The need to switch to an ERP organisation-management system depends on many factors within the organisation — for example, financial factors, time factors, and staff-readiness factors.

Implementing an ERP system requires budget and time to carry out, from the initial decision through to getting the ERP system genuinely up and running. So each organisation will gather a fair amount of information and supporting reasons to inform the decision.

So how do you know whether your enterprise should switch to an ERP organisation-management system?

This article covers 3 warning signs to check whether your organisation should now switch to an ERP organisation-management system.

The 3 warning signs are as follows

The organisation is growing significantly
You cannot review the organisation’s historical data efficiently
The workload increases but staff work efficiency declines

The details of each point are as follows.

1. The organisation is growing significantly

In business, of course, everyone in the organisation expects to see relentless forward growth. But the organisation’s growth also makes managing it more complex and difficult, because when the enterprise expands, that means accounting transactions, the production system, the inventory system, and other parts of the enterprise all increase in turn.

These factors make management difficult. So if your organisation is starting to grow significantly, that is a good warning sign that it is time to consider bringing in an ERP organisation-management system as a tool to help manage the organisation.

2. You cannot review the organisation’s historical data efficiently

Storing data in an organisation falls broadly into 2 forms: storing data as paper documents, and storing data as electronic files.

An organisation that does not use an ERP management system to help store its various documents may face data-storage problems, for example:

– Paper-document data stored for a long time gets lost

– The volume of paper-document data becomes so large it overflows and cannot be organised

– Data in documents stored as electronic files is insecure and could be hacked without protection

– Important data you need to review retrospectively — such as accounting documents and warehouse documents — cannot be reviewed efficiently

– Data between internal units in the organisation cannot be linked, making work processes difficult and complex

If your organisation is facing the data-storage problems described above, that is another warning sign that you need to start considering using an ERP management system to help organise your data into categories, retrievable retrospectively, and stored securely.

3. The workload increases but staff efficiency declines

Another problem commonly found in rapidly growing organisations is that staff have to take on an increasing workload, creating an imbalance between staff working hours and the volume of their work.

Working too little makes staff unproductive — the output they deliver for the organisation does not match the wages they receive. At the same time, when staff have to take on an increasing workload, the organisation may benefit from greater output, but staff become stressed at work, do not stay with the organisation long, and resign — which ultimately can affect the organisation too.

In addition, when staff do the same work with the same skills, with no opportunity to add new knowledge or new skills, working with the same old things can make staff sluggish and unenthusiastic, which also affects work performance.

If your organisation has an imbalance between workload and staff, with staff not as enthusiastic as they should be, that is another warning sign that you should use an ERP organisation-management system to help manage human resources in the organisation, giving them a balanced working life in the organisation and the fire to work for it over the long term.

In summary, the topics in “3 warning signs your organisation needs an ERP system” help you observe within your own organisation that if the organisation has grown to the point of complex management, is inefficient at reviewing and retrieving data as well as keeping data secure, and staff lack balance in their work for the organisation, it is highly likely that it is time to have an ERP organisation-management system as a tool to help manage your organisation and move it forward with quality.