As competition continues to grow and the economy is unfortunately crawling along slowly, it’s no surprise that companies are looking to lower costs, tighten up business operations and above all else, improve their bottom line. One long term solution to these challenges is implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. An ERP system can help your business run efficiently and effectively. Long implementation times and a high cost upfront can make it hard for many smaller businesses to see the point in implementing an ERP system. Fortunately through the rise if software as a service (Saas) these concerns of high upfront costs and long implementation time can be bypassed. Additionally small businesses can greatly benefit from SaaS ERP.
What differentiates a SaaS ERP system from a regular ERP system? With SaaS ERP, the software vendor hosts, manages, and provides customers access to the software as a service over the Internet. It is this model specifically that works great for small businesses, manufacturers and distributors since there is a wide range of financial and operational types of benefits. The following are some of the benefits:
- Less money required upfront
- Predictable ongoing costs
- Faster implementation
- Reduced cost of ownership
- More reliable
- Improved support
- IT is simpler
For smaller businesses, the SaaS ERP system is able to provide all of the benefits and functionality without the original objections of cost and implementation. In order to avoid high upfront costs, the SaaS ERP customer is requires to pay a subscription fee over a certain length of time rather than buying it outright in the beginning. Since this system doesn’t require the setup of hardware or the installation of software, it is also much easier to implement. This all translates into essentially a faster return on investment.
A main benefit of SaaS ERP is that you don’t have to maintain and support it - your vendor does that work for you. You don’t have to have the IT expertise or know-how to ensure your system is up and running around the clock. In addition, who better to maintain and support your software than the people who created it?
SaaS ERP is a great solution for smaller organizations who want the benefits of an ERP system without the high investment in a traditional ERP system. With a SaaS ERP system in place, you a free to focus on core business and new strategic opportunities.