Why your new business strategy for the new financial year must include ERP
April 25, 2019 10:00 am
At the start of a new financial year
While a business strategy is very much a long-term evolutionary process that will shift in line with your business, the tried and trusted business strategy fundamentals should always remain the same.
The goals you define must be measurable, actionable, clear and based on a tactical game plan that targets each individual goal and is tied tightly to your vision of your organisation’s future.
There’s much at stake. A considered strategy will help ensure your performance outstrips the competition, make the best investment decisions and allocate and optimise your resources.
This will then mean you’re best placed to seize the opportunities and economies of scale that would otherwise be beyond reach.
Without ERP software to deliver the clear, comprehensive and timely information and processes that can drive your business strategy to its desired conclusion, it’s unlikely the transformational change you’ve ventured your corporate vision on will materialise with the competitive edge you planned.
ERP changes everything
The deliberations and strategising heralded by the new fiscal period will inevitably prompt conversations about change. This is not just the transformational change sought by those on the path of growth and success, but the evolutionary steps every business will seek to take in order to streamline operations, increase efficiency and productivity and reduce costs. Herein lies the beauty of ERP. A tailored, full-throttle ERP software solution will not only unite people and their systems, it will deliver the qualified intelligence to enable decision-makers to devise their strategy based on the hard and very tangible facts that make sound business sense. Two of the most coveted ERP platforms on the market today are Microsoft’s hugely respected Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 Business Central. Both are seriously flexible platforms that have been developed with the needs of small and medium-sized businesses in mind. They give users complete control over their financial and business data, and a suite of intuitive collaborative sales and management features that can put everyone in the driving seat and on the road to business strategy realisation. Moreover, when we’re talking evolutionary, these end-to-end, change-ready ERP solutions deliver the ability for users to implement their new platform seamlessly and start quickly without hindering any game plan and come with the option to scale up easily when the business strategy allows. The benefits of a customised ERP solution like Dynamics NAV and 365 Business Central, when implemented properly and with a trusted ERP implementation partner on side, are well documented. When it comes to aligning its potential with a new business strategy, however, there are a several solid factors that will help you generate the returns you need.ERP drives business strategy
An ERP system is the ultimate business technology, and its powers to harmonise and transform are unrivalled. A sophisticated ERP solution will serve as a three-dimensional platform that brings departments and people together.
From accounting, sales and purchasing to HR and project management, the supply chain and customer service teams, departmental data is shared rather than siloed.
Business-critical decisions are made based on real-time information that’s accessible to all, instead of inaccurate reports from disparate systems.
All this collaboration and transparency ensures everyone’s mindset is firmly on the end goal, whether that’s simplifying processes, performing smarter with more agile workflow cycles or simply growing your organisation more efficiently and profitably.
When it comes to aligning your technologies, your people, processes and your long-term objectives, the impact of a tailored ERP solution on your ability to drive and deliver your business strategy cannot be underestimated.
ERP gives you the clarity to manage and execute
ERP gives everyone the tools they need to report, forecast and plan with unparalleled precision. Your data from every interaction is collected from every transaction, giving you a world of actionable insights, analytics and customised reporting. This makes light work of complex data within one single-source space that everyone sees, everyone can depend on. Real-time data sits at the heart of effective decision-making. Having the clarity that ERP delivers will ensure you can respond fast to change in a volatile business environment, take evasive action during time-critical projects and still remain well placed to meet and exceed efficiency and productivity targets. When you’re armed with the quality of data that ERP brings, you’ll have the bullet-proof information you need to implement, control and optimise your business strategy with complete confidence. Everything that happens within a single-source ERP platform happens with total transparency – leaving you with more streamlined management processes and, potentially, significantly reduced cost. Essentially, the new agility that ERP promises will help you to execute your game plan and fuel the trajectory you’ve defined in your business strategy.ERP inspires brand loyalty
Whatever goals you’ve based your new strategy on, whatever your market sector or business model and wherever in the world you trade, the customer is always King and will, in the final analysis, be responsible for transforming the vision for your organisation into a reality. Giving your customers an experience that satisfies them at every touchpoint, selling them high quality products and services at the most cost-effective price and adding value, is what it takes to strengthen your relationships and inspire their brand loyalty. Sophisticated ERP is an exceptional customer service resource that takes the consumer journey even further. With a veritable gamut of client-critical features and instant access to your customers’ entire transactional history, you’ll be in a position to identify better sales leads and more opportunities to upsell, cross-sell and renew. All are invaluable tools in terms of your policy’s bigger picture.ERP should be at the heart of your investment strategy
Topping the priorities for your business strategy will likely be the investments you intend to make during the new period.
If this new financial year is the year you evaluate the efficacy of your legacy technologies and systems and decide to make the upgrade leap, then the cost-saving benefits of ERP and its impact on your overall profitability will make for pleasurable reading.
Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 Business Central offer a choice of enterprise applications and plans that fit every business model on a very low TC and come with an impressive return on investment to boot.
Indeed, the cost of failing to make the leap into the world of transformational ERP when it’s time to upgrade or replace legacy systems is far likely to outweigh your initial outlay.
When you take your ERP to the cloud, you’ll enjoy even more financial rewards, not to mention the extra freedom and flexibility you’ll experience.
A pay-as-you-go, subscription-based software model like Business Central, for example, offers lower up-front costs and a predictable, fixed monthly fee.
More significantly, you’ll eliminate the need for an in-house IT team because your IT support services are provided by your cloud’s data centre – so you’re only paying for the computer resources you actually need.
