How to eliminate inefficiency to propel your growth and protect your brand

By: Vincent Tang, Regional Vice President, Asia, Epicor

As a manufacturer, you will understand that to grow in today’s competitive global markets means that your business must operate with increasing efficiency. However, this can quickly lead to a catch-22 situation that perhaps you’ve experienced; while you’re working to become more efficient to drive growth, unplanned growth happens—such as surprise surges in demand that you just weren’t prepared for. And suddenly, you find that your operations are overwhelmed and becoming less efficient instead of more so.

If this sounds familiar, you’re certainly not alone. Increasing efficiency to support planned growth, only to experience unplanned growth that leads to inefficiency, can become a vicious cycle. Fortunately, it’s also a cycle you can stop once you’re equipped with the right tools and processes. 

There’s more at stake than just your growth

Profitable growth is an important reason to make your business as efficient as possible, but it isn’t the only concern, not by a long shot. And again, this is because growth often creates other challenges.

A previous global survey by Epicor and MORAR Consulting has identified five key risks related to unplanned business growth. One such risk was taking on large or complex projects while lacking the skillset and technology to deliver them effectively. If you can’t get the right information to the right people at the right time, or accurately track statuses of raw materials and orders, it can result in reduced operational capacity and efficiency—as well as damaged customer service and brand reputation.

How the right ERP can propel your growth and protect your brand

Eliminating operational inefficiency in order to solve the growth catch-22 situation and safeguard your company’s reputation is entirely possible—and starts with having the right technology to run your business and support its best performance. For example, a business software solution such as Epicor ERP is proven to:

• Help optimise internal efficiency, increase the speed and standard of execution, and make and deliver quality products on time and at the right price.
• Help connect everyone in real time – so your operations can run faster at lower cost while maintaining high product quality.
• Provide real-time access to data on inventory, production and assets, accounting, and other key business processes—and connect the enterprise by creating a closed-loop process that makes it easy to secure and sustain improvements in quality and productivity.
• Build a more productive manufacturing operation so you can cut costs and improve margins.