Enterprise Resource Planning systems have come to play a crucial role in businesses across the entire spectrum of industries today. This much has been for everyone to see. Unfortunately, despite all the benefits it has to offer, it remains intensely under-utilized owing to a factor that is bound to surprise you — because companies are not using the full potential of their data. And companies fail to get the best out of their data due to the lack of tools that would ensure the holistic data utilization.
One such tool in the world’s modern, technologically-advanced arsenal is Big Data. A 2019 report found that organizations make use of only 12 percent of their data. It means a whopping 88 percent of gathered data go to waste! There is no saying the loss of potential and opportunities this causes. Thankfully, this can be rather quickly tended to by Big Data, which is primed to help businesses achieve better processes and drive substantially higher revenue. There is a whole new world of opportunities out there, but to access them — ERP must be integrated with Big Data. If you are still on the fence about it, here are some more compelling reasons that show why the integration of ERP and Big Data is a necessity in today’s day and age.
- Understand customers better: What big data does is empower ERP systems with better insights and data, sourced from a variety of new sources, including social media. And given how social media is a gold mine of data, it becomes that much easier to understand precisely what customers like and do not like. It, in turn, enables businesses to come up with highly tailored offerings, recommendations, and more.
- Better supply chain: There is no denying that supply chain management is a complicated endeavour. However, when ERP is fortified with big data, companies gain access to insights into the supply chain, i.e., an in-depth overview of the processes, assets, etc. that can then be leveraged to streamline the movement of products across the entire supply chain. And this ability to monitor the supply chain in real-time also makes it easier to form concrete business strategies.
- Sales forecasts: Any business needs to be able to make sound sales forecasts. And the duo of ERP and big data helps in this department as well by analyzing inventory and supply chain data. The insights thus gleaned then provide valuable information about market conditions, sales patterns, etc. It will allow companies to adapt their forecasts, operations, and more accordingly.
An IBM report claims that a majority of the data we have today was generated only in the past couple of years! Suffice it to say that this data is critical to most companies and offers the potential to take their business to the next level, provided it is leveraged correctly. And if you wish to do that as well, the key lies in finding a trusted custom enterprise software development service provider.
