3 Ways to Fall in Love with Your ERP System
By Katie Foley
Is your day-to-day job so busy that you've lost touch with your ERP system? After implementing an ERP system, it's easy to lose sight of all the great features that attracted you to that ERP system back when the selection process was taking place.
If so, try these three steps to rekindle that strong user-ERP system relationship you once had:
1. Give your ERP system some attention.
Like any relationship, the ERP user has to put in some time and effort to make the most out of the ERP system relationship. To ensure the best possible performance of your ERP system, make sure you are staying up-to-date with operating system updates as well as updates to the ERP software product.
Staying on the latest version of the product, will allow you to take advantage of all of the latest enhancements and will keep upgrades short and simple. Often times, ERP customers can go too long in between upgrades, and the upgrade becomes a much more difficult and time consuming process.
2. Act like it's a new relationship.
Remember how those early days of a new relationship feel? The beginning of a relationship is filled with excitement and you just can't wait to get to know the other person. Unfortunately, it's hard to make that early relationship feeling last forever. To keep a relationship strong, it's a good idea to put yourself back into that "beginning of a relationship" mindset every so often.
Similarly, with your ERP system, take yourself back to those early implementation days. Remind yourself of your enthusiasm for the new ERP system and your goals going into the project. Have you met those goals? If not, it might be a great time to get in touch with your ERP account manager to discuss those implementation goals and to make sure you're making the most of your ERP investment.
3. Try a new approach.
Let's face it, with any relationship, it's easy to get into a routine or a habit and to forget to keep things new and fresh. With an ERP system, it's easy to get into a day-to-day work routine and to forget to continuously look for ways to improve your efficiency and productivity with the system. Start by evaluating what areas of your business are taking full advantage of your ERP system versus what areas of your business could be improved upon.
Then pick a new approach to try- it could be investing in a new module, it could be writing new reports, or it could be setting up a new Business Intelligence dashboard. Another great thing to consider is to attending your ERP solution's annual user conference. Visibility's annual user conference is a great opportunity to hear about the latest enhancements to the products and to make sure you are up-to-date on Visibility best practices. User conferences are also a great opportunity to network with other users of the ERP system - sometimes customers can learn the most from talking to each other about how they use the system.
We hope these tips can help you get out of your ERP rut if you've found yourself in one. If you're in the early stages of your ERP implementations, keep these in mind for maintaining a strong ERP-user relationship long past the implementation project is over. If you're interested in learning more about Visibility's Customer Conference, a great chance to freshen up your ERP approach, click here.
