ERP Success: How We Know Things are Better – Even Without Calculating ROI
Most organizations measure the success of a project by its return on investment (ROI) – but an ERP’s success is often evident without measuring its formal ROI.
With a successful ERP, you’ll see:
Increased productivity
ERP offers complete visibility into each of your business processes by putting data into a single database. With real-time updates and all data easily accessible to everyone, you can improve:
- Inventory management
- Supply chain management
- Planning/forecasting
- Collaboration
- Workflows
- Data security
- Regulatory compliance
- Best practices
Better analytics
The complete visibility and single database mean your ERP can readily create useful reports and analytics you can analyze for trends, compare across departments, etc. Business intelligence functions offer an even deeper level of analytical insights by identifying operational strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, improved analytics result in better business decisions.
Happier employees
Successful ERP systems reduce the time and effort required by your employees to carry out their daily activities. Streamlined data retrieval, lack of repetitive manual processes, easy-to-use dashboards, and other ERP system features make their jobs less tedious and allow them to focus on higher-level tasks. The ERP’s total visibility and real-time information help them make proactive decisions, which makes them feel more valued and increases their engagement.
Improved customer experience
Your customers also reap the rewards of an ERP system. Because their information is centralized and streamlined, your sales team can ditch the spreadsheets and focus on building and maintaining customer relationships. With the ERP’s visibility and real-time information, you can provide better customer service.
Enterprise resource planning systems are an asset, and while you’ll surely see the success by calculating the ROI, you can also gauge success with the above indicators.