How to implement an ERP?

Whether a new business is setting up its first system or you're a business with legacy desktop-based or entry level cloud platforms, advance planning is crucial.

Key considerations when implementing an ERP solution

Engage and empower

Even the best ERP solutions rely on various internal teams to fully realise their potential. So, engage and empower your team by getting their input up front, communicating the benefits and harnessing views from all levels. This will help teams anticipate and prepare for change and possible disruption. Keeping lines of communication open will ensure upward feedback which can be eye-opening.

Project Plan

A detailed project plan identifies the progressive tasks from start to finish, as well as deliverables, the communication plan, risk management, and quality measures.  Each task will clearly identify who is responsible, who the stakeholders are, what resources are required, start and end dates, current status, etc.  Remember that a project plan isn’t just about the schedule; it’s a comprehensive strategy for managing the project from start to finish. It provides visibility, keeps teams accountable, and ensures successful project delivery.

Roll-out approach

Modular cloud-based ERP systems offer truly scalable solutions, and our team of experts can guide and support you from discovery to deployment and beyond. There are different approaches depending on the size and nature of your business: 

• All in one: Moving or setting up all systems and deploying these across the business in one go. This can speed up the realisation of benefits but, is a high-risk approach as any post-deployment issues could slow things down or even worse bring it all to a halt.
• Phased approach: The roll-out is phased over weeks or months to reduce some of the risks that come with the all-in approach. This will enable you to pick and choose the order of adoption, e.g., you may choose to roll-out the core financials at first before bringing in more complex functionalities to set up, like advanced inventory management.
• Parallel roll-out: If transitioning from a legacy system, you can choose to keep both new and old systems live for a period to eliminate the risk of disruption. But this is likely to put a lot of strain on the teams working with them.

Time and cost

Each strategy will have its own level of time and costs involved. The all-in approach may be the quickest but the associated risks make that unsuitable for most businesses even if it may initially have the lowest cost. Phased roll-out on the other hand will take longer and the initial outlay maybe higher but this helps negate some of the high-impact risks as well as give the staff some additional time to get used to the system. A parallel roll-out will have high running costs as you will be paying for two systems as well as the technical resources needed to maintain them.

When assessing the time and cost implications, always factor in that ERPs help streamline operational processes, they can be tailored to your business, and they can cut down on the number of different programmes you may be using.  Most importantly ERP’s can help consolidate cross-departmental or group financials, CRM, HR, expenses, and Asset Registers in one environment for better decision-making. Also, choosing an approved outsourcing services provider which partners with a reputed ERP supplier can significantly lower the on-going costs as well.

Get in touch 

If you would like to find out more about ERP systems and how they can help transform not just your financial reporting but overall operations, please get in touch.

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