Beat the Winter Blues – Boost Professional Goals by Optimizing Your ERP

Does winter weather have you feeling down? Combat the dark days before spring by focusing on ways to feel empowered and work smarter.

Here are some steps that can help you boost professional goals by optimizing your ERP, no matter what the weather looks like outside.

Clean House
Isn’t it time you gave your data a thorough scrubbing?

• Clear out your contacts. Deactivate outdated entries, add and update missing contact information from individual Outlook address books and combine client records as needed. Reassign contact and client managers to create a reliable, centralized system for contacts across the firm.

• Examine your reports and alerts. Are you getting alerts for things you don’t need anymore? Is your list of reports cluttered with things you don’t need? Delete or hide the clutter so you can find what you need in less time and focus on the alerts that need your attention.

Focus on the Power of One
Change is hard. Instead of making sweeping changes, focus your energy on one key modification.

• Build ONE custom info center. Is there an area of your business that is managed outside your ERP with fragmented systems or numerous spreadsheets? Tackle it and build a custom info center to optimize your processes and centralize your information.

• Expand your use of ONE module. Maybe you haven’t fully unleashed the power of your CRM or planning modules and this is the time to tackle just one more piece. You might use activities for all client meetings or consolidate all of your PMs on the same planning tool.

Optimize and Upgrade
Start on a positive note by making sure your ERP system is running as efficiently as possible.

• Customize your user dashboard to provide easy access to the information you need. Create quick links for current opportunities, plans, projects or a list of frequent contacts. Have a report that’s needed every day? Add it to the dashboard too.

• Launch mobile apps. Your teams are increasingly on the go and work isn’t restricted to the office. If you haven’t already, now is the time to add mobile capabilities, giving your teams access to critical business intel anywhere, anytime.

• Upgrade to the latest version. Are you getting the most out of your system? Resolve to upgrade your version so that your team has the best tools at their fingertips.

These are just a few ideas to get you started. Identify what will have the greatest impact on your business, the people you need to make it happen and the milestones to accomplish it.

Megan Miller is a senior product marketing specialist for Herndon-based Deltek, the leading global provider of enterprise software and information solutions for professional services firms and government contractors, and can be found at www.deltek.com.

Tags: Beat the Winter Blue, business, Deltek, goal, Megan Miller, optimize, plan, profession, success, upgrade, Winter

Category: Deltek

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2015 at 1:23 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.