How Can ERP Software Boost Strategic Planning?
How does ERP work?
ERP is a system that helps you plan and improves business efficiency. It collects data, stores, interprets and analyzes it. The data come from various departments such as production, finance and accounting, HR, procurement, sales, and more. You can also share data in real-time with external stakeholders such as vendors, customers, partners in one platform.
ERP software for strategic planning
Strategic planning decides the future moves of a company. In a more complex business environment, you should develop the strategies well and, fortunately, ERP provides everything that you need.
Imagine if you produce or sell goods armed with thorough knowledge of cost per item, projected demand in various market sectors, inventory forecast, and labor availability.
ERP software gives you vital data as your foundation in making the right and scalable decisions. So, not only does the system automates the daily tasks, but it also builds and implements your best strategies.
Strategy planning to implementation with ERP system
There are several steps in strategic planning before you can finally carry out the new strategies and its positive impacts on the company. We are going to break down the steps and elaborate on how ERP can make the most of these crucial processes.
Clarifying your vision
The purpose of goal-setting is to clarify the vision of your business. This stage includes three key elements:
- Define both short- and long-term goal
- Identify the processes that can help you achieve that goal
- Socialize the process to the employees and give them clear tasks
Make sure that these targets are detailed, realistic, and harmonize with the value of your vision. The most important thing in this stage is communicating these targets to your stakeholders and employees.
ERP helps you in delivering this information to many people in one platform. Don’t worry if in conveying these targets you are stating some confidential information. You can easily manage the document access right and the system ensures data security.
Collect and analyze information
An analysis is a crucial stage because the results will affect the next two stages. In this stage, you can start by collecting information and relevant data that can help you achieve your vision.
You should focus on what the company needs to sustain its entity and grow. It should be based on the SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity, threat) analysis.
As a system that digitized daily business operations, ERP can provide you accurate data regarding your business performance so far. You can generate the reports in a few seconds and the data will display in which part your strengths and weaknesses are.
ERP system also analyzes market trend and forecast the company’s need with its historical data analysis. It will help you prepare the strategy for the foreseeable market demand.
Formulate the strategy
The first step in formulating the strategy is by reviewing again the analysis. Then, what you should do next is deciding what resources your company currently has that can help reach the defined goals. You should also identify what are the obstacles that prevent you from growing or achieving the goal.
The issues should be prioritized by their importance to your success. After it is all settled, then you can start formulating the strategy. Make sure that you come up with several alternative plans because the business situation and economy are very fluid.
Thankfully, ERP has covered project management that can help you solve all of those issues while you’re preparing the strategy. It helps you solve it with minimum-cost, well-tracked progress, and efficiency.
You can input, prioritize, assign, and set the deadline for the issues. Both the internal team and external team can work and collaborate well because they can share data and information in real-time.
Strategy implementation
Successful strategy implementation is critical to the success of the business venture. This is the action stage of strategic planning. So, everyone in the company should know their responsibilities, tasks, and how they can contribute to target fulfillment.
An ERP system that is integrated into all departments facilitates this stage. Everyone can access their tasklist and monitor its progress for optimal implementation. Moreover, with KPI management, you can measure how your employees’ performance is.
Evaluate and control
Evaluating and controlling the established strategies involve measuring the performance, reviewing internal and external issues, and carry out corrective actions when necessary. Then, compare the actual results versus the plan.
ERP that stores business operational data can provide you with the comparison and point out the significant changes. You can generate the reports anywhere at any time accurately.
Conclusion
Ultimately the strategy of a manufacturing company should focus on meeting customers’ expectations by providing them products with quality, fulfilling market demands optimally, wit the most effective cost. With the powerful features that ERP has, you can achieve that easily.
How Can ERP Software Boost Strategic Planning?
0 Comments