Our guide for a successful ERP implementation: Four pitfalls you should definitely avoid when introducing a new ERP system.
“And a results-driven approach to help you do it.”
Chapter 01
And things need to change.
The implementation of an ERP system is always complex. It brings significant changes for a company — both technological and, above all, organizational. In this context, the size of the company plays only a minor role. Anyone who wants to use software to connect departments and standardize the flow of goods and value will inevitably have to put their internal processes to the test. Which processes will continue to work as they are, which need to be modified, and which need to be completely redefined?
Since introducing or modernizing enterprise software usually also means deciding which technological infrastructure to use — essentially choosing between on-premise or cloud — defining entirely new processes becomes almost unavoidable.
The project is called digital transformation
This means that today, an ERP project almost always falls under the umbrella of “digital transformation.” That’s no surprise, because this technological quantum leap can turn ERP systems — whose value creation initially lay mainly in integrating business functions and processes and enabling cross-functional and cross-process control — into something much more. The move to the cloud sparks new ambitions and opens up new possibilities. A cloud-based ERP solution allows companies with linear business models to finally address the question of how they can use their master and transactional data in the future to better serve customers, strengthen loyalty, or even win new customers — even if they’re not Apple, Google, or Amazon.
And speaking of these companies: an ERP implementation is also about securing your own competitive position against the players who dominate the digital platform economy. Not only the COVID-19 pandemic showed that, in addition to large corporations, small and medium-sized businesses in particular can suddenly find themselves under competitive pressure from companies they had never even considered before.
Who actually uses an enterprise solution?
But digital platform economy or not — in the end, the focus is on the ERP project itself, more precisely, the implementation process behind it. A simple Google search for “Why ERP projects fail” returns 28,900 results. The usual culprits are the assessment and estimation of time, costs, skills, and personnel resources — and that’s certainly true in many areas.
However, based on our experience from hundreds of ERP projects, we’ve identified an additional factor that often receives too little attention in most ERP implementations: the human factor. It’s the human element that ultimately determines whether an ERP project succeeds. Why is that? Because people — whether as employees, key users, managers, or executives — influence every phase of such a project, for better or worse. And people want to understand why they are expected to do something at a certain time.
Earlier, we talked about a technological quantum leap. But hidden within the word “quantum leap” is the word “leap.” And people will only leap if they know not just how high, but why they should leap in the first place. An ERP project is about transparent communication across departments and hierarchies. If this transparency is achieved, failure is much less likely. If you know where the stumbling blocks are, you can avoid them — ideally with a proven method.