How To Choose The Perfect ERP System For Your Business

To help you on your ERP journey, we have prepared this short guide on how to choose an ERP system based on what we believe are the most important steps to implementing an ERP solution for your business…

Should I commission an ERP consultant?

From our experience as an ERP Development Company using a third-party consultant can be money well spent unless you know a lot about ERP systems (which tends to be rare). They will guide you around many of the pitfalls and make sure that you are not being ‘ripped off’ by sanity checking the ERP vendor proposals. They will also chair your vendor meetings, make sure you get answers to the right questions and generally steer you in the right direction. Our only caveat is that you make sure that your consultant is truly independent since many go under the guise of being fully independent but are not. The best ERP implementation for your business requires a level playing field for all ERP vendors.

Do your homework

By this, we mean research the potential ERP Developers which you are considering. Ask yourself questions like; Have they ever failed in delivering an ERP implementation? Am I buying a ‘Brand name’ just because they ‘sound good’ it does not necessarily mean they “are good”? Can I visit one of their existing clients to see how they a getting on? There are many more questions you can ask within this area, but I’m sure that you get the idea.

Analyse your own business needs

Involve your whole company in this process and ask them to prioritise the required functionalities according to their importance and frequency of use. You may want to make a list with the following criteria: ‘must-have’ functionalities; features that need to be implemented immediately versus features that you want in the future, but do not have to be implemented immediately. Be mindful that a new ERP system is much better received if it is delivered in manageable stages.

Clarify overall cost of the implementation

Make sure that you know exactly what you are paying and what you expect to get for the price. The price should include ERP Software (all qualified software modules for the implementation), Services (implementation services such as configuration, customisation and training) along with a projection of monthly ongoing costs (licensing and support etc.). An initial proposal from Enapps is usually plus or minus 10% when compared to our final proposal. This price only increases when new functionality which we initially did not know about is added at a later stage of the project and we stick to the price. This point is crucial in preventing ‘bottomless pit’ project costs.

Prepare for the ERP implementation

Identify someone within your organisation who will be the ‘go-to’ person for the ERP implementation; ensure that they are allocated the time to deliver the required ERP support for both internal and external contacts. This will create a much smoother environment for project delivery. If you cannot identify an internal person, then consider getting an external contractor to manage the ERP project until it goes live.

Support and developments

Make sure you know how ongoing support is going to be provided, what it covers, costs and if it is delivered by your ERP Software Development vendor. Is it covered as part of your monthly costs? Since customers’ requirements can change along with the business, a company may need slight changes or even completely new functionalities and features to be implemented after the ‘Go Live’. Enapps cover all hosting, maintenance and bug fixing as part of the monthly costs and custom ERP changes are charged at a similar daily rate to the implementation (support hours) or are covered in one of our monthly support packages.

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