At present, there are many kinds of ERP software in the market with different functions, so how should small and medium-sized enterprises find the most suitable ERP software according to their actual situation? This is the primary problem that small and medium-sized enterprises have to face when choosing ERP.
For small and medium-sized enterprises, the application of both capital and information technology is relatively weak. If they decide to do ERP projects, what they want most is less risk, less investment and quick results.
Therefore, if you want to successfully choose an ERP software that suits you, you must pay attention to the following aspects: 1. Understand ERP correctly to prevent you from entering the misunderstanding of ERP selection: "only choose the expensive ones, not the right ones"
Some small and medium-sized enterprises think that only ERP software with huge cost is the best and omnipotent.
This is a common problem that enterprises are prone to make when choosing ERP.
They believe that since ERP needs such a large investment, it should be able to solve all the problems of the enterprise.
This unrealistic consideration not only makes the selection of ERP difficult, but also directly affects the implementation process of ERP projects.
In fact, due to the different development history and industry background of different ERP software, the knowledge and experience accumulated by implementers are also different, and each ERP software has its own characteristics and advantages and disadvantages.
Therefore, when SMEs choose ERP software, they should not choose a "perfect" and expensive ERP software, but choose an ERP software that suits their own needs.
This is mainly due to the limited financial resources of SMEs. If you choose a large-scale, comprehensive or sophisticated product, it will bring some difficulties to the successful implementation in the future.
For example, in order to show the determination to implement ERP system and improve enterprise efficiency, a small and medium-sized enterprise has launched an ERP system suitable for large enterprises. However, due to the lack of financial resources, software maintenance and staff training are neglected. Usually, these tasks cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan, which leads to the high-cost ERP software not playing its due role and not achieving the expected results.
Second, management demand analysis, find out the main problems in management. Before choosing ERP software, enterprises should first conduct detailed analysis and full investigation on their own needs to find out what are the ineffective or inefficient links in current enterprise management, that is, what problems enterprises need to solve in order to realize informatization.
At present, many small and medium-sized enterprises are still in the traditional manual management mode and in the transitional stage from planned economy to market economy. There are many shortcomings and defects in enterprise management.
In recent years, the market competition is extremely fierce, customers' demand for product varieties and specifications is becoming more and more diversified, and the requirements for product quality, price and delivery time are getting higher and higher.
If the management of small and medium-sized enterprises continues to follow the traditional management methods, it will seriously affect the management efficiency and operating efficiency.
The great pressure of external competition and the internal motivation of enterprises to improve efficiency and effectiveness urge enterprises to put forward information strategy and implement ERP system.
Only with the help of advanced scientific and technological means and the introduction of modern management concepts can we profoundly change backward management methods, rigid organizational structure and inefficient management processes, win the market and seek development.
Facing the severe internal and external challenges, it is the only way for the development of small and medium-sized enterprises to drive and promote the implementation of scientific management and modern management mode with information technology.
However, before using ERP system and purchasing ERP software, enterprises must diagnose and think calmly about their own management.
On the basis of careful analysis of the present situation, this paper determines the target, scope and key issues of the construction of management information system, and analyzes the feasibility of the manpower, material resources and financial resources that enterprises can invest under the current conditions.
In a word, management demand analysis is a process for enterprises to further understand and correctly understand ERP system, re-understand and dissect themselves, and is an important basis for enterprises to choose ERP software.
Third, "tailor-made", choose the most suitable ERP software. After making clear the special needs of enterprises for ERP system, the choice of software will be based.
The combination of ERP software function and enterprise demand is the key factor for the success of ERP software implementation.
Different software products have different functions, performance and optional characteristics, which must be considered comprehensively, and cost performance is the best indicator.
Focus on whether the function of ERP reflects the main idea of ERP and whether it covers the main business scope of enterprises.
The strength of function is relative. Some large-scale ERP software has many product functional modules, but quite a few of them have not been used by enterprises. We not only have to pay for these functions, but also unnecessarily increase the workload of enterprise use and maintenance.
Especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, due to financial and financial constraints, they must tailor their own ERP software.
Different production types have obviously different requirements for ERP software, and the products of different ERP software suppliers often support different production types or have special advantages in a certain production type.
Therefore, for enterprises planning to implement ERP, the first thing to do is to make clear the production type of their own enterprises and the specific requirements of the production type for ERP software, and then choose the most suitable supplier among the ERP software that meets these requirements.
Different enterprises have different basic data structures. For those enterprises whose data belong to general type, all kinds of general software can basically meet their use. The success of the project comes more from factors other than technology.
For enterprises with special needs in data structure, it is necessary to choose software that can meet the special needs of enterprises.
Such as steel, clothing and other industries, the description of material data is quite complicated, and not all ERP software can be applied.
Different business types also have such problems. For example, enterprises engaged in distribution can find the distribution function from various ERP software, but the support of different software for distribution is far from each other. If an enterprise has a deeper application demand for distribution, it must understand the depth of ERP system to solve distribution, otherwise the operation of the system will not meet the fundamental requirements of the enterprise for business management.
