Video transcript

Hi, I'm Jack Shannon. If you're looking for ERP, there's a lot to choose from, but is it affordable?

Affordability is a subjective topic without any defined boundaries; but it's an important topic. You don't want to waste your time looking for software you can't afford, but how do you know that you can't afford it if you haven't figured out what you can afford?

Saying you want an ERP is like saying, you want a car. It's too generic. Do you want a sports car? An SUV? Maybe something in-between? First, you need to know what you're going to use it for. And that'll help you narrow down the choice.

So, I'm going to go over some guidelines to help you decide what you're going to use the ERP for. First define what you want to solve. ERP is a big bag of tools. What is it that you're trying to fix?

Second, define three to five high level goals that you want to achieve. Here's some examples: You may want to increase on-time delivery to 98%. You may want to increase inventory accuracy to 96%. Maybe decrease waste by 10%. Increase gross profit by 5%.

Number three. Now that you know what you want to achieve, what barriers do you have that's preventing you from achieving those goals? Now that you know what your needs and goals are, how much more money would you make if you knocked down your barriers and met those goals. Once you figure that out – congratulations! You just defined the size of the problem. That's your first step in creating a budget.

That was the easy part. The second part is a little harder because it's more subjective. The true benefit of ERP isn't saving costs; it's allowing companies to grow. So, it's hard to put a dollar value on understanding the costs of making what you make. It's hard to put a dollar value on on-time delivery. We just realize and understand that it's good business practice to ship a profitable product to a customer on time. So, make sure you add growth and the profit from that growth to the first number that you calculated and figuring out how much money you make. If you make your goals, those two numbers together give you a good idea of what your budget for ERP should be.

So, there you go. Now you have a better idea of what you can afford. We don't have options for every budget, but we have a lot of options. Everything from full-fledged cloud solutions to a la carte on-prem solutions. Let us know what you're looking to fix. Let us know what your roadblocks are, let us know what your budget is. If we have a solution, we'll tell you. If we don't have a solution, we'll tell you that also.

One last thing. If you're having a hard time coming up with a budget, that's fine. We'll help you with that. If you want to talk about this, there's a form below. Just let us know.