Category: ERP

In the business environment of this day and age, with all its briskness and high levels of customer expectations are becoming increasingly difficult to meet. Survival in itself is a matter of concern, let alone success. Many businesses are finding their way to success and of course survival through simplification.

As your business grows, it is bound to get more complex and, of course, more difficult to manage. Even small enterprises experience some kind of chaos when they go through even the smallest amount of growth. It is important to reduce such disruption caused by growth and change and become more agile.

As and when an organization grows, it needs more resources to accommodate the growth. This often causes the different departments of the business to work in confinement and as a result employees get detached from the core of the business. Thus, they spend more time on the non-core activities and ultimately leads to decrease in the efficiency of the organization.

This is a problem faced by most business enterprises these days and there fortunately is a solution for it – An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. Modern ERP systems can help enterprises a great deal in the simplification of business their activities. Some of the benefits of having an ERP system are:

• Better control – An ERP system helps to keep better control over the activities in an enterprise. It has dashboards which present to you a clear picture of what is going on in the organization. You get to see how each department or division of your organization is performing in real time. You can also derive useful insights regarding your business operation which can help you in making decisions. You get access to a single version of information, rather than duplicates across various departments.
• Reduced complexity – As an ERP system integrates all the departments in an enterprise, it reduces the complexity in having to take care of each department individually. Especially in cases of large organizations, where the size of the information to be accessed across all the departments will also be higher, apart from the number of departments, an ERP system helps to clearly define the workflows and introduces a neatly defined system of operations.
• Simplified operations – As the workflows in an enterprise get properly defined and centralized, there is more transparency and clarity in its operations. This reduces redundancy or duplication of data and efforts. Automation oftasks, of course, reduces human errors too. In all, the operations in an enterprise are simplified and made easier to manage.
• Reduced operation costs – Deploying an ERP system reduces the overall costs of managing the various resources in anenterprise. For example, all the data are available on the cloud, that is, in a single location, which can be accessed by any concerned person from anywhere in the organization. This reduces the cost of having to maintain such information in all the concerned departments separately. It also helps to eliminate such duplication.
• Scalability – An ERP system is easily scalable. It is easy to add more functionality to it and make changes to it, as and when required. Hence, as and when an organization grows and seeks to add more departments and functions, it becomes easier to do so. Since change is a vital part of any business environment, it is very important to be dynamic and be able to adopt any changes that may be necessary for the business to grow.

An ERP system basically integrates all the departments in an organization helps it to function as a single entity. This not only brings the employees more closer to the organization, it also encourages the team spirit. As the daily administrative and management activities are taken care of by an efficient ERP system, the employees get more time to concentrate on their core competencies. This helps to increase productivity and efficiency, ultimately leading to more profits.

Although, having an ERP system is beneficial to your organization, it is important that you get one that is customized to suit your business model. With the right resources used in the right times and places, and with the help of the right ERP partners, business can flourish easily.

At Fingent, we work with large and mid-size organizations helping them build and implement technology solutions for solving their business challenges. Talk to us to find out how we can work together to improve your business efficiency.

When you think, storage and analysis of data, the first thing that comes to mind is spreadsheet software. It has rows and columns and it has basic features to manage the data. So, why think of anything else, right?

The need to think of something else arises in the context of an ever-growing business scenario. Indeed, spreadsheets have the capability to maintain basic records and they help analyze information quickly and effectively. But as the size of the information grows, it becomes difficult to manage and interpret.

For startup businesses, it could be sufficient to use a spreadsheet, as they can avoid the initial cost of deploying a whole ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system. However, after a certain point or in cases of mid-sized to enterprise business concerns, it is impractical to use a spreadsheet software.

Besides that, spreadsheets have other disadvantages. So if you rely on spreadsheets for your business activities, here is some food for thought:

Errors

Several studies have shown that a majority of spreadsheets contain errors, whether intentional or unintentional. Since a lot of the information in the spreadsheets is entered manually and since it is handled by many people, human errors like typing in a wrong key etc. are likely to happen and they can be difficult to trace. These can end up costing companies huge amounts.

