Explorer Software is one of the leading providers of ERP Software for the construction industry. One of the most common questions we get asked when talking about what we develop to friends and family is “What is ERP software?” We’ve put together this brief explanation to help answer some basic questions about what ERP is and how it helps companies operate.
So What is ERP?
ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning and is a type of software that businesses use to manage daily business activities across multiple departments through a centralized platform. ERP software enables the different departments to be able to transmit data between each other seamlessly to make running a business easier and more productive. Even though it’s a single platform, each department has their own tools and dashboards custom designed for their departments to help them get their job done efficiently. These tools and dashboards share a common design interface, making it easy for staff to move between departments and for the company to easily locate and process information as needed.
Why ERP Software?
Today’s ERP softwares offers a rich set of features that can help businesses to consolidate their different software needs into one platform. Accounting, human resources, financial management, project management, sales, inventory, and more can all be managed and have automated tasks set up through ERP software. This also makes it easy to analyze data.
Business analytics has become an increasingly important tool as the volume, variety, and speed of data companies gather has increased dramatically. ERP software simplifies the process of pulling data from different departments through the central repository and turns the overwhelming wealth of data into readable graphs that can be acted on. By customizing the key performance indicators (KPIs), ERP users can identify problems early on and get to work resolving them before they turn into large problems later.
Do I Need ERP Software?
As your business grows, you may come to a point where the software you started with is no longer able to keep up with your needs. Maybe you’ve added in several different softwares over the years to keep up in different departments and the inability of them to sync data easily, or even are incompatible, has led to hours of manual data entry resulting in errors that have caused problems for you.
You should regularly analyze the software you are using and determine if it’s becoming more of a hindrance to company growth than it is helping expand. A good ERP software is designed to give you foresight into small problems as they occur and actionable solutions to them before they become detrimental. While it can be difficult and costly for the initial jump to ERP, or even from one ERP software to a higher tier, the benefits and long-term ROI from ERP solutions will keep your company competitive in the digital age.
