Why Do You Have to Upgrade Your ERP System?
Here are the seven simple reasons why upgrading your ERP system is worthwhile:
Higher quality system
Information technology is evolving at a rapid speed. The newer the system, the more advanced its features, such as intuitive dashboards, comprehensive reports, etc. Therefore, you get a more advanced set of functionalities when you upgrade your ERP system. It gives way to the ability to better analyze and improve overall business decisions by increasing accuracy and reliability.
Better business performance
The most significant benefit of ERP software is that it allows total access to vital business information and processes. For example, if you deal with inventory, an ERP application keeps track of every tiny detail. It helps you monitor stock levels daily and even the future consignments currently in transit. When all the information is precisely available, it enables you to gain more control over your business and improves its performance.
Over time, older ERP technology could have performance issues, which become more frequent with every passing day and causes more trouble. Upgrading to the newest version removes this issue and keeps your performance high.
More user productivity
Right ERP technology could improve the efficiency of your workforce in carrying out their daily activities. It could significantly reduce or eliminate the manual processes and frees up team your employees to focus on revenue-affecting tasks. More and more cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and robotic process automation (RPA) are getting added to this list that support automation and intelligent capabilities.
The ability to do more in less time and effort becomes a significant reason behind upgrading the ERP system.
Without having internal staff keeping a tab on your new software implementation, it would most likely fail.
Increased operational efficiency
When an ERP suite is implemented organization-wide, it means you have a unified platform for managing every process and a single source of truth to generate reports.
You need an upgraded ERP because the newest systems have more powerful tools to gain a deeper analytical insight into your business operations. This would provide you with a critical look at your business processes, help you identify problem areas, and implement improvements to increase their efficiency.
Improved collaboration among departments
If you are still using multiple software applications across the departments, you need an ERP system to streamline processes and provide your employees with on-demand access to data stored in one centralized database.
This data unification allows better communication across the organization. For example, your sales team would know what inventory is being procured; the administration team would know what your service team is doing, and so on. The net effect of this improved collaboration is increased efficiency and higher employee engagement.
Easy integration with other software
Modular software with easy integration capabilities is the most significant feature of ERP systems in the present day. Modular structure lets you pick and choose components that work best for your business and leave out what is not needed. Extensive integration enables you to create a central software architecture that could seamlessly connect and pass data between other systems. This essentially eliminates bottlenecks, reduces communication delays, and improves data accuracy, making your business run more efficiently with minimal human errors.
Lower costs
Upgrading your ERP system is going to save costs over a period of time. When you let go of outdated technology that fails to provide your desired output and replace it with a new one, it improves your business processes, and your productivity goes up.
Instead of manually inputting data, the new system would permit you to enter information once and store it in a centralized database, making it accessible to all departments in real-time. It also lets you streamline redundant tasks, thus enabling you to invest in the workforce for high-priority responsibilities.
When to Upgrade your ERP System?
Now that you know why you should update your ERP system, it’s time to understand when to do it? Here look for the signs:
- You are experiencing business growth, and it is either impossible or too expensive to increase your existing ERP system’s capacity to accommodate the increase in data and users.
- You have outgrown legacy technology, and your inflexible software cannot support new and more efficient ways of handling business operations.
- You have outdated user interfaces that are hard to navigate or require more steps to access data.
- You are not meeting the data reporting and analysis speed required to keep up with the pace of today’s business.
- You are adopting a hybrid work model, and there is no support for mobile devices.
Do You Really Need This Upgrade?
Upgrading your ERP system without evaluation could end up worse than you had ever attempted. So, start with finding out your business requirements and your need for modernizing your ERP system. We can help you analyze this and guide you through out the ERP implementation.
At Focus Softnet, we have a wide catalog of ERP software solutions to choose from. Fill in the form to get started.