Preserving Your Legacy

Do you ever find yourself in preservation mode? You know, that place where you’re laser focused on keeping what’s most important intact as you see things around you shifting and changing. When you’ve started a business from the ground up, there’s a lot to preserve.

After all, you thoughtfully considered every decision that took you from that tiny start-up barely able to make ends meet to the humming operation in place today. You sacrificed. You broke through that dreaded one-year mark (the one where 80% fail) and then, before you knew it, you hit another milestone – five years. Did you know that out of the 20% of small businesses who make it past the first year, only 50% of THOSE see a year four?

And now you may find yourself in an interesting place – a desire to hold on to the things that have made you successful and yet…grow. To extend what’s yours.

Think about the next evolution of your company. What does it look like? Does it involve technology? And how do you become a faster, more agile and easier-to-do-business-with supply house for your customers, especially if you run on an old, outdated legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) system?

The answer is not to give up your ERP. It’s business intelligence.

Why Business Intelligence?

If you’re running on a legacy ERP, the system handles everything, right? And it’s perfect for your many processes and transactions. Now you need more. You need meaningful information for everyone in your business.

So what does business intelligence (BI) do? BI software takes the raw data that’s already been entered into your existing system and instantly delivers analysis that can point out trends, help with decision-making or uncover entirely new things.

How Business Intelligence Works with Your ERP

You may store information on inventory, purchasing, customers, associates and sales numbers in various databases. Though this data may be scattered across multiple systems—and may seem unrelated—business intelligence software brings it together and helps make correlations.

The final product can really be a game changer. It’s like turbo-charging your ERP. You suddenly have the RIGHT data at your fingertips. Need to quickly know your margin on that last huge order? What about your stock levels or inventory mix? And wouldn’t you like to be more proactive instead of reactive?

Where to Find More Information on Business Intelligence Tools

Don’t just take my word for it. There’s a ton of good information out there on BI from reputable resources. First, check out: 1) Gartner and 2) BARC.

There’s also Phocas Software, where I serve as President, US. If you haven’t heard of us yet, that’s okay. Like you, we started small and are growing. In fact, I’m proud to share that Phocas continues to rank as a global leader BARC's annual BI Survey (Source: BARC), the world’s largest business intelligence survey.

We understand how hard you’ve fought to get where you are and how important it is to preserve what’s helped you grow. Keep fighting for the legacy you’ve built, be proud of your successes, extend your brand and, of course, live forever!

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