Stale data causing incorrect decisions and lost revenue for enterprises

A lack of real-time insights generated by ERP systems is leading to incorrect decisions and a loss in revenue, according to business decision-makers.

A study by Dimensional Research for Fivetran found organisations are increasingly struggling to get the right data in the right place for critical business decisions.

Traditional ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems, such as SAP and Oracle databases, are widely used across the Fortune 500 to house critical operational data. However, very few companies are able to accurately use the data of these systems for decision-making.

According to the study, nearly 9 out of 10 companies report that they are unable to pull real-time insights from their legacy ERP systems to make smart business decisions.

The study suggests that many businesses (86%) know they need access to real-time ERP data to make smart business decisions but only few (23%) of the responding companies actually have systems in place to make that possible.

Most of the companies (82%) are using stale information and state this is leading to incorrect decisions and lost revenue (85%).

Almost all of the businesses who took part (99%) are struggling to gain consistent access to information stored in their ERP systems and many (65%) say they struggle to access ERP data. 78% of respondents also believed that software vendors made it purposely difficult to access data.

“If companies are going to truly be data-driven, they cannot base decisions on only a fraction of the information or out-of-date business data,” said George Fraser, CEO at Fivetran. “Success with data requires looking at the freshest, most complete dataset possible. Winning companies are the ones that are nimble enough to access the most current data and immediately put it to work.”

The data that ERP systems offer, such as supply chain and manufacturing information, is important for marketing and sales teams so they can be responsive to market trends.