A Brief on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and How It Can Be Enhanced by PIM System
Managing resources for any organization is an encumbrance. Be it people’s resources or time as a resource, the proper planning of resources leads to a systematic process. The systematic process then later onwards will make you use your resources at an optimal level. As a manager you already have a lot on your plate of keeping track of tasks and time; you can’t have more burdens on yourself.
You need a proper system that identifies your resources, evolves your resources, and develops resources to their optimal for you to have maximum benefits. You need a simple solution for your complex problem of resource planning.
What is Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)?
Enterprise Resource Planning-ERP is an automated system that manages software and system of organization. ERP software simplifies the complex process of organization and manages all manufacturing, services, financial, supply chain, and other important processes of the organization. A complete suite of ERP applications offers compliance, supply chain management, risk management, and customer management.
ERP provides many solutions for your business, such as; risk management, financial management and helps you in communicating effectively. All your business processes can work smoothly as the data will flow from one end to another easily with the help of ERP. ERP is a common database for both cloud service and On-premise service.
When was the last time you have an unbalanced budget because you have trouble planning the statistics? Not very much longer, right? With ERP you can forecast your budget more effectively and accurately as the planning of the budget becomes much easier. You can have an efficient budget, as it will be nearly as similar to your predicted budget.
How Does an ERP System Work?
The main role of ERP is to make organizations enable on their feet to make maximum utilization of their resources. Better utilization of resources will increase the efficiency of your business. For any business’s growth or profit, the enhancement of resources without hindering the quality is most important. ERP works in a simpler way to solve your complex problem.
ERP collects and compares metrics of different departments and provides different reports. That way, it gives insights into your business’s performance. It also gives detail of how your resources are being used or unused. ERP generates reports after collecting data so that you can streamline the work process and can make real-time decisions for your business.
When Does Your Business Need ERP?
Achieving either your short-term goal or long-term goals is very difficult as there are many potential business challenges for your business that thwarts the growth. First thing is to analyze the challenge because when you analyze the challenges you also analyze the opportunities. For analysis of your business, nothing is as better as ERP.
The quite challenging task is to understand the need for ERP for your business. You need ERP when you are;
- Facing inefficiency of Resources
- The company’s growth has become stagnant
- Lacking Security Requirements
As stated above the challenges can be turned into opportunities only if you know how to react. You can have inefficiency of resources due to lack of knowledge or technology. It is quite natural to have stagnant company growth when you are not able to use your resources at an optimal level. Other activities that show the need for ERP are:
Your customers might be screaming at you because of incomplete data. Your day-to-day process is being delayed due to prolonged delayed activities. When you need to rely on manual tasks for your data management, all these are the indicators showing you need ERP for your business.
4 Key features of ERP systems
To be able to operate on maximum functions you need ERP and the key features of ERP are as stated below:
1. Integration
ERP integrates your business process across all departments. When one data is generated for one department it automatically reaches the other departments. The integration between departments will dismiss all possible conflicts. i.e. When one order is released- all departments will work in their individual area of expertise to make sure the product is shipped and the invoice is sent.
2. Real-time Operations
As all departments have integrated to work together for achieving the business goals, no department will need to rely on other departments for pending or missing product status or anything. All can work independently yet together and that will make the operation a real fast.
3. Common Database
Multiple departments have multiple manpower and all manpower might be having different definitions of workflow or product improvement. When you have ERP, you set one standard process of definition that everyone has to follow in every manner. ERP will generate a common database, which everyone must follow.
4. Consistency
A consistent system reduces training costs. ERP vendors keep consistency at their top-most priority and they also like to cope up with the changing trend of the market. Consistency from vendors will make your business more professional and trustworthy.
Do you think your business needs an Enterprise Resource Planning system that contains cutting-edge features?
Benefits and Business Value of ERP
From small enterprises to massive enterprises, ERP can overcome many business challenges for you. For your business, ERP has many benefits as discussed below.
1. Cost-saving option
As stated earlier, ERP integrates with departments so that their productivity and efficiency to carry out business goals will be increased. ERP provides integration and automation to businesses so that ultimately you need to imply lesser costs than you used to do.
2. Business Insight
If you know where your business stands then you know why it is where it is. With ERP you can have better insights into your business’s status. You can have ample opportunities with business insight. With aggregated information from one single source, you can have real-time data and can make an informed decision.
3. Fewer Efforts and Risk
There is no shame in accepting the fact that, when you perform manual tasks; the chances of risks are higher. You have to put so much effort into carrying out a manual task but with ERP you can be more relaxed as the ERP takes care of everything. You need not do any manual or risky tasks for your business.
