Don’t have cloud ERP?
5 benefits you’re missing
Growing your company in the fast-paced business environment takes flexibility, efficiency, speed, accuracy and systems that scale fast – five things that Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is perfectly positioned to help with. But not every ERP is created equal. While you might have a system pulling your information together and automating some processes, if it’s not in the cloud you could be missing out on some key benefits.
Older style ERP systems are often hosted onsite. You buy the license and install it on a server running in your office – and to access your system, your team generally needs to be there too – no working from home or off site.
Cloud ERP is the same software but hosted by the provider instead. You pay a subscription and your team logs in from any internet-connected device. While better mobility is the obvious advantage, scratch the surface and you’ll see that cloud ERP could be the key to increasing your speed, efficiency and ultimately your growth. If you’re not using cloud ERP, here are five benefits you could be missing out on.
Allowing staff to take your data on the road, securely, delivers undeniable benefits. With cloud ERP, mobile workers can access the information they need from anywhere, working from home becomes more viable and staff working in different departments – or different locations – are seeing the same information. That improves collaboration and decreases the chance of misunderstandings.
Scaling up can often put businesses in dangerous territory as limited systems struggle to meet new demands. Servers crash or slow to a crawl, scaled-up manual systems become totally unmanageable, errors creep in and businesses throw money at the problems.
Cloud ERP sets you up to scale fast, without the speed wobbles. Add new employees quickly with no worry about overloading the server – most software packages will let you pay to add as many users as you need, without having to upgrade any hardware. Good cloud ERP systems will generally have much more functionality available than you’ll use at first, allowing you to integrate more business units and automate more processes as you grow.
While a locked cupboard in your locked office seems fairly secure, cloud ERP hosting can offer the next level. Data centres focus only on keeping your information safe and systems up and running. There are teams constantly monitoring the equipment, patching security holes and maintaining backups in data centres all over the world. It means you can be confident that your system and data will always be there when you need them.
While excellent cloud ERP is still an investment, moving from on-site hosting to the cloud can create immediate savings. Instead of buying a license and a server, then paying to have them both managed and maintained, you pay a regular fee for your provider to do it all for you. That generally makes for lower overall costs and also moves your ERP expenses from the CAPEX into the OPEX column, making them fully tax-deductible.
For the average business, moving to cloud ERP will mean a noticeable increase in speed. That’s because the data centres where the systems are hosted are stocked with top-of-the-range equipment and managed to maintain optimal speeds – power that can’t be matched by many onsite servers.
Get cloud, get growing
Without cloud ERP, your business is being held back. To survive and thrive in this dynamic environment, your business needs to work at speed, scale to meet new opportunities and continually improve efficiency, collaboration and business oversight. That’s a tall order if your systems – and people – are still tethered to an onsite server. What your business needs now is to be set free by the flexibility, speed, security and cost-effectiveness of cloud ERP.
Get cloud ERP for your business now – contact us to discuss the benefits of MYOB Advanced Business.