Once you’ve selected the best Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for your business functions, the next step is to ensure an effective review of what processes you want to maintain, a ‘closing down’ of your previous ERP systems and a rolling out of the new system, deciding which training method you’ll deliver to your team and more.
If you haven’t chosen your ERP solution yet, you may find this guide on the selection process useful.
Proper planning is vital for any large-scale project, particularly one that is going to have a considerably positive impact on the whole organisation.
Implementing ERP software is likely to be one of the biggest in-house projects you will undertake as a business.
Therefore, you need to choose the right people for your project team and understand precisely what current procedures need to be improved so that you can select the right system, and the right vendor to ensure business growth.
Here’s an eight-step approach:
Before making any key decisions regarding your ERP project, you must ensure that you have the right people on board.
Here’s a top-level list of what your ERP project team could look like.
The whole purpose of upgrading to new ERP software for your business is to make key processes more efficient.
So it’s important to take the time to look at how your company operates in depth to measure how effective your current processes are.
It’s worth speaking to different staff members to identify what works, what doesn’t, and how things can be improved.
Our advice would be to map processes as they actually happen, not how you think they happen and make sure you think about how they affect the entire organisation.
Next, define the beginning and end of all the processes to identify any overlap, documenting these as you go.
For a successful implementation that truly improves the working lives and efficiencies of your team, it’s important not to replicate or force processes just because you have been doing them that way for a long time. This is your chance to update and improve historic processes to make things more streamlined and effective.
Your implementation partner can help here, by taking an objective look at your business procedures. They may be able to spot areas you can improve that may not have occurred to you or other individuals within your company who are too close to the day-to-day operations.
Your partner will also be able to advise on the best practice procedures and how the ERP software can assist.
Finally, you’ll need an understanding of how processes will work after the implementation so that you have more time to manage the change and prepare employees. This is also something your vendor should assist you with.
You should look at what your existing systems are costing the business in areas such as security, support, downtime, upgrades, security, insurance and inefficiencies.
Having an in-depth understanding of what your current system is costing you will help you to identify a budget for your ERP project. The vendor of your current ERP systems should be able to help with this step.
Deciding on the right ERP vendor (the people who supply your new ERP software) for your business is vital to success.
We recommend researching numerous vendors and discussing your specific needs, time frames and budgets with them. We’ve covered this in detail here, but here’s some additional advice:
Invite five vendors to interview initially. Be prepared with a list of questions to ask them. Potential questions you may want to ask could include:
Asking these questions will enable you to narrow down your list. Once you have two or three vendors that you’re interested in, you should then ask to see a live demonstration of their software, showcasing processes and scenarios relevant to your business.
To make your final decision, you should find out exactly what you’ll be paying over the next five years and get your legal team to go through the contract.
Data due diligence is essential – you need to understand exactly what you are responsible for and what you need to be aware of.
Unless you have a skilled IT team in-house, then you will need to use an implementation partner who can help to reduce disruption as much as possible, ensuring a high-quality training process and a smooth transition. The process for this is similar to what we’ve advised above:
Source two or three potential partners – perhaps a local partner so they can easily visit you on-site? And ascertain what experience they have in your sector.
Don’t forget to discuss your current business processes with your chosen partner – it may be that they can spot needs you have missed, or perhaps they could suggest a better way of doing something.
ERP implementations can be large and disruptive projects that require a considerable amount of time from your implementation team.
Please don’t underestimate this, and make sure your team has the time to perform all necessary tasks required of them, as well as enough time to carry out their own jobs to avoid ERP implementation delays.
Right at the beginning, make sure you and the project team understand exactly what work needs to be completed, by when and by whom.
For example, who will be navigating historic data cleansing to ensure migration into the new system is smooth and accurate?
By planning everything in advance you can avoid having to make knee-jerk decisions midway through the project, causing disruption and confusion for those involved.
That being said, you must also be prepared to be flexible. There may be unavoidable hiccups along the way, so if something needs to change from your original plan, try to remain flexible and adjust it accordingly.
Getting all of your employees involved with the project is vital to achieving employee buy-in.
It’s important to ensure they understand how the new system will not only benefit the company as a whole but also how it will benefit them as individuals.
Getting your end users involved early means they are more likely to understand the reasons behind the change and how it all works.
Again, your implementation partner should be able to help here. They can show your end users how the system works as soon as each stage of the implementation is complete, depending on which approach you choose.
Mapping out and properly preparing your data for migration is important.
Firstly, you should decide which data you actually want to take into the new system, disposing of unhelpful legacy data properly.
Next, you’ll need to know how much of your existing data needs to be inputted into the new system and what costs are associated with this.
Similarly, we recommend that you take time to decide if you have a wishlist for data that you would like to be present in the new ERP system that you don’t currently store.
One of the biggest issues companies encounter when attempting to migrate data to their new system is when this information is poor quality or not ‘clean’.
For migration to work, data accuracy is key. So, checking all your information is a must before attempting any migration to a new system.
This may feel like a lot of work, but it’s a key part of a successful migration.
You’ll also need to make sure that the system is regularly reviewed and performing well. You may want to speak to employees using the system to ascertain how they are finding it, what’s working, and what they are finding difficult.
You may be able to schedule additional training to help everybody feel confident in using the new ERP software.
Read more about our NetSuite Healthcheck service.
Your new ERP system should grow with the business so that you don’t need to carry out such an extensive overhaul in future.
This is where your chosen implementation partner can come in handy again. They should be able to provide you with a system health check which includes a review of your use of the new software and further ideas for optimisation.