The average progression for most businesses is as follows:
- Choose a product/service
- Sell a couple
- Sell a lot
- Build your customer base
- Track everything on paper
- Invest in an off-the-shelf accounting package (QuickBooks or Simply Accounting)
- Track everything else in spreadsheets
If you are persistent enough you come to a point where you can’t manage any more growth, you have no idea what one part of your business is doing and you have no real way of seeing any of your data unless someone manually compiles it into a spreadsheet for you. Your administration is increasing, you have less and less time to work and you desperately need more information to make decisions.
Your people are pushed to the limits trying to squeeze everything they can out of the current mishmash of system but you aren’t able to grow. You have hit your growth ceiling.
What are your options to continue to grow… decrease your prices, but this will lower your margins and increase your volumes which is impossible, you won’t be able to do the paperwork fast enough and your clients will be unhappy with all of the mistakes. Hire more people, this doesn’t make sense either since the increase in people will be exponential with the rate of growth, each additional worker will need equal amounts of additional administration to track and account for all activities, this won’t work either. Buy more capital? This could work, assuming your current work force has enough skills to run the new machines and that you have enough cash flow to warrant the new machine. New products? Promotions? More marketing? All of these things require more labour time and cash and will still result in equal increases in administrative effort required.
You are stuck!!
Not really, the one avenue you have not considered? Think about the time you spend in a day. Think about your employees running around trying to figure out what happened to X or when an order shipped or where a document is. Trying to reconcile different systems or remember to even invoice clients on time.
You are using a splintered set of programs to store your data and it is resulting in a MASSIVE inefficiency. This inefficiency is so great that you don’t even realize how much time you spend in a day looking for lost papers. How much time you spend manually generating invoices or purchase orders, how you don’t know when shipments are due to arrive or how much your clients owe you.
It is now time for you to take the next step… the step into the world of the ERP system. One system, all your data, all of your processes under one roof. Report, understand and grow. Reduce your administration, increase transparency and get rid of that bottle of advil.
SAP Business One is the leading software to take you from small to MEDIUM. With the help of a good consulting team you can ‘systemize and monetize,’ leveraging your current assets while improving your efficiency.
Contact myself @ mtaylor@forgestik.com or visit www.forgestik.com for more information today!
