First, prove to yourself that you need to change. ERP is difficult and change is difficult. But so is remaining competitive and profitable. Make sure the change warrants the investment. ERP is a significant investment. A business case based on enhancing or creating a competitive advantage (CA) should be the focus, balanced against the propensity to change. Another term for technology features that can enhance or create a CA are called, Critical Criteria.

Change Management

Organize a decision team of approximately 5 people which will include an Executive. Studies have proven this amount to be optimal in complex decision making. Studies have also shown a lack of Executive Sponsorship (which provides project vision and authority may be needed to meet this vision of change), is a leading cause of failed ERP implementations. Document AS IS workflows and processes of your business. Every company is unique regarding how much change you will need to manage. If change is determined to be too daunting and/or process reengineering with existing technology can achieve your critical criteria goals, a new ERP is not required. 

To temper bias and validate the Marketing Machine, interview similar companies that already use these systems you are investigating. Hopefully these similar companies you contact are local so you can visit them (always better than a phone call) and can also confirm the quality of local support.

Prepare to Learn – Asking the right questions to uncover the truth.

Below are questions related to some of the top reasons why ERP projects fail, End up more expensive than budgeted or Critical criteria are never implemented, thereby not achieving the original goal of an ERP investment.

Size - What is the ERP’s targeted customer size? 

IT Resources - Do the references provided employ the same number of IT staff you expect to employ?

Deployment – On-premises or cloud? All other factors remaining constant, does your deployment lend to or subtract from your use of the software or value you’ve realized?

How large is the software vendor? Largest software vendor can mean financial stability but has no correlation to the software functionality meeting your needs.

Are bolt-ons necessary to fill functional gaps? If so, speak with customers that already use these bolt-ons in the same fashion you expect to.

What is the pricing model of the software/vendor? If software price is related to transaction volume, do you have any legal recourse against unreasonable future cost increases?

How long did it take to implement? Were there unforeseen costs? Over/under budget?

Did you achieve everything you’d originally intended?

How is Support?

Critical Criteria related questions – example - Are you using Shop Floor Scheduling built into the ERP (assuming this to be critical)? Why or why not?

What things do you not like about the software, service, or support?

There are so many ERP evaluation misassumptions, it is so easy to be fooled. Here are just a few:

- ‘No one has ever been fired by purchasing Name brand’

– not necessarily true with ERPs. Name Brand might be synonymous with generic.

- besides is the ERP vendor relying on their brand instead of quality of their product?

- Low-cost option

– Remember when speaking with references, if they were under or over budget. Maybe in the end it will not be the low-cost option after all?

- Are you being promised the least expensive, fastest implementation and will implement without a hitch?

- Like any Project Manager knows, that triumvirate of benefits is not possible. You can only choose 2 between inexpensive, quality, and fast.

- Easiest to understand UI during the Sales Demo

 – Immediately Easy to understand screens can also mean less sophisticated. It takes years to become fluent with any ERP. How do you know how it is easy just by watching a sales demo?

- Being offered a fixed bid (or not to exceed) to implement any ERP

- There is no such thing as a ‘fixed bid’ ERP implementations. All ‘fixed bid’ claims will include ‘fine print caveats’ that are less than obvious. And if you fall for a ‘fixed bid’ you will waste time proving engagements should be included in the fixed bid, whereas the ERP vendor will be proving why specific features are out of scope.

- “Uniquely designed for specific industries”

 – Horizontally targeted ERPs usually boast unique features. However, they rarely offer the same breadth of functionality as more robust systems. You may not know what is missing from the industry specific system until at least one year using the system.