Introduction: 

You see an opportunity staring you in the face. You dive headfirst into seizing it without laying out a proper plan of attack. Your golden chance blows up in your face, and you are left sulking with regret. We have all had our fair share of hot-headed failures. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is a brilliant opportunity to maximize your profit margins, improve consumer satisfaction, streamline production processes, and optimize job routines. However, its implementation is incredibly tricky, and its use can be convoluted for end-users to follow. Proper allocation of resources, personnel, and funds is also crucial. The way to solve this problem is to use some key strategies both before and after the implementation. To ensure that you do not have to live with a decision you will later regret, this article will point out useful strategies and tips for your business.

What are ERP Strategies?: 

These are guidelines, tips, and tricks that you should follow before, during, and after implementing the ERP software. The more thorough and specific your approaches are, the more successful the implementation is likely to be. This has the potential to save money with proper investments, paid plans, and streamlined maintenance. It can also save much time and generate more profit as the overall system is made more efficient. . 

Strategies Before Implementation: 

1) Clearly Define Your Needs: 

It can be easy to get carried away with all the bells and whistles offered by ERP vendors. However, the project can quickly get out of hand, and you may find yourself with inadequate funds and a lengthy and complicated implementation process. Therefore, it is essential to analyze your existing systems and their KPI (Key Performance Indicator) to figure out which ones are underperforming and need an upgrade. It would help if you did this by recording and cataloging data with input from each of your key employees and stakeholders from each system. Regular surveys, polls, or interviews with your workers can bring subtle problems and idiosyncrasies to the table while maintaining a healthy rapport. This will allow you to set the optimum budget and staff for the project while helping you figure out the correct implementation to make your employees happy. You must also let your vendors know about your financial constraints or requirements to avoid spending beyond your means.  

2) Set Out Your Goals: 

Once you figure out what you need, it is crucial to think about what you want your ERP software to achieve. For example, you may wish to improve consumer satisfaction by introducing a 24/7 customer support system with automated databases. Or you may want to maximize profit margins to increase ROI. You may even want automated job scheduling for more efficient production processes. Laying out your goals in a straightforward manner allows you and your team to make the right decisions to reach those goals. It is also essential to be realistic about your goals and to compartmentalize them into phases or steps. This gives vendors adequate information to produce a tailor-made software solution for your needs and for your workers to work towards those goals more efficiently. 

3) Choose the Right ERP System: 

While there are many types of ERP systems on the market, you should pick one best suited to your needs. Your project team should conduct thorough research by consulting with each vendor and taking them out for a test run. All the information about your employees and systems should be close at hand and made available to the vendor. Test runs should be carried out with your own IT team to get them acquainted with the software and allow demos to key personnel in each area of your business. It is also essential to look at each vendor's specific modules and compare their efficacy to competitors on the market. These modules may be warehouse management, CRM, waste management, or sales management. 

4) Ensure Proper Training: 

The last important strategy is to properly train your employees to use the ERP software to its fullest extent and potential. This can be done in-person or online and should be positively encouraged. You should have a team of IT experts so that your workers can refer to them if they have any queries, and you should also give plenty of incentives to reward hard work. 

Strategies After Implementation: 

1) Analyze the Impacts: 

Once the implementation is complete, there must be routine documentation of each process, its flaws, instances of error, and employee feedback. You should take regular surveys of your workers and maintain constant communication with them about the system and their experiences. You should also hand out surveys to your customers and use predictive AI and consumer feedback to determine your clients' overall satisfaction. A team of analysts should be on hand to calculate the system's marginal benefits using all the information provided. The standard metrics include KPI and ROI. Depending on the report results, you should decide whether to continue with this implementation, remove it altogether, or tweak it.

2) Ensure Proper Maintenance:

Being proactive in maintenance can save a lot of time and money. It would be best if you tried to have foresight about the system's potential risks and flaws based on the information at hand and then delegating duties to your team of engineers to solve those problems. There should also be flexible communication streams to maintain and repaired as fast as possible. This will reduce downtime and potential losses as the system otherwise takes more time to be repaired.

3) Analyze Areas of Further Improvement: 

ERP software is not a one-stop solution to all of your problems. Even months after the implementation, there can still be areas of improvement. As such, the collection and distribution of information should be fluid, fast, and dynamic so you can figure in real-time how each aspect of your system is working. It would help if you also analyzed market changes and consumer demand and areas of potential growth for your business. This will allow you to make more effective upgrades and changes to your system.

Ergo Ventures is a digital transformation firm and the only Silver Partner of Odoo in Bangladesh. We are confident in recommending Odoo with its host of powerful features, reliable server support, clean and intuitive UI, and diligent consumer support as the perfect ERP solution for your business. To contact, call at +880 19388 555 00 or shoot a mail at info@ergo-ventures.com.