ERP for small business
Managing a business efficiently is about organisation, focus and process as a massive 55% of businesses don’t make it to their fifth birthday. The commentators offer banal opinions as to why this happens. I continuosly observe three key reasons why this tragedy happens so often and to so many people with different experience, education and skill.
The first reason is lack of market comprehension.
Refusal to look at the water ahead. For example People dream up the concept, build the product and then sit back and wait for the market to flock and buy. In information age there is no excuse for lack of research prior to spending any time and cash on designing a product until you have firm confirmed there is a market.
The number two reason is lack of understanding of fundamental facts about business.
A significant proportion of people starting a business know their trade, how to offer a service or build a product, but not how to run a business. Having the ability to read and follow the balances in the profit and loss or the balance sheet is an essential skill. The basic knowledge of accounting is rarely imparted well by the business publications, internet resources and those in the know such as CPAs and bookkeepers. The problem is made worse by greedy and short sighted software makers such as Sage software misleading the market by selling only a portion of the functionality actually needed by small businesses.
Sage software and other vendors as usual are underserving small businesses.
Large enterprises years ago figured out that all of their Information systems should be wired together to give them a complete picture of the business and then along came ERP software solutions and packages. One vendor NetSuite had the foresight to see the gap in the market and began offering its small business ERP software. NetSuite competitors have since emerged.
The third reason businesses don’t survive is because of lack of process and procedures that put in place the essential behaviours and consistency a business must have to operate efficiently.
