Selecting a Business System, and Just as Importantly, a Partner

Selecting a system is a long-term investment in the business operations. You may be looking to implement a new system to move off of outdated on-premises servers to the cloud, gain new functionality being mandated by customers or the industry, or eliminate risk in outdated systems.
Metrics samples we might use:
- Panorama Consulting's 2023 ERP Report found that approximately 51% of companies felt their ERP implementation failed to meet expectations, which could suggest they selected the wrong system or implemented it poorly.
- A CedarCrestone study indicated that around 30% to 40% of companies felt they had selected the wrong ERP system, leading to poor user adoption, high costs, or failure to achieve the desired return on investment (ROI).
- Gartner has also reported that a significant percentage of ERP implementations (up to 75%) fail to meet expectations, though this is not always due to selecting the wrong system but could be related to other factors like poor implementation practices or lack of change management.

Before looking for a solution, make sure you have decision-maker buy-in and a budget for the project. This could involve presenting a list of the pain points and any expected costs (updating servers, recent security incidents, limitations of the current system) to senior management. Ensuring you have approval and budget for a project will save you time and energy further down in the process.
Next look at the current processes and what is needed to implement a minimum viable product. It's best to prioritize nice-to-have and must-have features as well as evaluate whether requested features add value to the organization. Nice-to-have features can usually be implemented later, and the risk is if they are all included in the phase 1 scope, it can make the entire project unaffordable. Adding too many low-priority features and functions often leads to a lengthy timeline and, therefore, increased cost. It is important to make clear to the team that just because a requirement/feature has been identified as nice to have, it does not mean they will never get it and they were not heard. User buy in is key to a successful adoption of a new system.

Consider future business growth in terms of processes and if the system can grow with the business at a reasonable cost. Some cloud-based systems have storage or transaction thresholds where costs can increase over time. Better to know what these are upfront and include those in the evaluation.
Evaluate whether a system has a large ecosystem of partners that offer industry-specific applications that can augment the system to fill a gap rather than meeting this requirement through customization.

Finding the right partner is just as important as finding the right solution. The partner should have deep industry knowledge and a proven track record of implementing a system on time and on budget. The partner should also have a similar company culture that aligns with your business. You want a partner that will deliver and support you through the tough parts of a project while being enjoyable to work alongside. A partner should also be willing to invest in you in terms of learning about your business as you are in them.

‘The proof is in the pudding’, so they say. Seeing a demonstration of the solution is usually a requirement. Ensure the partner has a list of the things you need to see in the demonstration ahead of time. Keep the demo short and to the point where have the best chance of holding everyone’s attention. Ensure that the key decision makers are available for the demonstration, people are paying attention and you see what you need to see to make a decision to move to the next step.

Now to the dollars and cents of it all. Separate what the one-time costs (implementation including training, setup, development, and hardware and travel expenses) vs. long-term expenses (licensing, maintenance, support, etc.) are for such a project. It can be difficult to estimate support costs as they are often higher right after going live and then settle into a stable cadence over a few weeks. But estimate a couple of hours a week after stabilization for budgeting.
Be wary of over-designing and over-customizing the system. You may consider these one-time costs, but with each upgrade cycle of the new system, these all have to be tested to ensure compatibility and could involve updates to make them work.

The relationship with your partner is not over after going live, so be sure you have a partner that can support you for the long term, preferably with a US-based support team that knows your industry. There will be occasions where you need tier 2 and 3 support or assistance implementing a new feature as the business grows and having a trusted and timely responsive partner by your side is crucial.