Where it’s time to upgrade to a fully-fledged ERP system is a common question. The main reservations businesses have is not just the initial cost but the onboarding process, as all employees will need to be trained and a migration can be tricky.
SAP services and the like are popular for this reason, as they can improve business agility and enhance the data exchange between apps. Putting aside the many benefits of an ERP system, let’s look at 4 signs that it may be time to move away from the ad hoc solutions and toward a full-scale ERP.
You likely used ad hoc solutions initially when the business was small because this made do. However, as your business grows, ERP capabilities also need to grow. Having incrementally increasing fees as the users expand could diminish your scope for economies of scale, meaning it maybe time to change ERP to a more cost-efficient, scalable solution.
It may be that only one or two business tasks take longer to accomplish than otherwise. Not only is it hard to estimate or be aware of the “otherwise”, but all of these small inefficiencies aff up to a vast hidden cost. Maintenance is likely to be much greater with an outdated, undersized ERP system, meaning that righting wrongs is taking up more time than solving actual problems and improving your business decisions.
Having a fragmented approach to your data and systems is made all the more challenging when your workforce becomes more remote. Remote workers are more security risks than when working from the office, so making things simple by interacting with as few systems as possible is ideal. A full-scale EPR is not only more streamlined but are often better equipped security-wise for remote employees.
Furthermore, your current ERP system may be geared towards a centralized approach that is now obsolete in the climate of remote work. Entire departments/branches working remotely can challenge your work culture, and sometimes this shouldn’t necessarily be resisted. There are many ERP systems that can handle a more fragmented approach to leadership and improve the communication problems between remote teams.
What full-scale ERPs can better provide than ad-hoc solutions is digging up up-to-date information. Having centralized Business Intelligence not only saves time and increases the potential for real-time information, but this means better data-driven business decisions will be made. The weighty infrastructure behind ERPs can integrate better in other business environments, such as PowerBI, or even provide their own dashboards.
Finally, the last sign that it’s time to upgrade to a more sophisticated ERP system is because you’re getting caught out with regulation changes. Large cloud-based ERPs tend to keep track and update frequently according to new regulations, whilst an ad hoc approach means it’s solely your responsibility to change every moving part. Even if you had a fully-fledged ERP system but it’s older, such legacy solutions were not built to deal with such fast-changing compliance.
