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:

  1. Do you fully understand your business requirements and specifically your critical success factors (from a company, industry and ERP functionality perspective)?
  2. 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!
  3. 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.
  4. 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”?
  5. Do you know the qualities to dig into to be assured that your implementation resources are best suited for success?