ERP Advice: Staged approach makes sense for SME’s
Hey folks, Ken here to discuss what a lot of companies are doing these days to gain benefit from an ERP system, without breaking the bank. The funny part is that the approach they are taking is the smarter way to go no matter what the financial climate is.
One of the the mistakes we see small companies make when implementing a full erp system is they tend to bite off more than they can chew. Meaning they want to implement too many parts of the system at the same time. These days staff is stretched, if you need a system, they are busy as well. Implementing ERP is a big job, trying to do too much at once can be a fast track to no where. Employees get frustrated and over worked, resent of the system, from all sides, builds.
The best approach is to implement what your business needs first. What parts of the system that is depends on where your business will get the most pay back. You may focus on the sales order, shipping, invoice loop or just on manufacturing, or just purchasing. Whatever, the bottom line is you break off a manageable chunk of the implementation. In the process you get the pay back from that but you also gain some valuable experience in learning how the system looks and feels. Over time as you have resources and more likely needs you can expand the “circle of knowledge” and implement new areas of the system.
With this approach you give your organization an opportunity to focus on the day to day operations as well as implementation. You also get the most value for monies spent as your people become more educated and start to drive improvements to the system instead of someone pushing them towards something new.
Of course we know there are certain portions of ERP the must be implemented together and your partner or service provider should be able to guide you through what makes the most sense for your business.
If you want to learn more about staged approaches and how they might work for your business send me an email at keybel@integrateit.ca and I will be glad to help.
