You are protecting yourself against losing assets in a lawsuit.
It is a mistake to think that if you are a business owner you cannot be held personally liable in a lawsuit. For example, a sole proprietor is personally liable because this person and the business are the same entity. The same goes for a partnership. Even with limited liability business structures a business owner can be held liable if an incident arises out of conducting businesses illegally or not operating separate from personal activities.

General liability insurance protects against lawsuits due to mishaps.
These mishaps include incidents like injury on the property or property damage. Probably the most well-known example of the need for general liability coverage is when a customer sues a grocery store after slipping on a spill in one of its aisles and sustaining a serious injury. If you have customers coming to your place of business, even if it is your home, then you definitely need general liability insurance.

Professional liability insurance protects against mistakes and oversight.
If you are service provider (e.g., doctor, software consultant, architect, accountant) then you may need professional liability insurance to protect your assets from a lawsuit in case you make a mistake in the performance of your trade. It is called “errors and omissions” insurance. Some contracts require the contractor to carry it and it is mandatory in some states. The amount of liability insurance needed depends on the risk involved in the profession. For example, practicing as a doctor carries the risk of making a mistake that could place a person’s life in jeopardy. Considering this, a doctor would pay more and have to carry more coverage than a software consultant.

There are other variations of business liability insurance.
These are for special needs such as product liability to give protection in the event a product causes damage or injury. There is intellectual property insurance that protects from such claims as copyright infringement. There is even business interruption coverage that is intended to cover a break in revenue due to some external event that halts your business operations.

Business liability insurance is expensive and sometimes difficult to get.
It is especially difficult for startup businesses to purchase because the carriers look for stability over time in commercial operations. It is sometimes beneficial to deal with an insurance broker over a direct insurance agent because a broker can get you quotes from several different carriers which allows for comparison.

For example, the sales unit should be aware of how many products are there in the inventory and the inventory department should be aware of how much products are in the middle of manufacturing and the manufacturing unit should be aware of the raw materials available for further manufacturing. If these data are properly communicated, then the productivity of the company can be increased to a huge level.

Synchronizing the information is of most important to manufacturing company because every part of their business units requires communication with the other part. In order to achieve this synchronicity usage of Enterprise resource planning software is necessary. Enterprise resource planning software is designed specifically to integrate all data available across the company and produce meaningful result from the data. Every data is collected and integrated into a unified system.

Though enterprise resource planning is an integrated system, it requires many software and hardware modules for its functionality. If the requirements posed by the vendors who provide enterprise resource planning software are successfully met the company, then the ERP system implementation should be successful. There are a very few challenges involved in the ERP implementation. If those hurdles are crossed and if the ERP system in is installed successfully, then it is definitely going to serve the company in raising the productivity to a high level.

Here are some of the benefits which the enterprise resource planning software gives to its clients specifically to the manufacturing companies:
1. Integrated service – ERP systems helps in integrating the data and providing synchronized service to its users.

2. ERP systems require feeding of data only once. When data is fed to one of the systems, then it gets automatically populated to every part of the software in no time.

3. The amount of paper work required is reduced to a huge amount. There is no need to keep loads of records in paper to keep track of the company’s performance. There are lots of applications and customizations available with the tool itself which could produce reports with a single click.

4. The inventory cycle time can be reduced to a huge level. The inventory cycle is the time taken for the product to get fully manufactured and delivered to the customer. Reduction in inventory cycle time means increase in the production. With this, the satisfaction level of the customer gets improved and also attracts more customers.

5. Labor costs are reduced to a considerable amount of time. With the availability of data in real time managing employees and managing real time production data can be in control.

6. Production time can be decreased with the usage of enterprise resource planning software. It helps in eliminating repetitive process and helps in breaking down the production time.

These benefits over takes some of the minor disadvantages of the ERP software and because of this reason many companies opt for enterprise resource planning rather than any other methods.

With the help of enterprise resource planning the company can streamline their work flow, can provide enhanced support to their customers, real time availability of data on sales, inventory and raw material availability, reducing a considerable amount of paper works and finally it assists in the global operations.

As a whole enterprise resource planning is software designed to boost the company’s productivity. Though there are lots of advantages with enterprise resource planning, there are also few drawbacks with this. One of the main drawbacks is that it takes more time and amount to implement.

Let’s see some of the key features which make this software a huge success in the market:
1. Financial management:
Corporate Financial administration is always a big and important task in any company. Every company is under scrutiny of monetary bodies which regulates the financial flow. ERP has a good financial administration component which makes it a attraction for many companies. There are several benefits in enterprise resource planning related to financial management.

Starting from the invoices to the cash receipts, ERP can be customized to store much information and if effectively used, ERP can help in stabilizing the financial situation of a company. ERP provides real time tracking of cash flow and timely financial reports can be created.

2. Human resource management:
Some of the key factors in the human resource management are payroll management, employee administration, tracking the personal information of the employees and little other legal information. Using the traditional human resource management was complex. Managers found it very difficult to track the progress of an employee and also on tracking the information regarding the employees.

With the advent of ERP, a lot more information can be gathered and maintained related to human resources. This involves talent management, recruitment management, scheduling, attendance and time management, etc. The tools can also be customized based on the need of the human resource managers.

3. Supply chain management:
Assessing the demand and matching the needs of the customers is also one of the key functions of the business. With increase in the competitions, this part is gaining much importance in a business. Failing to collect and forecast this information can have adverse affect on the productivity. It can also degrade the company’s status in the economy. ERP software can take care of the supply chain management right from the beginning till the end.

4. Customer relationship management:
This method also called as CRM is the most required part in sales. Customers are the most valuables to each company and they work based on the needs of the customers. CRM ensures reliable and proper communication of customer related information to the sales team and then to the marketing team.

ERP has a variety of applications and processes which are available throughout their all business units. Implementing an ERP system is too complex and it can be done only by experts who have in-house skill in this software. This is also the most cost efficient way. There are many consultants and technical advisers available who can assist and implement the software provided requirements are clearly stated.

There are basically three types of services associated with ERP. They are consulting, support and customization. The amount of time required to implement ERP varies for different companies. The factors which depend on the time of implementation are the size of the business, number of modules the business includes, customization required for ERP as demanded by the company, the possibility of the implementation of the demand posed by the company.

ERP systems are distributed applications. They can’t be implemented all at once. There are a number of phases and steps involved in implementing an ERP system. A typical ERP implementation system requires one year and it involves around 150 consultants. This is for big and medium sized companies. But, for small scale companies which have less than 100 employees, the amount of time required for implementation is less. For these companies, planning and implementation doesn’t require more than 3-4 months. With the increase in demand for customization of the software, the time to implement will also increase.

For a successful implementation of ERP, companies should hire third party consultants for a short time till their implementation is over. The companies which implements ERP should also employ some staffs who are dedicated to manage the ERP systems.

Some of the management services required are business analysis, program management and change management. Employing these staffs is also a prerequisite for implementation of ERP. A significant amount of time is required to plan for data migration. This is also the most important point in implementation.

Process preparation:
Most of the ERP vendors have a standard process for their clients. The companies are generally forced to implement the ERP software according to the standards. During this process, vendors make a clear understanding of the business operations of the company and gathers as much as information required from the company.

Configuration:
Before starting the installation of the software, a check is made on the systems to verify whether they could meet the requirements for the software and service to run without any problem. If the systems don’t meet the requirement, the company should upgrade their system configuration. Once the configurations are verified, installation procedure is started.

Services:
After the installation is done, vendors trains the staffs who are going to use the ERP. Trainings are given on using the ERP applications.