What is an ERP system? Fundamentals you may have overlooked.
Enterprise Resource Planning: three words that are fundamental to modern day business models. With a market that may feel saturated with too many choices, it is no surprise that first time investors can feel overwhelmed with choosing one to help run their business.
When you begin the research process, sit down and ask yourself “what is an ERP system?” Then determine what that ERP system needs to look like for your business to reach certain business goals and performance metrics. Upon comparison of others on the market, you will begin to whittle down a few solid choices. There is no right or wrong solution for your small to medium size business, or enterprise model, but there is an optimal solution. The key is finding which solution is right for your budget and goals. Implementing ERP can make a significant difference for companies within process manufacturing, service management, and overall manufacturing, making their dreams become a reality.
Four Fundamentals to an ERP System
There are four fundamental blocks that almost every ERP system has, yet each one is slightly different from one another in terms of what they can provide specifically to its end-user. These four basic components are the building blocks that your business must consider first.
Financial Performance Management
Financials are the most important aspect to a fully functioning business. An ERP system should be able to combine planning, budgeting, and forecasting into one platform so you can receive fast and accurate predictive modeling. Check into the platform’s agility and ability to conduct operational planning, workforce budgeting, and sales estimates. It is important to figure out how you are going to incorporate and monitor your strategic plans against your actual performance. This is something that experts like SolutionsX are equipped to show you how to use.
Workforce Planning
Managing employees’ day to day operations, human resource needs, and scheduling requirements requires a sophisticated system that also understands how your shop floor operates in order to schedule accordingly. There is no one size fits all solution for determining the best one for you, but it is important when doing your research and conducting demos that you identify opportunities where your company will be able to identify core workforce issues. An advanced ERP solution will be able to manage planned and actual coverage gaps as well as production line requirements. It should be able to know how many people are needed for both indirect and direct labor to accurately forecast demand.
Analytics and Reporting
Senior-level and mid-level management are making key business decisions based on analytics and reporting. Make sure to identify which type of reporting is readily available within the ERP system you select. It is important that your ERP system can transform data into actionable recommendations that can further identify and quantify their competitive advantage. Advanced Tier One ERP systems, like Syteline ERP, would be able to provide a real-time view of your company’s performance across all channels, which would encourage optimization and internal improvement as fast as possible.
Risk and Security Compliance
The nature of business within the 21st century has significantly changed into a rapid, technology-driven ecosystem that leaves companies with large amounts of data and private information at risk. Within this digital era, our ERP system must also be able to protect and constantly monitor incoming threats to a business’ day to day operations and database.
Pressure to Choose the Right ERP System
Finding the right ERP solution is not an easy investment choice to make – nor is it a fast one. If you already have a system in place, you will also be searching for software that has special capabilities that your current one doesn’t have. The key is to educate yourself, ask plenty of questions, and take the time to schedule demos. Take the opportunity to schedule demos and talk on the phone with ERP industry leaders like SolutionsX.
For example, SolutionsX can provide you with a customized demo that delves into your business needs and evaluates room for improvement. Our team members are trained in microvertical specialization and thus will be able to address the fundamentals described here as well as additional components that you may have not considered.