Office furniture.

How often do you think about it? When it’s functional and comfortable, probably not all that often!

A great ERP system is a little like your office furniture. Your business runs better with ergonomic chairs and desks for employees, functional tables in meeting rooms, and even all of those big, heavy filing cabinets. You don’t think about them much when they’re working well for you.

With a great ERP, it’s easy to take the system for granted. We forget about the extent of its strategic importance and ability to support business growth.

But, when something new and flashy comes along, it grabs our attention: like a big screen TV in the break room sharing corporate news with graphics and videos. The way CRM systems get touted in the media, they’re a little bit like the flashy new equipment. They get all of the fanfare and all of the IT attention. They grab the spotlight because they’re the front-line of the business, handling customer interactions.

But the back-office ERP solution deserves attention. It’s a system you can trust for continually supporting your day-to-day business—automating business processes, budgeting, strategic planning, managing inventory, tracking sales, managing employees, tracking accounting, and budgeting. It deserves your attention as a system that you should be optimizing and continually improving.

Here are 4 ways you can give your ERP system the attention it deserves:

  1. Review your current solutions. Is your current platform delivering everything you need? Are you using all of the features? Is it hosted in the cloud? Does it provide the access needed by employees, whether onsite or remotely? Is the security strong?
  2. Evaluate whether you can add software modules. Do you need to expand and support more business capabilities? More users? Better security? Remote access?
  3. Improve the customization. Are there areas where you can replace the cost, time, and possible errors of manual processes by automating them with additional customization? Are you using out-of-the-box solutions that require workarounds to force them into fitting?
  4. Upgrade versions. Is your version the latest? Does it have the most recent patches and updates for security? Is a new version available that includes added functionality at a reasonable cost?

With software, we often ignore something that works well enough, but scheduling a regular evaluation can help your business find process improvements and cost savings. Give us a call to schedule an evaluation of your current system. Let’s work together to optimize your ERP solution!