Technology at the service of quality of life.

Our world and environment has changed and life takes place beyond the physical spaces that allowed us conversations to exchange knowledge or information, of negotiations versus a coffee tax and sharing how life went on in every interaction we had with others. Moving those human and organizational systems to virtuality has involved having multiple channels and has led people to have multiple occupations under the ambition or paradigm of productivity. The desire for working life to pass without being impacted by all the changes we are facing leads us to sometimes ignore personal, family and community life.

Sometimes we live so busy that we do not have time for ourselves or to devote ourselves to a leisure activity. We feel productive at times when we reach ubiquity by being in three meetings at the same time, without camera on, to make an act of presence. All this leads us to question saying that a person can do several things at the same time, better known as multitasking or multitasking, this does not imply being able to be in charge of several things in a given period of time.

To achieve the longed-for productivity, it is valuable to have information systems that contribute to improving the quality of life by integrating workflows and allowing rapid accessibility to data and agile decisions based on real knowledge and of organisations and their interest groups.

Analyzing the issue of quality of life, which we can define as a healthy relationship between work and personal and family life, we can make use of what we see from the theories of administration. We’re not talking about the cycle anymore PHVA (Planning-Doing-Verifying-Acting) developed by Eduard Deming in 1950 and who both supported us in the day-to-day strategic planning, to move on to talk about the current cycle POLC (Plan-Organize-Lead-Control) and they expose in a clear way Robbins, Coulter and DeCenzo (2017, p. 31). From Kepler Casa de Software we develop solutions where the control is not of a single responsible and we conceive the systems as a tool that enables the organization and its collaborators empowering them of their responsibilities and results counting on the accompaniment of their leaders to achieve strategic goals together. The supervision is then changed to a task of accompanying the other and the collaborators to the achievement of a maximum performance achieving a connection between the life project and the higher purpose of the organization.

A way to contextualize the cycle proposed by these authors, and adjusted from Kepler House of Software, it is through the understanding of the solutions that have developed various companies, as are the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) for the management of organizations.

What benefits exist with the implementation of ERP?

From a mechanistic vision and from the same code, we would talk about an integration of the company’s departments and a consequent improvement in organizational and business productivity. From a financial point of view, we would speak of an important initial investment (some would say sunk costs) but of a saving in important costs generating a positive net present value or an improvement in cash flows. Let us remember that, from a business point of view, a positive cash flow is more important than a simple profit.

But, as these issues have been much debated in the business context, we want to look at the benefits from the humanist point of organizations, so it involves us returning to the model POLC and which from Kepler House of Software we call the model POLA (Planning-Organizing-Leading-Accompanying). 

It is well known that an organization that wants to optimize its time and that of its collaborators, must have a good planning that starts from the strategy. If you have a clear north and how to reach it, it is much easier to communicate within the organization and if you have a system where people can go, you improve the efficiency indicators inside the organization. In other words, a plan or plans are developed that allow the coordination of the different activities of the organization when progress has been achieved in the component of Planning, it is then sought to prepare the company to determine what needs to be done, how it will be performed and who will execute it. This is the stage of the organization. The more visual the information provided by the ERP or information system, the easier it will be for people in the area or company to understand it.

From these two stages, one of the most complex tasks and leadership may emerge. In recent years alone, the development of leaders from academia is included. Not only is it a matter of directing and coordinating the activities that take place within an organization, but it also involves developing the ability (poorly called soft) to understand the complexity of the human being to seek to develop high-performance teams. The ERP allows the leader to make a mapping between what is planned, how the organization is willing and the people who make up the organization, to connect corporate goals with people’s dreams.

Finally there is the accompaniment stage. Human organizations do not hide the errors, but if they manage them. They seek to become learning organizations. They work the culture from all its components and not only feed on the vision of senior management. At the accompaniment stage, a good ERP allows us to manage the various activities from their planning to their execution, analyzing the possible deviations of the result from the goal and carrying out the respective accompaniment to create action plans that allow us to avoid in the future such deviations.

Can you think about customizing an ERP?

800This is perhaps one of the highlights of software development and is customization. Customizing a ERP involves specific development and additional costs. Similarly, the ERP collect best business practices and enable organisations to benefit from the learning of others. 

The customization of the software is suggested for secondary and more detailed activities that allow to automate certain tasks such as the request of shifts in a customer service company. It is important to avoid falling into error, to have many small systems and as systems are developed, an integration with the ERP.

Can only large companies aspire to have an ERP?

There are many companies that develop software for small and medium-sized enterprises. It is no longer exclusive to large enterprises. However, a way to acquire a ERP can be through its modular and independent parts that effectively respond to the needs of each work process.

A software like Kepler ERP, meets the needs of small, medium and large companies and has been tested by various organizations in sectors such as construction, liquor, stationery, service companies and furskins, among others.

The ERP constitutes an element of automation of various tasks within the organization, of coordination of actions between the collaborators and of an improvement in the quality of life of all, allowing everyone to focus on work that supports work that adds value to the organization and is part of its strategic component of it.

In Kepler we work and dream every day our solutions being faithful to our purpose and inspiration which is: "Information for a simpler life" and this frames what we want to bring as an organization to society.

What modules does an ERP include?

In ERP is a robust system, and its prices are highly dependent on the size of the organization. Considering the components of the model POLA and the needs of an organization, some of the modules included are:

• Marketing (crm)
• Sales
• Invoicing
• Treasury and Wallet
• Commissions
• Inventories
• Communications (Mailing)