Take Responsibility – Otherwise 1 through 9 above won’t matter.
As a disclaimer, these 10 Principles of Success come from Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) newspaper aimed at helping stock market investors understand what good growth stocks to invest in, based on what the current overall market conditions are. EstesGroup believes that a company can apply these 10 Principles of Success to ERP systems; that is selecting, implementing and using them. How does the 7th Principle of Success apply to:
Choosing the Right ERP System for Your Business?
Principle # 7: Focus Your Time and Money!
Don’t let other things and people distract you!
Everyone has heard the old saying “There’s only so much time” and “There is only so much Money” to get things accomplished. Truer words were never spoken as they relate to selecting your company’s ERP system. Just as you need to establish a budget for the purchase and implementation of an ERP system you also need to establish a budget of time and money you’re going to use to select an ERP system. So what are the Time & Money elements you need to budget to the ERP system selection process?
The overall timeframe budget for ERP selection is about 3 to 6 months. This will vary somewhat from organization to organization, but if you string this process out to long, I guarantee you the employees on the ERP Selection Review Team will lose their Focus and the time and money you spend will be for naught.
Breaking down the 3 to 6 month overall timeframe to hours becomes an exercise in how many people (including upper management) you’ll have on your ERP Selection Review Team and then knowing how many hours per week they should devote to the ERP system review/selection.
ERP Review Team Members typically are, one person from the following areas in your company:
6 hours/week/person – Internal Project Leader – 15 hours/week on average should be devoted to ERP system selection.
That is: (20 weeks x 6 hours x 7 people = 840 to 1000 hours -including project leader time on average) Note: If this sounds like a lot of time, please remember selecting the right ERP system for your organization is probably the most critical thing you as a group will do; because the system touches every aspect of your organization. In addition to this, it’s also important to know that the employees above will be the leaders of these areas or the person that knows the most about how their area interacts with the rest of the company. If you apply the hourly cost of each of these people to the number of hours you’re budgeting for selecting an ERP system, you’ll have a pretty good estimate of the money you’ll spend to select an ERP system.
Consulting costs if you’re not going to go it alone or you need a professional consultant to lead your company’s ERP selection process.
20 weeks x 15 hours/week x $175.00/hour (on average) = $52,500.00Note: You’ll still need to commit the employees time listed above to the ERP Review Team. A number of company’s feel that once they make the decision to hire a consultant to lead the ERP selection project the other employees get a pass on being involved. This is 100% false. The consultant is hired to organize the project review/information and provide feedback to upper management based on the involvement of the team, not make the ERP system selectionfor you. The consultant isn’t going to use the ERP system after they leave your company is.
Travel Costs of the consultant and of your internal team should be budgeted for (if necessary).
Based on the Money and Time involved of an ERP system selection it’s critically important to Focus on the task at hand and get it done in the designated timeframe you’re allowing.
EstesGroup can help! We’ve been providing this type of help to our customers for years. Our ERP systemselection knowledge and our honesty on your behalf is what makes us different.
We would love to talk with you about HOW to “Focus Your Time and Money” on bettering your ERPselection process. Pick up the phone and call 1 888 300 2340 and together we will:
Simplify Technology, Improve Operations, and Gain Efficiencies…
Learn From Our Experts: Access Our Epicor 10 Out Of The Box ToolsVideo Series.
Goal #6 in Selecting Your The Best Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP) System: Learn How To Analyze The Details! The10 Principles of Success
We continue to review the 10 Principles of Success and how they’re applied to ERP Selection with the 6th Goal for Success: Learn How to Analyze the Details!
Take Responsibility – Otherwise 1 through 9 above won’t matter.
As a disclaimer, these 10 Principles of Success come from Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) newspaper aimed at helping stock market investors understand what good growth stocks to invest in, based on what the current overall market conditions are. EstesGroup believes that a company can apply these 10 Principles of Success to ERP systems; that is selecting, implementing and using them. How does the 6th Principle of Success apply to:
Choosing the Right ERP System for Your Business?
