ERP Data Chaos: Industry-Specific Solutions (Part 2 of 2)

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In Part 1, we introduced you to the signs, causes, and business impact of ERP data chaos. In this part, let’s dive into the solutions to combat the data monster, introduce you to collaborations that will help you streamline and maintain ERP systems, and take action to address your business-specific needs across industries.

Solutions to Tame the Chaotic ERP Data Beast: An Industry-Specific View

Implement Data Governance Policies and Procedures

Impact on a Manufacturing Business: Standardized data ensures that every stakeholder is relying on the same rulebook and speaks the same manufacturing language. Operations-wise, this leads to efficiency via streamlined communication. Cost-wise, it leads to the reduction of costly errors and paperwork-related inaccuracies that lead to resource wastage, reduces bottlenecks, and accelerates production.

Impact on an Oil & Gas Business: Strict data governance is non-negotiable in the oil & gas business, and is required to meet accuracy and timelines. Equal importance is given to asset and maintenance records. In the presence of strict data governance policies, this data can also be put to use as a business growth tool and make strategic business decisions with intelligent data taking the lead.

Impact on a Real Estate Business: With accurate data driving your business components, you can now count on your property listings, business financials, and client information to emerge from a single reliable data source. Your risk mitigation is strengthened too, with airtight contracts, compliant financial reports, and accurate property details helping you avoid legal disputes or win them should they arise.

Standardize Data Structures and Jargon

When every department has a unique data language, ambiguous terminology, and ill-defined formats, these factors contribute to rampant miscommunication. This leads to operational inefficiency and introduces clarity and transparency across the organization. A shared standard vocabulary in a common company dictionary or database ensures that every communique follows the same pattern and adheres to consistency in meanings and formats. Similar terminology reduces confusion, promotes accurate interpretation of data, helps communicate and discuss insights, and accelerates the entire process of making quick business decisions.

Impact on a Manufacturing Business: Collaboration receives a boost with every team across departments understanding one another’s data language, and with better inventory management and supply chain management, your business is now on top of customer demands too.

Impact on an Oil & Gas Business: Since reporting, maintenance, and safety procedures take precedence over everything else in this industry, proper communication ensures that process and equipment data is optimally defined and understood by every stakeholder, empowering them to highlight and address potential hazards proactively.

Impact on a Real Estate Business: On the real estate business front, you can now accelerate deals, empower agents, brokers, and clients with accurate and timely information, and streamline processes and transactions to set up top-notch client service levels, all while reaping the rewards of standardized communication from square footage to the number of rooms.

Conduct Regular Data Assessments and Cleansing

Data quality tends to take a hit over time, with its quality depreciating and its volumes inundated with duplicated and outdated inputs and information. Regular audits double up as quality inspections and highlight flaws and red flags in data before they negatively influence the quality of decisions. Proactive and automated data cleansing cycles safeguard data quality by deleting duplicates and addressing inconsistencies too, thus improving the accuracy, consistency, and reliability quotient of crucial business data.

Impact on a Manufacturing Business: Accurate inventory data helps manufacturing units avoid costly downtimes, fulfill the promise of timely deliveries, and avoid overstocking or stockouts. Marketing teams can target a cleaner audience database with personalized campaigns and aim for higher engagement. When the aim is to capture a larger market share and find the edge to beat the competition, reliable data always helps.

Impact on an Oil & Gas Business: Reliable and accurate data sets drive safe operations, ensuring timely maintenance, preventing downtimes and breakdowns, and prolonging the lifespan of costly equipment. The power of data also inspires operational excellence, adheres to safety and environmental compliances, and helps a business steer clear of fines and legal hassles.

Impact on a Real Estate Business: In a business where accurate property and client data empower agents to provide competitive service and close deals promptly, regular data assessments and cleansing routines offer a strategic advantage.

Invest in Robust Integration and User Training

Your ERP relies heavily on seamless interconnectivity and the key to this is robust integration with critical systems across the board such as CRM, supply chain, and finance. Proper integration influences healthy data connections between every department and team in the ecosystem, allowing them transparency and visibility and driving coordination and business continuity. In turn, when employees receive comprehensive and customized training to empower them as data champions, they guarantee a data-driven business environment where data entry best practices are followed proactively and every advantage is being leveraged effectively.

Impact of Robust ERP Integration on a Manufacturing Business: Smooth dataflows between your CRM and ERP systems in real-time help drive on-target sales forecasts, streamline production schedules, allow adjustments to accommodate market fluctuations, and set up a highly efficient and responsive production environment. Ultimately, this results in optimal customer fulfillment and increased revenue.

Impact of Robust ERP Integration on an Oil & Gas Business: Proper integration of ERP and field data collection systems enables live visibility, immediate identification of anomalies, and real-time assessment of potential risks. Acting as more than just an early warning system, ERP-provided insights also drive optimization maneuvers such as improving well performance and production rates, planned downtimes, and proactive maintenance.

Impact of Robust Integration on a Real Estate Business: ERP integration with property listing platforms provides accurate listing information to potential buyers, amplifies lead generation efforts, and empowers agents to close promising deals with transparency and efficiency well before the competition can contemplate a move.

Impact of ERP User Training Across Industries: Well-trained users are your best line of defense against data chaos and the perfect shield to combat and even avoid data disorder. From the initial steps of data entry and data sourcing to the continued maintenance of the ERP system, empowered and knowledgeable employees secure the quality of your ERP system as a dependable source of information.

Leverage Data Engineering and Data Science

Data engineering and data science provide an outcome-oriented approach where raw data is transformed into actionable intelligence, empowering a business to drive itself forward with accurate, timely, and impactful data-driven decisions. While data engineering teams build robust, scalable, and efficient pipelines to deliver high-quality, clean data flow, data scientists use the power of analytics to extract key insights and build predictive models to further unlock an ERP system’s potential.

Impact Across Industries: In the absence of an intelligent ERP system, decision-making teams may remain oblivious to actionable insights that could transform their business. Data engineering and data science technologies provide seamless data flows to read hidden patterns, identify inefficiencies, forecast trends, uncover potential risks and failures, optimize resource allocation and adjustments, and deliver clear, actionable insights. Across industries, the empowering nature of data engineering and data science helps businesses gain a competitive edge through smarter decisions.

Assess Your ERP Data Health Today

Remember, even if data chaos is a common challenge, you don’t have to let it hold your business back. Invest in data governance, standardization, integration, training, and future-proof technologies to build a robust data-driven business platform.
Take the first step towards taking back control of your ERP and unleashing its true potential by getting in touch with our team of data experts at Parallel Minds and transform your existing ERP system into an invaluable business asset.

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