It goes without saying that Globalisation is a process that needs a lot of consideration for a company of any size. A Mid-sized company needs to have a sufficient reason for choosing to move towards a global market. How much will they benefit in more competitive market, is there other ways of expanding the business within the domestic market place?
The reasons given for globalisation may be to demonstrate high innovation capacity on an international scale and exploit lucrative new sales or procurement markets abroad. Foreign markets also provide additional sources of sales for trading activities. Many companies opt for international expansion in order to exploit specialist knowledge and to gain access to qualified or cheaper personnel. In addition to these opportunities there are dangers or obstacles that lurk within the international market place, these companies should be well aware of them.
There is a large challenge for midsize businesses to build strong foundations to launch them into the international market successfully. Enterprise Resource Planning software is used to increase transparency, manage growth, improve cooperation with countries, subsidiaries, cooperate divisions and employees, reduce costs and streamline the organisations processes. This will intern support the planning and management of all company’s resources. The ERP integrates all management processes, from the planning and production through to finance, with an overarching system it provides transparency and reduces cost.
For Midsized companies that have not yet set up sites internationally but have plans to move abroad have the large challenge of implementing the software so that it can be applied to international activities which can facilitate the expansion. They often have the added challenge of consolidating a heterogeneous and only partially comparable IT landscape which has appeared due to the company’s growth.
It is important to have a strategy set up that can be applied to the ERP and not the other way around. Below is a check list of things to consider in the International strategy for a midsized company before applying ERP.
Check List
- In which countries do you have subsidiaries and in which countries do you plan on expanding to
- Evaluate the situation of the market place; will we expect changes that need to be accounted for?
- Evaluate the international competition
- Which languages are required?
- What is the situation regarding local government legislation what effect does this have on the production, management, distribution of the product or service.
- How is the organisation to be structured in the future?
- How independent are the foreign site to be?
- What partnership structures may already exist there?
- What reporting structures are planned?
- What cultural differences should be anticipated from the perspective of work behaviour, quality awareness, management style and ethical and moral values.
- Which process should be managed across national boundaries and what can be managed at an individual site.
- What IT structures are already available how many isolated applications are there?
- What interfaces ect..
The company must be able to react quicker and more effectively than its competitors, this means that the company must remain agile. The internationalisation of a midsize company puts more pressure on the ERP system. In order to maintain agility the companies that are heavily reliant on exports, such as mid-sized machine, equipment and vehicle manufactures, require the fast entry of technical requirements in the IT system. It is the only way to which these companies can use their innovative power in a targeted manner. If the area of the application is complex and the business process diverse, then the more crucial it is for a flexible and simplistic solution.
If you need if you are looking for a team of ERP developers that can provide solutions for your business then please get in contact with us. We employ only the finest IT professionals (permanent or contact) to develop software solutions that are specific to your industry.