Choosing the right ERP system for your business

An effective CRM system can closely monitor relationships between customers and businesses but how can a team ensure effective management of their own functionalities? This is where Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is essential. An ERP system can help businesses transform internal processes with increased planning and productivity.

What does an ERP do?

An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system quite simply brings together customer management, human resources, business intelligence, financial management and supply chain capabilities all into one system. Providing companies with competitive advantages, it’s a tool often used by companies within the supply chain industries. It allows them to track moving parts of the business including manufacturing and distribution. ERP systems also store all required customer data in a single database that allows departments to work together with the same information.

How to choose the right ERP for your business

Implementing an ERP system is a transformational business initiative that provides key competitive advantages to your company, but how do you choose the right one for you?

It’s a given that the decision shouldn’t be taken lightly or made with incomplete information. That’s why it’s so important to follow these steps to choosing the right ERP for your business:

1. Review and analyse: ERP is entirely a business initiative. The first step to any process should include defining and documenting existing processes, pain points and strengths. Not to mention an analysis on how you’d like things to work in the future. The review and analysis phase provides an essential launching point for the rest of the procurement process and should be considered a priority.
2. Evaluate technicalities: Although it is there to help your business initiative, it is a technology process. Understanding how an ERP software will align with your current infrastructure is an important step to findinging the right solution for your team.
3. Objective and independent advice: Asking suggestions from team members who will be expected to use the system directly is great for positive user adoption but we would highly recommend seeking independent advice too. This will help validate and determine exactly what you are looking for within an ERP platform. 
4. Keep options open: There are plenty of options available on the technology market, however we’d advise researching a system that is suitable for integration with your existing CRM. For example, we’ve worked with many businesses who’ve had a requirement for ERP integration. For those working with Salesforce as their CRM, we would recommend AscentERP given its integration capabilities and success on ROI.
5. Realistic implementation plan: An important step for any software implementation is ensuring a realistic plan has been approved. A successful implementation plan will include everything from business processes and workflow designs to development, testing and organisation change management activities.

Want to discover your ERP options?

Coacto are proud to be partnered with Ascent Solutions. Together we deliver effective ERP implementations to customers including helping businesses integrate ERP systems with their existing Salesforce CRM.

If you require an ERP solution and are ready to discover your options, please organise a FREE consultation with our expert team, we’ll be happy to assist.