In short
An ERP is the central system a company runs its core processes in: orders, stock, purchasing, invoicing, payroll and accounting in one place instead of five. The point is not the software. The point is that every department works off the same numbers — an order is entered once and is visible everywhere after that.
How you know you need one
Not by headcount. The trigger is always the same one: the same piece of information gets typed in more than once. The order sits in an inbox, the delivery in a spreadsheet, the invoice in the accounting package — and nobody can say which version is right.
The second sign is the question «how much did we make last month?» getting three different answers from three people. That is not an arithmetic problem. It is the absence of a single place where the truth lives.
What an ERP will not fix
An ERP models processes, it does not invent them. Put a muddled workflow into an ERP and you end up with a muddled workflow plus licence fees. The expensive mistake in most rollouts is not picking the wrong product — it is skipping the question of how the process should actually run.
Nor does it replace a CRM. The ERP knows the order; the CRM knows the road to it — the conversations, quotes and decisions beforehand. Many ERP systems ship a CRM module; whether it is enough depends on how much selling happens before the order exists.
What is different in Switzerland
Two things separate a Swiss ERP from a German one: VAT and payroll. Swiss VAT rates and the chosen accounting method (net tax rate or effective method) have to be modelled properly, and payroll needs the unified salary statement plus a Swissdec connection for reporting.
An ERP without Swissdec certification is not useless — it means the filings to AHV, tax authorities and insurers happen by hand. That is a decision, not a detail.
How we handle it
We do not sell ERP systems. We build the pieces that are missing between them: integrations between ERP, website and shop, and internal tools for the workflows no standard product covers.
The brief is almost never «roll out an ERP for us». It is «our ERP cannot do X, and X is why three people retype lists every Friday».
A term in your quote that nobody explained?
In a strategy call we translate the offer in front of you — even when it did not come from us.