If you are a small-to-medium business owner, making a software purchase that will permeate all aspects of your business is daunting, and often terrifying. Getting an Enterprise Resource Planner may be your first major software purchase. You probably have many questions about implementation time, cost, hosting, effect on business processes, impact on employees and customization needs. These are all important decision factors that can be addressed through teamwork within your company and by working with implementers you trust.
While the desire for a silver bullet - especially for fast-growing organizations - is a wish that might never come true, a flexible Enterprise Resource Planning software can provide a dependable advantage to your operations and development. When considering implementing this type of solution, you are likely to find contradictory, and sometimes anxiety-provoking, facts or advice.
We're here to:
1. Address the questions and concerns new ERP clients face.
2. Explain the resulting impacts.
3. Provide our approach for great implementations.
Here's what you can expect about how long it will take:
Implementations may vary significantly in duration.
Depending on your dedication, the dedication of your team, the readiness for change within your organization, the information exchange timelines with your implementers and the clarity of your requirements, your implementation may be completed quickly or slowly.
Keys To Success
In order to shorten duration, we recommend that:
1. You document, analyze and prioritize the needs of your team and your business thoroughly. We have found business process modelling and diagramming interactions between systems to be invaluable exercises. Whether you have an internal business analyst or not, we use standard techniques to elicit, prioritize and analyze requirements in order to make sure that the right benefits are realized.
2. We also recommend getting some preliminary change management supports in place in order to ease training and switch-over for your employees. This means preparing the people in your organization for change, regardless of how big or small the team is. Read more about this on the blog in a forthcoming post.
3. Lastly, keeping the lines of communication open with both the implementer and other professionals involved - such as your accountant, lawyer, operations team or production team - will speed up information exchange. Clearing up any details about the Chart of Accounts, reporting guidelines, upkeep of industry standards and other 'musts' early in the implementation discussions will speed up configuration efforts. Information barriers and delays in communication are the primary causes of stalled work.
There you have it - some concrete advice on how to ease the implementation process, and how to get the most out of your investment. Feel free to contact us about this post.
Please continue to follow us as we release our other tips for a successful implementation!
ERP Implementation Tips