Positioning Your Company for Success with High Tech Finance
Author: Scott Davidson
June 2007
At the root of successfully managing personal wealth is acquiring the wealth of knowledge and information necessary to make strategic decisions. Most personal finance literature states those individuals who excel in accumulating individual wealth use a common set of tools to manage the information as well as their finances.
A similar strategy is applicable to successful financial management in the fast-moving, ever-changing business community, where the value of information used to support company decision making often determines a company’s level of ascent to financial fortune.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software can serve as an important decision-making tool in business finance that can help build a strong foundation for a company’s financial health and well being. ERP software unites all of a company’s operational aspects into a unified platform. Many high tech companies throughout Ohio are positioning ERP as one of the business community’s best and most important technological assets. Businesses adopting and using ERP solutions report much-improved results in productivity, reduced costs, and the ability to make faster, smarter decisions thanks to improved overall understanding of all of their operations areas and how they work together to generate results.
One of the most pivotal decisions a CFO can make in today’s competitive business environment is the ERP solution he or she selects. Their selection will shape the core of the business, and form the foundation for their company’s financial success, now and in the future. Companies typically benefit from shortened accounts receivable timeframes, more accurate invoicing, and reduced monthly closing times. ERP offers a broad yet distinct outlook of financial activities across the enterprise, giving company stakeholders the ability to work more efficiently and generate improved results at a quicker pace.
How to assess ERP software for long term business success and growth
Several important considerations should be addressed when companies move to select ERP solutions and providers. The evaluation process is essential in deciding on an effective technology solution for your business. Initially, you should consider whether the solution’s technology can be adjusted to fit your business. A second consideration should be the strength of support for the solution’s deployment and configuration, followed by how the software can be maintained and retrofitted over its useful life, and finally whether the solution’s projected total cost of ownership is practical over a three- to five-year timeframe.
Technology in past ERP offerings often produced a cumbersome result with predetermined parameters that weren’t always the best fit for the company in question. However, many modern ERP solutions are naturally configurable, and can allow the progression of a company’s financial “vitals” first, while building other utilities over time.
For example, the technology included in leading ERP financial solutions can facilitate improved and more effective cost management. ERP removes the repetitive input actions employees may use in interacting with customers, while financial managers in the back office are instantly engaged with ongoing operations and can run reports on the relative financial health of the business in real-time. Choosing a solution that offers familiar and easily understood parameters for its users also provides a real opportunity for organizations to cut training and other related costs.
Value-added ERP solutions can also help organizations address regulatory challenges be they import/export reporting procedures, Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, or issues with FCC or FTC standards, ERP functionality that embraces these and other compliance enforcement issues is built into many of the latest ERP solutions.
Present trends in globalization may leave you wondering if international currency is an issue worthy of consideration for your business. Leading ERP solutions offer functionality that is not only multicurrency, but multi-language. This advanced and systematic ability can deliver delivers highly specific financial data in a highly dispersed global organization that is localized for each respective language and currency.
After selecting the right ERP technology, all companies should be particularly concerned about selecting a partner for deployment of the technology, the development and customization of business processes, and the support they will receive from their ERP vendor in the future.
Every ERP system requires detailed advance business process planning, even if the developer has presented the solution as effortless to use and install. As such, a detailed and comprehensive analysis conducted during the IT partner selection process is critical for a successful ERP deployment and ongoing sustainability and growth. Pay special mind to solutions supported by a great number of IT partners that are not only proficient in the technology, but also in your particular vertical market niche.
Good deployment partners will also help assess business procedures, construct solutions properly, and reduce risk to your business by analyzing and sometimes segmenting the ERP solution’s delivery and requirements where success can be measured throughout the commitment. Unavoidably, adjustments business processes and the extent of a system’s functionality will vary throughout the course of the ERP solution’s useful life. By selecting a comprehensive technology solution that allows you to add capabilities as your business and its requirements evolve will help all organizations realize major advantages of the technology.
ERP isn’t just a pie-in-the-sky business solution. ERP is here, and its advantages are admired and demanded by high-tech managers in Ohio and nationwide. More than 8,000 people attended Convergence 2007, Microsoft’s annual conference for customers and partners using the company’s brand of Dynamics ERP solutions. When it comes to the advent and use of ERP solutions, more than 8,000 concerned and involved business owners and managers can’t be wrong. Managers that are postponing evaluating and/or implementing an ERP system should know their chief competitors may already be planning and implementing an ERP solution to achieve an edge in the marketplace.
Invest in ERP solutions now. Your business’ ability to win and grow financially depends on it.
About the author: Scott Davidson is the Heartland Area General Manager for Microsoft’s Small and Mid-market Solutions and Partners (SMS&P) group, which consists of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.
