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Semelhante a The Three Pitfalls of Business Expansion – and how you can avoid them
Semelhante a The Three Pitfalls of Business Expansion – and how you can avoid them (20)
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The Three Pitfalls of Business Expansion – and how you can avoid them
- 1. Masterclass 2 The three pitfalls of business expansion … and how to avoid them
- 2. © 2013 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 2 Introduction SMEs across the world prioritize the effective use of technology to support growth Survey conducted among SMEs by Economist Intelligence Unit in US, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Brazil, Russia, India, China & Mexico
- 3. © 2013 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 3 Avoiding the Pitfalls Three pitfalls related to managing: • Business processes • Analytics • Information systems
- 4. © 2013 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 4 Business processes – plug the process gaps • Warning signs Process gaps are more obvious Inaccurate inventory Unreliable forecasts Quality control Shipment delays Dissatisfied customers
- 5. © 2013 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 5 Business processes – see clearly again • ERP helps you avoid the pitfalls • The bigger the company, the greater the need • Design your own best practice • Integrate corporate governance
- 6. © 2013 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 6 Business processes – act local, work together • Different processes where needed • Better collaboration • Spend your time more constructively
- 7. © 2013 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 7 Analytics – disparate data • Do you know how you’re doing? • Expansion can cause confusion • Leads to bad decisions
- 8. © 2013 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 8 Information systems – a choice of solutions • How to make information reliable? • Common portal or uniform platform? • ERP lets you align metrics to strategy
- 9. © 2013 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 9 Information systems – integrating information • High-quality data is vital Look out for basic mismatches • Bad data leads to bad management Workarounds Corporate governance • Huge handicap for expanding companies
- 10. © 2013 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 10 Information systems – keep it simple • Apply a single system • Plan quickly • Implementation through change management • Shared vision
- 11. © 2013 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 11 Putting it all together • ERP helps you avoid the pitfalls • Better decisions based on reliable data • Look forward not back • Fulfil your potential
- 12. © 2013 SAP AG or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. Thank you Contact information: Madeline ten Krooden Marketing Manager mtenkrooden@4most.co.za +27 12 345 2505 www.4most.co.za
Notas do Editor
- Today I’m going to look at the challenges facing Small and Mid-size Enterprises – or SMEs for short. For the purpose of this session I mean businesses with annual revenues of less than $750m. I’m going to examine how you can scale your resources to allow growth, while making sure you stay flexible enough to respond to unpredictable market conditions. I hope this presentation will give you lots of practical help, and show you some strategies that can make being a growing SME just as exciting as being a start-up. OK, let’s start with a bit of background information ...
- Becoming more efficient and using technology more effectively over the next year is among the top three priorities among SMEs surveyed by Economist Intelligence Unit. Forty-six percent cited using technology more effectively as a business priority. In emerging countries this is especially important with India (72 percent), Brazil (75 percent), Russia (33 percent), China (44 percent) and Mexico (33 percent). Accordingly, sixty percent of respondents say they are automating more tasks and functions now than three years ago
- Whether you are growing your business organically or by merger and acquisition, you have to deal with plenty of challenges. Today I’m going to discuss some practical solutions to these problems, particularly in three key areas. First, business processes – including the complications of doing business in multiple locations and countries including the often complex requirements of compliance. Second, analytics – especially when you are dealing with information from multiple systems. Third, information systems, focusing on the importance of data quality. I hope this session will give you lots of tips that you can apply immediately to your business. Right, let’s get started.
- It’s inevitable that fast-growing businesses have to adapt their processes to handle the challenges of expansion. Process gaps tend to become more pronounced as operations expand – especially if local activity is centred on the availability of expert workers or particular raw materials. Many companies begin their journey by changing accounting systems and customer service. But there are many other processes within the company that need attention. For example, you can cope with sketchy knowledge about inventory for a while but, as the company grows, this can start to affect your ability to forecast accurately. As a small business, you may be able to survive issues with quality control or occasional shipment delays, but as you get larger you will soon be making lots of customers unhappy.
