Three Reasons It May Be Time to Break Up with Your Ecommerce ERP System
Breakups are never easy. Both sides put immense effort into making it work, but there often comes a time when it just stops working. Knowing this, one of the most common reasons for a breakup is that one party continues to put more and more work into the relationship only to get less and less from the partner. Much like a real relationship, this happens quite often with business management software—you continue to put more and more effort into the equation each day, month, or year and see diminishing returns.
Today, we would like to discuss three major reasons it may be time to tell your Ecommerce ERP that you need some space.
You’re Not Seeing the Big Picture
The competition level in eCommerce is higher than ever. With promises of free two-day shipping and returns, fast customer service, and minimal wait times, customers expect more and expect you to deliver. Unfortunately, businesses using the wrong eCommerce business management solution have trouble seeing the big picture—customer information, financials, and inventory are in three separate locations and it’s nearly impossible to bring it together.
All of this starts to add up, and as you struggle to connect the dots, you might realize that you can’t fill orders or have to delay shipment. This in turn damages your reputation with your customer and can lead to bad reviews or worse, lost business.
Many applications aren’t built for the needs of the modern eCommerce business. They can’t provide the granular visibility you need into each bin, item, or warehouse, much less bring it together with other software. Better options exist that allow you to see more of your business, streamlining and automating a wide variety of business processes.
You’re Not Feeling the Love (No Matter How Hard You Try)
If you’re reading this during the holiday season, you know it’s all hands on deck right now, and once that ends it’s time to start planning for next year. However, you may have noticed that this year has been more stressful than last. For many organizations, this is considered to be a growing pain that comes with operating a retail or ecommerce business—shipping more products requires the team to put in more work.
However, these pains often extend beyond the people in the warehouses; it’s likely you’re seeing your finance people struggling as well. Closing the books takes longer than it used to, tax season is going to present its own set of challenges, and you continue to put in more work to make a connection.
Often, this is the result of an undersized or unfocused financial management platform, able to handle the needs of a small or simple business but requiring extra effort once the company grows or becomes more complex. ERP designed for the eCommerce business allows you the power to automate many of the tedious and laborious tasks so that you can focus on moving your business forward.
You’re Falling Behind
As with any relationship, your future goals need to be aligned and if each of your five-year plans are divergent, it might be time to part ways. Maybe it started off perfectly—your goals were aligned, and the platform was exceptionally competent and fit with your goals. A few years later and you have realized that while you have grown, it hasn’t.
If you’ve been using your current ERP system for a while, you may notice that it’s barely able to keep up now—much less five years from now. The coming year is expected to be even more competitive, and customers will have higher expectations than ever.
In order to keep up with competitors ranging from a similarly sized firm all the way up to the continued threat that is Amazon, you can’t afford to be stuck with a ‘solution barely able to handle today’s needs.
Finding the Right Platform for Your Commerce Business
Luckily, your ERP system isn’t human, and often comes with a useful life for your business—often five to eight years at the most. Better yet, there’s no stigma in dumping your ERP solution right after the holidays—for eCommerce companies, it’s actually the best time to make a change.
There are no hard feelings, no counseling, and the most emotionally charged part of the conversation comes when you start discussing must-have new features in your new solution. At Cloud 9 ERP, we specialize in helping growing businesses find the right solution for their needs, and have helped many growing eCommerce firms break up with their ERP.
Acumatica Commerce Edition is one of the strongest solutions for the modern eCommerce organization in need of the visibility, control, automation, and growth that they deserve. Cloud 9 ERP Solutions is a leader in helping companies enhance their ecommerce business and has worked with companies just like yours. We invite you to learn more about our ecommerce capabilities, read customer testimonials, and download the latest guide from Acumatica: The Best eCommerce Starts with Tighter Integration. Ready to learn more? Contact us today!
