With your ERP, the little things matter most

How do you keep your ERP and system landscape up to date and on the latest versions? It’s an essential task for any organization wanting to stay compliant and access the latest innovations. But upgrading shouldn’t mean a large-scale project, should it?

Really, those upgrades should just be small, continuous improvements, which deliver a much bigger impact over time. How do you make this happen?

Old ERP thinking

When organizations value stability over innovation, their leaps only come when they first upgrade. Simply from the introduction of new functionalities and processes.

Yes, large scale IT-investments like this can change how your organization operates and are necessary to keep up with the competition. These big changes also ensure that working for your company isn’t a “digital downgrade” for your people when compared to their everyday life.

But the truth is, in a fast-changing tech environment, large-scale investments like total system upgrades are crucial to remaining competitive, but they are not the only way to get the most out of IT platforms, are they?

A new way

The simple answer is NO! Big projects are not your only way to innovate. Small changes can have just as big an impact. You just have to start thinking differently about how you innovate your systems. But remember, this is not an either-or situation. In fact, you can use any combination of both that works for you.

Whether you run big projects or use outside resources, continuous improvement is essential. Take responsibility for combining insights into your business with the possibilities that different software could offer. 

Incremental innovation is the best way to do this. Meaning for bigger impact, think smaller. Working this way reduces risk and saves time and effort. It also delivers improvements more regularly. Why does this matter?

It matters because working this way helps your system evolve at a more natural speed, in-line with the speed of evolution across your organization and industry. But to do this, you MUST be continuously searching for areas to improve. And someone needs to take responsibility for this.

Think differently about ERP innovation

This is the same in your personal life, as well. Imagine planning for a round-the-world trip, backpacking for 1 year. A once in a lifetime experience, away from your loved ones, going places you have never been before, in environments utterly different to what you are used to. And it comes with a hefty price tag too.

It’s a huge change, costly and with a massive impact on all aspects of your life. But what will actually have the most impact on you is all the little things that happen along the way.

The little things add up

Discovering the “little things” in your ERP that with little effort can achieve excellent value for your company and its employees is how you ensure your ERP’s return on investment (ROI) can be fully realized. Especially when you combined them with larger initiatives. 

Little things could be proactive alerts and notifications, a flexible and extendable data model for correct data-capture, digitized forms, customized screens to optimize user adoption and ease of use, knowledge sharing and in-context help, automation of routine tasks and visual presentation of data, to mention a few.

The ‘little things’ are essential for keeping you and your organization learning, developing and growing, not only in giant leaps but also in little ways every day. So it’s time to find the little things that matter to you.

Connect your solution to the world with little extensions

In the past, examples of the little things were mostly found in the core ERP, as linking to the rest of the world was time-consuming, technical and expensive.

But with better interoperability, API-driven technological developments and low barrier tools like no code/low code applications, the little things now go beyond your core ERP. You now have integrations that utilize 3rd party specialist services like credit ratings, company information databases, machine learning algorithms, Office 365-features and many more. Opening up a world of Little Things possibilities that your company can benefit from by adding simple extensions to your ERP.