With ERP software, you want to increase your organization's productivity, control costs and serve your customers optimally. To achieve this, an ERP system is an integrated automation solution that can support virtually all processes within your organization. A complete solution, in other words. But how complete is your ERP system really? Your important day-to-day processes are undoubtedly supported, but how well have you taken care of the three issues below?
Reporting & Business Intelligence
Your ERP software only has real value when you can accurately analyze the information stored in the system and present it in management reports. For this, you need specific functionalities or tools. It is also important that the way the data is stored in the system makes reporting and analysis possible (and easy). Organizations that want to stay ahead of the competition recognize the importance of investing in analysis and visualization tools to gain key insights from data and opt for a modern and powerful reporting & BI platform.
Communication with other parties
Every day, your company interacts with various other parties. Think of customers, prospects, suppliers, manufacturers and partners. Communicating and exchanging data efficiently with these parties can offer you many advantages. Think of creating offers and orders in the system and sending them directly, interfaces with systems of manufacturers and suppliers, and deploying a customer or vendor portal. This will save you a lot of time (and money) and allow you to operate much faster and more flexibly as an organization.
Mobile access
We have long since stopped accessing ERP software only on the computer at work. We also want access to the system on the road or at home, in the evening or on weekends. The manager views KPIs and reports at home on the couch, the salesperson looks up customer information on the go, and the field service engineer can handle work orders on location. Mobile access to the ERP system is becoming increasingly important and (again) offers you several benefits.
Does your ERP system facilitate powerful reporting & analysis, efficient peer communication and easy mobile access for any type of user? Then you are a few steps closer to a complete system!
Philip van Kemenade is a marketer at Dysel and has daily contact with end users of software.
