Rather than view organizational change as an obstacle that must be overcome, view it as a chance to grow and improve. Jim Highsmith said it perfectly when he said, “Agility is the ability to adapt and respond to change … agile organizations view change as an opportunity, not a threat.” It’s about promoting a business growth mindset amongst your team and understanding that to achieve long-term success and be sustainable in our technologically advanced world, you must be agile. This became most obvious during the Covid-19 pandemic, and it continues today. The most basic, yet essential step to improve business agility is through your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, the core of every company.
Scalability
ERP systems can give companies a lot of flexibility for business growth, or they can limit an organization from scaling over time. Thinking of the Covid-19 pandemic, companies who had ERP systems that provided cloud access and integration with e-commerce solutions were able to shift & scale online sales and remote access quickly. Companies with other ERP solutions, unfortunately, missed some opportunities and struggled.
Sage Intacct’s powerful agile solution grows alongside you so that it fits your business today and in 5, 10, and even 50 years from now. It allows you to scale quickly and offers seamless and open integration with other best-in-class applications, like SalesForce and external CRM databases, through pre-built APIs that are easy to set up for your unique workflows. We can almost guarantee (and we don’t guarantee anything unless we know for certain) that what’s right for you now, isn’t going to be what’s right for you later. Create long-term value by keeping your options open to integrate and customize your ERP solution with whatever you need, whenever you need it.
If technology feels like it’s rapidly accelerating, it’s because it is. From streaming services to artificial intelligence like self-driving cars, and the increase & challenges of cybersecurity, everything related to technology is quickly progressing. Running on obsolete hardware and software will inevitably hamper business growth if it hasn’t already. A survey from 2016 noted that U.S. employers may be losing up to $1.8 trillion in wasted productivity due to aging infrastructure and outdated technology. Don’t become a part of that statistic – choose to scale, whether that’s up or down, with Sage Intacct so you remain agile and keep pace with ever-evolving technology, economic, and market demands.
Responsiveness
Merriam-Webster defines responsiveness as quickly responding or reacting appropriately or sympathetically. This is another key attribute of business agility. It’s comparable to scalability in that it reacts quickly, but at the same time, it’s also adaptable to its end user. Sage Intacct provides its users with responsiveness by allowing for real-time, role-based specific dashboards and reporting.
A CEO should be more focused on big picture issues and less on process issues, like if profit margins are getting met or not. Conversely, an accounting clerk needs more granular details, like specific dollar amounts of client or vendor transactions. Sage Intacct easily pulls answers on the status of a project, its milestones, and budget vs. actuals immediately. While simultaneously, providing the higher-ups with insights on revenue, costs, and profit margins. Stop wasting time and customize Sage Intacct’s dimensions to fit your team’s needs. These flexible filters ensure proper communication and increased team performance by removing noisy datasets that fog up the analysis process.
Engagement
Engagement is not a new concept. Its roots run deep in the business world and are an important part of business agility. You might be wondering where the connection is between an ERP and engagement. How about we tell you! Sage Intacct is one centralized accounting platform that brings together your disconnected data from multiple systems. Global research and advisory firm 451 Research found that 63% of leaders use workflows with more than 100 steps across disparate applications. This is a huge waste of resources and as technology changes, adds to the complexity of an already overly complex process.
Disconnected data breed information, communication, and team silos. There are also process bottlenecks to worry about when you’re running on multiple systems. 46% of business leaders claim that disconnected processes impair their ability to plan, forecast, and budget because of a lack of visibility, which in turn causes reduced business agility. Automation technology helps break down bottlenecks and silos because it forces proactive collaboration. Running on one central system gives everyone greater visibility into the work they do to ensure long-term business growth and agility.
Sage Intacct’s agile software empowers you to tailor your business to today’s dynamic business environment. Business agility gives you the ability to compete and thrive in an unpredicted future. We challenge you to envision the future and find out how you can become more agile today so that you set your organization up for success. If you’d like help with this, give us a call at Forbes Andersen Technology. We’d love to hear from you.
