With rising energy costs and the economic downturn, companies are working harder than ever to reduce costs. In fact, cutting cost is a higher priority than increasing sales in a lot of companies. Consequently, companies’ top priority as they look to enhance or upgrade their ERP, enterprise resource planning systems is to reduce costs in their organizations. However, keeping sales and maintaining the same high level of customer service is critical as well. The following is a summary report from 500 companies to help companies refine their underline Best In Class critiera and performance strategies.

2008 Best in Class ERP Enterprise Resource Planning Report

With rising energy costs and the economic downturn, companies are working harder than ever to reduce costs. In fact, cutting cost is a higher priority than increasing sales in a lot of companies. Consequently, companies’ top priority as they look to enhance or upgrade their ERP, enterprise resource planning systems is to reduce costs in their organizations. However, keeping sales and maintaining the same high level of customer service is critical as well. The following is a summary report from 500 companies to help companies refine their underline Best In Class critiera and performance strategies.

Five key performance criteria were established from the 500 companies that participated in the survey that separated to leaders from the rest of the pack. As would be expected, with the implementation of ERP systems, companies achieved a reduction in costs and also reported an improvement in inventory planning across the board. However, the best in class achieved marked improvement in the following areas as well; operational costs (20% reduction), administrative costs (25% reduction), on-time delivery (95% success rate), inventory levels (20% reduction) and order accuracy (96% success rate).

Highlighting the critical impact ERP systems can have on a company, the survey also shows that the Best In Class companies have shared traits as well. Whether it’s a “big” erp system like Oracle or SAP, or a smaller open source solution or SaaS, software as a service, application such as the leading CRM ERP software on demand applications, the top companies used their ERP systems 15% more often and used more of the ERP system features than the rest of the companies. These companies were also 20% more likely to be upgraded to the latest version of the enterprise software application.

In summary, in order to be the Best In Class, ahead of the pack, it is highly recommended that companies continue to utilize their ERP systems to their fullest potential. This means getting the latest versions of software releases and getting trained on new product features so they are fully utilized. And as the name suggests, ERP, enterprise resource planning, systems should be used by the entire “enterprise” and not just a handful of users. By standardizing business processes throughout the entire organization, ERP system training and deployment can be swift and thorough and make the implementation of newer versions, upgrades or even enterprise software switches less costly from both capital outlays and resource allocation.