Data inconsistencies, overhead costs, slow production cycles, inefficient scheduling of resources, delayed financial tracking and analysis, decreased customer loyalty… these are some of the most common challenges facing businesses today. If any of these issues are familiar to you, it might not be the first time that you have considered all of them could be alleviated by improving the productivity of your staff.
The Business Dictionary defines productive as: “A measure of the efficiency of a person, machine, factory, system, etc., in converting inputs into useful outputs. Productivity is computed by dividing average output per period by the total costs incurred or resources (capital, energy, material, personnel) consumed in that period. Productivity is a critical determinant of cost efficiency.”
Over the years, businesses have been incorporating technology into their new business activities with the aim of improving efficiency in their day to day operations. As technology evolves, so does the way companies do business and the way they want their companies to run utilising a uniform system.
To make that uniform system possible, many enterprises are investing in ERP systems that help boost staff productivity and the way employees interact with each other. But how exactly does that happen?
Make Fact-Based Decisions
Without the precise nature of technology, decisions are based on your gut, experience and guesswork. Although this works at times, most of the time it results in a cost in resources and time to the company.
In addition to this, when data is not concentrated in one single real-time source and the company relies on spreadsheets, there is a major risk of making inaccurate decisions as employees have access to different spreadsheets that do not necessarily contain the most up to date information.
ERP systems allow businesses to acquire real-time reports, make decisions based on current and accurate data and improve overall efficiency.
End Duplicate Data
Relying on spreadsheets is also a waste of your staff’s time when considering the creation and maintenance of data. Information is generally pulled from different sources, updated at various times from different calculations, and all by different people. As a result, reports run based on those spreadsheets are not always accurate and employees spend a great deal of their time coordinating them.
Even when companies have automated systems in place in different areas of their business, there is still a risk of duplicated data. With an ERP system, this risk is mitigated due to the implementation of one uniform system from which all areas of the business pulls information from.
Improve Communications
How difficult is to keep the warehouse and the shop floor connected? Think, for example, about a company that sells t-shirts; the warehouse ships the last unit of a special edition t-shirt for a client that has bought it online, and, simultaneously, the sales assistant sells the same item in the main street shop. There is only one t-shirt and it has been sold twice to different clients because of the lack of an effective communication system in place. As you can imagine, this leads to headaches for the people involved in the transaction, from staff to clients.
ERP solutions make communications faster and more accurate. In this case, the system would send sales orders changes to both the warehouse and the shop floor immediately to avoid problems, and inform suppliers of changes in demand.
This helps your business improve the effectiveness of your company’s relationships with both clients and suppliers, making your processes more productive and leveraging more development opportunities for your business.
At the end of the day, technologies are available that can help you streamline your business and, truthfully, are necessary to remain competitive in the current business landscape. ERP is a tool that, if used properly, will have a positive impact on your staff and business productivity, increasing your profitability and the wellbeing of your company.