Principle # 6: Learn How to Analyze the Details!
Get all the facts/input you can – Learn from your mistakes.
How does one go about getting all of the facts about an ERP system while you’re in the Selection Process? A great start to knowing all of the good, bad or indifferent detail of an ERP system is to befriend the salesperson who is trying to sell you the system. If that sounds like a counter intuitive statement, it’s really not. If you’re up front and honest with the salesperson in regard to what you want your company to accomplish with the purchase of an ERP system, they will be open and honest with providing you the detail information you need to make a proper decision. Believe it or not most ERP software vendors don’t want to sell you their software if it’s a bad fit for your business. Bad ERP fits, mean bad implementations, which means negative customer feedback, which means potentially lost sales from company’s that are a good fit for the ERP software. Therefore, providing the salesperson with what your ERP software/service budget is (upfront), your timeline for purchase as well as who from your company will be participating in the review of the system will go a long way for you getting the detail information you need to analyze. Schedule time for everyone on your review team to introduce themselves to the ERP salesperson, including upper management. This is where your company will establish the needed relationship with the ERP vendor for future success as you implement and use the ERP system you select. So the 6th Principle of a successful ERP selection is to first get all of the detailed information you can, before you sit down to analyze it. It’s the ERP salesperson who can provide you with that information or should be in a position to allow you access to other people within their organization to provide you the necessary information to make a knowledgeable choice. So what detailed information should you be analyzing in the selection process? The list below, should be a good start:
Detailed module documentation – for each module of an ERP system you’re looking to purchase.
Detailed Demonstration Script and Agenda – this should be a step by step guide of showing you and your review team how the system will work for your business, highlighting “Best Practices”using a sampling of your data.
Detailed Demonstration – typically allow a total of 8 hours for each ERP system. This does not have to be done in one day.
Detailed Price Quote, showing each module’s price. Including on-going maintenance costs.
Software License Agreement – the ERP vendor of choice will ask you to sign this document at purchase.
Master Service Agreement – this document basically describes the details of the “Scope” of your ERP system implementation.
Need help analyzing the detail of the detailed documents listed above and then compare that to the 3 to 5 ERP vendors you’re receiving this information from? EstesGroup can help! We’ve been providing this type of information to our customers for years. Our ERP system selection knowledge and our honesty on your behalf is what makes us different.
We would love to talk with you about HOW to “Analyze the Detail” in your ERP selection process. Pick up the phone and call 1 888 300 2340 and together we will:
Simplify Technology, Improve Operations, and Gain Efficiencies…
Learn From Our Experts: Access Our Epicor 10 Out Of The Box ToolsVideo Series.
Take Responsibility – Otherwise 1 through 9 above won’t matter.
As a disclaimer, these 10 Principles of Success come from Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) newspaper aimed at helping stock market investors understand what good growth stocks to invest in, based on what the current overall market conditions are. EstesGroup believes that a company can apply these 10 Principles of Success to ERP systems; that is selecting, implementing and using them. How does the 5th Principle of Success apply to:
Choosing the Right ERP System for Your Business?
Principle # 5: Persistence and Hard Work Pay-off!
If no one has told you selecting an ERP system is hard work. To choose the right system your company’s selection team needs to be doggedly persistent; believe me your hard work will pay-off. “How You Think”, “Establishing Goals”, “Taking Action” and “Learning” are all important Principles to successfully choosing the right ERP system, but Working Hard and being Persistent in your review of ERP systems is equally important.