Difficulty to Analyze and Operate

The larger the volume of data, the more time it takes to analyze and arrive at solutions or conclusions. Hence, making it difficult for decision makers to make relevant and prompt decisions. Sometimes a formula entered in a spreadsheet may have to be re-entered every time specific information is required.

Duplication of Spreadsheets

As the spreadsheets are emailed from one computer to another, it gets stored in a number of systems and ultimately, you lose track of the original version.

Lack of Security

A spreadsheet may not be as secure as an ERP system. Even though it is possible to set a password for access to a spreadsheet, it may not be encoded as an ERP package.

Inability to Track

A spreadsheet created by one person can be edited by another person and hence it would be difficult to trace the changes as to who made the last change leaving the spreadsheet vulnerable to changes.

Using an ERP solution for the management of various areas in an enterprise will not only help eliminate such problems but also comes with a lot of advantages of being cloud based. It provides automatic backup of the data, which results in lesser chances of loss of data. It also enables real-time sharing of data among all users and generation of important business reports. So as you can see, there is no reason why you shouldn’t choose an ERP solution over spreadsheet software.

Gone are the days when getting electrification or plumbing issues fixed in a building meant endless number of phone calls and long hours of waiting. And mostly at the end of this the issue may or may not be fixed. A myriad of issues from lack of accountability, coordination and centralized system for tracking and follow ups cause frustration and loss of reputation.

There used to be a number of issues like these with regular paper-based field service management systems, all of which contributed to the general inefficiency of the market as a whole. But organizations these days have become much more sophisticated as many of them have already realized the need to move to Field Service Management (FSM) software.

Today, Field Service Management solutions are being adopted by various industries for their field service operations. They play a very important role in enhancing organizational productivity and efficiency. According to a recent report by MarketsandMarkets the global FSM market is forecasted to grow from $1.58 billion in 2014 to $3.52 billion by 2019 and the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) is expected to be 17.3%. And the biggest market in terms of market size is expected to be North America.

That said, here are some reasons which have led to the expansive adoption of Field Service Management solutions by organizations and, of course, the growth of the market:

Real-time based solution – The technicians or the field service agents, as well as the providers, have real-time access to all the required information. The providers are always aware of where their agents are, what work they are doing, when they finish their work etc. So, the agents are always in contact with the providers unlike the old system of field service management.
Quick, systematic scheduling and dispatching – A service can be assigned to a field agent based on availability, location or manually by the manager. The field agent can be alerted to new work orders through SMS, E-mail or push notifications on his smartphone. Thus, service to the customers is made faster and more efficient.
Limitations of ERP and CRM solutions – There was once a time when ERP and CRM solutions had the upper hand in the field services industry. They could enhance efficiency by automating the processes and optimizing resources. But they failed to meet certain specific demands of field service management like scheduling, dispatching performance management etc. These demands led to the increased adoption of Field Service Management solutions and thereby increased productivity. And, of course, most advanced field service management software easily integrate with ERP and CRM solutions.
Reduction in operational cost – The overall cost of operations are reduced when compared to paper-based field service management. All the costs relating to maintenance and storage of paperwork and contacting service agents etc can be eliminated. Moreover, the costs involved in the process of a particular field service can be tracked easily because of the transparency of the solution. This helps to keep a check on costs and avoid redundancy or duplication. Also, its history can be tracked to save on inventory costs and even fuelling costs, by finding the most efficient way to reach the area of service.
Integration with mobile devices – It is important for the field agents to have access to information relating to their job or client while they are at their work. They may also need to record job details. Field Service Management solutions have the advantage of being mobile integrated and so all these activities can be done easily. Hence, mobile integration is one of the biggest factors that has contributed to the increase in adoption rate of FSM solutions.

These factors put together with the ease of use, really makes Field Service Management Solutions popular. Although, companies still use ERP and CRM solutions for managing field services due to lack of awareness.

FSM solutions help workers to collaborate and work effectively. They enable real-time collaboration among the field agents as well as the providers and thereby increase productivity and organizational efficiency. They also have features like automatic notifications, advanced GPS tracking, reporting etc. which further help in making work more organized and efficient.