The surprising and rapid spread of COVID-19 has forced many businesses to adapt a work-from-home setting to comply with quarantine and social distancing requirements. Gone are the days when every single job required you to show up and take care of things when the rise of technology, particularly cloud-based applications, has made it easier and possible for many jobs to be done remotely.
Staying on Top of Everything
However, as the business owner, you often need to find a workaround for how to do several things from home. After all, you still have to run your business. With most or all of your employees working remotely and with restrictions on travel, it can be difficult to keep track of everything and everyone. You can usually solve this with the right enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, like using SAP Business One.
It is an integrated software that allows you to manage your critical business operations efficiently and in real time at a glance. With no delays, you can respond to issues that come up accordingly without missing a beat. But what else makes SAP Business One so useful for a work-from-home arrangement? Here are a few of its key features:
1. Flexible built-in options for deployment. One of the most important features for any type of software is accessibility. Since your company is transitioning to a work from home arrangement, you and your employees need to be able to use ERP software from anywhere at any time. SAP Business One has flexible options that makes it easy to use, no matter where you are.
Using SAP Business One’s cloud deployment features allows you to store your data, access it from anywhere, and upgrade your business operations. This platform can help you grow your business without complicating your IT systems at the office or on your cloud storage. You can streamline and optimize your operations with the data you’ve gathered using this remote service as if you were working onsite.
The best part about this is that you can simply do all this with little to no intervention from IT to enable these features and upgrades. You can keep your IT crew as they are and have them focus on more important things
2. Easy analytics storage and reporting. For many teams who are new to working from home, decision-making can often become stalled because of the limited access to company resources. Often, employees need to wait for higher-ups to send out instructions or assignments simply because acting upon an assumption is more detrimental in a work-from-home setting. However, with SAP Business One, your employees can get the information they need without it having to come from you.
They can easily access all the company data through the cloud and create comprehensive reports that are always thorough and accurate. SAP Business One instantly stores any and all company data and makes it accessible for anyone in your company who needs it. You and your employees can create interactive and intuitive dashboards to help figure out your data, monitor cash flows, and more.
SAP Business One makes it easy to understand your data and to see it from different perspectives with its visually appealing and interactive interface. With this digestible way of presenting your company data, it becomes easier to keep things in order even if you and your team are working far away from each other.
3. Sales and inventory management. With the COVID-19 outbreak, sales can fluctuate, either plummeting or skyrocketing. These drastic changes in sales can often be the reason why some companies decide to temporarily or permanently cease operations. After all, with such big changes in people’s buying behaviors, some companies simply can’t adjust accordingly. Your business does not have to end up like that.
With help from SAP Business One, you can keep track of your sales and cash flow in real time. The cloud service also integrates your purchasing data, accounting, and more, so you and your employees can make better-informed decisions on how to manage your business finances and continue making a profit.
Moreover, you can also keep track of how your inventory is doing using SAP Business One. It will record your inventory levels and stock movements, so you can avoid running out of any kind of product. Even if you have inventory across different warehouses and work with different couriers, SAP Business One will make it easy for you to access the current status of your stock, so you can improve your delivery processes quickly and cost-effectively.
4. Customer relationship management (CRM). In a time like this, building and maintaining customer relations is extremely crucial. It is to be expected that your customers may be feeling very confused and even angry about the situation, and the problem might be in how you and your team can manage their emotions and give them a positive and helpful experience.
It can be hard to juggle all the responsibilities of CRM. You have to worry about keeping your current customers happy and think about ways to attract new customers. It can be hard to keep track of campaigns and shipments, respond to customer inquiries, and raise your conversion rates if you do it all yourself. SAP Business One integrates all of that information, so you can easily monitor all your customer-related operations and respond effectively in a timely manner.
Benefits of Working from Home
As the world continually becomes more digitized, the widespread switch to working from home in response to the COVID-19 outbreak could not be more timely. Moreover, it could potentially be insightful as you can see which positions can be done remotely and what cannot. While working from home does come with its risks and challenges, it can also be extremely beneficial for your employees.
After all, one simply needs a strong and constant internet connection, a few programs, and a good web cam (or smartphone) to do so. You might even notice a rise in productivity and efficiency in a work from home setting. Your employees don’t need to spend the extra time getting ready and commuting to work, which can and does take several hours for some. In a work from home setting, they can simply wake up, and work straight away.
With SAP Business One, you and your employees can stay in touch and in the loop on what is going on at the company so things stay business as usual – even if you’re all working from home.