Remember an ERP system will touch every facet of your business, so it becomes critical that an ERP review team is focused on sharing their knowledge on an on-going basis with one another on how the operation functions today and how they want it to function when you start using an ERP system. Upper management needs to consistently sit in on this review process and provide on-going feedback to the team to stay on task. The hard work and persistence comes in scheduling and attending weekly ERP meeting discussions with other review team members. The hard work and persistence comes in attending/actively participating in all day ERP system demonstrations. The hard work and persistence comes in taking detail notes as the ERP demonstration is being done and then writing them up to share with the other review team members. As with most team functions, your company will have stronger team members than others. The hard work andpersistence for upper management is to provide the review team with the needed encouragement to not take short cuts through the review process and to do the hard work it takes to make the right ERP selection for the company. Oh yes, upper management also needs to set an example by showing up for planned ERP review meetings and actively participating with their thoughts as well.
The hard work and persistence involved in selecting the right ERP system means you show up early for work and leave late. The pay-off in selecting the right ERP system is your company runs more efficiently and effectively which typically means you ultimately make more money as well as you can get your work down as you grow, in a normal 8 hour workday.
Need help doing the hard work necessary to select the right ERP system, let EstesGroup help, we’ve been doing this type hard work for years. Our business experience, industry knowledge and our work ethic sets us apart from all other consulting firms.
We would love to talk with you about HOW to take the right action in your ERP selection process. Pick up the phone and call 1 888 300 2340 and together we will:
Simplify Technology, Improve Operations, and Gain Efficiencies…
Learn From Our Experts: Access Our Epicor 10 Out Of The Box ToolsVideo Series.
Take Responsibility – Otherwise 1 through 9 above won’t matter.
As a disclaimer, these 10 Principles of Success come from Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) newspaper aimed at helping stock market investors understand what good growth stocks to invest in, based on what the current overall market conditions are. EstesGroup believes that a company can apply these 10 Principles of Success to ERP systems; that is selecting, implementing and using them. How does the 4th Principle of Success apply to:
Choosing the Right ERP System for Your Business?
Principle # 4: Never Stop Learning!
As you are going through the ERP selection process “Never Stop Learning” about each system you’re reviewing so you ultimately find the right one. Paying attention to the small details of each ERP system your company is thinking of purchasing to help you run your business will truly make the difference on making the right choice. So what’s does that specifically mean “Never Stop Learning”.
It means you need to ask the hard questions of each of the ERP developers you’re reviewing, so you truly learn what each system’s Pros and Cons are before it’s bought. Questions such as:
What’s the cost of your annual Maintenance? What’s Maintenance based on, modules purchased, users or both?
Learn in detail each module of the system your thinking about purchasing to make sure you really need it. Request a detailed demonstration of each module the software developer says you need to learn and understand it. Take detail notes of the module that are being demonstrated as the developer is showing it to you. That will be valuable information to refer back to when you’re making your final decision, as well as when you implement it and use it.
Learn how the developer (or their partners) plans to implement their system into your environment. This should be a detailed task list with realistic dates; that you and your implementation team understand!
Learn if any of the pieces/modules of the system you’re reviewing are developed by third parties. If so, how does this impact: System updates Maintenance Training
Learn from each ERP developer what hardware/operating environment they’re software operates on. On-Premise Hosted SaaS
Combination of all three above. Is this good or bad?
What’s the best for your company?
Whether you are doing the review of ERP systems on your own or your working with a consulting organization to help you through the ERP system review process, you need to make sure you and your review team are engaged taking detailed notes as well as you’re truly learning from the software developers how their ERP systems are going to help your company through the “Best Practices” they’ve incorporated in their system, function better. If you don’t learn that detail through the review process, you most likely won’t learn that through the implementation and use phase of the system either.
EstesGroup understands what “Best Practices” of an ERP system are. The key of how to incorporate ERP “Best Practices” into your facility are related to what your company’s income streams are (i.e. Value Stream Scripts). If you’d like to learn more about what we mean by this and how it truly makes the difference in changing your company’s implementation/use of ERP, let us know, we can help!
We would love to talk with you and learn together what the next step is for you in your ERP ERP selection process. Pick up the phone and call 1 888 300 2340 and together we will:
Simplify Technology, Improve Operations, and Gain Efficiencies…
Learn From Our Experts: Access Our Epicor 10 Out Of The Box ToolsVideo Series.
