The global market of ERP software with a worth of about $41.69 billion by 2020 manifests its significance and impact on businesses worldwide. Though it is an impressive number, those who have yet not used ERP software for their business may find it hard to understand its importance. On the contrary, as globalization constricts the market for a gamut of businesses, seeking any or all such tools that could give a competitive edge to businesses is important. For that to happen, companies should use ERP.
The function of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is to manage all the business functions within an organization. It simplifies and gives quick access to business operations, all arranged within a single platform.
Features
Although there are many other solutions similar to ERP, the need for ERP software is contributed to 8 crucial features as enumerated below, that make it a distinctive competitor in the IT market today:
Affordable Package
In recent years, many ERP vendors have introduced affordable prices. However, it is still a major investment when it is about availing ERP packages. To many, it seems as if the huge expenditure of this software alone would hardly save them any further money. But, if you see the investment from the perspective of your previous business failures, it won’t be that hard to understand how ERP can bring a total turnover to provide a smart ROI (Return on Investment).
Firstly, ERP integrates all or many of your business processes that are currently existing fragmented within your organization. Starting from employee management, product development to payable accounts, your staff will get quick access to every necessary tool from a centralized system to conduct their respective job.
This allows the staff to work more efficiently by making the best utilization of their time. When backed by a reliable ERP system, data extraction becomes easier and users won’t have to hunt down searching for information from multiple systems. The good part is your company saves money from appointing and training extra candidates to manage an ERP platform. ERP is quite a user-friendly interface that hardly requires prior experience. Apart from that, an ERP lowers the logistical effort included. Overall, you won’t have to end up taking training sessions from several vendors but communicating with only one.
Improvised Collaboration
ERP applications will vary from one another but the fundamental purpose of all the ERPs is to deliver an improvised system collaboration. It is the integral characteristic that makes ERP an exception. A centralized database, as discussed above, provides you a single platform to work from. It is a plus point as it reduces chances of error by letting the required staff work on it, which in turn reduces costs.
Moreover, a central database allows all members of a team direct access to the company-wide data they require. It frees the team members from sharing or merging documents or files to multiple systems. The complete data is organized, compiled, shared, and allowed access through a centralized platform. So, you won’t at all have to think about the data security there.
Superior Analytics
Improvised reporting and superior analytics are contributed to a centralized system. ERP records and preserves all user data inputs which make it a distinctive business intelligence tool. If your ERP application features flexible functionality, then it becomes quicker and convenient for your business team to generate reports in minutes, which would have otherwise manually taken several days of analysis and compilation.
Most ERP software renders customizable dashboards as per the user-convenience, so as to access the reports directly after logging into the system. These reports could be anything starting from the expense and income statements to customized Key Productivity Indicators (KPIs) evaluating certain business functions. The quick accessing ability to these reports would greatly help you and the other team members to make fruitful decisions in no time. You won’t anymore have to depend on the IT staff to make the reports you require. Lastly, report generation typically depends on the access levels meaning only the required officials will get access to certain valuable company details.
Advanced Productivity
The age-old conventional business methods make tedious tasks unavoidable. For instance; report generation, timesheet tracking, work scheduling, monitoring inventory levels, and processing orders, etc., have always been quite time-taking for the staff to accomplish. Added to that, these strenuous processes demotivate the employees from doing better in their respective fields, plus high risks of manual error also come along. After making innumerable access to the same piece of data in various forms, even the expert users can make generic mistakes.
However, by availing of a suitable ERP solution, you can make the most monotonous task a cakewalk. An advanced ERP software eliminates inessential activities like data entry, allowing the system to make faster processing of advanced calculations in just minutes. This saves a lot of time to utilize on other thoughtful tasks, thereby enhancing your ROI and saving additional labor costs. Consequently, you get a boost on your company’s productivity, potentiality, and profitability.
Customer Satisfaction
Previously, customer management was not so important. However, with the passage of time, people have become more active online asking for advice on almost anything starting from what to eat, wear to how to live a healthy life, etc. Today, about 84% of consumers rely on online customer reviews to get assured before availing of any service or product from a company. So, it is evident how impactful the reviews of your previous customers are.
To ensure happy customers, you need to provide them client-centric solutions. ERP does that a bit differently. First of all, most ERP solutions are provided with a tool that looks after the customer relationship management (CRM) or you can include one. An ERP integrated CRM has access to the database across your business functions. An integrated CRM displays all the details of your previous and existing customers including contact information, billing details, order history, order tracking, delivery, etc. This lets your company staff holistically go through the client details and demands and check if their needs are rightly served. A satisfied customer leads to a good online review which attracts more consumers to avail of your services or products.
List of Top ERP Software to Consider in 2021
- SAP ERP Solution
- Oracle ERP Software
- Infor ERP Solution
- IFS ERP Software
- Acumatica ERP Solution
- Epicor ERP Software
- IQMS ERP Solution, and
- Salesforce ERP Software
Bottomline
The initial cost of ERP seems like a big investment. However, the importance of this application later outweighs the cost, effort, and time spent in its implementation of the solution is chosen through thoughtful consideration and rigorous research.
