Why you should take advantage of these times to re-evaluate the relevance of your ERP

26 March 2020

by Serge Clauss, Business & Sales Development Manager EMEA

Coronavirus is affecting both individuals and the economy as a whole; it’s a difficult time for all of us. Professionally, this slowdown in activity could be an opportunity for you to re-evaluate your current way of working and reconsider the relevance of your ERP.

There is not much you can do now to tackle the crisis. But now, you have the chance to take a step back and do some of the things you normally wouldn’t have time to do. One of them is to reflect on the strategic direction of your organisation. Take the opportunity to consider key strategic initiatives to support the organisation’s future growth and evolution. Our world, the economy and your business will recover, that’s a given. But when the normal pace resumes, will you be able to keep up?

Turn these troubled times into a business opportunity: study and analyse the relevance of your existing processes and workflow, and how your current ERP system supports them. You will probably discover an array of shortcomings and blind spots, island solutions and workarounds you had overlooked in the past.

This may be the ideal window of opportunity to discover the full added value of a new business software solution for your company.

The isolation may create a better environment for study, and it is perfectly possible to meet (remotely) with key stakeholders, organise conference calls, share presentations with your staff, express your ideas and obtain their feedback. Together, you can assess how a new ERP solution might improve the way your organisation works, and how it can streamline your processes and reduce the error rate.

Most ERP solutions are flexible and robust enough to handle complex business processes in various ways. With this in mind, it is important to precisely define your general workflows in order to better identify the main aspects your ERP needs to cover. Don’t think about technology: your ERP will certainly be able to handle it. Think more about the way you do things and the reason why you do them that way. How about your e-business flow? Is that web shop still an island in your organisation, out of step with the reality of costs and production capacity? Or are you experiencing regular hiccups in the prepress and approval workflow? And what about invoicing? Perhaps you could automate it, if only you could get a few fixes done …

Once this crisis is over, there will be a “new beginning”. Your employees will be ready to take on new challenges, particularly if they understand that this solution will enhance their day-to-day jobs. Explain that the company is moving forward with a solution that will address everyday issues more effectively and systematically than before, and that you will all be working smarter for the benefit of the business. This way, you'll not only survive this crisis, you’ll also create momentum to prepare for a better future.

Dataline can assist you in this process. With over 1,000 successful MultiPress ERP installations throughout Europe in the last 20+ years, we’ve gained an incredible amount of customer insight and business know-how that we can apply to your business.  With our innovative and unique audit tools, we help you evaluate your current situation and provide you with solutions adapted to your specific needs. Our detailed audit report provides you with an accurate analysis of your current situation and, most importantly, a precise calculation of the potential gains you could achieve by implementing various MultiPress functions. It comes with clear recommendations for quick wins, implementation planning and a transition roadmap.

At Dataline, we’ve helped more than 1,000 print production companies to set up a healthy MIS platform and build administrative and workflow processes from it. This creates a solid basis for better insight into and control over the business, greater efficiency and healthy margins. Talk to us if you want to audit your company’s strategic software plan and related processes.