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The 10 Principles of ERP Selection Success & How to Apply Them: Take Action!

The 10 Principles of ERP Selection Success & How to Apply Them: Take Action!

by | Jun 9, 2015 | ERP Selection

Goal #3 in Selecting Your The Best Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP) System: Take Action
The 10 Principles of Success

We continue to delve into the ERP Selection process with the 3rd Goal for Success: Take Action!

The 10 Principles of Success are:

1. How You Think is Everything! 

  • Always be positive.
  • Think success not failure.
  • Be aware of a negative environment.

2. Decide on What Your True Goals Are!

  • Write down what your specific goals are.
  • Write down a plan/time line in how to obtain your goals.

3. Take Action!

  • Goals/Plans are nothing without action.
  • Don’t be afraid to get started – “Just Do It”, it doesn’t need to be perfect to start, nothing ever is!

4. Never Stop Learning!

  • Get on-going training so use to better your organization.

5. Persistence and Hard Work Pay-off!

  • Success is a marathon, not a sprint.
  • Never give up on the goal/plan that you created in number 3 above, original or revised!

6. Learn How to Analyze the Details!

  • Get all the facts/input you can – Learn from your mistakes.

7. Focus Your Time and Money!

  • Don’t let other things and people distract you!

8. Don’t be Afraid to Innovate and Change – Be Different!

  • Following the way that it’s always been done is a sure way to achieve nothing.

9. Communicate and Deal with People Effectively!

  • Learn to understand what motivates the people you work with and what they need to be successful. No person is the organization or is indispensable.

10. Be Honest and Dependable!

  • 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…

The 10 Principles of ERP Selection Success & How to Apply Them: Goals!

The 10 Principles of ERP Selection Success & How to Apply Them: Goals!

by | Jun 4, 2015 | ERP Selection

Goal #2 in Selecting Your The Best  Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP) System: Decide What Your True Goals Are
The 10 Principles of Success

You may recall that the 10 Principles of Success are:

1. How You Think is Everything!

  • Always be positive.
  • Think success not failure.
  • Be aware of a negative environment.

2. Decide on What Your True Goals Are!

  • Write down what your specific goals are.
  • Write down a plan/time line in how to obtain your goals.

3. Take Action!

  • Goals/Plans are nothing without action.
  • Don’t be afraid to get started – “Just Do It”, it doesn’t need to be perfect to start, nothing ever is!

4. Never Stop Learning!

  • Get on-going training so use to better your organization.

5. Persistence and Hard Work Pay-off!

  • Success is a marathon, not a sprint.
  • Never give up on the goal/plan that you created in number 3 above, original or revised!

6. Learn How to Analyze the Details!

  • Get all the facts/input you can – Learn from your mistakes.

7. Focus Your Time and Money!

  • Don’t let other things and people distract you!

8. Don’t be Afraid to Innovate and Change – Be Different!

  • Following the way that it’s always been done is a sure way to achieve nothing.

9. Communicate and Deal with People Effectively!

  • Learn to understand what motivates the people you work with and what they need to be successful. No person is the organization or is indispensable.

10. Be Honest and Dependable!

  • ERP-SuccessTake 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.

Download our “Get Ready For Your Epicor 10 Upgrade” Worksheet.

The 10 Principles of ERP Selection Success & How to Apply Them

The 10 Principles of ERP Selection Success & How to Apply Them

by | Mar 13, 2015 | ERP Selection

The 10 Principles of Success & How to Apply them to: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems

With everything in life there are foundational principles one needs to know and practice to achieve success.

