The year 2021 marred by the Pandemic impacting businesses and organizations across the world to change and transform. Companies were forced to rethink their business processes and operating models to navigate a post-coronavirus world.
It is essential to Identify your business transformation roadmap and plan while helping your employees through the process (organizational change management).
ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. This is a part of the software industry that helps small businesses manage their inventory, financials, customer relationships and more. The software is used by some of the world’s biggest companies with hundreds or even thousands of employees including IBM, Amazon and Microsoft. ERP solutions and systems are more than just business management software though. They include all the functionality you’d expect in a full-featured enterprise software suite, from CRM and accounting to e-commerce and payroll.
Using ERP solutions helps you establish two questions:
What should you be doing to define your business transformation roadmap for the decade ahead?
What’s an affordable real-time software application?
Key ERP Solutions to make your businesses thrive during the pandemic
Strategic Decision Making
Make key strategic decisions to make your business thrive during a pandemic. As the saying goes, “A fool with a plan is better off than a genius without a plan”. To have a strategy plan or map is not the same as having a strategy and working on it. Five qualities that Business Leaders should be thinking of to find their way to the next normal during this pandemic are resolve, resilience, reimagine, return and reform. Areas within the business to focus on will be to recover the revenue, rebuild operations, restructure the organization and accelerate digital solutions. Remember, without action you aren’t going anywhere.
Modern ERP solutions with various platforms give organizations the ability to analyze business conditions to develop improved business plans, monitor and measure progress also provide the visibility into day-to-day operations.
Customer Retention
Retaining your customers is the key to thrive during the pandemic. M.K. Gandhi quotes that customer is king But the pandemic has forced us to reimagine the way we do business. The challenge is many customers are showing little interest in making long term commitments during the time of despair, so we need to reorganize our businesses into offering short-term engagement options with quick actions like delivery, turnaround time, and resolution, promotions and offers. Keep your existing customers by adding an element of surprise to make it more interesting to them and for a long term engagement. Gift Cards, Discounts, over delivering for the same cost, engaging your customers in activities through social media as well as offering virtual products or services.
ERP solutions will enable you to study your customer behaviour and categories them, which will help us understand the customer and pitch the right product or service to them. CRM can be useful in retaining your customers and improve your customer relationship by creating responsive and effective customer support services. Because this is a customer centric approach, retaining loyal clients and creating brand identity will lead to more business referrals.
Financial Forecasting
The Pandemic has forced many businesses to revise their financial forecasts. Most organizations need to plan their financial year budget to establish respective financial goals and targets for the following year by keeping multiple scenarios in mind. Including what the different four quarters (Q1, Q2, Q3 & Q4) hold. All financial forecasting includes restructuring incentives and compensations, focusing on debts such as loans and bonds all which need to be measurable and foreseen.
With ERP solutions for Accounting and Financial Management your business can generate detailed financial reports, focus more on automation, avoid duplication and give you more control over your spending.
Remote Work – Keeping Employees Productive
Most businesses have implemented the policy of working remotely from home to their employees. As remote workers distance themselves from participating in office activity, they may face loneliness and some may abuse this condition which could potentially limit productivity. Business continuity will be possible with improved communications using digital platforms and streamlining processes which raises the bar for higher and efficient productivity.
ERP solutions will be helpful for remote workers as they will need a single source of real time and accurate data. This will be effective in efficient decision-making which results in reduced administrative and operational costs and proactive business management..
Stabilize Cash Flow
Many different sectors of industries like travel, hospitality, Mining, Construction, Manufacturing, Education etc. have experienced serious setbacks and are struggling to survive as a result of the pandemic. As a result of this, they are only now bouncing back with decentralized workforce, software applications and tools.
ERP has helped many industry sectors with late purchase order reporting, purchasing and planning reports, automated workflows, timely reminders of overdue invoices, cash flow reports, real-Time reporting, and revised tax or exempted tax RCM (reverse charge mechanism). ERP solutions and softwares help businesses stabilize cash flow for better financial decisions.
Low cost and effective Marketing Strategies
A strong marketing and sales team, channels, affiliates, and partners is the key to a successful business. Market segmentation and competitive analysis has become the strategy for low cost and effective marketing strategies today. Grow your online presence by joining the digital platforms and focusing on product and service as well as adaptive pricing strategies.
ERP solutions, systems, and tools enable the decision-makers to eliminate high-cost strategies and effectively manage the inventory, control manufacturing processes, and other back office functions in order to boost marketing and sales practices.
AI Based Customer Profiling
Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered by CRM and ERP solutions are shaping the businesses especially in the manufacturing, banking, insurance, retail, hospitality, automobile, and e-commerce sectors. Advanced AI-based processes that use customer data along with CRM and ERP software improve customer experience. Using tools like AI powered chatbots and virtual assistants allow you to study usage patterns, purchasing behavior, and automate processes at the same time.
Cloud based ERP that uses Artificial Intelligence Enterprise Solutions will transform the way businesses perform while enhancing their sales and grow their customer base.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate social responsibility entails humanitarian work which makes your business visible. Customers across the globe feel like they are doing their part when they use a product or service from a socially responsible company. We have witnessed that though the global economy was impacted with the Pandemic many big businesses made good profits. Big companies like Google, Amazon, Tata Group and many more have made good profits despite the pandemic by giving back to society. These brands gain their popularity by engaging in activities such as:
- Reducing carbon footprints
- Improving labor policies
- Participating in Fairtrade
- Charitable giving
- Volunteering in the community
- Corporate policies that benefit the environment
- Socially and environmentally conscious investments
ERP systems support social responsibility when organizations have identified a need to integrate and automate their CSR processes and information, and are looking to their vendors for ERP solutions and framework. This allows information to be centralized so that you can manage CSR activities within any functional area.
Implementing these solutions can advance your business and help position it globally and futuristically. Do you want to scale your business? Get in touch with us at www.techintegraerp.com – TechIntegraERP’s all–in–one integrated cloud–based ERP software with the capability to serve all kinds of organizations irrespective of size, age & capacity.