Growth brings opportunity, but it can also expose processes and systems that no longer suit the business they've grown up with.
Planet Eclipse has grown from a Manchester retail store into an international manufacturer and supplier of paintball equipment. As the business expanded, its existing software became increasingly difficult to rely on for areas including stock control, production and accounting.
Its experience offers some useful lessons for other growing businesses.
Look for the Workarounds
Systems don't necessarily stop working when a business outgrows them. More often, people compensate. A spreadsheet appears, information gets manually updated or somebody carries out an extra check before trusting a figure.
Planet Eclipse found that its previous systems required significant manual updating, taking lots of time and increasing the potential for errors.
Look at the processes requiring the most manual intervention. Are they designed that way, or have they gradually evolved to compensate for limitations elsewhere?
Test How Much You Trust Your Stock
For Planet Eclipse, better stock visibility was a major priority. The business needs stock not only to meet current demand, but also to support warranties on products already sold.
If someone asked what you have in stock right now, how quickly could you give them an answer you're confident in?
The biggest benefit for us was the stock management element. I wanted to press one button to tell me how much stock we had and I got it!
Look Beyond the Purchase Price
Planet Eclipse imports high volumes of stock, so understanding the additional costs associated with bringing those goods into the business matters. Freight, insurance, duties and port charges can all contribute to the true landed cost.
De Facto ERP was configured to help Planet Eclipse account for these different elements, providing a clearer view of what its stock actually costs.
Pick a recently imported product. How easily could you establish its actual cost once freight, duty and other associated charges are included?
Make Sure Your Systems Fit the Business You've Become
Perhaps the biggest lesson isn't about one particular process. It's about fit.
As businesses grow, they add products, customers, markets and new ways of working. The systems underneath them need to be able to accommodate that change without continually adding manual work and complexity.
Planet Eclipse's De Facto ERP solution was configured around its particular requirements, from stock and production through to landed costs and international operations.
If you were choosing systems around the business you have today, would you make the same choices you made several years ago?
A Useful Exercise
Take one typical order and follow it through your business from purchase or production to stock, sale and finance. Note where people need to re-enter information, check another system, maintain a spreadsheet or rely on individual knowledge.
Those small workarounds can tell you a lot about where your systems still fit the business - and where the business may have moved on.
See How Planet Eclipse Uses De Facto ERP