Whether you've started, managed or worked in a small business, regardless of what market you're in, you'll be acutely aware of the long list of things to be done to turn a single sales lead into cash. Every step you take to move the prospect through each stage of the process of making the sale to banking the cash generates different types of information which most businesses want to store and organize in a system for immediate and future use. If this resonates with you then you probably need web based ERP software, here’s why…
Clouded thinking
Small businesses are arguably as complex as their larger counterparts and the necessary storage and organisation of information is a significant overhead in terms of complexity and effort. This burden is further compounded by misguided software developers who relentlessly and unrepentantly focus on exploiting three broad solution categories with 'point solutions' to address:
- Customer relationship management – the 'front office'
- Product and Service information – the 'mid office'
- Accounting – the 'back office'
Just like small businesses have to figure out how to make their business processes work effectively, misguided vendors expect business managers to have sufficient expertise to figure out which system(s) they need and how to make their choices work together. The complexity of these point solutions is overwhelming, as 'feature bloat' and overlaps with other categories of products create uncertainty, confusion and cloud the selection decision process. A mess of three parts
1. Customer relationship management systems
These provide the people that face the market with tools to capture and recall information about their leads, prospects and customers, such as details about companies, individuals and their needs and activities related to making the sale. Records of initial conversations, what actions need to be undertaken to follow up and the value and timescales of the sale all need to be stored for immediate and future analysis. In many cases these 'CRM' systems allow the user to create sales forecasts which are used in turn to help predict the fortunes of the business.
Overlaps – Designers of 'mainstream' CRM systems have thoughtlessly strayed into adding Sales Quotes and Orders to their bloated feature lists clouding the boundaries between CRM and accounting with overlaps, complicating the problem of aligning sales processes with accounting.
2. Product and Service information systems
Depending upon the type of business and what it sells are a very broad category. But can be roughly divided into three categories related to the processes of fulfillment.
- Inventory management
- Manufacturing systems
- Time and Expense capture
Regardless of the type of business one or all the above mid office systems are needed to track the availability, creation and fulfillment. To compliment these systems there is most always the need for an information system to manage and track the purchase of goods and services from suppliers.
More overlaps – Again vendors of these types of systems have added pseudo-accounting features which again overlap with accounting and CRM features.
3. Accounting systems
Normally the domain of the accounting and bookkeeping professionals, track the financial activity and health of the business. These systems enable the managers running the business to track and measure the income, expenditure, assets, liabilities and cash flow.
And more overlaps – Arguably the most complex of systems to design and no wonder the aforementioned vendors have not attempted to make a successful crossing into the land of the Accounting General Ledger and all of it’s mystifying subtleties. However Accounting system vendors in a desperate attempt to stave off competition have grafted on CRM features to their architectures which never designed to accounting as opposed to customer centric transactions.
Shallow thinking
Until the mid 'nineties' small businesses with small budgets have had to 'make do' with cheap CRM, mid office and accounting systems that either didn't work together or required 'stitching' together to create temperamental and inflexible bed fellows.
Small businesses have been 'force fed' a mixed prescription of inappropriate cures by marketers with shallow empathy and understanding of the challenges facing small companies.
These misguided software developers and shallow marketers have grown to become 'market leaders' – Faceless corporates who are still today paying lip service to the information system needs of small businesses as evidenced by newer and bloated versions of their 'point solutions'.
Not one of the 'big names' has announced let alone delivered an affordable, comprehensive ERP solution for small businesses. Enough said…
Joined up thinking
ERP software ties all of these 'front, mid and back' office systems together in a single system and with the addition of a reporting framework gives managers a complete view of the business which can be arranged and dissected to allow them focus on, analyse, track and monitor any aspect(s) of the whole process from lead to cash.
Until the almost universal adoption of the Internet by businesses, ERP software was only affordable by large businesses with pockets sufficiently deep enough to afford the very high software license and implementation costs.
Conclusion: Cloud computing lowers costs and complexity
Web based ERP software like NGRbON or for that matter NGRERP harnesses and leverages the low cost technologies to which the web has given birth and is simply an evolution of the traditional ERP system both in terms of a significant reduction in costs and complexity plus the added bonus of being accessible from any web browser.
Just like it's more expensive counterparts, web based ERP software gives small business owners and their managers better control and a real opportunity to change the performance and fortunes of their companies. Web based ERP software offers the smallest of businesses what was once the privilege of large businesses – an opportunity to enjoy and leverage the power of a single information system at a tiny fraction of the cost of it's monolithic predecessors.
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