We are a small company; we do everything with spreadsheets, e-mail and telephone. For now it’s fine … indeed no!
This is one of the catchphrases used by small business owners, most of all by the Start-up. In fact it is normal to wonder whether a small company, it is convenient or not to introduce the use of ERP management software.
With this article, I will try to answer just that question, taking into account the experience made in recent years, where I had the pleasure of meeting many new companies, just start-ups.
The business grows, customers increase, and something starts to escape
This is the first alarm level that should hold up well under control. Often people think that the use of a management software is necessary for companies that exceed a certain turnover threshold. False! I know many companies, with turnovers content, which however have to manage a large number of customers or products and business operations.
Some businesses, for example, animate different items for sale and purchase, however, since low-priced items; the monthly turnover is not as high. If we look at the number of transactions and documents, which generate every month, we find the contrary of the significant numbers. If we add the complexity of managing very specific trading rules for different types of customers and products, the variables increase considerably and this can lead to several errors by users, high operating costs and in some cases poor service to customers.
TIP: If in your company you are experiencing some of the problems listed below, perhaps the time has come to think about how to organize the management processes:
- We shipped to the customer of the products other than those ordered
- Errors in invoices (wrong prices, payment terms other than those agreed with the customer)
- Customers solicit deliveries but we have not yet sent orders to suppliers
- We are late with the recording of receipts and payment defaults
- Warehouse sent the goods to the customer, shame about the transfer had not yet arrived. Now what do we do?
- The supplier’s invoice is wrong; I have to find the email with the agreed price.
- In the warehouse there are still products for over 10 months. No one thought to do some promotion ??
- The supplier has not delivered the goods there because we forgot to pay the bill to expire later this month
- We forgot to send the bank the statement of cash orders, it is now too late
- We do not have the complete picture of the status of customer orders. How do we decide the priority delivery?
- Our salesman calls us constantly to order status. We lose a lot of unnecessary time
- I cannot plan the financial resources and suddenly I find myself overdraft
Create management efficiency
It does not matter if your business is small, your customers always expect the best and you compare with businesses of all sizes. At first, you think that working on the price lever to win more business opportunities.
Moreover, if the company is small, the costs are lower and then you can apply reduced prices on products. This vision, however, cannot last long, there will always be someone who can make even lower prices. For this, it is essential to build immediately the culture of management processes efficiently and of course create a stronger added value.
Rapid order fulfillment
Measured the average time required to process the customer’s order from the moment of receipt of the order to the stage of fulfillment of the goods. Check how many steps are needed, how many times you need to replicate information, how many times the process crashes because some information is missing. All these operations contribute to increasing management costs.
Innovating the sales process with the b2b online transactions
Using the Internet is increasingly pervasive even when it comes to transactions between companies (business to business). Just because we talk about small companies, it is crucial to exploit these new technologies and create more rapid and controlled processes.
With the functionality integrated into the e-commerce management software Erp, you can easily provide your customers a product catalog online and directly capture orders from your customers or vendors. This saves time in the manual loading of the orders, the customer order process faster and improve the service. Customers will be able to see the technical data sheets to choose the right product for their needs in real time the stocks of your products warehouse.
Start-up of the Digital sector
Your company sells digital services? advice? online applications? Mobile App? The needs are certainly different from commercial companies, this does not mean that are simpler. In many cases, the start-up of the digital world implement completely new business models, which did not exist a few years ago. Let’s talk about innovative companies and therefore well prepared to use the technology. Often these actually use a high number of software tools, in many cases, however collation between them.
Use of project-management programs for job tracking, document collaboration platforms to share documents, CRM software for commercial activities, Marketing Automation platforms for online promotion and more.
These companies need a strong operational flexibility and not easy to find a single ERP management software that meets all the needs of the company.
Sales control, bank and cash providers are still a necessity
No matter if you develop app for the mobile devices or if you make Web sites or various consultancies. Your company should still manage to accurately and the basic processes, those that to understand spin entries and exits of each company. Control of sales, suppliers and financial resources are required to ensure the functioning of the company.
Also these companies must pay attention to the phase of invoicing, check that the work performed for customers are invoiced, manage any recurring contracts, check the receipts and related payment reminders, schedule payments of suppliers and keep an eye on the financial availability.
A management software Erp can contribute significantly to the control of these processes “core” of the company and represents the point of interconnection with any other operational instruments in the company.
Conclusions
Today it is the small companies, start-ups, which are within management efficiency from the start. The rest of today’s young entrepreneurs have an average degree and in many cases the master’s degree. In fact, I often talk to people who have a good competence in the economic and administrative spheres, key factors for those who must deal with the management of a company. Adopt innovative management software; it can therefore contribute to the rapid growth and success of the business.