Every hardware or builders’ merchant has a ‘Paul’. The person who knows the customers, remembers the exceptions and understands what needs to happen next.
That experience is enormously valuable. But when too much day-to-day knowledge sits with one person, the wider team can become reliant on them.
GenetiQ’s Migration and Integration Consultant, Jordan Parker, has seen this first-hand. During an ERP project, one employee had taken ownership of key purchasing and data processes. When they unexpectedly left, the wider team were left without knowledge they rely on.
As Jordan puts it: “You can’t have that reliance on one person. If you’ve got one person holding all that knowledge and they leave, suddenly, products aren’t getting uploaded and purchase orders aren’t going on.”
Your ERP should make that knowledge easier to access. Salespeople should be able to see previous orders, open quotations and queries, regularly purchased products and what needs attention.
GenetiQ brings customer, order, stock and pricing information into the salesperson’s working environment. It can also surface active, overdue and expired quotations, helping salespeople see what needs attention and when pricing or stock availability needs checking.
When the customer says yes, there should be a clear route through order, stock, purchasing, fulfilment and invoicing. Consider how another team member would handle a customer. Can they see the context, understand what’s happened and confidently take the next step?
Your experienced people should be valued for their decisions and relationships, not because important information is difficult for everyone else to access.
The more knowledge your ERP puts at your team’s fingertips, the more time your best people have to put their experience to good use. For further information visit www.genetiqsoftware.com.
