Why Organic Food Companies Should Use ERP Systems
Guest post by Lora Young
An ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system is an essential business software that gathers data from different departments in one database to enable leaders to track the company's pulse using a single reality vision. These systems unify vital business functions, including manufacturing, finance, customer communication, order and inventory management, sales and marketing, human resources, and project management.
ERP can create significant financial and time savings by offering company-wide visibility for spotlighting inefficient manual procedures, and by revealing growth opportunities. Before picking an ERP vendor, ensure that you understand the integration requirements, implementation models, capabilities, and total ownership cost.
ERP enables organic food companies to determine business areas with expansion opportunities or room for improvement. The more team members with access to the system, the higher the chances of spotting problematic issues such as increased demand for a particular product or an imminent cash flow crisis. Here are 12 reasons why organic food companies should use ERP systems.
1. Make business more agile
Businesses face many external threats. Whether your organization can successfully handle the threats and opportunities of today's constantly changing environment relies on its capacity to respond to real-time changes faster and cost-effectively. With an ERP for organic food company, you can enable your business to become responsive to internal and external threats and opportunities, making it more agile. With an ERP system, you can digitize value chains by integrating real-time data into your processes, enabling customers to engage with the company across several channels quickly and connecting with vendors to promote smooth procurement, delivery, and production.
The right ERP software ensures you can access data from multiple systems and sources across the company and analyze it in real-time, freeing time for core business activities. An ERP system is scalable and flexible, meaning it can handle various languages, legislations, currencies, several company websites, and accounting standards in one system, enabling regulatory compliance and future expansion.
2. Improve efficiency
An ERP solution consists of different modules providing different tools for helping various business areas communicate with one another more effectively. It incorporates all areas of your organic food company, including human resources, eCommerce, accounting, inventory management, business intelligence, warehouse management, supply chain management, and more. Modern ERP systems allow you to automate processes, increasing efficiency and accuracy levels. You can automate sales order creation, inventory management, financial reporting, and other business areas, improving efficiency and increasing productivity.
3. Save time and money
ERP solutions enable businesses to streamline several diverse systems into a single simple-to-use platform by linking business processes so that information can easily and quickly be shared and scrutinized to help organic food companies make improved business decisions. While the initial ERP adoption and implementation costs may be high, you can reduce operational costs to enhance long-term business growth.
ERP tools streamline processes and improve information sharing across the whole company meaning more work will be completed using fewer resources and time, reducing operational expenses. ERPs are designed to unify, automate and standardize business processes. This eliminates duplication and saves time and money.
4. Improve customer relationship management
A quality EPR system will help your organic food company align all its customer records into a unified database. This enables companies to monitor customer interactions, including emails, phone calls, orders, payment receipts, invoices, and feedback. An ERP system allows companies to align their customer relationship management database into that system where other business processes are moved, offering detailed insights into your customer's needs regardless of where they might be in the buyers' journey.
The system allows stakeholders to get insights to address customer needs quickly. This establishes a unique chance to enhance your customer service while targeting communications, particularly to your buyers, depending on predetermined categories developed by your business objectives. The targeted customer segments imply that the right customers will receive the message at the right time. The system also eliminates manual processes, facilitating more accurate and timely engagements with customer wants.
5. Improve collaboration
ERP application features can differ slightly based on the program you're using. However, the solutions enhance collaboration. The centralized database is a vital part of what makes ERPs unique. Using this database, you can provide your organic food company with one accurate information source to work from, reducing errors associated with using incorrect data. Additionally, the central database eliminates any stalling or hesitation during projects because every team member can access the required data, improving business collaboration.
6. Enhance inventory tracking
Tracking growing inventory levels is a significant challenge for most expanding organic food companies. ERP systems use RFID tags, serial numbers, and barcoding to help them monitor their inventory at every supply chain stage. They allow you to monitor inventory levels at various warehouses, the products in transportation, and the ones on the shelves ready for sale. The increased inventory visibility optimizes the picking, packing, and shipping process, eliminating all the guesswork.
Additionally, inventory monitoring strengthens reporting since tracking technologies offer more precise numbers. Users may configure personalized KPIs to determine the items that move faster (showing higher demand) and the ones that boost carrying costs. ERP systems provide great precision, ensuring warehouse managers get real-time inventory data for more accurate decision-making processes.
7. Increase productivity
With manual processes, tedious and time-consuming tasks such as report generation, inventory level monitoring, order processing, and timesheet tracking are challenging to avoid. Besides taking too much time, these processes reduce employee morale while exposing your business to human error. With the right ERP tool, you can automate the most tedious tasks. The ERP's software database eradicates redundant tasks, including data entry, and enables the system to conduct advanced computations quickly. This frees up your employees' time to conduct more critical work, improving your labor ROI and increasing your company's efficiency, productivity, and profitability.
8. Improve data security
ERP systems have restriction controls and firewalls to avoid data breaches. They store all the data in a single point to easily monitor the access points. The admins in charge of company data management can allow limited access permissions to employees. For instance, human resource managers can keep crucial data only for the stakeholders and themselves and still authorize the team to access their financial information. When employees get laid off or leave the company, the admins can deactivate the access immediately and grant it to new workers. ERP tools also display user activities, making it easier for the admins to immediately spot unusual activity patterns and unauthorized actions in the system.
9. For business growth
Considering the competitive organic food market, your company will constantly be challenged by its competitors. Additionally, customers expect consistently exceptional services and products. Over time, obsolete business systems may hurt your company’s bottom line. If your organization is process-driven, you require a solution that simplifies workflows and automates repetitive or bottleneck tasks to enable you to progressively innovate and manage your resources effectively.
ERP solutions allow companies to coordinate various processes, giving them increased control and a high-level overview of their daily workflows, such as customer relations, production schedules, inventory updates, and order automation. ERP systems help organic food companies achieve business growth by reducing the need for different software for their processes and enhancing stock control, sales management, data integration, and process automation.
10. Improve analytics
A centralized database helps improve company analytics and reporting. ERP solutions record and keep all the data users enter, making it an excellent business intelligence tool. Provided your vendor offers solid functionality, an ERP system makes it easier and quicker for your company to create different reports. Most ERP systems have customizable dashboards for company executives to view information, like custom KPIs and income and expense statements offering insights into specific functions immediately after they log into the system.
This report access quickly allows you and your employees for improved business decision-making. You don't have to depend on your IT department to generate the required reports. Finally, reports have access levels to ensure relevant employees can access crucial company data.
11. Simplify compliance and manage risks
As organic food companies expand and conduct business with various countries, keeping track of the regulations imposed on them can be difficult. Local companies should also be concerned about environmental, human resource, and information security regulations. Thankfully, ERP systems are developed around these regulations to help companies ensure compliance at each stage. Additionally, these systems come with in-built auditing solutions to help document tax provisions, chemical use, and more, making it easy to generate reports and share them with the relevant government bodies.
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In addition, ERPs usually provide risk management tools. They have improved accuracy and reliability to enhance overall financial management because there's a minimum possibility for errors in accounting. Forecasting solutions also enable users to foresee labor, budget, and demand-related events. Your company can create more product development, budgets, and schedule plans with this data.
12. Earn a professional partner
Upon upgrading to an ERP solution, you gain your ERP implementation provider's partnership plus all the support, including training and implementation, community membership, and the software support they offer. Other ERP solutions provide dedicated user communities and groups that open up dynamic brands and industry innovators’ networks.
Endnote
ERP systems are an excellent way for organic food companies to become more agile, increase productivity, enhance efficiency, and more. Consider investing in these ERP systems to enjoy these benefits.