I found out a lot of articles about ERP implementation with manipulated titles such as “Why do you need an ERP”, “Benefits of using ERP” (and I suppose a lot of them were created using AI). But does business really need ERP?

My answer: It depends. Yes, it’s a common consultant answer, but let me explain to you a little bit more. I would like to share with you how our company (OSKI solutions) started using ERP. It is our story, not AI-generated.

There were 4 developers, and I was a manager when we launched the agency. For HR, PM, Sales, and Finance tasks, we used Google Sheets / Excel. It was free and flexible. And it worked. So, if you are a small agency (like we were at the beginning) and you use Google Sheets / Excel, I think it's OK.

Coming back to OSKI soltuions. We were doing our job well, and business started growing. It was a lot of new clients, new projects, new team members, and new challenges. So, we saw that Google Sheets / Excel is not enough and decided to start developing our own CRM. We had a vision, expertise (we do similar projects for clients), and resources.

Honestly, in some cases, we still use Google Sheets / Excel (and a lot of IT firms, regardless of size, do the same), but most decisions are made based on data from our ERP system.

There are a few reasons why OSKI solutions start using ERP:

1. Single Source of Truth. We had a lot of information in different docs, and now it’s in the past

2. Increasing of team. As the company grows, spreadsheets stop working as we wanted.

3. Better visibility and Reporting. The timesheet for clients was one of the first features in our CRM. All necessary information could be found in a few clicks.

4. Optimization. There were a lot of repetitive tasks and we were losing focus on the value we brinded to clients.

5. Better collaboration at remote work. It’s better to use a UX/UI friendly interface of the ERP system instead of spreadsheets.