Goal #8 in Selecting Your The Best Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System:
Don’t be Afraid to Innovate and Change!
The 10 Principles of Success
We continue to review the 10 Principles of Success and how they’re applied to ERP Selection with the 8th Goal for Success: Don’t be Afraid to Innovate and Change!
The 10 Principles of Success are:
1. How You Think is Everything!
- Always be positive.
- Think success not failure.
- Be aware of a negative environment.
2. Decide on What Your True Goals Are!
- Write down what your specific goals are.
- Write down a plan/time line in how to obtain your goals.
3. Take Action!
- Goals/Plans are nothing without action.
- Don’t be afraid to get started – “Just Do It”, it doesn’t need to be perfect to start, nothing ever is!
4. Never Stop Learning!
- Get on-going training so use to better your organization.
5. Persistence and Hard Work Pay-off!
- Success is a marathon, not a sprint.
- Never give up on the goal/plan that you created in number 3 above, original or revised!
6. Learn How to Analyze the Details!
- Get all the facts/input you can – Learn from your mistakes.
7. Focus Your Time And Money!
- Don’t let other things and people distract you!
8. Don’t be Afraid to Innovate and Change – Be Different!
- Following the way that it’s always been done is a sure way to achieve nothing.
9. Communicate and Deal with People Effectively!
- Learn to understand what motivates the people you work with and what they need to be successful. No person is the organization or is indispensable.
10. Be Honest and Dependable!
- Take Responsibility – Otherwise 1 through 9 above won’t matter.
As a disclaimer, these 10 Principles of Success come from Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) newspaper aimed at helping stock market investors understand what good growth stocks to invest in, based on what the current overall market conditions are. EstesGroup believes that a company can apply these 10 Principles of Success to ERP systems; that is selecting, implementing and using them.
How does the 8th Principle of Success apply to:
Choosing the Right ERP System for Your Business?
Principle # 8: Don’t be Afraid to Innovate and Change!
- Following the way that it’s always been done is a sure way to achieve nothing.
In my opinion the ability to Innovate and Change is the cornerstone of why your business would want an ERP system to begin with. As a business Innovation and Change is the lifeblood of you continuing as a business. If your business is going through the process of trying to Select an ERP system based on what your current system(s) allows you to do today without a close examination of why, what, when and who’s doing it you’re doing your company a big disservice. Selecting a new ERP system or your first ERP system is a great opportunity for your company to innovate/invigorate your business by learning what “Best Practices” the new ERP system has to offer and how it will positively impact your business. As I mentioned in my last blog, a good, tightly integrated ERP system will touch every aspect of your business (i.e. from how you handle a sales lead to how you maintain your facility/equipment as well as everything in between).
I’ve been in literally hundreds of manufacturing/distribution companies over the 30+ years I’ve selling/servicing ERP systems and what I feel that’s really missing from the ERP selection process, from a business owner’s perspective, is understanding how and what needs to change in their organization to be better. Business management gets locked into the mindset of “this is how we’ve always done it and we’ve been in business for 50 years, so I guess we know what we’re doing”. That’s true to a certain degree, but if you really are trying to determine how a new ERP system can help you change and innovate your business when selecting an ERP system (instead of when you’re implementing or using the system you purchased) you should be interested to know from the ERP Vendor what they can tell you about how their system will make your business better. If the software vendor knows his system, knows your industry then they should be able to tell you, create a list for you and then show you specifically how their system can make your business better. On top of that, the ERP software vendor should be able to identify gaps in your current business processes Vs “Best Practices” of their system and then be able to clearly show/tell you how to change your current business mode to take advantage of their new innovative ideas.
So what are a few ways a manufacturing/distribution business can change and innovative themselves with an ERP system?
- Let’s start with Marketing! Are you tracking the marketing dollars you’re spending to specific marketing campaigns that then identify the leads that are generated from those marketing campaign, that turn into sales quotes? That then turn into orders?
- At the time your company completes the manufacturing of a part(s) are you able to clearly understand what parts, product lines or customers you’re the most profitable doing work for based on what you initially quoted?
- How many times do people in your organization reenter information into your current system(s) in order for you/them to understand where things are at (i.e. quotes, orders, jobs, purchases, receipts, shipments, invoices, etc?)
- How often do you experience unplanned machine down time?
- Are you scheduling your manufacturing shop with a whiteboard?
- Are you still mailing your customers their invoices?
- Are you manually reporting labor time on cards and then collecting those labor cards for input the next day?
- Do you allow your customers the ability of entering their own orders on your website or do they have to call in to get the status of their business with your company?
- How many Excel spreadsheets do you have and use throughout your business to pass information from one department to another?
- Are you reentering shipping information into your shipping providers systems or manually filling out Bill of Ladings and Packing Slips?
There are literally hundreds of more examples I can provide you in what changes you should be looking for when you’re company is going through the selection process of choosing an ERP system.
If you’d like to learn more of what and how an ERP system can help you innovate and change your business prior to buying it, give EstesGroup a call, we can help! We’ve been providing this type of help to themanufacturing/distribution industry for years.
We would love to talk with you about HOW an ERP system can Innovate and Change your business to be better. Pick up the phone and call 1 888 300 2340 and together we will:
