Learn Your Business Management Solution

A recent article in USA Today, “Ask an Expert: Entrepreneurs, avoid these these 5 tech traps,” included one of the things many companies overlook related to their business management software. Item number four on expert Steve Strauss’ list:

"4. Never really learning the software: Like the brain, people tend to use only about 10% of what their software can actually do. That’s the mistake. Software companies spend a lot of time and money studying small business and creating software to meet our needs. If you spend a little extra time actually learning what your software can do, you will be amazed." - Here's the full article

Business management software and solutions have evolved over the last 20 years with plenty of best practices and cross-pollination of features and functionality. What this means is that more most any business process that your business performs, there is a corresponding function in your business management software.

Just spending an hour or two every week studying your small business management software, learning about the functionality will continuously open your mind to the possibilities. Those possibilities include organizing your business, saving time and smoothing out the flow of your operation, so you are in a better position to take on more customers, more business with the same resources- improving your bottom line.

Your ERP business management solution should be considered a strategic investment in keeping your business competitive and enabling your particular business model to far outperform your competitors - whether that be through customer service, shorten lead times, better inventory availability or simply sharing information. Granted your business is always what you know best - and you might need an outside specialist to help you with creative and innovative ways to get the most from your investment. And many times this a long term, evolving process.

At OpenSurge we have helped many clients unleash the power of xTuple ERP related to their specific needs. As an example, one of our clients had a compelling need to be able to readily access documentation and test results for specific batches of materials. Further they had a requirement to provide this documentation with each customer shipment. Utilizing the existing xTuple functionality, creative application of bar code technology and simplified work flow resulted in the ability to produce the necessary documents the time of shipment.


Be sure to check out the other four tech mistakes to be avoided on Steve Strauss’ list. One of which is "not scheduling regular data back-ups".  So if you haven't backed up in a while - here's your reminder!