“Growth… is the yardstick by which we tend to measure the competitive fitness and health of companies,” says Harvard Business Review. In our opinion, it’s a good measurement. Not only do growing companies present a stronger financial picture, they also attract more talented employees because they offer satisfying opportunities for advancement. Suppliers prefer to partner with growing companies too, due to the prospect of an ever-increasing, reliable sales channel.  

However, HBR continues: “When inflation is taken into account, most companies barely grow.” In fact, in an analysis of 10,897 publicly held U.S. companies from 1976-2019, 75% of companies experienced little to no growth, ranging from -0.5% to 0.3% of growth per year on average.

Clearly, growing your business is hard enough. You don’t need extra obstacles in your way. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the top 5 growth-limiting “gotchas” to watch out for when you’re selecting a new ERP.

Disclaimer: We are Acumatica experts, so all the examples we use are drawn from Acumatica. However, our tips apply generally across all ERPs. You can apply the advice in this article to your own research, no matter which ERPs you are considering.

1. User Access Limitations

One of the biggest ways that ERP vendors limit your growth is by requiring you to purchase user licenses. This inevitably increases your administrative costs and creates bottlenecks because only a few people have access to the information they need.

The better choice is to look for an ERP with resource-based pricing, which charges sensibly based on the amount of computing bandwidth your company uses up. Resource costs will naturally increase as you grow your customer base and add more files and historical business data but, with unlimited user access and a web-browser interface, your customers, vendors, and staff will be freely able to get the information they need without administrative hassles.  

2. Scheduled Training

Initial training on your brand-new ERP is important, but scheduling additional training sessions for new or promoted employees is usually ineffective and a waste of time – especially when you consider today’s high turnover rates and constant software enhancements. Yet we all know that low software adoption rates and the resulting workarounds are proven growth killers. So, what can you do?

Easy: Instead of scheduling constant in-depth training sessions, we suggest you look for a user-friendly ERP solution that provides totally free and comprehensive, bite-sized training sessions online. That way, your staff can learn new skills precisely when they need to use them, at no additional cost to you.

A good example of this is Acumatica Open University, which anyone can use to become an Acumatica expert. The courses are always up to date, and the training includes quizzes to authenticate learning.

3. Poorly Regulated Integrations

Everyone is always talking about APIs these days, and for good reason. “API” stands for “application programming interface,” which is fancy tech-talk that refers to 2 or more computer programs that talk to each other and exchange data. It’s easy to imagine the growth-enabling benefits of having your ERP securely exchange data with your inventory tracking solution and a dashboard visualizer like Power BI: less administrative work and better insight.

The trouble with APIs though, is that you need to ensure that they’re reliable, secure, and that they work with the latest version of your ERP software. This last one is easy to overlook but can be quite damaging. Think back on all the times you’ve been held back from a useful software update or security patch because your integrated software wasn’t compatible with the update. (Smartphone apps and website plugins are particularly vulnerable to this issue.)

When you select an ERP to grow with your company, you’ll want to make sure you can take advantage of its latest features and security enhancements immediately – which means you’ll want to look for a commitment from the ERP vendor as well as the third-party integrated API developer, guaranteeing that your integration will alwaysbe current with the latest ERP version.

Again, we’ll use Acumatica as an example here. Their “Always Current Program” strictly regulates Acumatica Certified integrations that are fulfilled by Acumatica, giving you peace of mind that your integrations will always be compatible with the latest release.  

4. Constant Need for Consulting

Today’s leading software solutions empower the user to customize their experience easily, without requiring a degree in Computer Science. Yet, for some reason, a lot of ERP vendors still expect you to be a computer programmer or hire a consultant if you want to do something basic like write a custom report.

Clearly, this limits your growth because it reduces your insight and restricts your abilities to leverage the power of the software you already paid for. It also costs a bundle to pay consultants to do constant, small tasks. What a waste.

Fortunately, you can save time, money, and a world of frustration if you simply make sure that the ERP you choose provides no-code options anyone on your staff can use to freely and securely build their own reports and dashboards. Make sure they can build reports using any data in your system that they have permission to access.

Quick tip: Ask whether your ERP is built on proprietary code or an industry standard like the .NET framework. If it’s proprietary, you’ll pay more for even the most mediocre consultants because they know the specialized code. If your ERP is built on an industry-standard code, you’ll be able to work with the best consultants for reasonable prices.

5. DIY Support

Speaking of consultants, you also want to make sure you can get support from an experienced and knowledgeable consultant as soon as you need it – but this can be trickier than it seems.

Many ERP vendors direct you to community forums so you can spend your valuable time learning the nuts and bolts of your system to perform Do-It-Yourself troubleshooting. Others have such lengthy wait times for vendor support that your business is likely to suffer from the disastrous delay. The best solution for fast, expert support is to make sure the ERP you choose provides dual-layered support from your implementation / support partner and also offers escalation options for support straight from the ERP vendor.

For 99% of situations, an experienced implementation and support partner will be able to fix the issue. However, for those few troublesome times when you need to call in the big guns, you’ll want fast-track access and a partner who will act as a savvy intermediary to help you get the assistance you need straight from the source.

Understand and Avoid Traps by Discovering 3 More “Gotchas”

Too many ERP vendors throttle their users’ growth simply to boost their own bottom line. In our opinion, the software vendor and implementation / support partner you invest in should do everything in their power to help your company drive successful, sustainable growth.  

But the process of selecting the right growth-minded ERP begins with you. When shopping for your new ERP, make sure that the system and partner you are considering will support your processes and people over the years, and that they promote your sustainable, long-term growth by giving you full control over your business and data. It very much pays to think ahead and consider whether the ERP you choose will fit seamlessly into your unique strategic growth processes – or if it will trap you with the “gotchas” in this article.

Luckily, a smart selection can help you avoid every ERP trap. As HBR reminds, “Good growth strategists do not fall into the trap of thinking they can grow fast now and fix things later,” and “great growth strategists… go beyond avoiding traps and accepting trade-offs. They see investments in training, processes, systems, technology, and culture as ways to break growth bottlenecks and raise a company’s sustainable growth rate.”

But that brings up another important point. Growth-limits aren’t the only “gotchas” to watch out for when you’re selecting a new ERP. You must also look out for investment “gotchas.”

To help, we’ve provided access to the handy white paper, “Three ERP Investment Gotchas,” so you are prepared to avoid burdensome hidden costs in your new ERP.

Access the White Paper

Accounting Business Solutions is a respected accounting and business management software solution provider. We provide experienced sales, consulting, implementation, training and support services for small to medium-sized companies located in south central and southeast Texas. Our portfolio of solutions includes cloud based, hosted and on-premise options.

 

Sources:

Harvard Business Review, “How Fast Should Your Company Really Grow?”, Gary P. Pisano. HBR March – April 2024, pgs. 39-45. Online source: https://hbr.org/2024/03/how-fast-should-your-company-really-grow