The Long Con; waiting for an ERP upgrade to improve service (you will be waiting a long time)…

By Service Geeni Team | 01 Jun 2022
The Long Con; waiting for an ERP upgrade to improve service (you will be waiting a long time

We bet you are familiar with this situation: you’re getting frustrated with your ERP, but the higher ups are telling you that you need to wait for the big costly, lengthy pain in the ar** ERP upgrade which (no surprise) doesn’t deliver great tech or features for service teams.

 

Meanwhile finance / production / manufacturing teams are laughing because ERP’s deliver for them, they always have. So, who is the fool?

 

Traditionally, if it was dictated by someone higher up that the central system is what you have to use, then that was it. However, the status quo has changed; it’s not like that anymore.

Technology is now about using the best tool for the job. And there are apps focused on extremely niche areas for every aspect of our lives, so why not at work?

 

The smart businesses aren’t limited; they choose the best app for each process or function, and they get the best out of it. Their integration works, and it’s simple and not a barrier to change. Because of this, there is no longer an expectation that you must rely on one big expensive system to run your business. But larger businesses still use them.

This is where the con comes in: ERP sellers know their audience so sell to people at the top of the tree. They sell using terms like “we can be all things to all men.”

 

In reality, however, the people actually doing the work have to jump through hoops to get data, or the data they’re seeing at the top isn’t accurate. This is because there has to be restrictions on what people can do, so they have to use spreadsheets to supplement the data. This is extremely inefficient.

From the decision makers point of view, as long as the data is in the ERP, they don’t care. They just want to see how much money they’ve made, but they don’t know that if they had better software, they could be making more money. So they probably don’t even realise they’re being conned.

 

Waiting for the ERP is just a con as it was never going to be brilliant at service, or customers, or data management, or finance! Anyone who says otherwise is stuck in the dark ages, probably with the current ERP system.

 

One system does not fit all, we don’t need to compromise, and to do so is to be left behind.

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