Start-Ups and the ERP Conundrum

July 9th, 2020

Darshil Surana

Dynamics 365, Dynamics NAV, ERP

A typical start-up is characterized by its high operational costs, low (often zero) revenues and less staff. During their initial years, start-ups rely heavily on promoters and Venture Capitalists for their seed funds, thus exerting strict control over their fund utilization. This leads to the staff being on their toes about spending, dedicated to bringing the product/service to the market ASAP, and careful about avoiding any extravagant expense. And ERP is classified as an extravagant expense, given the license and implementation costs, implementation time-frame, and deviation of resources’ time towards an activity that is not directly pushing product development.

Any ERP would require considerable investment in terms of time, money, and resources. So, founder/s generally put an ERP to a later priority than product development and revenue generation. However, VCS often pushes the founders to invest in an ERP so that they can have more control over the company.

But can an ERP benefit a Start-Up?

An entrepreneur has plenty of tasks on his plate, especially at the start-up stage – from investor meetings to order fulfillment to department engagements. Many a time, amongst all this, productivity takes a backseat. That’s when an ERP comes to the rescue. For a start-up, an ERP will:

Keep a tab on the limited resources of the organization and put them to the optimal use
Establish strong internal controls from a very early stage
Well-define the processes from the beginning and help ensure that they are followed extensively
Aid in obtaining various certifications needed gradually as processes expand
Set up processes which require approvals on need basis and free the key persons from being unnecessarily occupied
Manage inventory at various stages effectively
Aid in MIS reporting from the systems directly, freeing up the resources for other important tasks
Avoid any data hampering and manipulations

All these benefits and the pressure from VCs can put the founder/s in a dilemma. A catch-22 situation, where the cost of implementing is high but the costs of not implementing can be higher!
Nevertheless, there is an easy way out. Opt for a Cloud ERP by Microsoft – Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a cloud version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV. This makes start-ups hardware-independent and eliminates the hassles of IT operations.
Business Central offers all the modules a business may require on the cloud. Plus, it interacts and integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft Dynamics 365 products as well as the Power Platform (Power Automate, Power Apps, Power BI). With integrated Sales, Purchase, Production and Finance modules, reports, dashboards, approval processes, workflows, Mobile and Tablet Clients, Business Central further enhances the business process for start-ups.

So, how can start-ups afford Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central?

The answer lies in its licensing and implementation strategy.

Licensing – The license pricing by Microsoft is very much affordable and flexible. You can start with the bare minimum (one) licenses and scale up gradually over time. You can configure Business Central to minimize the data entry points and assign roles to users for multiple modules. Thus, a single user can handle multiple modules while also having effective controls to avoid any misuse of the system and resources
Implementation – We all know that a full-fledge ERP takes months for implementation. But Intech has come up with a Rapid Implementation methodology suited for start-ups, with implementation timeline as low as 3 weeks!

Intech’s Rapid Implementation difference

Go from unconnected systems to seamlessly connected processes within 3 weeks
Include training and data migration as per your requirements
Reduce expenditures on server/cloud infrastructure (the license cost covers it, no need to buy additional cloud subscription)
Automate certain activities to eliminate errors (such as auto bank reconciliations, AI-enabled forecasts, etc)
Get dashboards and embedded Power BI reports in one place
And last, but not the least, keep the VCs satisfied

To know about our Rapid Implementation methodology, contact us. We will be more than happy to provide you with a solution you need, not only the one we have.