Strategy, Legal & Operations

What separates food and beverage industry leaders from laggards? ERPs

January 17, 2018 2 min read

Bryan Ball, vice president and principal analyst at Aberdeen Group, has one message for the food and beverage industry: Don’t wait to make a decision about your enterprise resource planning (ERP). Many in the industry are still feeling the impact of major changes brought about by the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA): Among them are increased documentation, and a greater need for the technology to assist with all that documentation. And on top of FSMA changes, companies face the same business pressures: the need to cut costs and to manage growth potential are chief among them. ERP systems have the potential to mitigate both FSMA-related and general business challenges. Still, it can be tough for business leaders make the decision to move to or upgrade an ERP. For some, cost and the effort to implement present hurdles. Other companies report they’ve functioned effectively without ERP in the past. Some say, “we’re too small” to implement an ERP. But according to Ball, who specializes in Supply Chain and Supplier Management research, the cost of not implementing an ERP system is now too great—small businesses included, as all companies must be compliant with FSMA regulations by August of 2018. What’s more, the top 20% of companies in the industry have one thing in common: they’re leveraging ERPs to their advantage: recording everything from better delivery times and inventory accuracy to improved profitability and productivity. “Your competitors have already begun,” Ball says. “They’ve done it now, they’re underway.” To stay relevant, business leaders across the Food and Beverage industry need to take a proactive approach to adopting or updating ERP systems. Click here to learn more about Bryan Ball’s findings on the benefits of ERP adoption for Food and Beverage Industry companies of all sizes.