Expeto is a business management system for small to medium engineering companies in the service and repair industry. Expeto helps you plan engineers time, manage stock and accurately monitor costs and service levels to help you deliver outstanding customer service.
Replacing your existing business management software is a decision that affects the entire organisation. The right software should streamline your business processes, improve employee productivity and be an investment that is paying benefits. Software that doesn’t meet your company’s needs or aspirations will often require costly support, force you to change your business practices to match the capabilities of the software and, in the worst cases, result in considerable degradation of your business performance.
There are a number of symptoms indicative that your business management system is no longer meeting the requirements of your organisation. These are often masked as, in an attempt to get the job done, system users will often develop off-line processes.
In some cases this can be a result of poor software selection and may have existed since implementation. In others, as the business has grown and developed, new business processes are introduced and the software is unable to support these changes.
If the existing system doesn’t allow user to get their job done then they will find ways around the system to do so. This usually involves manual, non-centralised, spreadsheet based procedures. Such methods often results in duplicate work and errors as data is copied from one system to another.
A business system that fits with your organisation should have the ability to readily generate reports of the business information that you require. Too often users are populating the system with information that managers are unable to access in a manner that allows useful analysis of the data.
The business should not be restricted from adopting new technologies by the limitations of the business system. Failing to implement new technology that improves efficiency or the interaction with customers may result in a loss of market share.
Systems that are heavily customised to meet the business requirements are often costly to maintain and support. In these cases it is often financially beneficial to look for an alternative software package that more readily aligns with the business processes.
Having recognised the limitations of your existing software and taken the decision to replace it, the implementation phase tends to be easier than for a new installation. This is because your employess have the experience and discipline of using business software and the data can often be exported, edited and imported to the new system.