5 Ways Your Manufacturing Software Must Fit Your Business

How to select the enterprise software that best fits your plans for future growth

"While 70 percent of manufacturers have grown their sales in the past year and 68 percent have increased their profitability, most of these improvements have been only slight—and they have found growth more challenging (45 percent) than rewarding (31 percent)."

The decision to invest in an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is one that many manufacturers make when they realize that they need greater insight and operational efficiency to pursue growth—expand geographically, add new product or service lines, increase market share, or improve profits.

As you consider your ERP options, how do you ensure that you get the right solution to support growth—one that fits your business and can meet the demands of a sector being rapidly reshaped by digital transformation and Industry 4.0?

Take your growth to the next level by viewing these 5 ways you should look at your software upgrades:

1) Industry Fit
Many ERP solutions are strong on generic functions such as financials or HR management, but much weaker when it comes to supporting the processes and workflows specific to manufacturing.

2) Integration & Automation
Most manufacturers will agree that successful growth ultimately depends on building smarter factories, and this requires integration across value chains, with systems responding to one another automatically—even “intelligently.”

3) Agility & Collaboration
Operational efficiency is often the top reason for investing in ERP, and a large part of the drive for efficiency is that customers today expect more responsive service.

4) Future Fit
Whether your growth strategy is already bearing fruit or you’re still taking your early steps, you want the decisions you make now to help your business thrive tomorrow, next year, and beyond.

5) Fast Start
The last thing you need is to make your ERP choice and then get held back by
a disruptive or costly implementation—or by a system that is hard to learn and use.

READ FULL E-BOOK