Time Mastery Now

erp for small business

Commercial organisations need efficient process, the focus of leadership and structure that can adapt to enable the company to grow safely as a massive 55% of businesses fail in their first five years of existence. The experts offer useless ‘insight’ as to why this happens. I continuosly observe three key reasons why this tragedy happens so often and to so many people with different backgrounds, qualifications and skill.

The primary reason is insufficient market understanding.

Refusal to look at the water ahead. For example Individuals have the concept, create the product and then expect the market to appear and buy. In information age there is no excuse for lack of research prior to spending any time and money on creating a product until you have robust confirmed there is a market.

The second reason is lack of understanding of fundamental facts about business.

The majority of folks starting a business know their trade, how to offer a service or manufacture a product, but know very little about running a company.  Having the ability to read and track the balances in the Income statement or the balance sheet is an essential skill. The basic knowledge of accounting is rarely imparted well by the business manuals, internet resources and those in the know such as CPAs and bookkeepers. The problem is maginfied by greedy and short sighted vendors such as Sage software misleading the market by providing only a portion of the functionality actually needed by small businesses.

Small business accounting software isnt a complete answer.

Until recently ERP software solutions and packages were the privilege of larger enterprises who had deduced that the back and front office systems need to be fused together to give a complete picture of the business. One vendor NetSuite had the vision to see the gap in the market and began selling its small business ERP software. NetSuite pricing has since increased and put their technology out of the economic reach of small businesses.

The final reason businesses don’t make it is a because of the absence of practical management processes and policies to enable a sustainable fabric of disciplines and behaviours.