Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Benefits and Challenges

When it comes to running a business, one of the most challenging aspects of day-to-day operations is resource planning. Enterprise resource planning (ERP), then, has become a vital industry for businesses looking to get ahead of the competition.

ERP is an essential part of making sure that your business is more connected away from headquarters, and ensuring that staff both in the field and beyond can work together and collaborate effectively. This improved co-operation gives your customers a better, more satisfying experience overall.

If you want to utilize this service, though, you need to understand the numerous ERP benefits and challenges. What are they?

The most common ERP benefits and challenges you could face

The Benefits

• Being able to benefit from having real-time information in front of you. This gives you an improved workflow as an ERP can connect your office to the field all at once.
• Easier management of reports, documentation, and information that you need to use. Paired with easy sending of notifications and reminders to keep workflow consistent.
• Take control of jobs with real-time updates so that you can always have a more accurate idea of when a particular issue will be solved, or a service has been properly delivered.
• Avoid mistakes that are built on the foundations of outdated information; with real-time updates, you are always providing solutions based on the most modern information.
• Run everything from one centralized system which can save you massive amounts of time and effort. Now, everything can be accessed from the field for instant updates.
• Make sure that you have the materials needed to finish a project, handle service, or complete a transaction for a customer – avoid selling what you do not have.
• Reduce administration time and make sure that your team can avoid wasting time with double entries, extensive paperwork, and other issues that get in the way of the job.
• Improved customer relations as you can offer a more consistent service. Now, your customers can be given the information, insight, and transparency that has them returning for more.
• Enjoy improved safety standards and greater compliance, making sure that you can easily meet regulations and ensure your business meets modern security standards.
• ERP tools make it easy to scale and expand in the years to come, too, ensuring that your business finds scalability a far less daunting prospect than it would have beforehand.

The Challenges

• Getting invested in ERP can be an initial cost that can be expensive if your business is already far behind the chasing pack. This could involve both upfront costs and subscription service fees.
• Over time, you will need to maintain and eventually outgrow the size of your ERP services. This is a cost that is manageable, but forgetting about it can make it an unhappy surprise for you.
• As your ERP systems grow and become more versatile, they can also become more complex. Making sure that staff is suitably trained to use the software is very important moving forward.
• It can initially take some time to customize and prepare your ERP systems to fit the exact needs that you have in mind. That time, though, is earned back by the time ERP tools can save you.

Who can help me to overcome ERP benefits and challenges?

As you can see, there are many more benefits than there are challenges. Most of the challenges involved in ERP usage come from the initial investment and setup. Find the right service providers, though, and you can make both the cost and the customization process so much simpler. With that in mind, you might wish to look at FootPound ERP, which provides various tools that you can use to benefit and overcome the challenges.

The above can seem like a rather daunting list to work through, but there are numerous professional solutions available. The best place to start would be to invest in two key services that FootPound ERP offer:

1. Versatile business software, which can provide everything from bookkeeping software to trail balance, financial reports, human resource tools, sales, and employee self-service portals for your benefit.
2. A Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) software solution that can make bringing together connected, mission-critical IT systems. These are backed with 99.9% uptime guarantees and connectivity managed through the cloud.

Both services could be absolutely essential in making sure you can make progress. FootPound ERP makes handling the various ERP challenges out there easy, whilst ensuring that your company can reap the benefits.