Top 5 reasons why an ERP solution can help remote working operations

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses were forced either to close their operations or introduce remote working for their employees. As lockdown restrictions have eased, many businesses are continuing to allow their employees to work remotely, adopting hybrid models of work. A range of industries including the manufacturing and distribution sectors believed, before the pandemic, that due to the nature of their work they would be unable to offer remote working to their employees. Enterprise Resource Planning – ERP - systems, embedded into your business processes with continuous improvement strategies, give you a way to take make flexible operations possible. Below we analyse the Top 5 reasons as to how an ERP system can help with remote working.

1. Real-time access to information

ERP solutions allow your customer service, order processing, purchasing and account teams to work remotely. Through ERP, employees have access to real-time data without the need to be in the workplace. This allows your teams to continue their daily duties as normal from their homes and remain connected to daily operations.

2. Reduce miscommunications

One issue many business owners faced during the start of the pandemic was how to reduce the risk of miscommunications to remote employees, as digital communications have not always been as effective as face-to-face conversations. ERP business systems remove some of the unnecessary dialogue required to share business updates, and in utilising the system as a central tool, authorised employees can enter a shared database of information to view performance. Employees can also access consistent, or the most recent documents and, information which keeps all employees on the same page when completing tasks.

3. Improve speed and accuracy

Instead of departments passing information to one another verbally or through digital communications, such as emails, ERP software allows departments to boost their productivity and efficiency, as departments can see the work of other teams within the company in real-time, without having to be physically present. This allows teams to work more collaboratively and adjust contents accordingly from wherever they are working .

4. Allow scalability

Many businesses are encouraging employees to work remotely as it allows them to save significant overhead costs, such as costs that would previously have been spent on office spaces. ERP systems can enable remote working teams to capitalise on these savings and expand their teams, as ERP systems can be easily scaled up and down as required.

Should your business see a spike in demand, resource planning can guide you to make recruitment decisions quickly driving higher levels of scalability. Similarly, if you operate a manufacturing and distribution business that peaks seasonally, you will be able to plan to scale down during quieter seasons.

5. Simplify supervision

Many managers and heads of departments are stretched for time. ERP systems help managers work remotely, giving them complete visibility over the work of their teams and helping them to access company data in real-time. Tools can be used to monitor remote employee activities to track productivity and efficiency.

Discover more today

If you would like to learn more about how an ERP system can help you accelerate stronger process transparency, required to make long-term remote working a success, please contact WinMan today. We are a team of UK and US-based ERP business improvement system specialists, who manufacture and distribute ERP systems for a whole host of industry sectors and can help you build an ERP system that supports your remote working journey.

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