Current Trends Favor the Cloud, CRM, and ERP Options

With growing markets, small and medium sized businesses must be prepared to expand in accommodation. One of the best preparations is having the right technology.

To accommodate both the current market and anticipated growth, legacy software – with non-integrated, siloed information – needs to be abandoned in favour of more savvy technologies. These older software systems can’t “talk” to each other, making it difficult for you to get the information you need when you need it.

The current trend favours cloud-based software, customer relationship management (CRM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. While these trends are far from new and appear to be here to stay, many businesses, especially smaller ones, have hesitated to implement them. An article in the online CIO magazine says:

Many growing businesses end up cobbling together piecemeal systems to handle finance, inventory, purchasing, sales, various databases, payroll, integration with Web stores and online ordering.

This is most likely because ERP software has, until recently, been perceived as too cost prohibitive for small and medium sized businesses. Large enterprises have long been using the software, but it wasn’t until recently that software developers started producing versions that were purposefully scaled down for smaller companies. Many businesses still feel that their operations are too small to benefit from what is still a significant investment, however.  

The cloud is also breaking down those barriers. The CIO article says:

Businesses don’t always have the funds or the technical ability to build their own data center, to have the infrastructure that can support a full-scale ERP solution. But that requirement’s going to evaporate with the cloud.

Companies that have embraced the new technology, like FMW Fasteners in Houston, TX, are pleased with the results:

The cloud eliminates the headache of managing on-premises IT, improves business agility and accommodates a high-growth track. It has completely transformed the business and what we were able to do and our sense of the possibilities of what we could get done.

Like FMW Fasteners, your business could benefit from an enterprise resource planning system and cloud capabilities.

To learn more about them and how your business will improve with their implementation, contact Mantralogix for more information.