​Tips to picking the right ERP for you! Picking the right ERP for you can be challenging when your time is limited. Sifting through endless websites looking for guidance, sitting through uninformative sales pitches, and long boring demos. Deciding on an ERP can be a rather tedious and drawn-out process that can take months or even years in some cases. On average, companies spend about 17 weeks when it comes to just selecting an ERP (1). Whether you take 2 months, 6 months, or a year. No matter how much research you’ve done you can still pick the wrong ERP or Implementation partner. This is the reason why only 5% of organizations use their ERP effectively to create and augment high-quality data, which is key to effective analytics and insights (1).  

So here are some tips to picking the right ERP for you: 

1. Identify Both Your Companies’ Goals and Objectives: 

​Tips to Picking The Right ERP For You. When the topic of an ERP starts floating around your organization and the need becomes evident. Which it inevitably will, due to the fact that 53% of businesses have, picking an ERP at the top of their list of priorities to invest in (1). When this happens and it’s decided an ERP is a necessity. Your first course of action should be to identify your ERP team. This team and its key players will work together to identify exactly what your company’s needs and objectives are (2). This team might consist of department heads, a board of directors, or just you.

The right ERP will help standardize your back-office operations by a minimum of 77%, lower the organization’s overall operations expenses by a minimum of 11%, and provide real-time visibility into your company’s data, improving your organizational insight and decision making by a minimum of 48% (3) and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. With ERPs now producing such a wide range of business improving functions, you’ll need to know exactly what your companies’ goals are and how the right ERP will help you achieve them? Once your team is established and your companies goals and objectives are realized. You’ll want to analyze your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to effectively identify any problems within your organization that the right ERP software will help you solve, giving insight into future projections (2).

The right ERP will help your company to overcome and  adapt to challenges as you grow.  

2. Select Your Team Lead or Internal Project Manager: 

Now that you’ve determined your objectives, needs, and goals. You’ll want to assign a team lead or project manager, this person can either be you or someone else on your ERP team. They must understand the responsibilities of this role and have the right expertise and experience to guide the employees through the process. This “Project Manager” will oversee all processes to make sure things move smoothly, so make sure this individual has a full understanding of the importance and impact that the right ERP will have on your organization. ERP projects can take 30% more time than originally estimated, so assigning this role can save you and your organization a lot of headaches. Helping to ensure you don’t run into roadblocks like time or budget constraints due to implementation (2).

Giving you the ability to focus on your core competencies and all other tasks needed for a successful ERP project (2). 

3. Finding the right ERP Software 

Not every ERP solution will bring you the same benefits. Items of importance vary from company to company. For example, 89% of companies identified accounting as the most critical ERP function, 67% of companies said inventory and distribution are their reason for an ERP, followed by Customer relationship management (CRM), sales at 33%, and technology at 21% (1). So, as you can see what works perfectly for some may not be the right benefits or solutions for your specific business requirements. One-size-fits-all might not be the way to go with your ERP project. That’s why you must consider your business needs, the industry you are in, your system requirements, as well as your future expectations for growth. To come to the right decision, you should discuss all the possible questions with your ERP team (2).

For more ​tips to picking the right ERP for you: Check out this link to compare leading ERP’s: https://softengine.com/products/erp-comparison/  

4. Finding the right implementation Partner 

Deciding on your ERP implementation partner is the most important item on this agenda. This is the company that’s going to help migrate your data, configure your system, test your system, and train your employees. Migrating company data is a very important step of a successful ERP implementation, when performed properly, it will help you effectively streamline your operations. The goal in data migration is to clean up, organize, and transfer only the most important information so that you can achieve efficiency and data integrity. So you’ll want to make sure you choose a company that understands your business processes and your data.

Once your companies data is migrated and your new ERP is configured, it’s necessary to start testing the new ERP system. Testing your new system is also a very crucial part of an ERP implementation process. It provides you with a clear insight into the performance of the new ERP (2) and ensures all systems are working properly. ​Testing and other related processes can massively affect an ERP project’s budget forcing you to spend more than what was allocated (1) as well as extending the project’s timeline if done improperly.

After the ERP system has been implemented and tested, you need to train your employees, so they can use the new system efficiently and effectively. The right implementation partner will provide a team of experts to deliver the necessary ERP employee training and ensure all your employees fully understand and become proficient with the new system. Your initial ERP team (usually department heads) should be provided with more extensive training so that they can handle more technical issues that may occur (2).

In addition, your implementation partner should be dedicated to providing excellent customer support by being accessible 24/7 by phone, email, and ticketing through a website portal. Make sure your partner is committed to answering questions and requests for support in a reasonable amount of time. Giving you the confidence that you picked the right implementation partner and ERP.

Tips to picking the right ERP for you: Before having all your data converted into your new ERP, you should consider filtering out everything that you find unnecessary or incorrect, that way the new system will be clean and accurate.

Tips to picking the right ERP for you: You should never go live before performing proper system and user acceptance testing.

5. Inconclusion 

Once employees are thoroughly trained and your new system has been run through multiple tests, it’s time to go live. Implementing the right ERP solution into your organization can be one of the best decisions you’ve ever made (2). By improving your decision-making, productivity, efficiency, collaboration, and communication within your company (2). Effectively coordinating your business activities while enhancing the performance of your workforce.

When asked what companies hoped to gain from their ERP Implementation, the top three business goals cited were to save money, improve processes, and increase transaction speeds. On average having the right ERP achieved a cost savings of 46%), improved performance metrics by 46%, and improved efficiencies in business transactions by 40% (4). Although it takes a substantial amount of time and thorough planning, your efforts will pay off in the long term if you take the necessary steps. These steps, will not only help make this transition as smooth as possible but help guide you in picking the right ERP and implementation company. 

​I hope these were helpful tips for picking the right ERP for you, for more information, please contact us at: https://softengine.com/contact-us/

1. 60 Must-Know ERP Statistics Before Making a Buying Decision by Rajendra Roul 
2. Blog: 8 Steps to Take for a Successful ERP Implementation   
3. Statistic provided by Aberdeen Group 
4. 50 Critical ERP Statistic: Market Trends, Data, and Analysis by Justin Biel 
5. Image Source: TrustRadius 2021 
6. ​Tips to Picking The Right ERP For You