ERP – For Smarter Business
Proper planning, efficient work, effective management, better productivity and improved business essentials. ERP has the power to transform your company
The manufacturing sector in India is rapidly growing with Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs) being the major contributors. However as SMEs grow, their challenges grow manifold, leaving them with huge cost escalations, which impact the business directly.
Use of technology solutions are the only way out to stem these cost increases. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is one such software solution which can benefit a company immensely. ERP is a business management information system which manages and coordinates all the information, resources, and functions of any business. Processes can be integrated across your company. This leads to resources being used judiciously. Information flow also gets streamlined. ERP binds an enterprise into a close knit fabric.
Typically, as a company grows, it adopts software solutions to suit its immediate requirements. Over a few years, the organisation can find laden with different software applications, handling various business activities across departments. But more often than not, most applications do not talk to each other and sourcing reports from each can get to be a huge challenge.
An ERP application performs the function of each of these applications, and more. In effect, a company has an enterprise-wide software that works like one single unit, while catering to each department effectively.
Advantages
· Helps in reducing costs: Having several departments duplicating a task can become quite expensive for the business. Once an ERP solution is in place, duplication is eliminated. Work becomes faster, and information stored in a central place can be made available to the departments which need it.
· Tight controls: With all the divisions working in the ERP software, you can enforce tight controls on each process. You can hold people accountable for their delays and take decisions in time to avert cost escalations or schedule delays.
· Curbs wastage: The ERP software helps you identify areas which lead to wastage of raw material and labour. You can then take steps to reduce the wastage and bring the project under control.
· Quality control: You can enforce a quality check level for every process, holding people responsible for it in a transparent manner. This improves your product quality.
· Better productivity: With tight controls, accountability and checks on schedules and budgets being done by the software, your team will perform in a much productive manner.
· Facilitates management decisions and control: An ERP system provides easy and better access to information and data which helps the management get up-to-the-minute information. This facilitates the decision making and brings in better management control across the organisation.
You can have an ERP software custom built for your business. However, the market offers many ready to use ERP solutions that can be customised for your business. You can find such solutions from Microsoft, SAP, Oracle and others.
If you do not have the funds to invest in the infrastructure and software right now, you can opt for the hosted software model or the Software-as-a-service model. In this model, you license the software for the number of users you need. The software sits on a service provider’s server, and the service provider ensures that you are able to use the software over dedicated communication lines with minimal or almost no downtime. The software can be customised for your needs, and you can add users as you grow.