Take Responsibility – Otherwise 1 through 9 above won’t matter.
As a disclaimer, these 10 Principles of Success come from Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) newspaper aimed at helping stock market investors understand what good growth stocks to invest in, based on what the current overall market conditions are. EstesGroup believes that a company can apply these 10 Principles of Success to ERP systems; that is selecting, implementing and using them. How does the 3rd Principle of Success apply to:
Choosing the Right ERP System for Your Business?
Principle # 3: Take Action!
It really is true, establishing Goals (as discussed in Principal #2) and doing nothing about it is discouraging, unproductive and quite frankly a waste of company time if you don’t take the next step and start reviewing ERP systems that are sold to your industry. Remember, the overall Goal of going through the process of selecting an ERP system is to be a better company.
So how do you start, if you have no idea of what ERP systems are available to review? The “Do It Yourself” answer is to Google ERP systems for whatever industry your company is in. Your search most likely will provide you with 4 to 5 names (if not more) of ERP systems that are sold to your industry. This isn’t a very sophisticated approach, but it’s a start that really doesn’t cost your company anything. What next, go through each and every ERP system website, carefully reading the information that’s provided, taking detailed notes along the way. Download whitepapers and literature as well as review any online webinars the ERP developers/publishers offer. By the end of this process (maybe a week or 2 at the most) you’ll have a pretty good idea of what ERP systems your company will want to start a detail review of. In doing your own ERP system research add to the “To Do” list to contact your industry trade associations to find out what other companies in your industry might be using or would recommend.
If you don’t like the “Do it Yourself” approach to selecting an ERP system or you don’t have anyone in your organization that has the time or inclination to do this type research, it’s time to think about hiring an independent ERP consulting company to help you. How do you go about selecting and hiring the right independent ERP consulting company to help you find the right ERP system? Same process as above, Google (Independent ERP Consultants), trade association(s), other businesses in your industry that you’ll be able to find some information. Once you have four to five names of consulting companies that you want to talk to, you’ll want to interview each of them. This will help you determine how well they know your industry, what ERP systems they might initially recommend, what their ERP system review process is, how much time and money it will cost and if they can provide you a few references of similar companies they’ve helped. Make sure they provide you with a written estimate of time, their rate, the specific review process they’ll be following (w/dates of completion) and whom from your organization they will need to involve (with the hours they will need them).
Now what? Take the written “Goals” (established for the 2nd Principle) and send it to the ERP Developer/Publisher(s) or Independent ERP Consultants you researched to get their overall written input on why they feel their system or service might be the right fit for your business. Again, there isn’t anything that magical that happens with this step other than if you don’t get any feedback from your request you know they aren’t interested in your business and you can concentrate on the ones that did respond.
The last basic “Take Action” steps at this point might be to simply a) establish a ballpark budget, put together your ERP system review team, establish a date for when you’d like to complete your ERP system review and start scheduling overview demonstrations with the ERP Developers/Publishers of choice (if you’re going to take the “Do It Yourself” approach).
If you feel your company needs to have your ERP system “GOALS List” reviewed or polished up for completeness prior to looking for your next (or first) system, you can always look at using a professional consulting organization (i.e. EstesGroup) that knows your industry and what GOALS your business should expect by using an ERP system. A hint in how EstesGroup accomplishes the GOAL setting process for selecting an ERP system revolves around our industry experience and how we conduct our Business Process Reviews. For more information on this, please leave your name and email address below and we’ll have one of our industry experienced sales people share that with you.
Now that you are taking action in your ERP selection process, we will move onto our next priniciple of success: Never Stop Learning.
We would love to talk with you about HOW to take the right action in your ERP selection process. Pick up the phone and call 1 888 300 2340 and together we will:
Simplify Technology, Improve Operations, and Gain Efficiencies…
Take Responsibility – Otherwise 1 through 9 above won’t matter.
