Resource planning is a huge part of running any startup and one of the most important things to get right when you’re setting your company up. But there’s a big difference between resource planning and financial planning. Resource planning is about figuring out how you will create your products, sell them, and gain customers. It’s about planning how you will reach new customers, expand to new markets, and build your product roadmap.
Financial planning, on the other hand, is about revenue, profit, and cash flow. It’s about how much money you make and how much money you spend. It’s concerned with market revenues, cost of goods sold, inventory, and operating expenses.
Resource planning and financial planning are inextricably linked; they go hand in hand. If you neglect one, you risk doing the other a disservice. While resource planning will mean different things for different startups, here are three basic things you should plan from the outset:
1. Your product roadmap
2. Your customer acquisition strategy
3. Your customer lifetime value
But once you have scaled up your business, hopefully, you will have enough data to know which strategies worked and which didn’t. So, how do you take those learnings and apply them to your new product, service, or market?
Well, first, you have to take a step back. Pick a day. Pick an hour. Pick a moment. Pick a time when you can think clearly.
Then, think back over the time you have been in business. What have your customers asked you for or asked you to solve for them? What problems has your team identified?
Now, think about how much time you spend on things that you don’t care about. Look, understanding your customers and markets, and being strategic about your time are key parts of the job. If you don’t prioritize it, someone else will. Of course, prioritizing is easier said than done. But, thankfully, some tools can help you do both.
Getting acquainted with an ERP app model:
RP software (or ERP software) is a software dedicated to business management. This software can take the form of a web-based system or a mobile app that integrates features designed to manage specific operational processes. Companies make use of ERP software to increase business process efficiency. Businesses use ERP software to automate various processes, such as supply chain management, project management, manufacturing, finance, HR, and IT services. ERP software integrates multiple systems, such as HR, finance, CRM, and SCM, into one unified system.
ERP software includes various modules, such as finance, accounting, distribution, CRM, human resources, inventory, materials, manufacturing, project management, sales and operations planning, and supply chain management. Many ERP software vendors offer their solutions on a subscription-based model. Companies purchase a license that includes access to their system along with support and upgrades.
The pros of custom ERP development:
Enterprise resource planning software (ERP) can integrate data from many departments. In many cases, ERP software is used by various stakeholders, including employees, managers, suppliers, and customers. Because ERP software is so widely used, it has to integrate data from multiple departments. It requires a system that aggregates data from many sources into a single database. Many enterprise resource planning solutions offer user security based on permissions. For example, a sales manager would have access to inventory information, while a customer service representative would not. But such systems don’t take into account the entire system. If an employee wants to view a specific record, they will need permissions from that particular department and all the relevant departments. ERP software isn’t expensive, but it’s an investment. A custom package allows you to specify the features you use most, so you’re guaranteed to get what you need. And the price you pay for custom software is an investment, too. In the long run, you’ll be saving on the cost of maintaining multiple software solutions.
ERP and CRM software development: The key steps and processes
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software was developed in the mid-1980s to provide business entities with a centralized, automated way of managing their data. Due to its key organizational benefits, ERP systems quickly caught the attention of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Most SMEs are under constant pressure to improve their internal processes to keep up with their competition. Most companies use CRM (Customer Relationship Management), HR (Human Resource Management), and accounting software to manage their workflow. However, these off-the-shelf products have a limited scope of functionality and are often unable to meet the needs of particular businesses. Many SMEs feel that their established way of doing business is inefficient. Therefore, they want to revamp their workflows to cut costs, increase productivity, and, ultimately, boost their bottom line. As most SME owners know, developing and implementing a custom ERP web app require substantial investment. But by opting for cloud solutions, you can significantly reduce your costs.
Software development and implementation:
Most business owners have a false conception of software development. According to 46% of respondents, the dev process starts with choosing an IT specialist and then developing a prototype. In reality, software development starts with research, and it usually continues for several years.
Crystallize your expectations
ERP is a lot like Lego. You can build almost anything with it. For small businesses, ERP web apps typically have dedicated SME modules. For large corporations, cloud suites like Sap’s S/4HANA are crucial.
In the early days of ERP, the big vendors tended to assume that their software would solve all the businesses in their market. But the market turned out to be much more complex and fragmented. As a result, the problems to be solved by ERP became much more diverse. A typical small business needs an accounting system, an inventory system, a customer relationship management system, an HR system, and a financial system, among other things. A big corporation may have dozens or hundreds of applications, each dedicated to solving a different problem using different technology. Even within a given business, there may be many different departments. Now, for a small business, this is not a problem. But for the big corporations, it’s a huge problem.
Standardizing on ERP software will be like trying to standardize on Lego. Any small company that wants to use ERP will have to customize their software. For a big company, it’s not much easier. There’s no single cloud suite that will solve all the problems. This complexity is a good thing. It means that everybody has a chance to specialize. If you are in the toy business, your ERP software will be different from everyone else’s. If you are in the medical supply business, your ERP software will be different from everyone else’s. But it also means that nobody wins. Standardizing on ERP software is like playing an old version of Tetris. You use all the pieces, but none of the pieces fit together. The trouble with ERP is that it’s not designed for specialization. It’s designed for industry. It’s designed for big businesses.
ERP can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Building out an ERP system shouldn’t be like building a house. It should be like building with Lego. With ERP systems, you have a lot of building blocks. You can put them together with any way you want. To build a house, you first need a permit. And a permit costs money. Building houses require lots of permits and a lot of money. ERP is similar. It would be best if you got your system set up, which means obtaining an ERP license. And ERP licenses can cost a lot of money. But ERP licenses don’t open up a new world of expenses. They open up a new world of possibilities. ERP licenses don’t limit you to one kind of house. You can buy a Lego kit and build anything you want. So, too, with ERP software. You can build whatever kind of business you want. With ERP, you can build out an accounting system, a CRM system, a warehouse management system, an inventory management system, and whatever else you want.
Hire software developer
The ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software market has seen a lot of activity in the past few years. Companies are developing better solutions that reduce errors, provide quicker access to information, and help businesses become more efficient.
While ERP solutions can help businesses in several ways, these solutions are not one size fits all. Each ERP solution comes with its own set of features, which can be beneficial and troublesome. For example, if your business is small, you may find an ERP system is overkill and will only complicate things. On the other hand, if your firm is large, an ERP system may be what you need to increase efficiency and potentially save money.
Conclusion
Many customers fall into the trap of selecting an ERP system from a pre-packaged catalogue. These ERP vendors are merely software publishers. They supply software, and that’s it; they do not customize the software.
Customization and integration are expensive. A pre-packaged software product usually costs two to three times as much as a customized or integration effort. An ERP vendor that doesn’t listen to you wastes your and your company’s time, money and resources. When an ERP vendor tells you that their software will work out of the box, ask them to explain their reasons for that assumption. If the ERP vendor can answer you satisfactorily, then their software is probably good. If they can’t, then don’t buy it.
When an ERP vendor tells you that their software will fit your organization and your company’s requirements, ask them to be clear and specific. How will their software fit your company? How will it integrate the operating system, the databases, the legacy systems and the third party applications? How will it integrate sales force, marketing, accounting, manufacturing, warehouse and distribution, etc.?
When an ERP vendor tells you that their software will have a strong base, ask them to explain their reasons for that assumption. A stronger base implies more functionality. If the ERP vendor can’t answer you satisfactorily, then don’t buy it.
