The concept of sustainability is becoming increasingly important to companies in all industries, as it can play an important role in their competitive advantage in the long term.
In today's world, businesses are faced with major catastrophes such as the COVID-19 pandemic, making it their priority to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and optimize production to remain competitive. According to a prominent study, 62% of executives believe a sustainability strategy is necessary to be competitive today, and another 22% believe it will be necessary for the future.
In order to boost production efficiency, reduce costs and waste, improve supply-demand planning, and drive greater organizational effectiveness, sustainable enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have been integrated into business strategies for long-term viability. So what does enterprise resource planning mean, and how can we draw benefits from the system?
In this article, we'll explore how sustainable enterprise resource planning can boost your business performance in more ways than one.
Benefits of Enterprise Resource Planning
This list will explore the specific benefits of enterprise resource planning. Let's examine where a sustainable enterprise resource planning system can help your organization cut costs, reduce waste, and achieve sustainability goals.
1. An ERP system can identify waste and optimize resource consumption
Physical waste is not the only form of business waste. It is well known that optimizing resources reduces energy waste, material waste, and labour costs. Businesses dealing with chemicals and materials that can expire, decompose or be toxic to the environment must manage resources. A sustainable enterprise resource planning system can make recycling and resource planning easy, whether it's a general or manufacturing waste.
2. No more paper-based systems
Companies adopting ERP systems are trying to reduce the use of paper documents, which contributes to the preservation of the environment, helps save paper, and reduces storage space. Business document shredding is especially important for large corporations and offices, where much confidential information may need to be destroyed.
A sustainable enterprise resource planning software can serve as a document management system such as CEO-ME, Dropbox, or OneDrive. Indeed, ERPs are designed to help you go paperless while keeping your documents confidential.
For example, CEO-ME allows you to store, share, and send previously scanned documents and generate business documents such as vendor bills, invoices, and contracts that can be approved and signed electronically without printing anything. Watch this short video to learn how CEO-ME transforms and digitizes your document process.
3. Stock management
Overstock and poor inventory planning can also lead to waste. Sustainable enterprise resource planning can help you track the shelf life of products and materials if you are in the food and beverage industry.
Ideally, the inventory module in a custom ERP software can reveal how much food or materials are wasted and pinpoint the cause, such as improper storage, spoilage, leakage or human error. In addition, you can use it to determine which products are driving the business and which products are costing more than they are earning.
You can seamlessly track and monitor your product movements with custom ERP software and inventory management tools like CEO-ME.
4. Overproduction
Inaccurate planning, forecasting, or reporting tools can cause overproduction as another form of waste. Custom ERP software can automate sales or inventory reports to uncover which products aren't selling or materials aren't being used.
Data analysis can help you decide which products you should cut back or expand based on past sales and trends. Read more about CEO-ME's Solopreneur plan and how it can help make your business process more efficient here.
5. Streamlined logistics and route optimization
By utilizing custom ERP software, you can schedule deliveries efficiently and effectively, taking into account the best routes. You will save both time and human resources by optimizing logistics.
For example, suppose you are in an enterprise resource planning and supply chain management industry. The best way to distribute loads is by planning, scheduling, and changing stops along your delivery routes. Custom ERP software is perfect for this! Besides tracking shipments, it allows you to avoid unnecessary transportation of goods.
6. Increase visibility and improve coordination
Your company's performance can be clearly seen using custom ERP software, which has dashboards displaying relevant metrics. In this way, each department can keep track of its activities and identify opportunities to reduce costs, whether through overbuying materials or finding the most fuel-efficient route. By selecting the metrics most important to each business function, an overview can be provided of its activities.
7. Departmental coordination improved
Business departments that do not coordinate their workflows can also waste time and resources. Miscommunication, misinformation, or bottlenecks in another department can result in unsynchronized workflows. Other departments must sign-off, approve, and complete work in such cases.
In addition to facilitating smoother, faster, and more transparent information flow across departments, custom ERP software allows for smoother, faster, and more transparent decision-making.
8. Controlling quality and managing product lifecycles
Production delays and wasted materials result from defective products that don't meet quality standards. Manufacturers can detect, monitor, and track all production data using ERP modules designed for production and manufacturing.
Using CEO-ME, you can create quality control plans and schedule quality inspections for certain steps in inventory procedures or manufacturing processes. You should be able to monitor your manufacturing lines, identify the production equipment, and control its schedule if your company manufactures products.
By using quality management tools and features such as automated quality alerts, you can minimize the production of defective products and respond to errors as soon as possible if equipment fails or a product does not meet quality standards.
Although defects and errors cannot be eliminated, quality management tools in an integrated enterprise resource planning and supply chain management system like CEO-ME can promptly minimize damage and waste caused by malfunctions.
9. Cloud-based
Your business and the environment can benefit from hosting your custom ERP software in the cloud.
Adopting a cloud-based ERP system reduces the need for on-premise hardware and the cost of maintaining it. You can expand your company's storage capabilities and unused capacity with the cloud. By reducing the carbon impact of your company's data centre, the cloud also benefits the environment.
10. Agile development
To be successful, a business must be agile. It is crucial to implement business development software that will support supply chain efficiency, identifying and removing any processes that don't add value to the supply chain. In addition to reducing carbon footprints, the company can also save money, positively impacting profits.
In response to industry demands, a cloud-based custom ERP software gives the company flexibility and quick response times. Rather than worrying about inventory girth, business leaders should focus on improving service and reducing excess inventory. Data-driven dashboards allow managers and functional departments to monitor supply and demand and adjust accordingly.
Conclusion
Level up your business! The first step is identifying when a company is ready for a cloud-based, sustainable enterprise resource planning system.
CEO-ME's ERP is a cutting-edge solution that offers Solopreneurs and Grow My Team software plans. Our business development software includes advanced inventory, streamlining processes for efficiency and eliminating waste to improve customer retention and profitability.
Developing a strategic vision and improving capabilities through custom ERP software solutions allow businesses to grow. Unlock the true potential of your business and try our cloud-based ERP solution for free.