Why doesn’t my business grow?

When you see a decline in your business it’s easy to blame external factors – but good Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software can offer internal levers to offset what’s out of your control.

Maybe customer demand has fallen off or input costs have increased, but there are things you can do within your business to help minimise the damage from external sources affecting your business.

To build a sustainable business, you must take account of your results, and take proactive measures to make the most of the opportunities in the market.

The key to that is building the right business management system, so you’re doing as much as you can on your end to offset external pressures on your business.

What sorts of factors can impact growth, and how can Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution help on the road to sustainable growth?

In demand, but out of time?

Have you seen significant growth in your business followed by a steep drop off?

This could be because your downstream processes haven’t kept up with your rapid growth.

Maybe your order processing is letting you down, or your product turnaround time is causing issues.

Solution: Upgraded ERP technology could increase your capability and capacity by doing things smarter, not just faster.

No expansion capacity?

When all your staff members are at full capacity, you can’t expand as quickly as you would like.

They may be busy doing the day-to-day rather than working on things which could take your business to the next level.

You could grow your team, but it takes time to find the right people and train them up, not to mention the fixed cost increases.

Solution: Use ERP technology to automate manual processes, freeing up existing staff to focus on strategic projects.

Keeping up with your customers

Your high value customers expect your service to meet their needs, but if your field sales team is not familiar with those needs, it’s almost impossible.

Solution: Cloud based ERP, along with mobiles or tablets for field staff, gives your people up-to-date information about every customer, and lets them see and respond to requests as they come in.

Revenue up, profitability down

Sometimes it can come as a shock that your profitability is down, even when market conditions are great and your customers love what you’re doing.

Solution: Use your ERP to analyse your customer profitability, looking at the cost and return on specific customer segments. Perhaps some of your customers aren’t as valuable as you think.

READ THIS NEXT: 14 ERP system benefits to consider in the selection process

Cash-flow headaches

Cash flow issues can have a major impact on your ability to leverage opportunities.

If your customers are taking a long time to pay, it will stunt your growth.

Solution: Use your ERP’s accounts receivable technology to reduce debtor days; faster payment means less interest charges for you and the ability to use cash to drive your business outcomes.

READ THIS NEXT: 9 step ERP implementation plan for business operators

Working in the dark

Without accurate, up-to-date information, your business can’t pivot or make decisions effectively.

Solution: With an ERP Business Intelligence suite, you get information on business performance in real time so you don’t need to wait till the end of the month or even the year to start making changes.

You can also use ‘what if’ analysis tools to predict market outcomes to guide your decision making.

Business performance doesn’t have to be completely reliant on outside market forces.

With an effective ERP solution, there are many internal ways to optimise your results and make the most of your opportunities.

Make 2017 the year that you take control, using your internal levers to move your business forward.

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