SMEs: Indispensable for the economy

The abbreviation SME refers to small and medium-sized enterprises. According to the Federal Statistical Office, this includes all companies with a maximum of 249 employees and an annual turnover of 50 million euros or less. According to Statista, this corresponds to 99.4% of all private companies in Germany.

Micro and small enterprises could be mistakenly understood as synonyms. In terms of company size, however, the two terms mean different things: a company is considered a microenterprise if it employs a maximum of 9 employees and generates a maximum annual turnover of 10 million euros. The small company represents the next largest level of company size. By definition, a small company has between 10 and 49 employees and achieves an annual turnover of between 10 and 20 million euros.

There are many merchandise management systems. Small companies in particular should make sure that they choose a system that actually suits their needs and does not overload them with functions that they do not need, or at least do not yet need. It is advisable to choose a solution that grows with the company and where features can be added as required.

There are often very clear signals that companies should think about introducing an ERP, for example when the order volume is constantly growing and the previous, predominantly manual workflows are taking up more and more time. In general, however, it can be said that it is worth starting to use it at an early stage. In this way, the use of the ERP becomes an integral part of the company's processes from the very beginning and is internalized by all employees. In addition, the company will already have tools that are capable of growth when the business gradually begins to flourish.

Xentral was developed as an ERP for SMEs and is primarily aimed at young companies in the e-commerce sector. The system is a cloud-based SaaS solution, so you don't have to worry about hosting and updates. The business software has a flexible subscription model with three different price categories that can be paid either monthly or annually. You can easily connect third-party systems and service providers via interfaces and manage your entire company.