Offering flexible working provides great benefits to both your business and employees. However it might raise concerns about time management, stock control and efficiency of staff.
Thankfully, modern business management software (the next generation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions) are flexible and easy to implement. They allow your employees to connect wherever they are, so your business can embrace the benefits of flexible working and improve efficiency.
6 top tips to help your business embrace flexible working:
Seamlessly share data across your business
Give people across your business access to accurate, timely information.
Business management software brings data together in real-time, providing an up to date, single view of your business that’s easy to digest. There’ll be no need to wait around for stats, or let projects slip because someone is out of the office or has taken a holiday.
Manage and customise your solutions
It’s important that your software solution offers the flexibility to support the unique ways your business and employees choose to work.
Choose software that makes it easy to scale your software up and down to reflect the individual requirements of your business. This could be used to accommodate seasonal staff or to change your business processes when you need to.
With the right software, IT departments can configure specific workflows and end users can purchase the modules they need and add to them as necessary. Business management software makes this easy to do, removing the need for extensive integration that was a challenge with older ERP systems.
Improve decision making by accessing critical data on the move
Anytime, anywhere access via a web browser allows you and your employees to get the right information at any time – on the road, at home or in the office. Check your software offers this and can support a range of devices.
Modern business management solutions provide reports that pull data in real time, improving the efficiency and accuracy of the decision-making process. Managers are able to quickly see transaction details to identify trends or understand the reason for exceptions, making proactive business decisions easier.
Make sure the supply chain doesn’t stop without you
Your software should be able to manage every element of your supply chain, from quotations to price books and delivering goods.
By linking all your data together, you will get a better understanding of the whole supply chain and be able to access stock and financial data, even when people are away from the office.
Automate, effortlessly
Save time and avoid disruption by using the automated statements, standing orders and direct debits within your software.
Your software should ensure that it’s simple to:
- set up processes to send statements directly to customers
- easily and clearly view all paid and outstanding invoices
- automatically raise a purchase order to the supplier when you enter a sales order for an item that’s not normally held in stock
Business management software allows companies to customise processes to meet the needs of individual operations in multiple companies, locations, or countries whilst at the same time making it easier for multi-site operations to consolidate and share information.
Improve IT efficiency and flexibility
ERP solutions were traditionally time-consuming and complex to implement and customise. But ERP has changed and business management software is easier to set up and to customise.
It provides online access and supports wireless and mobile devices giving organisations the option of further improving efficiency by extending their systems to remote users, partners, and suppliers.
This allows businesses to save on the cost of hardware as everything, including storage, is accessed from the web, with peace of mind that data is safe and secure with rigorous security and data back-ups.
Ask the author a question or share your advice