Are you prepared to make a good match with ERP software suppliers? Start with understanding what your business needs are and whether the ERP software is a match.
ERP systems often fail to live up to their promise – even in the best of circumstances. It is a tough environment – software suppliers are consolidating, the smaller ones can disappear or get gobbled up in a moment’s notice, good resources are hard to find, and the list goes on. Yet there is no choice but to proactively address this topic to have a scalable business and to meet customer expectations as you get to a certain size and complexity. Thus, it is worth-while thinking about whether you are prepared:
- Do you fully understand your business requirements and specifically your critical success factors (from a company, industry and ERP functionality perspective)?
- What safeguards do you have in place to avoid getting excited about non-essential bells and whistles that seem important at the time but are not critical to your growth and profitability? Be honest!
- Do you know what questions to ask to dig deeper into down-the-line impacts of functionality options? Overlook this step and it is likely you’ll be gravely disappointed later.
- Do you have software and implementation cost estimates for what you can expect for your software tier? Would you know if your deal sounds “too good”?
- Do you know the qualities to dig into to be assured that your implementation resources are best suited for success?