One important aspect of business resource management is proper planning. These plans refer to the processes used by businesses to manage the different resources of a business and strategize an efficient way to best make use of them. Being able to properly allocate the resources of your company allows you to guarantee that you are doing everything you can to maximize your efficiency. To do so, proper business resource planning formulates the perfect solution for you. These solutions can take two forms: business resource management or enterprise resource planning. In this article, we will take a look at the different resources that go into your business, the different ways to manage them, and see which method would be the best way for your company.
Business Resource Management vs Enterprise Resource Planning
The resources that go into your business are numerous. These resources range from human labor, financial resources, infrastructure, IT, inventory, etc. Going into more detail, we can outline how these resources affect your business specifically, and business resource management and enterprise resource focuses which resources on planning.
- Business resource management focuses on resources used efficiently. The use of a model maximizes the output of these resources by minimizing the input. First, document the different processes that your business performs on a day-to-day basis. The next step maps out these processes by visualizing the resources your business uses. From here, you will need to determine if there are better ways to perform your tasks, such as assessing whether you are spending too many resources on one task, rather than having an even distribution. For instance, possible spread-out labor can be uneven across your business. Employees tasked with assignments do not match their skill set as much as other ones. Or, you may be a manufacturing company that might have an issue with ensuring the quality of your product. A well-crafted business resource management system will be able to pinpoint the problem and reduce inefficiencies.
Enterprise Resource Planning
- On the other hand, technology-based enterprise resource planning aims to integrate the business processes of your company. So, with the use of software, you can collect and analyze your data in an organized manner. You also make decisions about your use of resources. At first glance, this seems like a more efficient way of business resource management. However, the difference is that enterprise resource planning primarily focuses on resources, such as payroll, purchasing, invoicing, inventory, and manufacturing, and their impact on the core business processes of your company. It does this by providing real-time updates on these processes. Having all this data in one place is the purpose of enterprise resource planning. It provides you with quick and easy access to all the vital information about your business.
What Can A Finalized Business Resource Plan Do?
Once you have determined what resources your business should be most concerned with, you can determine which method to choose to effectively manage them. As previously said, two potential solutions for your business can take the form of either a business resource management system or an enterprise resource planning system. While both plans share a goal of improving productivity and profits, they go about this goal in different ways. These two methods have their distinct advantages and disadvantages. It is important to choose the correct business resource plan best suited to your company.
Pros and Cons of Business Management and Enterprise Resource Plan
- Business resource management aims to map out your business process and analyze the different resources that go into it. Based on this information, you determine there is a better way of performing these tasks. Wasted valuable resources can be damaging to your business. By mapping out your business tasks and resources, you have the advantage of having a clear plan. This goes for all your employees to follow, which prevents any potential resource mismanagement issues. Also, have a visualization of how efficient your business is.
- Enterprise resource planning, primarily done through software, integrates the core resources of your company into one place. This information is stored locally or in cloud-based shares across departments in your company. And, not only do you have all this information stored at once, but this information is also continuously updated. This allows all your departments to agree when making decisions. While you still need to determine the most efficient use of your resources manually, enterprise resource planning improves productivity. This eliminates the time needed to prepare all this information beforehand. Therefore, you get straight to decision-making and have the necessary information available to your employees.
What Does A Business Resource Plan Teach You?
As you can see, these two methods cover similar but ultimately different goals. So, if your primary concern is whether your business is as efficient as it can be, then a business resource management plan might be the solution for you. If you need quick access to the data of your core business resources stored in a single place, accessible to all relevant department heads, enterprise resource planning can give you the software you need to do this. However, you can implement these systems together, and reap the benefits of both. By doing so, you gain the centralized data of your business through enterprise resource planning. With this data, you can then implement a business resource management system more easily. By having both systems in place, you can optimize the use of resources in your business with the most up-to-date data about your company.
Conclusion
Whether you decide to go with business resource management, enterprise resource planning, or both, we need due diligence to document all this information and implement it into a working system. This is a time-consuming task that requires technical knowledge about business intelligence to be done successfully. This is why to effectively manage your resources. It is best to hire a technical and documentation writer to write up a business resource plan due to the amount of time and effort that goes into creating one. Managing resources is an effective way to ensure the maximum efficiency of your company. So, a poorly written plan would hinder your company’s success. EDC’s technical writing and documentation services have both the technical knowledge and documentation skills to provide you with the right business resource planning for your company.
How EDC Can Help
Whether you need a team of consultants to produce a complete line of documentation or a single technical writer for a brief project, Essential Data’s Engagement Manager will lead the project from start to finish. At Essential Data Corporation, the quality of our work is guaranteed. Contact us today to get started. (800) 221-0093 or sales@edc.us
Written by Stanley Chu