4. Collaboration
In recent technology, no one likes to have a barrier and everyone wants to work in a neutral environment with zero communication barriers. ERP makes your technology collaborate with manpower and you can have improved job efficiency for your business.
Thus, the benefits of ERP are many-folded, but the important benefit of ERP is to make business/ organization meet their short-term and long-term goals.
Do you want to avail all the above-listed benefits by implementing the right ERP system?
Tips for Selecting an ERP System
Implementation of ERP system is an unnerving task but you need not worry as I have done the research and below are the simple tips for selection of ERP system.
Before straightaway picking a system you need to ask yourself that if the selected system aligns with your company goals? If the system matches your requirements or not? Will it easily integrate with your existing systems? Will network support be available? Would you be able to get recommendations from your customers?
Most importantly will the system help you in achieving your business goals? Once you narrow down the ERP system that follows all the above answers, the next step should be to check the features and reviews of the narrowed system.
Once everything falls in your favor you can adopt a system for your organization.
Here are the steps to be followed for selecting the right ERP system
- Know the system
- Check the compatibility
- Narrow Down System
- Check the review
- Implement System
What is the PIM System and How PIM and ERP Work Together?
A Product Information Management system is basically the source data of product information. In PIM the product information is stored securely till the product’s eternity. The source provider of information to PIM is ERP. PIM gathers the data from ERP for marketing and sales purposes. The PIM data can easily merge with your descriptive information and seamless workflow will be achieved.
PIM and ERP
For delivering accurate product information to your customer, these two systems work together and ensure that there is consistency and transparency maintained. The purpose of both systems is somewhat similar so they are complementary to each other and they serve the same purpose-growth of your business/ organization.
Product Catalog
Retailers need product information in large catalogs. For that PIM creates product catalogs after taking information from the ERP system. The catalogs will work accurately and will provide a detailed description of the products. For delivering accurate detailed product information to customers, you need collaboration with PIM-ERP.
Streamline Process
The collaboration of PIM-ERP will leave your organization to work in a streamlined process. There will not be communication barriers, there will not be inter-departmental conflicts, and there will not be procrastinated tasks. Your business will work on an optimal level with minimal efforts and minimal costs.
Fewer Efforts and Less Time
You must have experienced once in your lifetime, the struggle of managing a bundle of product information and might have faced catastrophic results for mismanagement of product information. The PIM-ERP makes your business put as much minimal effort as you can so that you have proper management of data in less time.
Do you want to get better insights into how PIM and ERP will work in sync?
Reasons to add a PIM System and Enhance Your ERP
We have seen the benefits of ERP and have seen the role of PIM. Now, we are going to discuss the reasons to add a PIM system for enhancing the ERP system.
1. Faster Data Onboarding
ERP system when performing as a single system; it has some barrier. The unwanted data may pile up and take up space of wanted data. You cannot keep track of inactive products with just ERP. You need PIM so that the concerned person can add the specific product information quickly.
You can standardize your data received from multiple suppliers with PIM. With PIM-ERP you can easily interpret product attributes. PIM makes sure that the product reached the market in the real-time and relevant product information is stored in a single place.
2. Data Integration
PIM can integrate the data of ERP as well as other systems, databases, spreadsheets, and programs. The process of e-commerce is incomplete without the visual representation of the product, so PIM also understands the concept and makes the objects visually available after tracing the data from the ERP system.
With PIM you will never juggle and can have a smooth, automated, and reliable work system. You can easily share the information, take reports, and make an analysis of the products. Say goodbye to your manual head-scratching tasks of data entry after the implementation of PIM for ERP.
3. Data Optimization
High-quality data that is consistent and reliable is most important for any e-commerce business. Likewise, the same you must need optimal data at every stage of your business. PIM and ERP ensure that you have high-quality data to impress your customer throughout all the stages of the product life cycle.
With these two systems, you can find unstructured data, you can find missing data, and can delete misused data. You can fill in the data gaps and remove errors of data with ERP-PIM.
4. Rich-product Experience
The pool of data from these two systems without any doubt will give a rich product experience to your customers. PIM provides rich product information so that the description features and benefits of the products are properly accessible to customers.
Using analytics PIM performs data for external markets and makes sure that your business is in lead than your competitors. Thus, the systems work together but without the PIM system, the ERP system is void.
Do you want to gain all the advantages listed above by integrating ERP and PIM?
Wrapping Up
To enhance your existing resources, you need an ERP system. To enhance the ERP system, you need a PIM system. The collaboration of both the systems will end up in having growth for your business, better productivity, better customer experience, better efficiency, lower costs, more profits, and fewer efforts.
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