ERP Requirements Refinement

The requirements gathering for a ERP software project is not a simple task. In fact, it can be the most difficult part of the entire endeavor. Because of its daunting nature, most companies rush through the process and, as a result, add a significant amount of time to the overall project timeline. Inadequate writing and validation of requirements can result in failed  ERP implementations  in terms of time spent, cost and overall vendor selection. To better estimate the time and cost needed to implement a product and ensure the product can align with key business processes and market differentiators, it is critical to really understand what the system requirements will be before evaluating a particular software package or vendor. Here are some tips you can use to help gather and write strong requirements for your ERP software project: ·          Develop Workshop Guides:  Prepared participants result in productive meetings. ...

ERP readiness isn’t a term that CIOs, CFOs or project managers typically think about. It is more common for executives and project team members to have concerns about budget, how fast they can get to go live and how not to screw up the ERP implementation along the way. Organizations that take the time to plan and ensure they are “ready” for their new  ERP software  before go-live – even though no organization is ever 100% ready – are much better positioned for success. Just as importantly, ERP readiness helps mitigate some of the most common  ERP implementation  risks, such as budgetary overruns, misalignment with business needs and operational disruptions at go-live. Since no organization will ever be completely ready for go-live, how can we assess the level of readiness for your organization? It’s not usually quick and easy to measure. We typically facilitate extensive go/no-go assessments for our clients before they go-live to ensure that things are on t...

The manual process of expense reporting is a thing of the past. In its place stands  ERP software  with mobile functionality that facilitates efficient and accurate expense reporting via smartphones and tablets. Mobile expense reporting is more than a trendy discussion topic among industry experts – it’s quickly becoming a  reality  for thousands of organizations. From expense capture to expense approval, mobile ERP software automates and improves the entire process of expense reporting. Following are five reasons organizations are turning to this new technology (and saying goodbye to traditional ERP systems without it): 1.     To Better Analyze Spending.  Mobile ERP systems can aggregate spending into categories based on project, customer, employee and department. When expenses are categorized, travel and entertainment spending becomes easier to analyze which enables smoother negotiation with vendors when asking for discounts. 2. ...

In choosing an  ERP implementation  phasing strategy, organizations should carefully weigh their options. The ideal phasing strategy depends on a number of factors and each organization may choose a different approach. How quickly will employees adapt the new  ERP system ? How much risk are we comfortable with? How much money are we willing to spend? These are just a few questions organizations should ponder before deciding on a phasing strategy. Following are three common implementation phasing strategies and the advantages and disadvantages of each: Big Bang Approach  – This strategy means all modules are installed across the entire organization at the same time and all users concurrently move to the new ERP system. Once the new system is launched, the old system is completely turned off. Because of this finality, the big bang approach can be quite risky and organizations should develop contingency plans to account for the possibility of the new syst...

There are seven critical challenges that can disrupt an ERP implementation if not addressed appropriately: 1.     Program management 2.     Business process and workflow definition and improvement 3.     Organizational change management and communications 4.     Business and technical integration 5.     Globalization and localization 6.     Independent oversight of technical resources 7.     ERP benefits realization Insufficiently defining business processes and workflows is the biggest challenge in implementing ERP. After that other major challenges are poor program management and not enough focus on organizational change management. The fact that business process and workflows are such a potential land mine for ERP implementations is not surprising for a number of reasons. There are six main reasons why this presents such a challenge for organizations: 1. ...

Customization is one of the most controversial topics surrounding ERP software.  A majority of companies have every intention of leveraging vanilla, off-the-shelf software during their software selection process.  However, as project teams get into the details of the software during the implementation cycle, requests to make one or more customizations to the software are inevitable. The reason for the controversy around customization is threefold. First, it increases the complexity and risk of an implementation, while at the same time making it potentially more difficult to upgrade software in the future.  Second, it in some ways undermines the best practices built into the software, which software vendors often spend significant R&D developing.  Thirdly and finally, customization is often a symptom of bigger problems, including a solution’s mismatch with a company’s requirements or a lack of project controls during implementation. So what to do?  ...

When dealing with clients who want to short-cut their ERP implementation process, one of the Project Managers at our company likes to state that “you can pay now, or you can pay later.” This may seem self-promoting since we are consultants earning a living on helping clients with their  ERP implementations , but the reality is that it’s a true statement. We see many companies that spend hundreds of thousands or millions on ERP software licenses, only to devote limited resources to implementation. Some think they can do everything themselves with team members that lack implementation expertise, while others simply want to minimize their budgets as much as possible. The reality of ERP projects is that 86% go over budget, and a full 60% of implementations cost 10% or more than planned. We suspect that a big reason for this is that many companies try to cut corners, only to find themselves in a mess that costs more to get themselves out of than if they would have spent th...