Did you know you can profit from ERP?

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Bikky Khosla | 06 Apr, 2010
While SMEs are slowly waking up to the fact that adoption of IT tools in their operations can make them more competitive, the penetration of IT in SMEs is much below its potential. In many cases it is seen that buyers are required to automate order entries and their status and companies that are unable to provide this information have a significant disadvantage.

Though SMEs usually shy away from integrating new IT tools in their operations, they are however fast realising the necessity of setting up intra and inter-office networks, reliable IT infrastructure and the value of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and software products. They are now becoming aware that machinery with the latest technologies available to them which in turn utilize IT in areas like production monitoring, quality monitoring, quality control, etc. can streamline things and do away with unnecessary flab.

Since the Indian market after a couple of months of slowdown is growing again, every company will want to take advantage of the existing market dynamics to grow rapidly. For this, they have to learn from their earlier mistakes and all the same adopt new technologies. Indian SMEs are growing at a rapid pace and to fuel this bullish trend they need a software package to manage their growth.

SMEs today need ERP products to expand their business quickly, compete better in the Indian and global markets. In the absence of an ERP system, an SME may find itself with many software applications that cannot communicate effectively with one another. ERP systems allow inventory levels to be kept at maximum efficiency and aid the company in becoming more profitable. They also eliminate the problem of synchronizing changes between multiple systems, be it finance, marketing and sales, human resource, and manufacturing applications.

However, most SMEs are still wary of the benefits of ERP. Although ERP can act as a complete business software solution, companies in this sector feel that most ERP software are beyond their budgets, thus overlooking a vital fact that the advantages of ERP integration far outweigh the expense. Moreover, the downward movement of costs of hardware has made ERP packages more affordable.

Since the main objective of any ERP software is to systematically arrange and assimilate all the systems of entering data and processes, as related to business, SMEs can do away with challenges like adapting to changes in the multilateral trading system, reviewing internal business processes to confront from market forces, understanding and adapting to retailers' business requirements, developing strategic alliances with retailers, and fast and frequent responses to product orders from retailers.

The call of the day is to equip oneself with modern technologies and business processes like ERP solutions that can further provide unlimited access to information and enable one's company to compete effectively.
Those who have integrated ERP software in their operations are already reaping the benefits and they will surely agree that ERP solutions have indeed changed the way they do business now. Without doubt ERP can significantly improve the productivity of the SME sector and thus go a long way to improve business activities.