If you are like most people, you start off the New Year with a bang. You set goals and think about them daily. You push, push, and push a little bit more to try to reach these new resolutions. January is easy, but come February you start to get complacent. Those resolutions tend to get pushed to the back burner. Everything else seems to creep in and the goals simply get pushed aside. By simply keeping your goals in the forefront of your mind, you can keep 2017 going strong and not have the February burnout.

Much of this logic can be applied, not just to life goals, but to your ERP system as well.

Make Sure to Look at Your Objectives

Most people have an objective for their system—the reason that they bought their ERP system in the first place. The most common reason is to simplify business processes and increase visibility. Break this down into smart objectives and make sure that it relates back to your company strategy. Be clear on how it adds value to your business.

Stick to Your Plan

You made a plan in January, so make sure that you keep checking in with that plan in February and beyond. Understand what needs to happen in order to achieve your goal, where you need to focus your resources and, importantly, what not to do as well as what to do.

It might be data that’s holding you back from achieving business visibility—so work out who can fix it, how they can fix it—and what takes priority when the operations part of the business calls for this resource.

Maybe achieving stock accuracy relies on your supplier improving their labeling or barcoding—agree who is responsible for working with the supplier to remedy that, understand the financial benefit to you so you can support the supplier if needs be.

Perhaps you need to invest time and effort in realigning your business process with your systems or maybe you need to get your people better trained; upgrade to the latest version of the software and take advantage of the new technologies that have come through.

Whatever it is that’s holding you back from achieving your goals, identify, prioritize and plan.

Make Sure Implementation is Going Smoothly

This can be hard, but checking in on your implementation can be huge for your ERP system. It’s so easy to put off this type of activity to another day, especially when you have a customer desperate for a rush order, or a supplier quality issue, or a business need to go out and drive more new customer adds.

You considered this in the planning stage, but now is the time to remember how you will overcome these operational challenges that prevent you from sticking to your implementation plan. Engage with your vendor, understand the role they can play, but make sure you retain ownership.

Celebrate Success and Find the Next Challenge

One goal is met and you are jumping for joy, but don’t forget to keep thinking about the next goal that you made. Your ERP solution is the same. As soon as you have completed one goal, look for the next improvement to be made. Perhaps there is a point solution that you can apply to add a greater depth of functionality to warehousing or planning. Maybe you could integrate more closely with your supplier or customers' systems in order to drive efficiency right across the supply chain. Perhaps Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things has gotten you all excited and you’re dreaming of a way to make this new technology create value for you and your customers.

Let PositiveVision Help Keep You on Track in 2017

Whether you are hitting your ERP goals or finding yourself lacking, the consultants at PositiveVision can help keep you on track. We will work with you to reach your goals and keep the motivation going throughout the year. With versatile ERP solutions like Sage 300 and SYSPRO, we can help you find an ERP system to reach your goals and surpass them. Contact us today to find out more.