Dec 21
Business Tips
Imagine a room full of people trying to communicate with each other only by passing notes. I know it’s a strange image but that’s what it’s like trying to run a business without an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. Muddled communication, frustration, and stagnation ensue. We may complain about our ERPs but let’s take a look at what exactly would happen without one.
Working in a Vacuum
One of the main innovations that businesses gained when ERPs entered the scene is the ability for different teams to access the same set of data simultaneously. Concurrent work meant businesses could speed up. Gone was the slow relay from one team to the next, which usually meant mistakes anyway: the more times you pass the baton, the more likely it’s going to be dropped.
Without an ERP, teams will have to work separately again. Tasks, data, and work communications will be inaccessible to other teams. Everyone works in a vacuum, just like in the old days. Email will be back in style and once again we’ll read long threads from the bottom-up. “Hi John, can you send me a summary of our inventory for a customer?” “Hi Cheryl, can you send me an update on our next order’s shipping status?” “Hey Bill, can you send me the last invoice – I can’t seem to find it.” Sounds like a dystopia to me.
Where Is Data Held?
Worse, with a central platform eliminated it’ll be natural for a business to revert back to using multiple software. The accounting team will plant itself on a different operating system than the sales team. You don’t have to have lived through the pre-ERP days to know what happens next. First, it gets expensive, as every system is going to have its own premium fees and upkeep charges. Next, the platforms aren’t going to be compatible with each other, breeding only more follow-up emails seeking clarification. Cheryl’s inbox just got some new traffic.
IT Overload
Your IT team certainly isn’t going to be excited about managing multiple software. Which ones need updates? Which are having issues? The team is going to be diced up and all sent in different directions, and soon enough they won’t seem like a team at all. They’ll start to leave sticky post-it notes for each other and it will look like 1999 – but without the fun Y2K panic.
Repeated Work
Workstations will be back in style, too, along with redundancy, as groups of employees will input the exact same information for their own later use. Some of it will be wrong, of course, meaning quite a bit of backtracking and cross-checking. ERPs aren’t perfect, but they are centralized, meaning no repeated work or transcription errors.
A Slow Company
Slow is good for walking on ice, but not when running a company. Without an ERP, order forms and quotes take longer as employees check competing platforms for information and wait for other teams to send them what they need. And as the customer waits, the company’s reputation settles in like concrete. People tend to stay away once they decide you’re slow.
A Single Source of Truth
ERPs have been a giant step forward but standing alone they are showing their age. If you’re not looking to just keep time with your competition but want to really accelerate, then Recurrency is your next move. Our automated platform for your ERP optimizes workflows, improves profitability, and helps combat supply chain issues. With features like Dynamic Pricing, Demand Forecasting, Customer Reorder Prediction, and Upsells, Recurrency is uniquely able to keep its eyes on the future and steer you in the right direction. Tested AI, machine learning algorithms, and perfectionist engineers make these dream features part of your workday.
So, if you’ve got an ERP and it’s beginning to feel like you’re passing handwritten notes again, book a demo today.
