The war in Ukraine. Soaring gas and food prices. Rising interest rates in an effort to control surging inflation. Small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) throughout North America are feeling the impact of the current economic climate. 91% of SMB owners indicated these economic trends are having a negative impact on their businesses, according to Goldman Sach’s 10,000 Businesses survey from April 2022 – which is a reported 86% increase from earlier in the year.

Inflationary pressures topped the list of significant challenges identified by these businesses, and for good reason. How quickly an organization can respond to challenges in the marketplace can often be the difference between success and failure – and the current inflationary period is no exception. Companies that have a good handle on their margins and can adjust pricing rapidly to minimize their absorption of rising costs will have a leg up over those that lack profitability analysis and/or possess an intensive and drawn-out process to roll out new pricing.

Weathering the Economic Climate

But if you’re shaking your head – maybe your margins aren’t fully known, or there are several hurdles you need to regularly jump over to release new pricing – you now have a major opportunity to weather this period and prepare your business for either a “soft landing” or a full-blown recession in the coming months.

Cloud-native Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), otherwise known as Next Generation ERP that includes Business Intelligence (BI), enhanced workflows, flexible commerce, a platform ecosystem and global/scalable financial functionality, allows you to routinely understand the profitability of product lines, projects and more as costs climb (and fall). Armed with this real-time data, you’re in a better position to align costs and pricing closer for more accurate forecasting and control over what should be driving your business, regardless of economic conditions.

If you’re struggling with data siloes, which are often inherent to legacy ERP systems like Sage 100 or Sage 300 ERP systems, and they’re holding back your ability to lessen the impact of inflationary pressures, we’re here to help. Net at Work remains one of the top 100 Value-Added Resellers (VAR) today, providing the leading technology and expertise to make your ERP migration journey a seamless one.

Learn more how you can best position your SMB organization against inflation by watching the recorded webinar “SMB Talk: Cash Flow Limitations Caused by Inflation.”