For decades, ERP systems have relied on reports. More recently, dashboards have made business information easier to visualise.
But AI ERP reporting introduces an interesting question: Do we always need a report at all?
There are still many situations where reports and dashboards are extremely valuable. Management accounts, financial reporting, KPI tracking, audit information and trend analysis all benefit from structured reporting.
AI is therefore unlikely to replace reporting entirely. Instead, it could dramatically reduce the number of occasions when employees need to create or search for reports simply to answer a question
Imagine asking: “How are sales looking this month?” Then following it with: “Why are they lower than last month?” And then: “Which customers account for most of the difference?” Traditional reports treat these as separate analytical tasks. Conversational AI can potentially treat them as one continuous investigation. That’s where the real change occurs.
There is another limitation with dashboards. Someone has to decide what information goes onto them. AI potentially allows users to investigate questions nobody anticipated when the dashboard was created. That could make business intelligence far more accessible.
The future therefore probably isn’t: AI versus dashboards. It’s: AI + dashboards + ERP data.
Each has a different role, and together they could make business information much easier to access, understand and act upon.
For manufacturers, the opportunity isn’t necessarily to replace existing systems, but to make better use of the information already held within them.
If you’d like to explore how AI could work alongside your ERP or manufacturing systems, contact Langcroft to discuss the possibilities.
