Customer bias can derail any company during an important phase of growth. Investing in ERP software can help organizations bring together disparate activities into a single integrated application, optimizing processes and increasing agility. ERP software utilizes a unified database that greatly speeds up customer response times, increases operational efficiency, and ensures customer success. In this article, we list 5 main reasons to invest in enterprise resource planning software. However, first let’s understand what an ERP really means. What is an ERP? ERP systems are designed around a single defined data structure (schema) that typically has a common database. This helps ensure that information used across the enterprise is normalized and based on common definitions and user experiences. These core constructs are then interconnected with business processes driven by workflows between business departments (e.g., finance, human resources, engineering, marketing, operations), connecting systems and the people who use them. Simply put, ERP is the vehicle for integrating people, processes and technologies in a modern enterprise. For example: consider a construction company. This company could acquire an ERP to control its relationship with its customers and suppliers, entering into the system all invoices issued to customers, and all raw material order orders for suppliers. The company could still manage projects in the solution and link expense and revenue notes to projects to know whether that project made a profit or loss. If the company sells raw materials frequently, it can control its stock of each item, identifying it by a unique identification code, with characteristics specific to the product such as size, weight, color, among others. An ERP can also help this company understand its cash flow, comparing revenues with expenses and evaluating profit for the period. Now that we understand what an ERP is, let’s understand why your company should hire one. We have listed 5 reasons for you to take this next step in professionalizing your company: 1st Productivity improvement With traditional methods, tedious tasks are completely unavoidable. Tasks such as generating manual reports, monitoring inventory levels, tracking timesheets, and processing orders via Excel have historically taken employees hours to complete. In addition to taking up time, these processes lower employee morale and expose themselves to human error. After the umpteenth hour of entering the same row of data into different forms, even the best team members are bound to make a mistake. If you choose the right solution, an ERP can automate your most tedious tasks. The ERP software’s database eliminates redundant tasks such as data entry and allows the system to perform advanced calculations in minutes. This frees up team members’ time to do more careful work, increasing your team’s performance, and freeing them to perform more analytical and strategic tasks, such as attracting new clients. From this, ERP increases the productivity, efficiency and profitability of your organization. 2nd Best Analytics A central database of information also helps improve your analytics and reporting. As an ERP records and stores all user input data, it is an excellent business intelligence tool. ERP software makes it easier and faster for your team to generate various reports. Reports that could take days of research and compilation without an ERP only take a few minutes. Most ERP solutions provide a customizable dashboard so executives can view reports when they first log into the system. These reports can include everything from income and expense statements to the sales team’s bottom line. You no longer need to rely on your IT team to generate the reports you need. 3° Better decision making Just like having access to real-time analytics, a hassle-free and easy-to-understand ERP software interface can help you make better, more informed business decisions for your company. With spreadsheets, tables, and graphs available at the click of a button, you can more readily make crucial decisions that will help business processes move smoothly. 4° Flexibility Until recently, ERP solutions cost a lot of money. However, after the popularization of the internet in homes and businesses, new solutions emerged, lighter and cheaper than large corporations such as SAP, Oracle, among others. Today, you can implement an ERP solution in your company completely available in the cloud, without having to worry about domain, hosting, support and all the concerns arising from an IT asset Many solutions, including ours, TRATO ERP, allow you to access your system from any browser, whether on a tablet computer or smartphone. 5° Savings on direct and indirect costs. An ERP helps simplify and automate complex business processes, saving hours spent on manual work. They can also eliminate non-value-adding processes and integrate functions across the company, making employees more informed and better able to adapt. By supporting standardized, repeatable processes, they can help improve quality and reduce waste. By replacing many software systems with one, they reduce the number of technology vendor relationships you need to manage, which typically saves on licensing costs as well as integration requirements, application administration, and reduces the need to train employees on the various processes. Selecting a cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) ERP system, where the service provider manages infrastructure, performance, uptime, and updates, further reduces IT responsibilities. Does your company already have an ERP solution? Is the team comfortable using the system? Leave your opinion in the comments and let’s exchange ideas!