Blog

In this Series lets look Enterprise resource Planning systems and how people like Sharath can benefit from it

ERP systems are used to give companies the ability to see business processes from a single integrated view. Data used on ERP systems are maintained through a common database that can track data on real time. An ERP system is commonly used to track business resources, such as materials, inventory, production capacity and liquidity, as well as business commitments such as customer orders and payroll.

ERP systems connect to real–time data and transaction data in a variety of ways. These systems are typically configured by systems integrators, who bring unique knowledge on process, equipment, and vendor solutions

Different types of ERP’s are there which cater to different functionalities like

Financial Accounting

Human resource management

Supply Chain Management

Customer relationship management

So we can observe that there are different types of ERP and each of them offer solutions in their respective domain which really  gives user complete freedom to monitor but all of them cater to big companies who have large capacities .Now as we  have observed before Sharath has relatively small requirements and Implementing ERP typically requires changes in existing business processes some thing that people like Sharath cant afford .

Does it mean Small and medium  industries should not  have ERP like solutions for their Supply chain management ,HR and marketing needs

And what about cost can Sharath really afford these expensive solutions Lets look at these in next part

In the last blog we saw the pain points that an entrepreneur has to endure .There is help at hand in the form of DEEP by Sixth circle technologies .DEEP is Digital Enterprises Engagement Platform  for MSME .Lets see the salient features of DEEP and how it can be beneficial for people like Sharath

DEEP is built on the Microservices architecture  which means that itis an architectural development style that allows building applications as a collection of small autonomous services developed for a business domain. It is a variant of structural style architecture that helps arrange applications as a loosely coupled service collection. The Microservice Architecture contains fine-grained services and lightweight protocols.

The Characterisctics of Microservices Architecture

• Organized around business capabilities
• Smart end points
• Independent Governance
• Independent Technical stack
• Independent Deployment
• Improved Fault isolation
• Consistency of data
• Customer first

Below is an image that illustrates how Microservices functions

We can see from above diagram how through different browsers an online shopping service can be accessed .Then website has different sections like Accounts ,products Carts and orders .What we can observe here is that each of the sub sections is developed independently  .This is the single biggest advantage of Microservice architecture compared to Monolithic architecture .Also each section can be scaled up independently depending on the requirement .

Develop each function of the application as an autonomous, independently-running microservice. These usually run in a container on a cloud server. Each microservice answers to a single function – like search, shipping, payment, accounting, payroll, etc as shown above

Given below is an illustration of how UBER used microservices very  effectively

We can clearly observe that different modules is working independently and yet interconnected .Any of the Modules can be changed or modified without changing and disturbing the entire system

Now  how will this Microservices architecture help an entrepreneur like Sharath Stay tuned to find out

Sharath  has Small Scale company which manufactures Agarbhathi’s or incandescent sticks for which  he employs about 30 woman .These woman are employed for rolling the sticks and packing the sticks .For these woman this job is very important as it provides them a source of income and help improves their living standards .Sharath is very confident of the quality of his products and wants to expand his business by selling it on  Platforms like Amazon and even exporting it to other countries .

Since He started his business most of the accounting work has been done manually by an executive and Sharath only relies on word to mouth publicity for his products .Also he needs to maintain an inventory database to know how much inventory he needs to maintain  since during festivals and other special occasions when  the demand rises .Also he needs to file his returns and get input credit on GST.

Sharath has been searching the internet for customized solution for his needs but he finds that many of them are very exorbitant .A typical ERP solution costs Rs 30,000/- per year and above and then typical  accounting software which  might cost Rs 15000/- per year and then if he wants a professional website that could cost him about 10k as one time charge and if we are going to add professional email that would cost another 2k .We have not even started to consider him having Mobile App or taking help of Digital marketing solutions to  market his products in the digital era

Now obviously Sharath will also have other expenses like paying salary to his employees and buying raw materials etc. He will also have indirect expenses like Electricity so how can Sharath really afford these costly solutions .

Also Can Sharath afford time on filing his returns every year ,he rather spend that time with his family

Watch out for next edition where we discuss solutions to these pain points

The Small and medium Industries in India is a  huge sector which contributes 8% to India’s GDP and provides employment  to lakhs of people .In recent years this sector has faced many  challenges like competition from China  and then most notably the COVID-19   pandemic and the subsequent  lockdown which brought about set of challenges which was never experienced before and there was no reference point in recent history as to how to overcome them .So many MSME owners have had to unlearn old ways of doing business and adopt to the ‘New normal’

Some of the challenges that the MSME have had, are not technology specific like import cost and availability of raw material but many of them are indeed technology specific. We are truly in the smartphone era in which content is king and content drives the business forward and it would be good for MSME to use platforms like digital marketing to advertise their products to anyone in the world in cost effective manner  and have robust IT infrastructure which includes databases through which they can manage the inventories and get in touch with other suppliers  around the globe .

Having the Robust and reliable IT infrastructure is basic requirement for any MSME ,however it might not be very affordable to buy and maintain Servers for MSME since they don’t have the necessary competence to manage them and it will definitely be an additional cost which they can ill afford, so they can reach out to   Six Circle technologies which has proven expertise in providing  range of solutions in both Web and Mobile so that they can concentrate on delivering value to their customers.

Another aspect of Digital solutions is digital marketing .Compared legacy marketing like Print ,Television and Radio  the new age marketing needs to precise and concise since the attention span of people has become very short these days  .So Digital marketing is  the vehicle which can deliver powerful messages directly to the audience at fraction of the cost compared to Television and Print. In Digital marketing the Ads can be tailored to specific demographics ,interests and categories which other mediums like Television and print is not able to do hence it huge saving for companies since they can target only those audience who they would like to target using banners and videos .Six circle technologies has the necessary expertise in digital marketing to help MSME reach out and advertise to their audience so MSME should get in touch with Six circle technologies for their marketing requirements