The Real Benefit of Business Technologies
In this day and age, in order to stay ahead of your competitors and ahead of all those innovative startups coming along, it’s crucial to modernize your technology and business practices. Invest in the proper integrated management system, data analytics tools, website, eCommerce Store, EDI communication, etc. The more your business processes are streamlined and automated, the more your team will be able to concentrate on nurturing relationships with current customers and build relationships with new ones. It should be all about the customer and not about spending your days manually inputting data into Excel spreadsheets or manually entering new orders into your management system. Taking the focus away from nurturing client relationships is where companies fail to grow and compete with startup companies that are 100% about the customer. Look at companies like Uber; this startup company saw an opening when the taxi companies were not leveraging technology as much as they should have. Retail stores that are not taking their business online are having the same problem with all their competitors who are selling online through eCommerce Stores.
It’s important to look at the real benefits of all of these technologies rather than solely on the costs. This will allow your team to value the importance of tech advancements in the business world and welcome any positive changes with open arms. Nowadays, implementations are becoming much easier with Software as a Service and cloud options. However, this isn’t to say that big changes are always welcomed with open arms in organizations. Many employees and executives resist change and this can eventually hinder the progress of a company. Bringing in new technologies into an organization is of course considered a big change for EVERYONE. Trainings will be necessary to learn new business processes, practices and how to use the new systems. However, successful implementations are possible when everyone at the organization work together, embrace the new changes and keep an open-mind throughout the whole process.
The business world is always changing, therefore if you are not ready to innovate today or tomorrow, you may have no choice in 5-10 years from now, and at that point you will be far behind your competitors and struggling to catch up.
The real benefit of a fully integrated ERP management suite (with eCommerce, EDI, Warehouse Management and Business Intelligence integration) that fits well with your business requirements is consolidating ALL data into one single database and taking it one step further, by understanding what this data means (basically finding new insights for better decision-making and future strategies). It’s about understanding what your customers want and how to offer your products or services to them in the easiest and best way possible [be efficient!!].
Therefore, take a good look at your current IT infrastructure and determine if the system(s) you are using today will be a good fit for the next wave of your company’s growth plans. If not, it’s about time your business technology is supporting your business performance. Don’t keep pushing it another year; you don’t want to wait until an Uber-like startup disrupts your business. Get your free consultation here!
Read our article on ‘The Truth about ERP Implementations‘ here.
