Unpacking Agility and Efficiency with ERP

A new paradigm in Inventory Management

Discover the Blueprint
of
Your Enterprise’s Future

Table of Contents

  1. Prologue
  2. Understanding the significance of enterprise process efficiency
  3. ERP: The Pathway towards speed, fluidity and impact
  4. The Challenges and Costs of Poor ERP Choices
  5. Instruction Manual for pressing the ERP Switch
  6. What to look for when looking for ERP
  7. Concluding remarks

Prologue:

An organisation’s innate strengths and significance hinge closely on how it functions – straddling all areas – from simple to complex. Many processes at many organisations suffer from some long-endured and self-propagating inefficiencies that should have been wiped away with the help of technology and process redesign. Monolithic and heavy processes hold an organisation back from embracing the future – in many obvious and invisible ways.

Reincarnating unwieldy and moth-balled processes is more than a technology decision. It is a very crucial step towards reinventing the enterprise towards a fresh and confident posture of efficiency, agility, speed, fast and solid results and new-age competitiveness.

It is easy, and sometimes, tempting to continue with the status-quo. Change management is hard. Shifting one’s gears can be tricky. But the ‘opportunity cost’ of not doing so is quite heavy and cascades into many other parts of the organisation.

Assessing and re-configuring one’s processes is not just a luxury or a choice anymore. It is an imperative.

Understanding the
significance of enterprise
process efficiency

Every organisation deals with inventory in some form, degree, shape or stripe. Managing inventory entails space, manpower, resources and time. When done in a haphazard, inefficient and unplanned manner- this could mean a lot of implications for the organisation in terms of:

  • Heavy lead times
  • Poor procurement practices
  • High storage and transport costs
  • Sloppy material planning
  • Weak production capacity control
  • Lack of buffer stocks
  • Challenges in stock-taking, equipment control
  • High supply-chain costs
  • Wrinkles in overall supply-chain paths
  • Increasing propensity towards defects and quality issues
  • Provisioning and replenishment bottlenecks
  • Challenges with goods-issue, stock surveys, wastage control and scraps
  • Warehouse management problems
  • Quality control delays and errors
  • Weakness in preventive maintenance
  • Uninformed and random supply decisions
  • Strained relationships with suppliers and stakeholders
  • Untoward customer impact and complaints
  • Untoward customer impact and complaints
  • Deep-seated ripples into other areas of organisation
  • Inaccuracies, cash flow problems, lack of visibility and struggles with transparency
  • Issues with flow of goods and smooth logistics
  • Financial and operational costs
  • Poor manpower utilisation and morale issues

ERP: The Pathway towards speed, fluidity and impact

Thanks to technology and all the automation, process improvement, insights and visibility it provides; the entire process of inventory management can be transformed with new strengths.

All the blind-spots and challenges mentioned in the previous segment can be effectively and consistently addressed through the speed, agility and improvements that come in with e-procurement and smart inventory management. Decisions can now be based on data and real-time insights. Quick alerts can preempt many issues before they blow out of control. Precious money, time, space and manpower can be saved by injecting this tech-enabled process improvement. As a long-tail effect, areas like contracts management, PR, MRO, approvals, pricing, taxation etc. can also be augmented with incredible speed and efficiency.

The Challenges and Costs of Poor ERP Choices

Thanks to technology and all the automation, process improvement, insights and visibility it provides; the entire process of inventory management can be transformed with new strengths.

All the blind-spots and challenges mentioned in the previous segment can be effectively and consistently addressed through the speed, agility and improvements that come in with e-procurement and smart inventory management. Decisions can now be based on data and real-time insights. Quick alerts can preempt many issues before they blow out of control. Precious money, time, space and manpower can be saved by injecting this tech-enabled process improvement. As a long-tail effect, areas like contracts management, PR, MRO, approvals, pricing, taxation etc. can also be augmented with incredible speed and efficiency.

