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Saturday October 17, 2009

Topic: Data Management

Reference: "10 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Midmarket ERP Solution." Tippit, Inc. Whitepaper. www.inside-ERP.com, 2008.

The entire area of Enterprise Resource Planning ("ERP") and software selection has matured over the past several years. Companies have now been through several iterations of ERP implementations and upgrades, and ERP support has migrated beyond large companies to mid-market companies as well. Horror stories abound about major problems with implementing ERP solutions, underlying trouble with poor business processes, and very bad customized solutions. 

Saturday October 17, 2009

Topic: Data Management

Reference: "10 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Midmarket ERP Solution." Tippit, Inc. Whitepaper. www.inside-ERP.com, 2008.

The entire area of Enterprise Resource Planning ("ERP") and software selection has matured over the past several years. Companies have now been through several iterations of ERP implementations and upgrades, and ERP support has migrated beyond large companies to mid-market companies as well. Horror stories abound about major problems with implementing ERP solutions, underlying trouble with poor business processes, and very bad customized solutions. The same has caused ERP solution providers to endue longer sales cycles, move to add additional consulting services, and to improve training scenarios. Still ERP applications require a major organizational commitment, ongoing assessment, and long term planning on the part of organizations in order to get the best value for the dollars expended. In the referenced article the commentator lays out some important considerations to assess when choosing a solution for the mid-market.  In part they include: 1. Do you know and understand the business problems your organization's business leaders plan to solve with ERP? 2. Does your organization have a business-application vendor already? 3. Does your organization have any legacy ERP systems to contend with? 4. Is a vertical ERP solution suitable for your organization? 5. What functionality will your organization actually use? and 6.Does the ERP solution align with your organization's business processes? "For the solution to be a good match for your organization, you should not have to employ the vendor...to change the software's source code to match your business processes." To me these are all critical questions, but number 6 is perhaps the most important. You need to find an ERP solution that fits the way your business works and not a solution that you can change your processes to fit. Part of the problem with this area is that too many implementations were based on the latter instead of the former. Markets change, inputs change, and your ERP solution has to be flexible enough to change with these requirements. For mid-market companies this may mean that buying software as a service ( "SaaS") is a better solution than an installed solution. Such solutions come with the same concerns as any other hosted solution or acquired from the cloud. Either way it is critical to select a vendor that fits your operation, has staying power, and the ability to adapt with you. The bottom line is you must choose wisely and pay close attention to the total cost of the solution. Let me know how you are making these important ERP selection decisions.