An ERP project is no small undertaking. It requires strategic planning, a thorough software selection, proactive data management, and a variety of other success factors.
If you’re just beginning this journey, it helps to have a basic overview of each of these components. Here’s some ERP advice for organizations in any phase of the ERP project lifecycle.
Tips for the Software Selection Phase
When you decide to pursue an ERP implementation, you may be surprised to find how many software solutions are on the market. Here are a few tips to help you succeed at ERP software selection.
Know Your “Why”
Before you begin evaluating different types of ERP software, determine exactly why your organization needs this technology. This requires building a business case and ensuring organizational alignment.
Once your C-suite is aligned, you can begin getting your employees on board. Seems early, but keeping a project secret until it’s “real,” only breeds mistrust. Share your secret with employees by developing and executing an organizational change management plan.
Software Selection & Process Improvement Case Study
In helping the client get its project back on track, one of our primary focus areas was decreasing their customization needs by improving their processes to align with the system's best practices.
Determine Your Requirements
Once your team is in place, the next step is to determine what you need the system to do. The most effective way to do this is business process mapping.
Go through each department and illustrate the chain of command, describing how reporting works, and how data is exchanged at every point.
As you do so, it becomes easier to see where potential problems are happening. You may notice how wires get crossed, miscommunication can occur, and pain points can arise. Then, think about how you’d like the ERP system to correct these issues.
Requirements gathering sessions should include stakeholders from across your organization, such as subject matter experts. It’s important for everyone to have the opportunity to voice their ideas. However, your project team has the ultimate say in which ones become official business requirements.
Plan Your Data Strategy
You could have the best ERP system in the world, but if your data strategy isn’t up to par, you won’t notice much improvement once you go live. In fact, you might find that operations are even more difficult to carry out.
Chances are, your data is currently spread among various systems and is in various formats. Your data needs to be ready for migration before implementation, but ERP vendors will rarely clean and organize it for you.
You must develop a strategy for cleansing, standardizing, and migrating data into the new ERP system. Allocate plenty of time and money to this phase, as it usually winds up costing more and taking longer than teams anticipate.
Know What to Prioritize in the Selection Process
As you build a list of potential ERP vendors, there are certain features to keep in mind. Here are the top criteria to consider:
• ERP industry experience
• Total cost of ownership
• Vendor reputation
• Vendor viability
• Scalability
Tips for Succeeding With ERP Implementation
Prioritize System Testing
During the build phase, your project team and vendor take your requirements and configure the ERP software to meet them. Along the way, they should conduct unit test cases to make sure everything is working as expected. This helps them catch bugs in the code early on, so bigger issues don’t arise down the road.
There are many other types of testing that need to occur during implementation, including:
• Process testing
• Systems integration testing
• User acceptance testing
• Performance testing
Continue Organizational Change Management
Your organizational change management (OCM) efforts should continue throughout implementation. As you prepare your production environment and create a cutover plan, be sure to continue to focus on end-user training, resistance management, and other essential OCM activities.
Continually Optimize
Your implementation doesn’t stop once you go live. When end-users are actively using the system, this is the best time for performance benchmarking. Analyze what’s working and what isn’t, and put steps in place to monitor and improve operations.
Put This ERP Advice Into Practice
With this ERP advice, you can confidently move forward with your project and build a strong foundation for lasting success.
At Panorama Consulting, we know what it takes to achieve a successful ERP implementation. Contact our ERP consultants below for a free consultation.
