When is the right time to acquire an ERP solution?

What are the conditions and when is the right time to invest in a new ERP solution? When your business is growing? When you expand your activities? When deciding to move forward with an acquisition? These are just some of the cases where acquiring a new ERP solution is advisable.

Business expansion

If your business is growing and your infrastructure has reached its limits, then it is time to acquire a new ERP system. A carefully chosen ERP solution will enable you to monitor your operations across different platforms and locations. It will also increase data flow and speed, allowing you to make better informed decisions and even more accurate, up-to-date and quicker adjustments.

New development prospects

During its early stages, every new business needs to plan for its potential development and scalable ERP systems enable all businesses, especially SMBs, to monitor trends and compliance issues that may be related to their operations. You can effectively manage your business processes (cash flow, inventory, etc.) from a single ERP platform and upgrade your system -if necessary- to one that will help you streamline even more processes (CRM, real-time analytics, etc.).

Acquisition/Merger

Acquisitions and mergers may result in incompatible or obsolete ERP systems, since the companies involved may be using different business models that will need to be strategically merged. In order to decide which of the two systems is the best, you’ll have to examine all options.

Lack of automation

Any processes that are not yet automated, will have to be thoroughly examined before being migrated to an ERP system. This would be the ideal time to check for duplicates or errors, before migrating all your data to the new ERP system’s main database. And, of course, you should determine how this data will be used, and what additional features you could take advantage of.

Expensive systems

If you have come to realize that your existing systems are too costly, then it is time to optimize your operations, applications and processes with an ERP system that will also provide you with all the right tools that will allow you to identify new opportunities and more.

Improved security

An ERP system can help you protect your business against cyber-attacks that threaten both your safety and reputation. As an integrated system, ERP unifies all departments and data, simplifies access and management, and makes security -in general- all that much easier.

ERP solutions offer a controlled environment that allows selective access and password-based encryption, and also offers easy monitoring from your vendor. The same stands for regulatory compliance, especially when it comes to data security and customer data confidentiality.