Why We Need ERP? These 11 Reasons Will Reveal Hidden Value!

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Clarity on purpose is vital for any investment.

Investing in ERP is a crucial decision for a business. So before investing in ERP we must understand why we need ERP?

This post reveals 11 solid reasons why you need ERP.

Before going any further, do you know what is ERP?

I have covered this topic here. To know more about ERP, you must read this blog post.

Ok, you know what ERP is? Let us answer the vital question, why we need ERP?

11 reasons why we need ERP?

Why we need ERP

1. Automation of all boring operations of your business

Believe it or not, your business has the similar operations as many other businesses. For example, you pay your employees, buy material, send quotes, follow-up prospects. ERPs has inbuild capability to automate these boring operations. ERP takes care of all your standard processes across Finance and Operations areas.

2. Improves your Customer Experience

ERPs have specialist modules to take care of your customer experience aspect. For example, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) or CE (Customer Experience). These products/modules help you to automate leads management, marketing campaigns, customer communication, omnichannel experience, customer complaints, feedback and much more.

3. Centralise enterprise data

With ERP, your operational data in a centralised in the one system. ERP takes care of your Master data (Customer, Vendors) and Transactional data (GL). It fulfils end-to-end data management requirements, e.g. data integrity, security, and normalisation.

4. Reporting and Business Intelligence (BI)

ERPs offer pre-built reports and dashboards. All ready to use with minimal personalisation. They also supply many tools and resources to develop your reports and dashboards. You can also use specialist Business Intelligence software and connect to your ERP. Modern ERPs offer open API and connectors to BI software.

5. Standardise business processes

ERPs force your business to adopt standardised business processes. Consider you have employed two Sales Managers. Without a centralised system (ERP), it is difficult to get them to follow company processes. But, by using ERP, both Sales Managers have no choice. They will have to use same workflows, templates, and documents. For example, they both will develop quotes/proposals with a consistent template. The approval on quotes/proposals will be set. Thus, both Sales Managers will follow the same process.

6. Measure and continuous improvement

ERP helps you to measure the effectiveness of your processes with ease. It helps you to see bottlenecks and limitations in the processes. With the right plan, you make necessary changes for continuous improvement. For example, the Customer Contact centre log reveals that most calls are due to a new product offering. So, to improve your customer experience, you start proactively informing and educating prospects and customers.

7. One Ecosystem serving as a digital backbone

ERP helps you to develop one central ecosystem to manage operations. Modern ERPs offer easy to integrate tools. So, you have an ecosystem – ERP integrated with other business applications. There are many benefits, for instance, it becomes efficient to source data for reports and BI. For example, consider your ERP manages manufacturing, Sales, Supply Chain and Finance operations. The Customer and Employee self-service portal integrates with ERP. It offers one ecosystem for all your business operational systems.

8. Easy Audits for all

Due to ERP’s inbuilt security and audit logs recording, you can easily report who has done what? For example, you can check who has removed a document, approved a Work order, etc. You can also supply reports and information to external auditors.

9. Security is inbuilt

ERPs offer robust security mechanisms. You can control access at an individual field level. For example, if required, you can secure the Data of Birth field to be not visible to certain users/user group. Modern ERP offers multi-factor authentication, password policies to ensure your data protection.

10. ERP offer a real agility

ERP offers heaps of agility to your business. You may want to improve processes, add a new capability, develop a new product/service. ERP is there to support these initiatives. For example, you can change existing workflows in ERP to support changes in business processes. If you want to add a new capability, say digital campaigns, then add on a CRM module or integrate CRM to ERP. So, ERP is the core of your digital business capabilities.

11. Gives you freedom, so you can focus on big stuff

ERP gives you freedom by offering one solution for all your day-to- day operational needs. For example, with ERP, you have a set automated processes for Procure to Pay, Order to cash. So, your basic operational stuff is under control. You can now focus on strategic initiatives, like Customer portal for self-service.

ERP is the heart of the digital capability of your business. It takes care of end-to-end process automation for your business. ERP has a lot of value to offer – provided you choose the right ERP product and committed implementation team.

Good luck with your ERP journey!