Does Your Company Need ERP?
While the manufacturing world is quickly moving towards digitization and computerization, should you also implement an ERP? Does your company need ERP? Indeed, this is a crucial decision for every manufacturing SME because implementing an ERP involves a significant amount of time, effort and cost.
The aim of this article, is to help you understand, whether your manufacturing company needs an ERP? If Yes, then How to become ready for an ERP? We have created a practical step by step guide for getting ready for ERP Implementation
Does your company need ERP?
As a company, involved in implementing Spectrum ERP Software over the past 11 years, we understand the dilemma and concerns of manufacturing SMEs to determine whether their company needs an ERP? We have created a list of questions, that will prompt you to gather important data and facts from your current business processes. You will be able to understand the efficiency & effectiveness of your current processes and make an informed decision about whether you need ERP software for your business.
Please answer the following questions candidly to determine whether your business needs an ERP?
- Are you having trouble accessing information about your business?
- Do you observe a lack of coordination between various departments?
- Are you struggling to get complete visibility into your inventory?
- Are you having problems in meeting the delivery schedules?
- Is there a lack of centralized processes in your organization?
- Do you have difficulty in implementing business discipline?
- Is it challenging to provide the right information to the right people at the right time?
- Are you spending a lot of time dealing with multiple non-integrated systems?
- Do you feel the need to automate your business processes?
If you answered YES to a majority of the above questions, then these are clear signs and indications, that your company/business needs an ERP to overcome all the above-mentioned obstacles.
Why the need for ERP? What are its advantages?
ERP Software connects all departments, teams and integrates information across locations using a common technology platform and ERP database. ERP provides intelligent solutions like dashboards, business analysis reports, exception reporting, notification alerts. This makes it easier to gather, access and analyze information and make informed decisions. This results in streamlined processes, improved operation management, enhanced supply chain efficiencies, achieve cost reduction, better customer satisfaction and overall success for the company.
How to become ready for ERP Software? Stages to be ready for ERP Implementation
When you realize the value and benefits of an ERP Software implementation, you will choose to embark on a journey to implement ERP Software. ERP implementation is a big task and impacts every aspect of the business such as processes, functions, suppliers, customers, and everyone involved with the company.
For successful ERP Implementation, you must start with defining your business objectives and goals clearly. You must have involvement and support of all major stakeholders, as well as active participation and training of all end users.
Given below are the various stages of “How to become Ready for an ERP”
1.Define your ERP Implementation Goals & Objectives
You must clearly define why you want to adopt ERP so that you can compare the before and after, results of implementing ERP.
- Clearly define the Goals to be achieved from ERP Implementation
- Define the Key Results to measure the success of ERP implementation
- Communicate Expectations of Key Results to all stakeholders
2. Business Process Readiness
ERP is usually implemented to streamline business processes and increase efficiency and productivity. Hence you must define the processes to be implemented and prepare the necessary groundwork such as:
- Define standard business processes or standard operating procedures to implement through ERP.
- Have a clear understanding and written documentation of “How” and “When” the data flows or Interacts with different Processes
- Prepare important checkpoints and workflow required by ERP
- Define your MIS & reporting requirements
3. ERP Implementation Team Readiness
Are your end-users computer literate? Will they be easily able to adapt to computers and ERP software? If the answer to this is NO, then you will have to get them ready first.
If the answer is Yes, then you can go ahead with selecting the ERP implementation Team. The ERP project implementation team should have a good mix of process owners, end-users, functional and technical experts to become ready for ERP. They should all be committed to ensuring successful ERP implementation
- Identify a Project Leader for ERP Implementation Project
- Identify key stakeholders of each ERP module
- Identify team members who know how the actual process works and how it should interact with other processes in ERP
- Each one should be made aware of their roles & responsibilities to ensure success
4. Infrastructure Readiness
ERP software implementation is accompanied by a certain set of hardware requirements based on the type of ERP implementation, whether it is an on-premise implementation or cloud ERP. The hardware requirements will also depend on the number of users, no. of locations, type of integration, etc. You will have to prepare for these beforehand.
- How many locations need to integrate?
- How many users will access the software?
- Assess the current hardware systems
- Reviewed hardware required for ERP software
5. Budget & Time Readiness
ERP Implementation requires a significant amount of Time, Effort & Cost. Are you ready, financially, and committed as a team to carry out this activity in a disciplined and dedicated manner? Only then proceed with the ERP implementation project.
- Secure approval for sufficient budget for ERP implementation
- Get sanction and authorization from your management for the amount of time, resources, training and testing required for ERP implementation
Summary
They say “Preparation is the Key to Success”. We hope we have been able to generate awareness of how to become ready for ERP. Rest assured, that if you follow all the above preparations and plan ERP implementation accordingly, you will have a smooth and successful ERP implementation along with significant savings of time and money.