4 reasons why all small businesses should love ERP

As proud partners of FinancialForce, a leading customer-centric ERP solution, we’re often asked whether small businesses should even consider adopting an ERP system. Surely anything that starts with the word ‘enterprise’ means ‘not applicable for smaller businesses’, right?

But thanks to the growth of cloud software solutions such as Salesforce and FinancialForce, that are increasingly affordable and easy to use, the magical world of ERP is opening up to businesses of all shapes and sizes, allowing them to benefit from the same levels of insight and all-round savviness as their bigger competitors.

ERP can help weed out inefficiencies, boost productivity, and generally help you make better business decisions.

Here are four reasons why all small businesses should be thinking about an ERP system of their own.

1. Scale-up – rapidly

Imagine your sales team doing so well that you’re struggling to keep up with the demand they’re creating. As a small business relying on manual processes to fulfil orders, you’re likely to struggle with sudden growth surge. ERP systems such as FinancialForce are good at reducing the impact of things like this. By automating certain time-consuming tasks, like entering data onto spreadsheets, it means your people can focus on higher-value activities.

2. Make better, faster decisions

ERP systems gather and deliver real-time data that can be applied to a range of business activities, such as marketing, accounting or general management. They allow you to make the really big decisions quickly and with all the facts at your fingertips. For example, your system might help you to spot an issue that’s holding back performance or productivity. As soon as you do, you can react rapidly to solve it, in the full knowledge that you’re making a call based on accurate, up-to-date information – and then move on to the next challenge.

3. Keep on the right side of the law

Constant changes in government legislation can be a big issue for small business owners, many of whom don’t have large teams of accountants or lawyers to help them keep up. An ERP system gives you a better handle on regulatory compliance, especially with the really tricky stuff like data security and financial accounting. The software keeps everything in line while ensuring your data is accurate – and if you do hit a problem, you’ll be able to trace it back to the source.

4. Streamline your systems

A well-installed ERP system will allow different information systems in your business to be streamlined into one. This means that anyone with permission can access and share relevant information in a few simple clicks, removing the need to export or re-submit data that could lead to mistakes. Thanks to this, you can drive greater transparency across the business, move people away from mundane data-crunching tasks, improve data accuracy and generally give your business productivity a shot in the arm.

Financial Force helps businesses rapidly translate demand into new revenue models, run more predictable business operations, and increase customer lifetime value. Unlike other ERP applications, FinancialForce extends the value of your Salesforce applications (e.g. CRM, CPQ, and Einstein) by seamlessly unifying sellers, professional services teams, and traditionally back-office professionals. Running your business with customers at the centre empowers you with highly actionable and holistic insights at every step of the customer lifecycle, ultimately driving business growth.

Contact Cognition24 to find out more or watch a demo here.