Without a doubt, 2020 has been the most challenging year in in many decades in terms of human and business survival. We have seen how companies from various industries have disappeared, others are on artificial respiration and others have seen their profits reduced with the need to make significant cuts in their workforce.
In the face of this time of uncertainty and volatility in business, it is very difficult to have the “magic formula” that not only guarantees survival but leads companies to profit and sustained growth.
However, there are methodologies, disciplines and actions oriented to information technology that we have seen as a common denominator in companies that survive and grow in the face of all kind of adversities.
Derived from this observation and analysis we can provide 5 basic tips to make information technology an enabler and not a brake for the substantive improvement of the business.
1.- Have a fully integrated backoffice platform with real-time information. A large part of the basic operations of an enterprise (accounts receivable, accounts payable, inventories, sales, distribution, accounting) are broken up with too many interfaces and dubious integrations between them, often despite having the traditional ERPs. And in the worst case, they end up consolidating the information into spreadsheets.
EOS (Enterprise Operating System) platforms are an excellent choice for this as transactional information is recorded only once and is handled in all processes from start to finish, having a single source of truth within one system.
2.- The backoffice platform should adapt to the business processes and not the other way around. Many ERPs rely on “best practices” to make companies adapt to their rigid structures, resulting in complex, costly and long-lasting implementation processes. In addition to having to carry out a large number of developments that in the long run are difficult to maintain. EOS platforms are based on rapid parameterisation (not development) to automate business operations in the fastest and most agile way possible.
3.- The backoffice platforms and the software in general that a company acquires must be flexible and adapted to it, both in terms of investment and growth of the company. We’ve seen many companies spend a fortune on ERP solutions and over the years, they only use 50% of it and the other part they cover with very expensive developments. It is important, dear reader friend, that the cost of the software solution is adjusted to the growth or decrease that the company may have. For this reason, companies use SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Plattform as a Service) or Software on Demand schemes.
4.- Stop incurring infrastructure costs for technology. The company must be focused on its industry and its core business. If you are a pharmaceutical, a bank, a consumer products company, you should focus on that expertise and not spend time and money on managing servers, links and computer centers. Therefore, it is recommended to purchase cloud software solutions with well-known providers such as AWS, Google to name a few. Don’t have the slightest doubt that your business data is safer there than on your old computer center servers. It validates very well the availability and SLAs (Service Level Agreements) that give you these solutions.
5.- Verify that your backoffice platform is easily integrated with other software solutions. Remember that a backoffice platform like EOS mainly covers the administrative, accounting and financial processes of your business. Depending on the industry, they can also cover manufacturing, logistics and distribution among others. On many occasions, EOS will need to be connected to niche or very specific solutions in your business. It is very important that this connection is agile and simple so that information flows naturally from process to process.
We invite you to reflect on these 5 tips and chat with us about how to help you improve your business through Information Systems.
Luis Pedroza
Sales Director
LOVIS Mexico