Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a key part of any organisation. It streamlines operations by integrating departments, provides real-time data for better decision-making, fosters collaboration across teams and improves customer service by offering a centralised view of interactions.

In summary, ERP acts as a central nervous system, increasing efficiency and contributing to your business’s success.

Due to this, having efficient solutions to handle ERP is critical. In the digital, AI-driven era, ERP systems are changing rapidly, allowing businesses to overcome new challenges and operate smarter.

In this blog, we explore the future of ERP systems and why their evolution is necessary.

Why do ERPs need to be improved?

In the age of hybrid working, work has become decentralised, and communication between teams more complicated.

On top of this, industries have become more competitive, with businesses needing to seek ways to gain the edge, increase productivity and manage costs.

There are also diverse challenges facing businesses today, including rising costs, reduced resource and advanced cyber threats.

In order to meet all these challenges, businesses need to be agile. 81% of business leaders believe this is key to differentiation.

Often, this is done via digital transformation. However, there’s a gap between what leaders believe will differentiate their organisations and what they’re ready to use.

Many ERP systems are one-size-fits-all, which neglects the nuances in individual organisations. This leads to data silos, lack of collaboration, lack of connectivity and an inability to leverage the new technology invested in.

When it comes to agility, it needs to start with your ERP system. As your operational core, enabling planning and decision-making, it can then drive performance across your business.

As business needs evolve, ERP systems must therefore evolve too.

What does the future of ERP systems look like?

Teams now need a centralised ERP platform that’s intuitive to use and fit for purpose.

A modern ERP solution should be cloud-based, intelligent and autonomous. It enables every employee to work efficiently, collaborate across teams and embrace innovation. In turn, this leads to increased business performance and growth.

We can now dive into the key trends a future-proofed ERP solution should tackle.

Tailor-made_

It is crucial that any ERP system specifically fits the needs of your business. Typically, this means investing in a modular solution that can be adapted and scaled for your evolving needs over time.

This also allows you to optimise operational processes across your department, while getting full value from the system.

Tailored systems also tend to be easier to deploy, which reduces IT complexity and lowers cost of ownership.

AI-driven_

AI is the future. So, a modern ERP system must utilise AI innovation to deliver long-term rewards. AI features typically cover analysis and automation across core business areas. This makes for better decision-making, increased productivity and faster turnaround times.

Generative AI within ERP can also take available real-time and historical data to help teams gain accurate insights and make smarter decisions. Plus, with time saved, it unlocks their capacity for creative and strategic thinking.

It also allows your organisation to embrace AI, giving you a competitive advantage.

Scalable_

To enable sustainable growth, your ERP system needs to be adaptive. As demand changes and your business expands, your ERP needs to keep up with your changing needs.

If you’re pursuing global growth, your ERP solution must abide by laws and currencies of different regions and geographies. However, it must still operate well at a local level.

Seek an ERP system that meets the needs of these different markets, while enabling localisation and obedience to regulatory requirements.

With this, your business will be able to embrace local and global opportunities, enabling you to grow at your own pace with constant support from your ERP solution.

Security_

With organisations of every size facing an increasing volume of cyber attacks, security in your ERP system is crucial. It should protect your data and processes, while reducing the risk of data breaches and compliance failure.

There are many elements to security. You need to ensure only the relevant people have access to your system through strong identity and access controls. You also need to safeguard yourself against the any threats, for ultimate data privacy.

So, any ERP system you consider should abide by strong security principles.

How to transform your ERP now_

If your ERP system is not prepared for the future, you need to act now. Every team in your organisation will have its own needs, so we recommend choosing collaboratively to ensure the solution fits needs across the organisation.

Here are our steps for making the move to a future-proofed ERP platform:

1. Audit your organisation’s current collaboration tools to identify gaps

The first step is auditing your existing ERP provisions and identifying where the weak points are. Good questions to ask at this stage include:

• What are the biggest causes of frustration for teams when using the system?
• Can all your systems work together or do you have to move between multiple systems?
• Are there AI capabilities in your system, or the potential to add them?
• Are there manual processes that eat up time?
• Does everyone have visibility to the data they need?
• Do you find teams working in silo?
• What are your growth goals and can your ERP support them?
• How secure is your current system?
• Are all the features available being used?