As a reminder, these 10 Principles of Successcome from Investor’s Business Daily (IBD)newspaper aimed at helping stock market investors understand what good growth stocks to invest in, based on what the current overall market conditions are. EstesGroup believes that a company can apply these 10 Principles of Success to ERP systems; that is selecting, implementing and using them. Its EstesGroup’s objective that this information will help your company take the appropriate steps necessary to select, implement and use an ERP system for its overall betterment. How does the 2nd Principle of Success apply to:
Choosing the Right ERP System for Your Business?
Principle # 2:Decide on What Your True Goals Are!
When your organization is going through the process of choosing your next ERP system (or your first ERP system) it’s critically important to determine what your company GOALS are for the new ERP system. More importantly after you decide what your company GOALS are for a new ERP system, you need to write them down so their visible to everyone in your organization. Established ERP system GOALS that are written down and visible then need a plan/timeline for when they will be achieved. This sounds simple in theory, but a number of organizations (that we talk to) just don’t do it or they don’t know where to start. The big picture (GOALS) of any ERP system are:
Increase Sales/Revenue
Reduce Expenses, (by being more efficient)
Provide Employees Information so 1 & 2 above are achieved.
So far I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know. Therefore the next step in establishing your company GOALS for your ERP system is to more clearly define the three general GOALS above to be something more tangible/specific for your company to achieve. You then need to personalize your specificGOALS of the ERP system to the stakeholders of the system, your employees. An example of what might be a more specific GOAL is:
By using an ERP system’s Customer Resource Management (CRM) module, sales will have a better visibility to marketing leads. This will help us improve our sales follow-up time by 25%, which will lead to an increase of sales of 10%. Based on where Sales are today (i.e. $1,000,000.00) that will help us generate an extra $100,000.00 of sales revenue.
I think it’s important for everyone in your business (large or small) to share what they would perceive to be aGOAL of a new information (ERP) system. Don’t over complicate this task, just grab a clipboard and start walking around your facility (department by department) asking everybody you encounter for at least one idea they can think of off the top of their head in how a new information system would help them do their job better. Such as:
The CNC operator telling you that it would be great and save time if he knew the schedule of jobs he needed to work on each day at his machine center Vs having to look at an out of date report or ask a supervisor that was hard to find.
You’ll be surprised what you hear!
Once you’ve completed gathering the ERP system GOAL information, put it in a spreadsheet noting the number of like suggestions (potential new system GOALS) you’ve received. Depending on the size of your company, this entire process shouldn’t take you more than a week to complete. Post the spreadsheet (as well as email it) to everyone in the company that participated in the random survey and schedule a follow-up meeting with them by department. Plan the department meetings around a lunch time (bringing pizza in) so that you can share with them what you’ve learned from them individually and see if you can add to the “GOALList” now as a department. Each time the “GOAL List” changes, notify everyone of what the changes (additions/substitutions) are. Dates/deadlines should be established and communicated for each step of thisGOAL setting process. Don’t let the ERP system GOAL process drag on, give yourself 30 days (60 days if you’re a larger organization) and call it good.
If you feel your company needs to have your ERP system “GOALS List” reviewed or polished up for completeness prior to looking for your next (or first) system, you can always look at using a professional consulting organization (i.e. EstesGroup) that knows your industry and what GOALS your business should expect by using an ERP system. A hint in how EstesGroup accomplishes the GOAL setting process for selecting an ERP system revolves around our industry experience and how we conduct our Business Process Reviews. For more information on this, please leave your name and email address below and we’ll have one of our industry experienced sales people share that with you.
Now that you’ve decided what your ERP system GOALS are (they’re written down with dates) and you’re still in a “Positive” frame of mind (Principle #1), the next release we hope to shed more light on Principle #3, “Taking Action” to choosing the right (or first or next) ERP system.
Simplify Technology, Improve Operations, and Gain Efficiencies…
Learn From Our Experts: Access Our Epicor 10 Out Of The Box ToolsVideo Series.
