Migrate from Excel to ERP
One of the challenge that’s faced by business owners is, “they love their Excel sheet” more than anything else. It has all the transaction data like Sales, Purchase, Inventory, Payment and Receipts. Its designed as per their needs and its perfect for them. But as the business grows, its difficult to maintain the data in an Excel and they move them to Google sheets. But does this saves the problem? To some level – Yes. But its problem that’s brewing now. So how to recognise that which is the right time to Migrate from “Excel to ERP” and what are the different aspects to consider before switching from Excel documents to ERP Software? There is “None” and It is always “NOW”.
Most of the businesses are confused whether they want to go for an ERP or not. But the fact that most of the businesses are already using software’s like tally for their day to day business operations they don’t know why they are not efficiently able to cope with the speed of the businesses that they are interacting with and not able to deliver the services as quickly as other businesses.
So when do businesses can exactly know that they need to update from using excel for their business operations to an ERP software? And what can be the different aspects to consider before switching from excel to ERP?
Moving from Excel to ERP, is worth the efforts?
- An effective ERP platform provides you with the management of accurate and consistent data. And as long as your data stays consistent, you would be able to undertake informed decisions. This also strengthens your control over the various functions of the company. What’s more, with ERP platforms, you would be able to increase on-time deliveries to a great extent.
- With the help of an ERP platform, you would be able to reduce operational costs. This is because this platform would help you decrease the delay or duplication of work.
Why should Businesses move Data migration from Excel to ERP?
- There can be no need for an IT team to periodically upgrade the system and patches manually.
- It helps people to collaborate simultaneously on issues on cloud in real-time.
- Migrating their systems to cloud can solve the major obstacles faced by the On-premise ERP Software solution.
- What are the reasons for Companies to adopt ERP system?
- One of the reasons for a company requiring a change in ERP system can be mergers. – ERP packages are extremely useful in integrating a global company and provide a “common language” throughout the company.
· Integration of information
What can be the critical implementation concerns that companies face when dealing with an ERP system?
Click her to check effective ERP Implementation model and how it’s easy?
Why businesses are afraid to move from Excel to ERP?
1. Fear of change
Companies are under the impression that change will lead to lost time and resources. It is also believed employees will protest any alteration of daily operations and the need for retraining. Slowly introducing the technology and consistent improvement can reduce this fear rather than completely changing the entire system at once.the old employees hesitating to adopt to new technologies can also mean resistance to embrace ERP implementation.
2. Content with the present system
Most businesses think that their present software system is the best and there was no necessity for restructuring. But the research says that businesses are losing out to their competitors as they are not able to adopt to new technologies and come out of their legacy systems which would become obsolete eventually.
The survey by economist intelligence unit says that businesses felt there was not enough communication between their IT departments and the rest of their company. This disconnect from technology could end up costing a business. Cloud deployed software can be a solution for this problem as the information can be accessed from anywhere and by any employee on their mobile devices.
3. Cost and Features selection
The pricing of the software and the selection of features can be one of the reasons for a business to adopt the ERP system.
Fear comes from lack of understanding of how the ERP system can benefit their business.
Only providing right information can assuage these fears. Assessing the business requirements first and progressively providing what kind of software may be adoptable can only be known first by talking to the ERP vendors. Taking suggestions from them and analysing what features suits them will only give a better view of allaying those fears of adopting the ERP system.
Why should we consider moving an excel to an ERP system?
What are the deficiencies of excel?
1) Lack of Centralised control
All users of ERP software in a business have only one source of information which all users have access to in real-time.
While in excel the employees have to make changes to a spreadsheet, save it as a new version and then start sharing it. This task makes the teams vulnerable to know whether they are working on a right data set and even if its up-to-date or not.
2) Time consuming
User input is required for each and every cell which is time consuming and if teams need to create a new report they would probably be required to make a new sheet. So
If they have to manage the inventory then a person has to be allocated to enter the data manually on a regular basis, which may give rise to human errors.
3) Difficulty in Collaborating
Most of the times spreadsheets are held separately and even if it is a cloud based version the system can freeze if its multiple users try to access the same spreadsheet at the same time. But with a cloud ERP software the whole workforce can collaborate with ease.
4) No Automatic Updating
Whenever a change occurs the spreadsheets are not updated automatically. This has to be done manually by an employee of the company. This can lead to loss of data or duplicated data entries, while an ERP provides with real-time data insights.
Why ERP has to be adopted for businesses?
1) Real time information
The ERP software creates a single database for the business and makes it possible for all the departments to view the same information in real-time. This eventually helps the business to run efficiently and establishes communication systems without any hindrance.
2) Automation of work
Automation of work helps businesses run their operational activities more efficiently by eliminating the time taken to manually update information into the system. The ERP system provides this functionality and helps the businesses to make quicker decisions.
3) Control over inventory
The ERP Inventory Management software helps businesses keep track of their inventory. Keeping proper track of the inventory helps businesses to easily serve their customers. The businesses which have no ERP for tracking their inventory, the inventory management become a tedious process and lose a lot of potential customers due to bad service.
4) Data security
Data security here refers to the business information being made accessible only to authorised personnel’s. The information here is updated only by the authorised personnel keeping the data safe and secure.
Training and its perspectives for ERP implementation
Why training is required for successful ERP implementation?
- If the ERP system has to be implemented, then having a right training to navigate across ERP software is necessary. Lack of training of employees leads to unused potential of the tool and also failure to implement the software in the organisation.
- When proper training is given to the end users or employees, then we can see an increase in productivity and also we get to see an increased problem solving ability with the employees. Giving proper training helps the employees to understand the full potential of the tool and utilise it effectively for greater productivity.
- Trained staff realises the full potential of the tool and can make the most out of it. The time spent on training never goes waste as greater the training, the employees work becomes quicker leading to a lot of time saving and more time remaining to do more work.
- Training your staff may look as an overhead to you initially but there is no greater productivity than having a trained staff that spends only the optimal time in performing the tasks instead of placing requests to someone else to solve the problem which may be more time consuming and less cost effective.
- Lack of proper training can lead to different employees working on different data sets which could lead to redundancy and inconsistency, while proper training enables the workforce to be on the same page and also reduces inconsistency to great extent.
- Most of the employees simply don’t adapt to the new system resisting change. They are comfortable with those tools that are easy to use. This makes the organisations to look for new employees discarding the older ones who are loyal and understand the objectives of the organisation well as compared to their new counterparts. A training program to the existing employees can help them to adapt to the new system and not become obsolete in the process. It’s always better for the companies to train them well to adapt to the new system rather than simply discarding them for newer employees.
Potential problems that can be encountered during the training process:
- Lack of interest in the managers from SMEs to invest in the training during implementation of the ERP.
- No usage of proper Learning Management Systems (LMS) for effective training.
- Training managers of the organisations fail to involve the end users in the training process on the pretext of ‘I know all’ which produces delay and additional costs.
- The ERP training expertise level required is higher than delivered which is never asked by the organisation undergoing the training.
- The training evaluation is not frequently applied in practise as stated in the training plan.
Even though moving from “Excel to ERP” seems easy, its not so. It needs lot of background work like employees readiness. their mindset changes, data preparation, what to migrate and what not to migrate etc.
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