The Hidden Costs of Delaying an ERP Implementation
When a business is first formed, the leadership team needs to implement processes to manage their business operations. These areas encompass all the critical activities and information needed to run the business effectively, including tracking customers, vendors, sales orders, inventory, invoices, and purchase orders.
At first, the business will probably be quite small without a lot of capital available to purchase and install comprehensive Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. As a result, many businesses will often start using manual processes and simple software tools such as Excel or QuickBooks to manage their business.
As the business grows, small signs start to appear that the business is outgrowing the systems they have in place. Manual processes cause mistakes because data entry errors, data on inventory aren’t available in real-time, shipments are delayed, and expenses grow faster than sales.
The different processes also don’t integrate well. Customer order forecast, inventory purchases, stock levels, shipments, and financial systems all require meetings to communicate information and efficiently manage the business. Or worse yet, the process is held together by one key employee that hopefully never gets sick.
Most companies hesitate to take action because they are worried about the difficulty, complexity, and costs of installing a new ERP software system and the learning curve it could bring to the whole operation. They may also believe that what they have is good enough.
How about your company?
Are your business processes good enough?
Are you experiencing hidden costs and inefficiencies that you may not realize?
These hidden costs can limit your profitability and growth and hinder your company’s ability to grow profitably.
Some examples of problems that we have seen in the past and may not be fully appreciated include:
- Not enough inventory available, causing lost sales
- Too much or wrong types of inventory that can’t be sold, leading to waste and scrap costs
- Poor customer service creating dissatisfied customers
- Pricing which is either too high or too low causing either lost sales or lost profits
- Slow collection on invoices causing potential cash flow problems
Many of these problems can sneak up on you or you may not realize the extent that they are occurring.
It is wise to periodically step back from the day-to-day activities for a brief period and really take a look at these problem areas and see how bringing in a more modern software system can help. We urge you to take a closer look and truly understand the costs of some of the operational problems mentioned above. These hidden costs may be much higher than you imagine, while the costs of installing the right cloud-based ERP system may be much smaller than you think.
Improving your business’s sales and profits may be as easy as upgrading your ERP software system.
In the past, installing a sophisticated ERP system would require hardware to be installed on-site to run on-premise software. This would entail creating a whole new infrastructure to maintain this software and perform things like data backups, software updates, bug fixes, etc. In addition to the software’s costs, there would have been additional capital and operating costs for the computer hardware itself and the necessary power, cooling, and floor space.
Fortunately, it is no longer necessary to pay extremely high costs to obtain a top-performing ERP software system with today’s modern cloud-based software tools. My Office Apps offers Kechie ERP a complete, easy-to-use ERP software system that runs in the cloud and installs quickly. Kechie does not require any hardware installation or the attendant infrastructure to support it. Since it runs in the cloud, the My Office Apps team takes care of the servers, backups, software updates, data security, etc. Better yet, installing Kechie does not require any up-front capital costs since payment for this Software as a Service (SaaS) only entails a very reasonable, per-user, monthly access fee.
We realize that many companies are currently experiencing a temporary business downturn due to Covid-19 and are hesitant to make any changes while their business is lower. If you believe that your business will eventually come back, our advice is that now, is a great time to upgrade your systems. Your staff can focus on understanding your business operational challenges and help you think of new and more efficient ways of operating the business. This fresh perspective can quickly and easily be incorporated into a cloud-based ERP system, so you are ready when the inevitable expansion occurs.
A downturn doesn’t last forever. When it ends for your business, we want you to be ready to handle the growth as never before. And with a cloud-based ERP software system like Kechie, you won’t have to worry about implementing system upgrades while also challenged with keeping up with the higher activity levels in your business. And if you aren’t ready to handle the boom when it hits, it could cause lost customers and make the current downturn permanent for your business.
If you wait until the business is growing again to implement a system upgrade, you may need to bring on outside consultants to help with the task because your existing employees are too busy, and you can’t staff fast enough. This will make it more expensive to implement the ERP system upgrade than it might otherwise cost.
My Office Apps has business specialists available who can help you evaluate your business and uncover improvement opportunities. Many of our team members have been using ERP systems for many years under different situations. We have been in your shoes, and we can leverage our experience to show how much difference a reliable ERP software system can make in your operations.
For more information and advice on how to easily, quickly, and cost-effectively upgrade your ERP management software, visit www.myofficeapps.com. Or better yet, call us at (714) 486-1487 and ask to schedule a demo to show how we can help solve the business issues you face, both today and tomorrow.