As noted in a survey done by research firm Mint Jutras, only 67 percent rate their ERP implementations are successful or very successful. As to the reasons for lack of implementation success, the chief ones observed were issues with business process re-engineering and inadequate project planning. Also, 25 per cent wrestled with unexpected tech or organisational issues with additional costs and 11 per cent suffered with poor fit and lack of functionality. These patterns reinforce the crucial need for making a careful and strategically-oriented ERP decision.

An Instruction-Manual for
pressing the ERP Switch

It is vital that an organisation embraces a BPR or Business Process Reengineering approach to process improvement of any enterprise area. This will help to empower the organisation with ultimate levels of speed, efficiency, data control, forecasting, decision-making, visibility, workflow improvement and optimisation in the entire procurement and inventory cycle.
ERP or technology reconfiguration here should span across the entire continuum of areas that matter in this context.

Like:

  • Warehouse management
  • Information control and empowerment
  • Workflow improvement
  • Contracts and approvals
  • Supplier and vendor management
  • Materials management
  • Financial planning, forecasting and savings
  • Budget planning and management
  • Data migration and visibility
  • Production management
  • Audit, governance and compliance
  • Overall optimisation and efficiency

What to look for when
looking for ERP:

Just making the decision of transforming processes into an ERP-led environment will not suffice to elicit the outcomes envisaged. An enterprise should be rigorous, meticulous and laser-sharp in selecting an ERP expert who has pragmatic and wall-to-wall capabilities in the entire ERP Journey.

It is important to choose a partner that is equipped with:

  • Apt competencies, tools and teams for need identification and design as per the organisation
  • Compliance with relevant regulatory frameworks and IEEE/ ITU standards
  • Flexibility and context-knowledge of the nature/ type of project or solution needed
  • Ability to handle legacy system issues, localisation needs and challenging project management scenarios
  • Proven track record of successful completion of similar ERP initiatives
  • The complete spectrum of tools and strengths needed for ERP choices like Safal Logistics[P1] 
  • Complete expertise in installation, testing, commissioning and acceptance testing
  • Adequate capabilities and support on manpower, data, migration and training needs entailed
  • Frictionless interface ability with existing environments and middleware platforms
  • Superlative delivery implementation, SLA management and schedule adherence
  • Trust and prompt support in areas like resolution, incident management, response time etc.
  • High levels of uptime, disaster recovery support and ability to mitigate downtime and security concerns
  • Deep understanding and strengths in architecture, interoperability, infrastructure, transition and last-mile impact
  • Confidence, integrity and flair to handle high-stakes and critical verticals like government and mission-heavy services

Conclusion:

ERP is rapidly becoming a hygiene factor instead of a decision that can be postponed again. As per figures from ResearchandMarkets, the ERP software market size has been slated to grow from $182.22 billion in 2023 to $202.69 billion in 2024 and $311.4 billion in 2028. If we observe the prognosis of Fortune Business Insights, this market is expected to grow from $81.15 billion in 2024 to $238.79 billion by 2032. Also, warehouse management market was surmised at about $3.94 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.5 per cent from 2024 to 2030. And Fortune Market Insights pegs the inventory management software market at $ 2,191.2 million by the end of 2024 and at $7,516.8 million by 2034.

Going on without ERP can have costly ramifications in not just the concerned process area but in many adjacencies and domino-effect areas as well. Also, simply deciding for the ERP intervention in an age that is laden with new technologies and changes every day can be quite overwhelming and disorienting for an enterprise. Thus, it’s advisable to spend time in choosing a partner that packs both the wisdom as well as the competency-portfolio for helping the enterprise navigate this complex transition.

Make the shift towards a world of smart processes, data-led decisions and tech-enabled visibility. Let go of fatigue, delays, friction, cost-chokes and inefficiencies that pull your enterprise back from the fast lane of evolution and high impact.
Choose the ERP path. Choose it with the right pilots.

Start for Free with Presence360

We will email you about this product.

Request a Demo