A competitive advantage is an attribute(s) that allows a company to achieve superior margins compared to its competition and generates value for the company and its shareholders. It is the ability to produce goods or services at a price point and quality level that competitors cannot match. While racing to win customers, improve margins and boost the bottom line, only the most creative and innovative companies can secure a competitive advantage.
If you haven’t yet achieved this aim, it is time to check if your legacy systems could be holding you back. Implementing modern Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software can help your organization outperform ‘old timers’ competitors and its digitally innovative competitors.
How ERP can Help You Gain Competitive Advantage
A competitive advantage is an attribute(s) that allows a company to achieve superior margins compared to its competition and generates value for the company and its shareholders. It is the ability to produce goods or services at a price point and quality level that competitors cannot match. While racing to win customers, improve margins and boost the bottom line, only the most creative and innovative companies can secure a competitive advantage.
If you haven’t yet achieved this aim, it is time to check if your legacy systems could be holding you back. Implementing modern Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software can help your organization outperform ‘old timers’ competitors and its digitally innovative competitors.
Real-Time Data
Data is the superpower everyone looks at to improve process efficiency in business. More than the legacy data, it is the real-time data that makes it important for changing business outlooks. Let's see how an ERP system helps business:
Improves customer service
Helps managers know what’s going on at a glance
Improves operational efficiency
Help keep employees motivated
In order to learn about what the customer cares about, what are their pain points, and how do they see your brand, you can use the insights you get from the ERP data. The marketing is made more personalized using such data.
Optimized Business Processes
The term “Best Processes” can sometimes be misleading. As business moves at lightning speed, holding on to processes served 10 years before, may cause losing out to competitors. Though, they were the best practices once!
If you are pursuing digital business transformation, we recommend Business Process Management (BPM) which focuses on improvements rather than a full redesign. In case you feel the processes need to be revamped, and industry standards to be implemented along with ERP implementation, a Business Process Reengineering initiative (BPR) is recommended.
When BPM or BPR is undertaken along with ERP implementation, the process redesign can help the organisation break down operational silos, reach business goals, and build long-term customer value.
Agility and Change Readiness
ERP systems are not just about digitisation or simplification of tasks. They provide a link between the latest industry-wide trends and organisational practices for the firm to adapt. ERP systems are ready and updated to change due to the accessibility and proximity to the core of industrial activities in the national/international arena.
ERP helps improve operational agility, so you respond to industry trends and customer needs. The teams can quickly adopt the new best practices and lay groundwork for future scaling and growth through the ERP real-time data.
Eliminate Organizational Siloes
Once the organisation centralises the core business function onto one platform, ERP, it eliminates the risk of teams working in siloes and facilitate collaboration among different functions.
When a company can offer prompt and effective support, it results in improvement of customer experience and ends up in customer retention. Seamless communication is essential to ensure this level of support and ERP can play a major role in this communication front.
Change-Ready Workforce
Expensive and elaborate technologies could fail to meet company expectations if the employees are not on board with using the tool. The willing and enthusiastic companies’ efforts and investments fall short due to uninformed and unwilling team members.
This is where the role of Organisational Change Management (OCM) comes in. OCM is the process of assisting employees transition to new ways of working. If the company can establish an OCM along with the implementation of ERP, it will help employees to adapt to current changes and changes the company pursue down the road. This is the way to stay ahead digitally as well as ‘humanly’.
Bringing together ERP and Competitive Advantage
If the company has been stagnant and looks for a breakthrough, then the introduction of an ERP system is the answer. It is the statement of willingness to move beyond the status quo to achieve new heights.
The strongest link that the ERP provides towards competitive advantage lies in data and flexibility. So, it is important to equip the workforce to use the right tools, instead of unyielding, monolithic processes which slow down, frustrate and result in missed opportunities for the company and workforce.
Enterprise software is the tool, which puts the power back in your hands. The company can monitor and react to industry disruption in real-time, so as never to get left behind.
If you’re considering digital transformation or process improvement, our team of ERP / Management Consultants can help you navigate each step. Please contact us at info@consoulgroup.com for a free consultation and discover the opportunities that await.
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