What to Consider before You Buy

If you want to grow while giving yourself the insight to make the best decisions, taking a hard look at your technology and processes is a large part of what enables lowering your operating costs, increasing your visibility into the business, driving better decisions, improving processes and realizing efficiency gains, and providing the framework and foundation for future growth.

No small manufacturing leader wants the distraction and expense of investing months of team time into solutions that take a long time to vet, even longer to implement, and don’t allow the flexibility you need to answer your unique business challenges. No two businesses run exactly alike, and if you find that you’re taxing your budget and reorganizing your entire business to fit a new tool, you might get the feeling that you’re on the wrong path. 

Other important things to think about as you consider how technology will enable your growth:

• Was it developed specifically for small- to mid-sized manufacturers?
• Will it help you automate processes, freeing your team to do more accurate work and serve more customers in the future?
• Will it give you insight into every facet of the business—from back office to shop floor to the field?
• Will non-technical users be able to customize the software to fit their roles?
• Is it Cloud-based, or will you be looking at significant implementation time and cost?

 

With these thoughts in mind, you’ll be better equipped to assess where you are now, where you want to be, and how technology can help grow the enterprise into which you and your team have put your heart and souls. Finding the right guidance can help.