Business technology can be a big investment, and finding a solution that not only meets your unique business needs, but is also easily adoptable by your employees can be a daunting task. This online guide can help lead you through the processes of assessing your business needs, researching available software to meet those needs, and implementing the best business management technology for your business. No matter what product or provider you eventually select, the tips, tools, and templates in this guide can help ensure you make the right investment. On This PageGetting started: What does "business solution" mean to your company?Every day, you pursue your business model with your vision and goals. You serve customers, locate new revenue opportunities, strive to outperform competitors, and accomplish as much as possible with limited resources. You build productive relationships with vendors and business partners. And you look for the highest possible return on your investments. Software technology, and the people who will use it, can help you steer the business in the best direction. Business management systems, also known as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, can play a critical part in your success. But how do you find the best technology solution—a solution that meets your business needs, but is also familiar so that your employees can adopt it quickly and start putting it to work? You need to evaluate your company's needs, define the problems you expect your solution to address, research the wide range of business software available today, determine what solution is best for you, and find an experienced IT professional to assist in implementation. If you want to take your business forward by using technology wisely—these pages are for you. They can assist you in understanding what a business management system can do, planning your evaluation, and designing your solution. And to illustrate key points, a fictional scenario unfolds as you read, following a distribution business through the processes of determining business needs and defining their solution. To get started: | • | Begin by asking a few simple questions to determine if you want to pursue a business management solution. Tools you can use: You can download an assessment worksheet (see the upper right column on this page) to help you prepare questions and information for this step. | | • | Review a short, executive primer about enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. | | • | Learn how to tell when you've outgrown your business software. |
When to consider a business management solutionAre you wondering if a full-fledged business management solution is right for you? Many of the best solutions available today are modular, so you can implement only the functionality that you need now, and make enhancements and upgrades as your requirements change. Unlike older ERP systems, today's flexible solutions can extend to almost any important business process or practice in your organization, including financial management, sales and service, and human resources. For an overview of what a new system can help you accomplish, consider critical thresholds in the life of your organization, or key areas that need to reach peak performance for your business to thrive. Critical thresholds It's not always easy to identify clear thresholds that call for a new business management system. However, there are several indicators that can send a strong signal that change is needed: How fast is your business growing? Your business recently won a significant number of new customers, added new products and services to its offerings, hired more staff to accommodate changing business requirements, or is beginning to extend into new market segments. Your software systems and business technology are still at the state they were in when your concern was more limited in revenue, numbers of customers, products and services, or employees. | | Business scenario 
| Northwind Traders manufactures and distributes specialized measuring devices for the food processing industry. The company is doing well. The sales team just booked a major contract with a leading manufacturer of health food products. In addition, Northwind Traders is beginning to explore business opportunities with several leading makers of cosmetics. Several of the company's long-term developments have finally turned into marketable products that are now stocked in the warehouse. In addition to the company's headquarters in Bellingham, Wash., the company opened a distribution center and sales office in San Luis Obispo, Calif. And the company recently hired additional staff to keep up with growth. |
Is current technology restricting your movements? Your workers need to enter and access information in too many different applications, causing errors. Because of disparate software, people in one department can’t integrate or exchange information with their coworkers in other departments. Systems administrators get an unprecedented number of requests for workarounds that strain the capabilities of current software, and employee productivity does not appear to benefit from software tools. Or, maybe you acquired another company, and now you need to find a way to combine the technological infrastructures of the two. | | Business scenario 
| Northwind Traders bought a small company years ago and never had the opportunity to integrate the two companies' data and technology. The result: Duplicate inventory databases, order entry, and customer relationship management systems. Information about customers who order products from both former companies' product lines is very hard to find and aggregate, making it difficult to provide a good customer experience. The small IT group often acts as the company research group, helping to locate customer and transaction data. |
How well can you plan and manage the business? You know information about business performance and customer preferences resides somewhere in your organization—but you can't get to it with ease, and it's useless in your strategic planning. Key business partners and suppliers can't connect to your business processes efficiently. | | Business scenario  | Rajesh Patel, Northwind Traders VP of sales, wants to forecast sales for the next year. The company has been profitable ever since its founding in the early '90s, and its business is not seasonal. Still, Rajesh finds it difficult to locate past sales results and establish reasonable projections. In a meeting with Jill Shrader, chief financial officer (CFO), it turns out that Jill has the same problem. Northwind Traders appears to be doing well, but, lacking visibility into actual business performance, it is almost impossible for executives to plan ahead and take the company forward. |
Key functions: Distribution, manufacturing, financials, CRMLooking at it from another angle, you may want to consider the opportunities that business management solutions can present in several critical business areas: Distribution: Are the right goods in the right place at the right time? What improvements do you need to better manage inventory, warehouses, orders, and purchasing? Is sales forecasting accurate and dependable, and does it connect directly to your materials and inventory planning? A strong business management system can improve efficiencies in distribution and supply chain management, help control costs, and use limited resources to accomplish optimal results. Manufacturing: Can you make what your customers want, better and more efficiently? What would be the effect if you could develop, produce, or assemble products faster or with less overhead? Consider the quality of your output—would you like to see a higher level of consistent product quality with effective quality assurance? In addition to these factors, many organizations implement a business management system so they can respond to market trends and competitive pressures with greater agility. | | Business scenario 
| Northwind Traders success has brought the company into competition with much larger companies. But the big competitors have an advantage: They've implemented technology to help them quickly customize products for customers, and to help develop and bring new products to market at astonishing speeds. If Northwind Traders tried to do the same today, it would run into quality issues. Ray Chow, chief operations officer (COO), can see huge opportunity in tightening the manufacturing processes. But, he knows that Northwind Traders doesn't have the funds or personnel that larger companies have spent on technology to address manufacturing issues. |
Financial management: Is business performance in line with your strategy? You closely watch financial performance and financial events affecting your business, and manage your finances as efficiently as possible. What if you could simplify and accelerate financial management and make critical, financial information available more easily? The right system could, for example, help minimize the time and effort your staff devotes to month-end closing. An easy-to-use interface can minimize human error in financial processing. A good financial management system could also help you create valuable financial reports based on all relevant information in your organization. | | Business scenario 
| Paula Bento, CEO, and Jill Shrader, CFO, are already considering taking the company public. If that happens, Northwind Traders needs to streamline financial management and satisfy additional reporting requirements. Even with the company privately held, owners are concerned with the dependability and efficiency of its financial management and reporting. In addition, some competitors have voluntarily committed to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and Northwind Traders needs to demonstrate the same fiscal responsibility. But the practices required are going to be costly and time-consuming without a technology solution to assist. |
Customer relationship management (CRM): Do customers love doing business with you? Your relationship with your customers may be the most important one in your business. Are you making it easy for them to do business with you? Do you understand their needs and preferences, and are you satisfying them? A new system can help you bridge the gap between your customers and your sales and marketing efforts. Possible benefits include high sales revenue and better customer retention. | | Business scenario 
| While business is strong, VP of sales Rajesh Patel worries about customer retention. Listening to his team, he knows their work isn't getting easier. Sometimes it seems that for each new customer they win, one is lost to a competitor. Rajesh knows that the company can't become a market leader if this trend continues. He also realizes that, despite best efforts, the sales team hasn't significantly increased the annual dollar volume per customer. A CRM solution may help Northwind Traders manage its customer relationships with better results—and better service levels as well. |
Next steps: Defining and designing your solutionSo, you learned more about what business solutions are, considered key business functions your company needs to improve, and determined that the time is right to take your business to the next level with technology. Now you're ready to take next steps to ensure that your company makes the right selection:
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