What are your Business Issues and Challenges?

Getting back to work? We never stopped and I bet you didn’t either because for most of us the struggle to keep going has been real. As we moved from business as usual to business unusual we came across various challenges. But here’s the thing – most of the challenges we face were going to be problems anyway – the new way of working just uncovered them quicker.

Here are some the issues you might have faced and some ideas on how to solve them. I’ve tried to take example from across industries but do let me know if you have other examples to share.

Late or inaccurate invoices

Getting the green light to deliver a client project is a great moment but however good your work, if it is followed up by late or inaccurate invoices then you are letting the company down. Even if the client is happy with your work, bills full of mistakes creates bad feeling and a poor customer experience.

If you struggle to bill customers accurately and on time you could use some help. Technology is your friend.  There are many specialised finance or accounting programmes out there but actually an out of the box cloud ERP system designed for growing businesses can be even better. You can bill customers faster and more accurately with no need to move data from one system to another and certainly no need to shuffle bits of paper across departments.

When a company uses many different systems, for example, SalesForce for the sales team, MS Project for project management, and Sage for accounting—there is no easy way to get data from one system to the next. The manual processes needed to get information from one department across to finance for billing can be time consuming and worse still end up with inaccuracies.  Human error + delays is not a good look.

With a cloud ERP solution like SAP Business ByDesign, departments across the business have access to different parts of the same integrated system. So project information gets passed to finance automatically and in real time and the final invoice is based on one source of information.

By reducing time-consuming manual invoicing processes, and eliminating the need for reconciliation between separate financial and billing systems, the result is a faster, more efficient and cost-effective. The whole thing is joined up from end to end.

Information between Sales and Delivery Teams gets lost

Disconnects between sales and delivery teams are a pain in old money, let alone now, when we are more likely to be working remotely. Sales are delighted that they have closed the deal, but have they handed all the information over accurately? Is everyone on the same page with regards to  delivery times, prices and costs?

Full visibility for all stakeholders is essential.

With an integrated out of the box cloud ERP there is a clear process to follow which creates accurate information that everyone can share. The sales person will create an order within the system that contains all relevant details. The Project Manager will immediately see what is required and can start planning resources. The sales team can hand over to the delivery team with total confidence and if needed can continue to see project progress.

Paper work headaches when using contractors and consultants

One of the issue and challenges you may face in business is to do with external contractors. When you need additional support or specialized resources many organisations use them – especially in uncertain times when teams are down to the minimum.

An out of the box cloud ERP can help smooth the process of engaging, managing and paying contractors. The PM can create and send a purchase request within the Projects module direct to recruitment. Once engaged, the  consultant then logs their time and submits their invoices directly to the system, tracking it, if they want in real time.

Remote workers can’t get access to customer information

Stuck at home without access to company records? Need to find a customer’s sales history from your kitchen table? These are exactly the same problems sales teams experience on the road without access to a cloud based CRM.

With a cloud based ERP like Business ByDesign you get a CRM and a Service Desk where all people in the organisation can record actions and get the whole view of the customer from wherever they have internet access, including smart phones. Many vendors now have Apps specifically for mobile users which make the experience as user friendly as possible.

Hours being wasted on processing customer sales orders

Loading multiple Customer Sales Orders or WebOrders into your system can be time consuming and we all know what time is! Yes – money. It’s also tedious and prone to human error. Using the APIs developed by SAP Business ByDesign specialists you can import those order files automatically – in bulk – via Bulk Order Uploaders where they are validated and checked without user intervention. This leaves your people free to deal with the few exceptions.

If the system you are looking at doesn’t have something similar then that’s one more reason to go with SAP Business ByDesign!

During Covid-19 our customers, using Business ByDesign, have actually grown their B2B and B2C markets as they have been able to meet existing and new demands with only a small team on site and for some it has been totally remote.

Conclusion

Here we’ve looked at just a few scenarios in which a cloud ERP for growing business allows information to flow seamlessly between departments resulting in a faster, more efficient end-to-end management process, no matter what your industry.

In our opinion there is no better ready-to-go cloud ERP than SAP Business ByDesign  to help you tackle your business issues and challenges. Do click on the link above to find out more about it – it is ideally suited to mid sized businesses who need this kind of functionality now!