One of the things we typically don’t like to discuss is failure: we prefer to focus on how we can make situations better and more successful. While most people don’t like to talk about failures, we think it is important that businesses understand the risk involved in implementing not only ERP software, but also human capital management HR software, supply chain management software, or customer relationship management (CRM) software.
At ERP Advisors Group, we are fortunate enough to have a very high success rate on our implementations — in fact, 100% of our clients go live using our proven methodology. But that doesn’t mean we never run into problems. Here are the five biggest pitfalls that one must watch out for during an ERP Implementation, along with some advice on how to avoid them.
A lot of discussions about software revolve around functionality and, specifically, what the functionality is that you’re looking to buy. However, as soon as you dive into the marketplace and begin looking at these tools, it’s easy to lose the viewpoint of what the overall solution is that you’re looking to implement.
For example, if you’re a growing organization that has multiple entities throughout your country and are looking to go international, you start looking for a software application to support international growth. So you choose a software application that supports a variety of currencies, tax scenarios, translations and other international requirements. But while focusing on that one aspect may help your accountants become extremely productive, you may have lost sight of the rest of the organization.
The key here is that when implementing software applications, you are implementing tools to help your people and your employees be more productive.
Therefore, you must keep this in mind and look at the overall picture when selecting and implementing a software application. It’s really important to understand what it is you’re implementing and for whom.
Many times we see businesses start talking to sales people or even customers of a certain application and dive straight into the sales and buying process because — on paper — it appears that this particular solution makes the most sense. What can happen is that sometimes the manager in charge of the purchase didn’t understand the business requirements thoroughly enough, and made the decision based on superficial factors like what other people said worked for their company, or what they heard that a competitor was using.
You must base your selection off of needs specific to your company, the direction that the business is going, and what your operational requirements currently are.
One way to help ensure that you choose the right application is to push your salesperson to show you exactly how the software application addresses your specific business requirements. This allows you to evaluate the features most relevant to you, rather than just the features the salesperson feels are most popular. You can also require a clause in your contract that states that the solution the software company delivers must meet your requirements precisely. Knowing how to handle software salespeople is an integral step in implementing the right solution.
Implementing the wrong solution will always end in failure.
We’ve addressed the importance of the ERP selection process in other articles, but once you select the right application, you must have a good implementation partner or vendor to help with the implementation. It may sound obvious, but the firm you partner with must have significant experience with the application that you have selected. Believe it or not, we have seen many instances where a company chose the correct software application but went with the wrong implementation team, and the process suffered for it.
Don’t be afraid to dig deep with a person or company to find out exactly what capabilities they have. If you choose an implementation partner and discover that they don’t have the ability to handle the project, you absolutely must cut bait and find someone who can. It’s also helpful to forge a personal relationship with your vendor. This is someone you are going to be calling at 2:00 am if the project goes bad, so they must be willing to take your calls. If this doesn’t sound like the person you’re talking to about your project, there’s a good chance that they should not be helping you through the implementation.
We feel very strongly about having a good, strong implementation partner because of the difference they can make in the process.
You have now chosen an application that is right for your business and your needs, and you have chosen an implementation partner that is going to work for you and the application. But now you need subject matter experts to help the consultant understand your different business processes.
However, if your subject matter experts — your key employees — are busy dealing with supply chain issues, the latest round of financing, or a new acquisition, you’re basically paying the consultant to sit around and wait until your employees have time to devote to the project. Ultimately, they could be waiting a long time.
Your subject matter experts have a day job, and it can be tricky to get the people you need available to help. One thing you can do to mitigate this problem is by backfilling people, whether it’s hiring a temp or letting a junior person step up. By letting them handle some of the regular responsibilities your subject matter expert handles on a daily basis, it will free up your subject matter experts to help you with the software application implementation process.
Making sure your people have time available for the implementation is critical to the success of your project.
When we start the process of selecting and implementing an ERP software with our clients, one of the first things we discuss with them is data migration, because this can be a huge hurdle in the implementation process. In a lot of ways, this is really where the rubber meets the road, because a properly selected and perfectly implemented software suite is useless until all the legacy data from the old system can be successfully brought over into the new system. This includes all your core data, as well as any open transactions, employee, customer/vendor lists, historical data, contracts, and so forth.
Often times this data has to be cleaned up prior to migration, which can take a long time and ultimately stall the project. Again, it’s important to think of these potential issues beforehand and make sure that you have the right people available to work on them, if or when they come up.
Another area that can create problems is in how your existing system works with other tools or applications that your organization depends on, and how those integrations will be replaced when the new software goes live. This is, again, something to think about before even selecting the software. If there are specific processes or data formats supported in the old system that need to be replicated by the new system, it is important to be aware of these ahead of time.
A third common source of issues is the need for customization. If your chosen software doesn’t natively support the needs of all your business teams, you might have to build custom functionality to address those requirements. Yes, we are repeating ourselves at this point, but you don’t want to get halfway through the implementation before you realize you need to pay for additional customizations.
Throughout our years of experience, we have seen many implementations fail. This typically happens because companies don’t know what they are implementing, they picked the wrong application, they don’t have the right implementation partner, they didn’t staff the project appropriately, or they come across issues with data migration, integrations, and customizations. By being aware of and possibly avoiding these common mistakes, hopefully your implementation can be a success.