Planning the implementation of an ERP solution in your company is a rather big deal. A properly designed blueprint can help you better align your business processes with your existing information systems to give people access to a wealth of data for making better decisions that help your business meet its goals. However, planning an ERP implementation isn’t an easy task. There are guides that can help you understand what you are in for; however it takes some one with real experience in planning this type of project to get things right because there are always things that people forget about. When certain things are overlooked it can mean failure for your project; and some of these things are frequently forgotten.
Getting effective buy-in
Projects generally go through an approval process, especially ones that have as much budgetary impact as an ERP implementation. However, having your boss or a few others sign off on the project doesn’t really equate to effective buy-in. At some level, there needs to be support from the C-suite in order to help persuade departments heads who may not be as excited about such a project. Having buy-in at the highest level of your company is essential.
The end-users represent another area where the project needs to be accepted. If the people who are going to use the software in their daily job functions don’t embrace what you are doing, then you are facing an uphill battle.
Not accounting for training
Project plans include costs and timeframes for infrastructure upgrades, installations, testing and go-live events. What they sometimes overlook is the cost and time that needs to be dedicated towards training individuals who will be both managing and maintaining your ERP solution and those who will actually be using it. It is also important to make sure that the training provided to your end-users doesn’t take a cookie cutter approach. It should customized so that it is specific to individual jobs, and made to be as specific to your industry and company size as possible.
Fully vetting your vendor
Your account representative’s main objective is to sell you his or her product. It is how they earn their money and how their success is measured. Your job is to make sure that the vendor, and sales representative, you are working with is the right choice for your company and its needs. This is done by doing your own research on the vendor and not relying solely on what you are told. Check to see how long they have been in business, research who their customers are to see if they are able to work with a business your size or in your industry and look to see what other customers have to say about them.
Forgetting to include any one of these steps into your project plan will likely cause serious problems when it comes to your ERP implementation. This is why it is so important that someone on the team has hands on experience in bringing these solutions to life. Without having that experience on your team, it is easy to leave out some of the more important steps needed for success and you won’t realize you forgot something until it is too late.
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