The ERP is now live, but the work is not over. I see that as companies evolve over time, new business areas are formed, old ones are reworked, integrated systems are replaced, mandatory legal requirements change, someone starts a war that disrupts your supply chain, and so on. Therefore, you need to be prepared to put effort into keeping your ERP up to date and are sometimes even forced to do so by the software vendor.
This is the point at which I am most often amazed. The company has now spent a truck load of euros on a state-of-the-art system that they have finally gotten live after many years. What happens next?
Quite often, not much. You can hear, for example, the following:
“It hasn’t been budgeted for” says the CFO.
“We need to allocate the resources to other projects” says the CIO.
“Why would we need to invest in this as it is already perfect?” asks the CEO.
As mentioned in the part two of this series, do not think that you will get everything perfect during the project. There will always be leftovers and new things that have been thought of during the project. Now, with a minimal development effort, you can get the benefits you were originally looking for. But far too often, the ERP renewal is seen as a lonesome project that rides to the rescue when things look bad, but is then left to its own.
Please make sure that when you start an ERP project, you think beyond the project phase. Also, think about how you are going to make sure your business-critical ERP software will support you and help you run your business smoothly and efficiently in the long run.
And hey! Make sure to thank everyone involved in the project. It has most likely been a very hectic period for the key personnel in your organisation. For the vendor's personnel, this is familiar and it’s their job, but for the common folk, it might have been a once in a lifetime experience.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this small set of articles. If you have any ERP related questions or comments about this blog series, feel free to get in touch and we’ll discuss some more.
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