How siloed do you really want to be?
Companies are constantly looking to be more efficient. According to Staples, in 2016 75% of American workers didn’t believe they had access to the latest efficiency-boosting technology. With technology more accessible than ever and 75% of American workers feeling like there is a better solution out there, a common practice is occurring where employees are downloading applications they believe will make their jobs easier and more productive. Sound great in theory, however an unintended consequence of this practice is the siloing of your company’s business functions.
One of the biggest contributors to companies’ inefficiencies are systems that are not integrated and that are working in different siloes. Not only do silo’s create communication problems between systems, the “Silo Mentality” ultimately reduces efficiency and can even reduce trust and morale. This is why selecting the right integrated system is vital to a company's efficiency. While searching for enterprise technology, you may be thinking; our team knows their respective areas, can’t we just let them choose and create our own best-of-breed ERP system? It is true the best-of-breed concept is growing, but this is not exactly what that means. Creating a best-of-breed system requires a VERY careful selection process and integration expertise.
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With the emergence of cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) technologies it is easier than ever to try and piece together your own system. This is exactly what we are seeing and was noted in Wired, “If a company’s IT department is not capable of moving fast enough, any other department now can go online, find a software-as-a-service application and provision that application themselves relatively easily.” Though it may be quick and easy for you to access a great email client for your newsletters, a CRM software to manage your clients and another piece of software for the assembly line, if these systems don’t talk to one another, you are putting your company at a disadvantage and wasting money, time, and man power. Not to mention that your IT department is now faced with the task of needing to provide support for these different software programs.
Having an integrated system allows your company to run at a higher level. It allows for real-time visibility on what is happening in different departments across the organization, it allows for tasks to be accomplished more efficiently and in most cases provides cost savings. These are just a few of the many benefits of breaking down the siloes and having integration across your systems.
Selecting the proper ERP system, be it a single source ERP or a best-of-breed model, may take a little bit of time and money to on-board, but in the long run the benefit of having your systems talk to each other will be worth the upfront effort.