How to Move Your Business into the 21st Century
Very often, when I walk into a meeting with one finance manager or another, I encounter the familiar apology: “Sorry about the mess, it’s a busy time right now,” says that manager to me, while trying to bring a little order to the paperwork on his desk. Then I say to myself, we live in the 21st century; today there are so many tools that make it possible to pay a supplier at the other end of the world with a click, while fully synchronizing with advanced BI systems. And yet, there are still organizations where it seems innovation ended with the invention of paper — piles of documents, price quotes, tenders, contracts, orders, invoices, payment approvals, and more. All of these are part of the routine day-to-day business conduct in quite a few organizations, large and small.
A System for Managing the Business Budget – Desired vs. Actual
The large gap that exists between the desired and the actual is too great to justify with fear of change and aversion to technology. Organizational bureaucracy is sometimes so cumbersome that it is clear to everyone that something needs to change. How is it possible that nothing moves forward? That same finance manager tells me, “A guy came here and talked about systems that computerize all our paperwork, but when the price tag next to such a system has six figures, I prefer to stick with the existing bookkeeping system, for which I pay just a few hundred a month.”.
The Power of an ERP System and Its Importance to Business Growth
Indeed, these systems are expensive; in professional language they are called ERP systems — loosely translated, enterprise resource planning systems. This is an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars every year, and the organizations that use these systems really do pay quite a lot for a single system that replaces the full range of existing systems — accounting, payroll, attendance, production, budgeting, procurement, and more. However, the benefit for those companies is expressed in full integration and seamless communication between all parts of the organization.
So what do those organizations do that cannot afford such high prices? Or even if they can pay, they want to keep some of the systems they are satisfied with? In response to this need, there is the “best of all worlds” approach — Best of Breed, where the idea is to computerize business processes alongside existing systems with dedicated systems that provide a higher-quality solution, while placing strong emphasis on interfacing, synchronization, and data import and export.
A good example of such a system is salesforce — a customer relationship management (CRM) system. It is considered the best system in its field because of its user-friendly interface, synchronization with the organization’s other systems, internet-based access from a browser/smartphone, and the SaaS model — service for payment.
cloudERP – A Cloud-Based Business Management System
More and more organizations, including those that already implement a unified ERP system, use dedicated systems that interface with existing systems, and in this way they enjoy the “best of all worlds” — a lower price, a more professional system, and all this without the dramatic change that comes with converting existing systems, which often leads to employee resistance, adaptation difficulties, training, and implementation.
The system we developed, cloudERP, is also a good example. Our customers enjoy access from any device (computer or mobile), integration with accounting software such as Hashavshevet and others, and all of this with customization according to the customer’s needs.