By S.Suren
Going for an ERP System requires a clear cut picture as to what is expected out of the system when users have adjusted to it.
Many businesses generally consider that the system will begin to return on its investment from day one onwards but the unfortunately that’s not exactly how it works, click here or general facts on the Returns on Investment of an ERP Implementation.
In this post I thought I’ll list down as many issues and procedures that the business has to address when considering implementing an ERP system.
Don’t wait until the last minute : The moment you know that the reports you need from your present system or manual process is not available at the time they are needed you know there is something wrong. Money is probably draining out of your business, inferior data is building and worst of all you might be making absurd business decisions. Timely information is crucial, so make immediately provision and plans to start assessing a system.
Understand that good things come at a price: Many people decide to go for an accounting or ERP System and then look to minimize as much as possible on the expenses related to it. Now, I am not saying you should be spending freely on a system, its just that you need to understand and analyse how much is the opportunity costs of not having those additional functions done with your new accounting system.
The fact is that, in most implementations this impact is hardly considered because most often the excuse is that, it is either hard or not logical to quantify the benefits or savings, but I’ll say put it down in paper and just keep jotting all the pros and cons of what you do now, and you’ll be amazed at the list you would end up with.
Get your wish list out : Once you have got vendors knocking at your doorstep, make sure you have the right must have points listed in front of you. Generally the case is the higher management team of the clients would sit in at the vendors first initial sales demo and everyone would be looking at what the vendor has in relation to their specific area of work and will be evaluating the system based on how much it addresses the requirements of that area.
Its very rarely that you would have a senior management team have a meeting within themselves to identify and understand that core business requirements that they need to have and must be evaluating the potential vendors against. Most important make room for compromise, understand that the system will not cater to all 100 % of your business requirement, most likely maybe at least 90%, the remaining 10 % try to decide on how best to tackle them, but avoid trying to get the full 10 % customized, that’s the slippery path that could drag the 90% standard functionality backwards.
More to follow soon, hope you found this post informative and interesting. ssurenlk@msn.com.
Have a nice day!!
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