The Definitive Guide for Choosing Business Management Software - CHAPTER 2
NaN-tic May 28, 2018
CHAPTER 2
SUMMARY:
You realize that you need an ERP when a series of circumstances that negatively affect the operation of a company accumulate. Let's review which are the most common and why you never find the right moment to start looking for a good tool in the market. The first recommendation we give you is very reassuring.
KEY IDEAS:
- There are many inputs to understand that it is essential for you to have a business management tool.
- The possibilities of matching product, supplier, technology and price are frankly scarce.
- The first recommendation is not to be overwhelmed and to understand that a wrong decision can have serious consequences for the company.
SOS I NEED SOFTWARE! It’s more and more obvious with every new day. When it comes to company management, your business is on the limits of chaos. Daily administration is not systematic. Your clients don’t receive the products or services they need on time. Billing is getting more complicated by the day. Tax and regulatory changes involve additional headaches. Information is not centralised. Your sales team are using slow tools, you don’t have the information you need to take strategic decisions, you cannot plan resource use properly, your growth forecasts are looking limited, today’s technology does not adapt to the tools you purchased years ago. All in all you’re losing control of your own company.
And let’s face it, selecting an ERP, a CRM or any management tool is a pretty daunting experience. The process will be long and your investment will take months to provide you with any significant returns. Your staff, who will have to use the new system, will reject it from the start, and if that wasn’t enough, without the right info, you’ll never be sure about making the right decision. You need to select the right product and supplier for the right price, with technology that won’t fall short in a few years. Nor do you want a program that spreads itself everywhere. Unless your IT supplier quits on you or retires, you’ll never find the ideal moment to look at alternatives.
The temptation to close this guide right now must be pretty big, but hold on a minute, we wrote it for a reason, and remember - nobody said it would be easy.
On the one hand, you need to remember that the number of times that you’re going to need to deal with a business situation like this one is relatively small. In fact people rarely ever have to tackle this process and what’s more, what with rapid changes in technology, a large part of this experience will be of no use in the future.
And you also need to think about the consequences, what having this new program will mean for your organisation. More often than not, numerous expectations will have been made, a fact that creates an enormous sense of dependence on the product and on the companies providing services, whether in terms of consultancy, training, programming or hosting.
So - TIP NUMBER 1: Start by forgetting the idea that you’ll be able to select a program quickly and get it working in just a few days or weeks. Not because it’s not viable, which it could be, in some cases, but because of future consequences, which are in no way positive.
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