An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is a series of software applications or modules that collects data from your sales, purchasing, finance, inventory, supply chain, manufacturing and quality functions into a common database so that your company can share the information, coordinate activities and collaborate.
If you’re looking for your first ERP system or looking to upgrade from an existing system, the evaluation, selection and implementation process is a long-term strategic decision for your organization. Maybe you are a manufacturer experiencing growth, and you realize you need to upgrade as you outgrow QuickBooks. Perhaps you need to assess your existing business processes and the scale of your operation, so you can determine what business operations processes need improvement.
It’s time to identify the gaps or key challenges that can be solved with the help of an ERP system.
You will need to develop a shortlist three to five ERP solutions that best meet your specific business requirements. Your ERP search will help you eliminate the solutions which are poor fits – especially if you work with key selection criteria in mind.
- Customer Support: Does the ERP vendor have its own in-house support or does it outsource? You’ll gain the most out of your investment if you have access to a customer care center that can answer your key application and technical questions, solve your complex technical or software related issues, and advise on best industry practices.
- Industry Expertise: How well does the ERP vendor understand your industry? Does the vendor offer industry best practices or pre-defined processes that are generalized or horizontally focused? ERP solutions should at the very least address your mission critical business requirements specific to your industry.
- Total Cost of Ownership: Determine the long-term TCO for hardware, software, and support—pre- and post-implementation.
- Multi-Site Operations Support: If you need to collaborate with multiple operations then ensure your ERP vendor can support multi-site operations. Can your ERP vendor support all your locations with a small centralized IT staff? Do they require complicated architectures?
Keep in mind, your ERP vendor selection criteria can include whatever your selection committee determines should be addressed, including features, platform, and anything else!
CompuData can help you develop ERP selection criteria guidelines and an implementation roadmap to facilitate a successful ERP system purchase and deployment for your growing business. Contact CompuData today! Interested in Epicor ERP? Click Here. Interested in learning more about ERP, click here!