March 12th, 2006
An old friend recently called us for help. He runs a successful small business that provides networking solutions, as well as another firm that provides contractual staff to large corporates. He wanted to know where and how he should start implementing ERP in his organization. “Can you ask me some questions that will get me started?”.
We’ve heard this request from so many small businesses these days. More and more small businesses in India (and I’m sure elsewhere) are seeking solutions that will help them grow and join the surge in the Indian economy. And most of them think that the solution to their needs is the much touted business solution - ERP. After all, do we not keep reading about how every large manufacturing company in India has spent millions on large scale ERP implementations? If it seems to work for them, maybe it should work for us too.
As technology providers, we know that “One size does not fit all”, as Andy Hayler likes to point out. But as a small business owner, what issues does one have to consider?
Here is what we wrote back to him…
- Firstly, let’s begin by looking at what your existing pain points are. What fires do we need to douse? Where are we the most inefficient? What issues are waiting to become emergencies?
- What do we want to achieve in the next 3 months, next 6 months, etc.? How fast do we want to grow in size? How many people? How many locations are these people spread across? What is the level of computer-friendliness do the people have at different levels?
- Next, we look at the information base. As we grow in size, the main point of failure is lack of information availability. When we are a small team, its easy to keep in touch with every detail. As we grow in size, we lose touch with small details. The first issue to tackle is to plug the leaks of information flow from the bottom to the top. Now that’s not as easy as it sounds. Problem is, the information needs to be captured where and when it is being generated, in a format that can be re-used and analyzed. That means, you need:
a. The infrastructure and systems to capture information at every point in the extended enterprise
b. People who actually bother to enter the information
Out of the above two, the latter issue is far far more difficult to achieve, especially with the kind of business processes Indian companies follow - ie, no processes - which is great when you’re small, but its un-scalable.
So, we need to find a path of least resistance in creating the system to capture the information. This means finding a good balance between information value and ease of use. Creating a monster of a system makes it extremely difficult to implement. Its far healthier to do it stage-wise, in a way that we can change the plan as we go ahead, based on where we find least resistance and maximum value.
- Where do we start? Obviously, information that is directly related to business transactions is of paramount importance, without which the business would not run. So I assume that the basic accounting system must be in place. But accounting is an extremely inward perspective of the business. The main drivers of a service-oriented business is customer responsiveness. How fast, and how efficiently are we able to respond to a customer’s need and find and deliver a solution that fits . Unless you have some other pain points that need immediate attention, the area to look into is the process of capturing customer information and the process of servicing and retaining customers by keeping information about them up-to-date and accessible at any time.
So what do you think about this approach? We would like to hear…
Posted in Evolving Enterprises, Workflow Management, Affordable Technology, Sales Activity Management |
