We’re backed by a private equity firm that also owns a consulting firm. So just talking internally and networking with other colleagues, they told me other companies that they have used for ERP projects. And I talked to someone who had previously worked with Shawn and she had a lot of good things to say. And that was why I chose ERP Advisors Group to help us.
ERP Selection Phase:
From a Needs Analysis perspective, there’s a lot we need to solve with the new software. The company is still on Quickbooks, and we’re trying to grow them into a fairly substantial platform that’s private equity backed.
We know, just from our experience, that it wasn’t a matter of “if”, it was a matter of “when” we would need to update. So just with a lot of other factors going on in the business and a multitude of reasons, we’re wanting to seriously consider if we can do it as soon as possible. So that was a big part of the Needs Analysis — can we do it in this time frame? Or are we better off finding a band-aid to get us by?
I feel like Founder and Managing Principal Shawn Windle is very capable and has a lot of good experience and knowledge to draw from. I was particularly impressed when Shawn went to visit our company. I work from home, so I wasn’t able to be there, and Shawn went to visit the company for a day. His ability to grasp what’s going on in that one day’s visit was pretty impressive. He picked up on so many pieces — challenges and dynamics that are going on in the business — that I was very impressed by.
It’s been a good experience, so I would certainly refer a colleague to ERP Advisors Group.
ERP Implementation and Data Migration:
[Our previous software] was on an older software, and we knew that it was time to put in a new system that would give us the capability to scale fairly rapidly and also improve some challenges in the business.
So, we have a system that we can scale with now, and we definitely have some improvements to process that we didn’t before. Of course we still have challenges that we’re working through, but they’re all manageable and all going to put us on a really good path going forward.
Our ERP project went slightly better than I would’ve thought in some respects. For example, we were working on a very compressed schedule. We signed contracts at the end of April and we went live on September 7th. It's a fairly complicated business, so I was really nervous about the schedule. But, we pulled it off and that’s really significant, so we’re really happy with that.
Shawn is great to work with. He has so much experience and his approach is very practical. And the fact that it’s truly an independent advisor, not tied to any specific solution or vendors or anything like that gave me a lot of comfort. We made the decision to utilize ERP Advisors Group because we knew this was such a big change for the organization. We wanted all the additional help we can get. Having someone come in to support what we needed as a company was really helpful.
It was especially helpful during the needs analysis and selection phases, because we’ve never done this before as a company where you really have to sit down and systematically assess what it is you need and how to go about getting it. So, that was probably the biggest value to us.
I would definitely refer ERP Advisors Group to someone who is looking for the services EAG offers. I had an overall very positive experience working with Shawn and the team.