- An integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can help you avoid or mitigate these pitfalls. It can help with workflow management and allow business leaders to see into and across the operation. The bigger the company, the more it needs systems that help people and departments collaborate and share consistent, reliable data. ERP solutions help you design best-practice processes, covering everything from the procurement of raw materials to the handling of customer returns. They also mean you can integrate corporate governance into your operations, rather than it creating unwelcome additional burdens. For example, your system can automatically submit invoice approval requests to your buyers, rather than relying on a cumbersome email-based process that has to be initiated for every new order.
- An ERP solution gives you a complete view of you company, even when it’s growing fast. It helps you set and apply different processes to specific site locations. For example, it can make sure that shipments conform to local requirements before they are dispatched. ERP also lets your people collaborate better, by providing business units and functions with a clearer understanding of their roles in the chain. Planning becomes easier, you spot potential problems sooner and you can take remedial action to avert crises. Plugging the process gaps means that you spend more time making progress and less time recovering lost ground.
- Speaking of making progress …. do you really know how your company is doing? If you rely on different information systems – perhaps because you’ve expanded into new geographies, gone through M&A activity or entered into joint ventures – you could be getting a limited, inconsistent or even biased view of what’s happening. As a result, your decision-making ability is severely hampered. This is a big problem for fast-growing businesses, as information is drip-fed manually, in emails, phone calls or spreadsheets, which essentially means that you are working with selective data that may not all conform to the same criteria.
- Mismatched information often arises from different practices in different locations, which requires extra time and resources to normalise it. This leads to slower decisions, based on evidence that is sometimes unreliable. There are two main ways to address this problem. Your IT team can design a common portal that links all of your systems and enables you to see data across the board. However, this is usually time-consuming, expensive and ultimately it depends on your various systems connecting reliably with each other. Or you can implement a uniform platform. A proven and integrated ERP solution will offer analytic tools, a centralised framework and a uniform view of information that is fully accessible throughout the organization. You will save on data manipulation time and give your people insight into other areas of the business, helping you coordinate strategy and execution. You can also make sure that metrics are aligned with your business strategy. This helps you assess and take action on data that might otherwise be regarded as meaningless.
- I’m sure you don’t need me to remind you of the vital importance of data quality. When you’re managing multiple departments or business units, you need ready access to accurate, usable information if you are going to grow successfully. A tell-tale sign that something is wrong with your information systems is poor quality data – often inconsistent from one report to the next. Look out for basic mismatches, such as the way dates are presented – according to local practice – which results in unintelligible information being produced for analysis. This can result in important decisions being based on inaccurate or incomplete information. In other words, poor quality data can lead to bad decisions and appear as bad management. If you try to sustain diverse systems, you encourage users to create workarounds, which may not comply with corporate governance. This is particularly risky in highly regulated environments or industries. As a result, planning takes longer than it should and people can’t make sense of information. When you find yourself in this position, with the market outpacing you, it’s impossible to get ahead of the curve.
- The answer is simplification – a single system that guides users into entering the right information in a standardised format. This also helps you define the roles of individual users and apply appropriate security access limits. Centralised and standardised data means you can plan quickly, by getting straight to the analysis rather than spending time validating and reviewing data. You can push information much faster to your business functions and cut unnecessary communication between locations. Above all, you make decisions fast, based on accurate information. Of course, implementing an integrated ERP system involves change. However, if you put in place a proper change management process, you can reduce implementation time. Get users involved, be sensitive to their concerns and communicate the reasons for changing and the benefits they will gain. Ultimately, it’s all about managing expectations. And creating a shared vision of how your fast-growing business is going to continue to succeed.
- In summary then … We’ve looked at three distinct pitfalls that face fast-growing businesses – relating to processes, analytics and information systems. We’ve seen how a properly integrated ERP solution can help you avoid or mitigate their damaging effects by bringing consistency, compliance and clear communication to your business. This helps your people collaborate and your leadership team make good decisions based on complete data. Above all, it lets you spend your time and effort on the aspects of your business where you can make the biggest positive impact. You get away from sorting and mapping data to try and solve problems you’re already suffering from. You start anticipating and pre-empting them instead – and focus on fulfilling your potential. Thank you for taking part in this webinar. I hope you’ve found it useful. [CTA and contact details]