These foundational ERP success factors can also be applied to when a company is trying to choose the:

  • Right Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System
  • Right Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Implementation Partner
  • Right Benefits from using an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System

In this Blog Series the EstesGroup ERP staff thought it would be interesting to share with you:

The 10 Principles of Success & How to Apply them to: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems

ERP-SuccessAs with most things these days the concepts included in this paper aren’t all that revolutionary or original, but their foundation comes from a newspaper that has been in circulation for many years, Investor’s Business Daily (IBD). This is a daily newspaper aimed at helping stock market investors understand what good growth stocks to invest in, based on what the current overall market conditions are. You might find it odd, as I did, that an investment newspaper would take the time and effort each day to devote an entire page of their paper to discussing these 10 Secrets to Success. Investor’s Business Daily does this because they firmly believe that if an individual applies the 10 Principles/Secrets to Success to not only how they approach investing in the stock market, but everything in life, they’ll achieve success.

It’s EstesGroup’s hope for those that read this, that’ll they will be able to use these “10 Foundational Principles” to achieve ERP success at the start of your journey when choosing an ERP system that’s right for your business, implementing your ERP system and the on-going use of the ERP system to continually improve your company’s execution.

So what are the 10 Principles of Success?

1. How You Think is Everything!

  • Always be positive.
  • Think success not failure.
  • Be aware of a negative environment.

2. Decide on What Your True Goals Are!

  • Write down what your specific goals are.
  • Write down a plan/time line in how to obtain your goals.

3. Take Action!

  • Goals/Plans are nothing without action.
  • Don’t be afraid to get started – “Just Do It”, it doesn’t need to be perfect to start, nothing ever is!

4. Never Stop Learning!

  • Get on-going training so use to better your organization.

5. Persistence and Hard Work Pay-off!

  • Success is a marathon, not a sprint.
  • Never give up on the goal/plan that you created in number 3 above, original or revised!

6. Learn How to Analyze the Details!

  • Get all the facts/input you can – Learn from your mistakes.

7. Focus Your Time and Money!

  • Don’t let other things and people distract you!

8. Don’t be Afraid to Innovate and Change – Be Different!

  • Following the way that it’s always been done is a sure way to achieve nothing.

9. Communicate and Deal with People Effectively!

  • Learn to understand what motivates the people you work with and what they need to be successful. No person is the organization or is indispensable.

10. Be Honest and Dependable!

  • Take Responsibility – Otherwise 1 through 9 above won’t matter.

How does the 1st Principle of Success, “How You Think is Everything” apply to Choosing the Right ERP System for Your Business?

If your organization has chosen, implemented and is using its current ERP system wrongly (which is frequently what we hear) there undoubtedly will be negative thoughts/feelings/frustrations from the people in your organization involved with the ERP system. These negative thoughts/feelings/frustrations will carry over to how you approach a reimplementation of your current system (if the ERP system selection was done properly) or the selection of a new system. It’s important for your organization to understand specifically what these negative system feelings are, who in the organization they’re coming from, how it adversely impacts people’s job and what you as an organization need to do to get back on the right track.

Once all of the negative thoughts/feelings/frustrations are known, written down, circulated to the stakeholders for them to review/discuss you can develop an action plan for resolution. If your organization does not know where to start or it doesn’t have an individual to lead this process, ask for help. A good consulting firm with experienced consultants that possess years of business experience in your industry will be able to shed some light on your situation.

Cost justifying the consulting dollars to ferrite out those negative ERP system thoughts/feelings/frustrations can easily be done; so a new positive environment for how your company approaches the selection of your next ERP system or the reimplementation of your current ERP system can be achieved.

A hint in how EstesGroup accomplishes creating a positive business environment for an ERP system selection, implementation and use revolves around 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’re in a “Positive” frame of mind, in our next ERP blog in this series, we will shed some light on our second principle of success, deciding on your goals.

What your “Goals” in the ERP system selection are, who from your organization should be involved, and what the process is to determine them.

Simplify Technology, Improve Operations, and Gain Efficiencies…

Learn From Our Experts:
Access Our Epicor 10 Out Of The Box ToolsVideo Series.

Download our “Get Ready For Your Epicor 10 Upgrade” Worksheet.