Different enterprises have different goals, scales and information bases, which are closely related to the choice of ERP.
Therefore, when choosing ERP software, enterprises should analyze their own needs from top to bottom and from coarse to fine.
For example, product manufacturers may be most concerned about the accuracy of product delivery date and seize this key requirement. Through decomposition, they can trace back to a series of business processes related to the product production cycle, so as to find the most suitable software for the problem.
Fourth, choose mature ERP software to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises. ERP software is a huge and complicated software, and the links in the program are complicated.
Any software inevitably has defects and errors, but to varying degrees.
Whether an enterprise can successfully apply ERP has a great relationship with the quality and reliability of ERP software.
At present, ERP software on the market includes domestic software and foreign software.
Foreign software condensed decades of foreign management experience and contained many advanced management ideas, which provided a reference model for standardizing the business processes and optimizing the management mode of China enterprises.
Generally speaking, foreign software has many advantages, such as comprehensive integration, stable technology, flexible functions and openness, which provides a large space for the sustainable development and management improvement of enterprises.
However, foreign software design is too complicated, the software purchase cost and maintenance cost are high, and the workload of users and secondary development is heavy.
Comparatively speaking, the procurement and maintenance cost of domestic management software is relatively low, and the pressure of enterprise capital investment is relatively small. For small and medium-sized enterprises with limited funds, domestic ERP software should be their first choice.
However, in the face of many domestic ERP manufacturers, which one to choose still needs careful choice.
Because the development and application of ERP in China is still in the primary stage, the ERP software products sold in the domestic market are very different in function and the depth of solving problems with each function.
When choosing ERP software, enterprises should seriously consider whether the software is mature and reliable, which is an important criterion for enterprises to choose ERP software.
ERP is a management application software, and its maturity is naturally related to its practical application in enterprises.
After the successful development of ERP software, in addition to strict laboratory testing, it is more important to constantly hone in the process of repeated application of enterprises, and constantly improve the reliability and maturity of the software by constantly modifying and supplementing errors and defects.
Laboratory testing is often carried out through artificially designed programs and simulated data, which has certain limitations.
However, in the practical application in the enterprise field, the software will be tested by a large number of actual data and complex business processes.
This is unmatched by laboratory conditions.
Therefore, when choosing ERP software, enterprises must examine the history and experience of software companies, the formation and development process of software, the number of customers and the evaluation of application effect, and the software version maintenance mechanism of software manufacturers.
Generally speaking, the quality and reliability of software tested by a large number of customers are higher, and enterprises should try to avoid becoming a testing ground for immature products.
Verb (abbreviation of verb) examines the implementation experience and ability of ERP software suppliers and chooses good partner enterprises. To successfully implement ERP system, we should not only carefully examine the ERP software products provided by the company, but also pay attention to the investigation of the company's ERP implementation ability and experience.
Because of the complexity of ERP system, it involves a lot in the process of implementation, which is much more difficult than other application software.
At the same time, ERP system involves more new knowledge and new technology, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises in China, ERP is a new thing, and small and medium-sized enterprises lack ERP professionals.
Therefore, in the process of implementation, ERP providers need strong technical support, especially the organization and implementation of ERP projects.
In order to do this, foreign ERP suppliers generally have a number of professional consulting companies to provide specialized consulting and implementation services for software, but because of the financial resources of small and medium-sized enterprises, they basically choose domestic ERP suppliers.
However, domestic software vendors can't do this at present.
Compared with foreign ERP vendors, domestic ERP vendors have the following weaknesses: First, they lack implementation experience.
Foreign ERP manufacturers have decades of implementation experience, while domestic ERP manufacturers have only a few years of implementation experience. ERP is not only a computer project, but also a complex management innovation project.
Second, the domestic ERP manufacturers are incomplete and lack management consulting institutions for ERP design and implementation.
The organization participates in the design of ERP internally, consults customers on ERP implementation externally, and provides accurate consultation reports on the key points and difficulties of ERP implementation for manufacturers.
In reality, when ERP vendors design ERP software, only computer designers participate, and enterprise managers basically do not participate.
Third, many ERP vendors have not realized that this is to help enterprises implement management changes, but only regard it as a computer project.
Therefore, when looking for ERP construction partners, small and medium-sized enterprises should not only require their own software to be good, but also pay attention to whether the company has strong consulting and implementation strength, and also examine the company's consulting and implementation experience and performance.
In short, in the process of ERP system implementation, only experts with rich consulting and implementation experience can make an accurate and pertinent diagnosis of the current management of enterprises, put forward excellent solutions and successfully implement the system.
Therefore, when choosing ERP partners, enterprises should pay special attention to the investigation of the implementation experience and effect, visit the successful and failed customers of the company, listen to their feedback, learn from their successful experiences, sum up the lessons of failure, and ensure the success of ERP implementation.
To sum up, to avoid the risk of ERP software selection, enterprises must do a good job in demand analysis, find their own characteristics and key issues, and be aware of them.
Only in this way can we inspect the software, choose the right software and choose the right software supplier, and reduce the system implementation failure caused by the mismatch between the software and the enterprise.