When growing a business finally reaches a level where spreadsheets cannot serve, company managers may need to search for “What is ERP?”. ERP systems if the solution for organizations to digitize their process, save them from mountains of spreadsheets and increase their workforce productivity.

Although many business professionals might have heard the term “ERP”, not all of them understand exactly what ERP means, how it works, the benefits it can bring to their organization, or how to choose the right ERP system.

MonsterOdoo is a team of Odoo ERP professionals helping companies of all sizes innovate their operations by providing full Odoo ERP deployment services. In this article, we will provide the answers to all the above questions to get you ready for your successful ERP deployment to innovate your business and boost growth.

ERP stands for enterprise resource planning. The easiest approach to understanding ERP is to assess all of the essential business operations required to run an enterprise: accounting, finance, human resources, manufacturing, supply chain, sales, procurement, and so on. At its most basic level, ERP aids in the effective management of all of these processes in a unified system. It is frequently referred to as the organization’s record system.

Every organization must execute work that involves a large number of stakeholders with different responsibilities. However, this is difficult when the information required to perform operations and make crucial choices is dispersed across disconnected systems. Employees struggle to find what they need and may not have access to all data whether it is stored in basic business management software or spreadsheets. For example, the accounting and finance departments may use separate spreadsheets with different statistics for expense tracking.

For the last quarter-century, many of the world’s most well-known and successful companies have relied on ERP to operate their businesses. This software may now be customized and priced to fit the demands of organizations of all sizes.

These disconnected data resources will hinder collaboration, efficiency, productivity, and especially organizational growth. It is also difficult to access a full picture of the business with accurate reports to make data-driven decisions.

An ERP system addresses this issue by centralizing information in a database to provide managers and staff with cross-departmental visibility. It also eliminates the issues associated with competing data sources, allowing them to assess multiple situations, uncover process improvements, and achieve significant efficiency benefits. This equates to cost savings and increased productivity as individuals spend less time searching for data.

For the last quarter-century, many of the world’s most well-known and successful companies have relied on ERP to operate their businesses. This software may now be customized and priced to fit the demands of organizations of all sizes.

As mentioned above, organizations of all sizes can benefit from ERP, not only large corporations but also SMEs.

Choosing the right ERP system offers SMEs many competitive advantages. Below are the 6 key benefits of ERP to transform SMEs businesses:

ERP systems function by utilizing a defined, standard data format. Information entered by one department is immediately accessible to authorized users throughout the organization. This consistent framework keeps everyone on the same page. 

Assume a local food distribution network includes many outlets that frequently share goods and workers. When quality, sales, and personnel data from these locations is entered into the ERP system, it is structured to reflect the location from which it came.

The real-time data is then incorporated into departmental business processes and workflows. Leaders can observe whether one location is considerably better than another a few towns over at preventing waste and seek to figure out why, while operations can ensure staffing levels fit with traffic patterns.

ERP systems bring the most value when companies facilitate modules for each major department and ensure timely accurate data entry.

The collected data allows for faster data discovery and reporting, as well as a comprehensive picture of company performance and insights into how resources are allocated.

An ERP includes a number of different modules with features that can be tailored to fit your business demands. The most widely used ERP modules include:

ERP software price varies greatly based on the vendor, modules, and deployment style. In general, overall costs might range from less than $10,000 per year to millions of dollars per year. ERP systems are priced based on the demands of the target users, therefore those developed for new and high-growth organizations will be less expensive than those utilized by Fortune 500 corporations.

Because there is no hardware to acquire or system specialists to employ, cloud-based ERP, especially SaaS solutions, typically offer cheaper initial costs than on-premises software. A SaaS solution is one in which the vendor handles maintenance and charges its clients an annual fee, sometimes on a per-user basis.