestically, but are now thinking to the future. Moving into foreign territories needs careful planning, and you will need to think about local languages, currencies, compliance with multiple legislations and support in local time zones
- Consolidation and reporting – usually thought of as a ‘hygiene factor’ but having the right business information at your fingertips can help ensure the success of your software implementation and drive user adoption. Think about the skill sets in your organisation and how ‘user friendly’ your new solution will be.
- The complexity of your organisation – Carving up the information to suit your internal functions, rather than the needs of your customers, is no longer best practice in today’s marketplace. Evaluate your business processes, this will help to ensure your software works alongside you, and helps to drive performance and streamlines operations.
- Your customers – Implementing a new software system can not only benefit your business, but also make for happier customers. Evaluate what your customers need from you, and think about your pain points in delivering excellent customer service. Often integrating your customer relationship management into your back office processing, makes all the difference.
- Your people – Ask your people what they need from a new solution and what they like about the existing software. Bring your users along on the journey with you – they have the insight you need to help make a decision, and will be the key to successful adoption.
With a huge variety of ERP software products available, it is important for you to choose a business solution that not only satisfies your needs on features and price, but also review your chosen vendor’s security in the market, product strategy and innovation, to name but a few qualities.
