Year 2020 has changed the world & working in the most unprecedented way possible. With the COVID-19 crisis & the lockdown that has been ongoing for months, businesses have had to haplessly incur large losses.
Now that the government has allowed for businesses to come back to normal, organizations need to adhere to a number of norms to control the spread of the virus. With most people already working remotely, a number of business conglomerates are considering it a reliable way for organizations to function in the future while reducing the day-to-day stress on their employees.
But not all organizations are fit to work remotely. If your organization is similar, you aren’t the only one. With management issues coming in the way, organizations are now trying to figure a way to work efficiently & effectively while preparing themselves for the times ahead. In this ruckus, ERP has emerged as a useful solution to the problem, making management across various verticals of the organization easier.
Below, we have tried to explain how ERP can benefit your organization.
Your organization’s data is probably its greatest treasure. With your employees working remotely, you would want a system that helps you manage your data as seamlessly as it was being managed pre-COVID - seamless and secure. Data Management being a distinctive feature of ERP, it makes it ideal for the purpose. An efficient cloud-based structure provided by ERPs ensures easy access & sharing of information across the organization from any place. The data is protected with the ERP, while also being traceable. Changes can be made in the data & made immediately available to the other members on the team via the cloud-structured data.
As most of your employees work from home, an obvious concern would be to ensure that working isn’t affected. The solution to this problem lies in Automation. Automated ERP solutions facilitate efficient working & higher productivity during these times. It automates tasks in the organization to ensure seamless working. As the organization’s requirements change, you can easily manage the workflow likewise.
The Integrated Task Management systems of ERP Softwares help monitor the productivity of every employee. ERP softwares provide real-time information to the people in management to make sure that work doesn’t lag. The admins in your organization can easily allot work to employees working remotely with this information.
The supply chain has become highly volatile recently. The workload has changed for organizations owing to the current global scenario. In fact, according to a report from Gartner, 76% supply chain experts say that disruptions have increased this year compared to the last 3 years while 72% agree that these disruptions are more impactful. What this essentially means is that complexity in the supply chain has increased which might lead to difficulty in decision making for the administration. ERP can solve this by managing both demand and supply efficiently. It analyzes the market & studies the customer trends to give you accurate information & also predict the upcoming trends. This not only aids decision making but also ensures inventory management. This way, timely orders for new materials are placed & the manufacturing keeps running. You can also successfully monitor the performance of all your vendors via a B2B supplier portal. The portal gives you evidence-based analytics that can be used to ensure a steady supply chain & prices by ensuring more business only with the vendors that bring in more sales.
Remote working is the new normal but a few processes still require on-floor workforce. Due to the COVID norms, all companies are supposed to practice social distancing at the workplace. To make this possible, companies are now working with a smaller workforce on shop floor, as less as up to 1/3rd of what they were initially working with. To comply with these rules ERP software can be your smart solution.
By providing real-time data & production details at all times, it has eradicated the need for an extended workforce on the floor. The administrative teams can stay home & monitor the work of employees via the system. Also, the accurate data provided caters to better decision making on their part. Thus, the number of employees on the floor decreases but productivity doesn’t.
It all boils down to finance management. Every company wants to ensure steady cash-flow to ensure seamless working. ERP helps you do that in a two-fold way. How this works is that it guides you to enhance profitability while cutting down on unnecessary costs. It manages your funds minutely while shedding budget drastically.
An example will be that of Mr. Rakesh Sharma of Magnum Foods. As the Covid crisis struck, they decided to immediately set up new control points. Mr. Sharma says that they had made changes in their credit policy overnight to suit the current scenario. With the help of Lighthouse ERP, they made changes to increase the credit limits. This has reflected positively on their business ever since. It has been an effect of better decision making on their part & effective working of Lighthouse ERP.
With better decision making you can decide on the right methods to bring in more profits. At the same time, with the budget-based workflow, the ERP helps manage your funds in critical times like these. As given in the above example, you can reevaluate your credit policy for better terms. The money saved is money earned. Thus, giving you the freedom to manage your finances better.
ERP system is a good way to deal with all the problems arising with the remote working model & should be opted on by most companies, since remote working seems to be the future of companies across various sectors of business.
