What Do Best-in-Class Growing Businesses Have in Common? An ERP System

When we talk about ‘best-in-class’ growing businesses, we’re talking about the top 20% of performers. Considering how many small to mid-size businesses there are in Canada and the US, making your way into that 20% is a challenge. But it’s certainly not impossible. And the best way to move your business toward that goal is to look at what the top performers are doing that you aren’t. According to Aberdeen research, there’s one big thing these best-in-class businesses have in common – they’ve implemented an ERP system.

What will an ERP system do for my business?

If you’re used to running disparate systems for each core process, you know how complex your systems can become. Managing data is a cumbersome and manual task. And making timely decisions based on real data is challenging, to say the least. An ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solution integrates the data from all areas of your organization in a single system. In short, it simplifies the way you run your business. But let’s dig into some specifics to paint a clear picture.

Reduce your operating costs

Many small to mid-size companies hold off implementing an ERP system until they’re in pain. The reason we hear most often is cost. They don’t feel ready to make the financial investment in business management software. Instead, they implement more affordable point solutions to address the most immediate needs. Then they often end up hiring more staff to handle the highly manual processes.

Top performers have a different mindset when it comes to cost. They see the value of investing in an ERP system early on to reap long-term financial benefits. Aberdeen’s research shows the companies that implement ERP see an 11% reduction in their operating costs on average. These savings often come from efficiency. Think of how much time you spend on manual processes across the entire organization. With an ERP system in place, that time is significantly reduced. Aircom Instrumentation saw an average time savings of 1 hour per day across 12 people after implementing SAP Business One. That allowed them to re-invest $60,000 of their annual labour budget into higher value tasks. Just think about what you could do with an extra $60K…

Make faster, more informed business decisions

Making quick decisions is essential for growing businesses. You need to be agile to take advantage of changes in the market. When your business was small, you could likely make these decisions based on your gut instinct. But when you reach a certain size, this just isn’t possible anymore. To make the best decisions for your business, you need quick access to accurate data. You have to start managing by the numbers.

Take a pause here – are you able to do this today? Can you pull reliable information from your systems with a quick turnaround? Or are you waiting hours, days or even weeks to get insight into your performance? If you fall into the latter category, you’re not alone. Ninety-four percent of companies without an ERP system say they lack real-time visibility.

This is where you really start to see the impact an ERP system has on your business. If 94% of SMBs don’t have real-time visibility, that opens a significant window of opportunity for you. You can start making better decisions in about a third of the time and leapfrog your competitors.