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 cost, implementation time, 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 is what you can expect when looking at the cost of an implementation:
Implementation costs may vary significantly.
The ERP product you choose will result in variable licensing costs, hosting and maintenance requirements, training costs, support contract needs and customization investments. The rigorousness of the implementer's approach will greatly help or hinder you on all of these fronts.
Keys To Success
In order to keep costs to a minimum, and to reap the highest savings benefits from your new system, we suggest:
1. Choosing a flexible ERP with low licensing costs. We at OERP implement Odoo and we believe it excels in helping you keep costs low. The primary reason for which businesses turn to an ERP solution is because they are tired of paying high monthly or yearly user and licensing fees for separate applications. Further, integrations between applications in a non-ERP format are often limited and do not produce the desired result even at high cost. With an integrated but modular suite, like Odoo, you can implement what you need without these issues.
2. Work with implementers that are dedicated to meeting your specific needs. We undergo a process of analysis and customization with our clients that ensures that only the work that needs to be done is included in your implementation. We also ensure that training is customized to the needs of your employees. Finally, we assess how much of the needs and desires of your company can be met with out of the box functionality, leading to only the most necessary and valuable customization efforts.
3. Make requirements clear and concise in order to avoid confusion and rework. Adding labour hours by changing specifications will inevitably increase the cost of the implementation. Focus on mutual understanding during the requirements elicitation and business process outline phase at the beginning of the project. Occasionally certain aspects of the project don't become clear until later, but an experienced implementer will be able to tell you up front which of your requirements is likely to change and why. We value getting a deep understanding of these issues early, which is why we offer the first two hours free during our initial consultation. When the client is concise and clear, those two hours can really count.
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