Remember to ask these questions across your team to uncover usage in all areas.

2. Develop KPIs for an ERP tool with input from all teams

Next, outline what you want from your ideal ERP solution. Typically, you will want KPIs relating to things like accuracy, collaboration, efficiency, productivity and so on.

At this point, the weaknesses you’ve already identified will be useful. In a dream world, what would those processes look like instead?

Again, it is crucial to work on this as a team to ensure any solution works for everyone.

This will provide you with a picture of your future system to map onto products in the market.

3. Centralise your data

ERP should be based on one single source of truth. With one central repository for all information, you eliminate the need to maintain and update multiple versions of the same data in different systems.

You need to aggregate all your data into this single place. You’ll also need to ensure that data is accurate and well-governed.

To do this, you’ll need a data warehouse that can handle large volumes of data and provide scalability. Cloud-based data warehouses are popular choices due to their flexibility and accessibility.

This data warehouse will also need to integrate with your existing tools and processes to give everyone accessibility.

A good ERP solution should include this at its core, making sure everyone works to the same data.

4. Improve collaboration capabilities

Next, you need to ensure collaboration across your teams.

Map out key workflows across departments that would benefit from collaboration features. This could involve tasks like purchase approvals, inventory management, project planning or customer service requests.

It is also a good idea to highlight any difficulties with collaboration and identify approaches to improve them.

You may be able to fix collaboration issues with increased connectivity or new processes. However, in many cases, you are reliant on an ERP solution that enables it to happen, so aim to find one that fits every department’s needs and allows people to work together efficiently.

Dynamics 365: futureproof your ERP_

When it comes to future-proofed ERP systems, Microsoft Dynamics 365 is the market leader. It’s an AI-powered, cloud-based solution, built on a secure foundation. It’s also embedded with customisable and innovative features, allowing you to streamline operations and enhance productivity.

With a modular set-up, you can choose the features your business needs and scale usage over time.

Key benefits of Dynamics 365 include:

• Covers core business areas, including finance, supply chain management, projects and operations.
• Automates manual tasks for increased productivity.
• Provides tax compliance, content localisation and continuous business regulatory updates for over 200 countries and regions.
• Reduce costs by only investing in the modules you need.
• Utilises zero-trust security principles, protecting your business across cyber attacks.
• Easy to deploy and onboard.
• User-friendly interface across modules.
• Enables connectivity between teams with centralised data and knowledge-sharing.
• Empowers better decision-making with access to real-time insights.
• Twice-yearly updates for improved value and innovation.

Dynamics 365 also benefits from Microsoft’s ongoing investment into AI. Every module is supported by Copilot, allowing for increased agility and automation across your business. The result is proactive planning, instant data analysis, enhanced user experiences and plenty of time saved.

As Copilot is already embedded within the system, any barriers to AI are eliminated, making it easy for your teams to leverage. With 80% of leaders seeing AI as crucial to competitiveness, this keeps you ahead of the curve.

Most crucially, Dynamics 365 delivers on ROI. Over a three-year period, Dynamics 365 ERP solutions provide an average ROI of 128%, making it an investment you can’t afford not to make.

Explore the future of ERP systems with Infinity Group and Dynamics 365_

With the changing digital landscape and increasing business challenges, organisations need to prepare for the future now. That means investing in an agile ERP that will drive long-lasting results with Dynamics 365.

However, we understand moving to a new system can be nerve-wracking. With years of experience deploying out-of-the-box ERP solutions for businesses, we’re here to guide you along the way.

We work with you to build and customise your ideal Dynamics 365 deployment, designed around your needs. Then, we’ll support you throughout the change process, from developing a business case to migrating data.

We’ll also identify Copilot use cases that provide additional value and evergreen results for your business.

Visit our Dynamics 365 page to find out more about how it can revolutionise your ERP.