Is Your Small Business Ready For ERP?

Harry Trott

May 27, 2014

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Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP for short, was a software application meant for large enterprises that have thousands of employees and inventory to handle. But with the advent of technology, especially cloud computing, small businesses are much more sophisticated than ever. SaaS-based services typically cost a few dollars a month – consequently, small businesses no longer have to delay technology deployment at the workplace for the want of sufficient funds.

Among the various cloud based services that are now getting popular among small businesses, ERP is something whose adoption has taken everyone by surprise. One question among businesses that are yet to make the move is, “does my business really need this expense?”. Isn't an Excel document good enough to document, monitor and plan resources for a small business?

Well, the answer to this is : you only need to be as sophisticated as your competitor to survive. Gone are the days when all planning was done on printed documents. Today, most people use productivity tools like MS Excel and that is the prime reason why your business has one too. But with more and more businesses moving towards ERP systems for their resource management, it is imperative for your business to evolve too.

So how exactly does ERP help small businesses? The first and foremost way is in the way it offers the management a bird's eye-view of the entire organization and thus aids in decision making. As a business owner, it is easy to interpret the expenses and incomes from various customers and marketing channels through one document that is updated real-time. Also, thanks to the real-time nature of the system, ERP can assist businesses in improving the productivity of the organization by identifying the fluff in the operational setup of your company. Besides, ERP helps in drastically improving the planning, control and performance of processes and budgeting.

There are a number of alternatives that small businesses can choose from. Among the leaders are Netsuite, SAP and Intacct. In addition to this, there are also partners for Netsuite and SAP who assist businesses in remotely hosting and handling the ERP application for their business.

So to answer the question in the title. Is your small business ready for ERP? One can never be ready. But with competition already adopting the efficient use of technology to plan and execute their business, the onus is on the owners to accept the new reality and effect the migration themselves.