ERP
- Invention?
Inventions:
cars, telephones, radios, cell phones and computers these inventions happened
in a time of need or necessity to make the lives easier for everybody using
them. I can’t imagine my life without my phone or my laptop and I can’t
comprehend how I ever managed without them. No wonder that inventors throughout
history still gets celebrated today for what they discovered and invented even
centuries ago. I wonder if the people that designed the 1st ERP
system also have a “Newton moment”, I don’t think they had an apple fall on
their head though, but I can imagine that the breakthrough moment could have felt
as amazing as realising how the apple fell.
If you look
at it logically, ERP
systems were developed for the simple purpose of running your company and
running it successfully. ERP
= Enterprise Resource Planning; it explains exactly what it does. It is a
complete system that can assist in every aspect of your business. Sadly, a lot
of businesses fail very soon after being established. This is almost always due
to bad planning or not having the proper management or controlling helplines in
place. This is the reason for ERP systems being ‘invented’. A bunch of smart
people, through the process of trial and error, created a system that can
possibly save a company from bankruptcy. I’m not saying that each and every
business needs an ERP system to run successfully, but it sure makes the process
a whole lot easier.
I did a
little study of my own on how ERP systems can be
implemented into a business to ensure productivity and agility from the
beginning.
Following
below, is the natural history and indication of how a business gets started and
how an ERP system can assist a business from day one:
Year one
Year one of
your business is probably the infantile year where a lot of your business is
based on financials
and ensuring your company shows rapid growth. A lot of businesses make the
mistake of only buying and implementing an accounting package. This is fine and
this package can and does work, but what of year two?
Year two
So after year
one, your business is starting to take off and you can see some growth on your
revenue. Now that your business is making money you might consider a
manufacturing your own products. For this, you will need a manufacturing
software package, but you only have an accounting package. So what happens?
You scrap your accounting package and you move on to software that has the
ability to handle both your financials as well as the manufacturing side of
your business.
Year three
By year three
you can already see a huge difference in your business and how your business is
run. Workflows that got implemented in year one may not necessarily be of
importance now. So now that your business is financially strong and manufacturing
its own products you need to look at a system than can handle warehousing, managing of
deliveries and controlling
of your stock. So, once again, you scrap your previous system and implement a
system that can handle this function as well.
Year five
This is the
time where the business is doing really well and you have already reached your
five year plan. You can see your business flourishing, but you need a system
that will help you manage your client relationships more effectively. All your
systems that you implemented are showing results. But a system to track
clients, keep their records and who knows maybe even run successful marketing
campaigns are now inevitable. But, surprise! Surprise! You need another system
that can handle this aspect of your business as well. So your previous system
gets scrapped once again and a system with CRM (Customer
Relationship Management) capabilities gets implemented.
The future
Finally, you
have a successful business and an ERP system that can
manage all aspects of your business. Would it not have been easier to implement
an ERP system in
year one that could have handled all these aspects of your business and that
could have saved your company millions? That is the beauty of ERP systems that are
designed to assist in all aspects of your business from the start; they consist
of all these functions, not necessarily activated, but readily available when
needed.
Gone are the
dark days where businesses are run without any proper helplines. What a breath
of fresh air to know that an ‘invention’ as great and powerful as the right ERP system can improve
your business and help it grow. Who knows, we might be celebrating this system
in a 100 years from now; not that I will be around to see it, but here’s to
hoping I will.
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