It's important to learn about ERP implementation best practices before you start to evaluate or even install a new ERP system. Doing an ERP project correctly starts from Day 1 of considering change, gathering your ERP requirements, building your ERP project team and securing your budget.
In this article, we'll look at our Top 5 ERP implementation best practices, then dig a little deeper into each one and help you to prepare for a successful ERP implementation.
Top 5 ERP Implementation Best Practices:
1. Configure, don't Customize ERP.
2. Your ERP Project is a People Project.
3. End User Adoption is Critical
4. Continuous Improvement Mindset
5. Clear ERP Project Scope & Goals
Configure, don't Customize!
A key ERP implementation best practice is to conform to the standard business processes of your new ERP system as closely as possible. Doing so brings many benefits:
- Your ERP implementation will be performed faster.
- Your ERP implementation will be cheaper.
- You will create less IT debt and maintenance costs will be cheaper.
- Future upgrades will be faster and easier.
If you find it challenging to conform to the ERP business process best practices your chosen system recommends, then this could be for several reasons.
Firstly, you may have a cultural or project management issue. Either your employees aren't comfortable with changing, or your ERP implementation partner isn't capable of motivating them to.
Secondly, having bespoke or unique business processes can be considered a differentiator for many organizations. In some instances, your business processes can be your competitive advantage - but probably not all. In these scenarios, you should consider customizing your ERP system.
Finally, if you find yourself customizing processes frequently, then you might have chosen the wrong ERP system for your business or industry.
Get your ERP Selection Right
Before selecting an ERP system, you should build a robust ERP requirements document which details your key requirements and business needs. You should also shortlist and evaluate at least 4 different ERP systems and see which provides the greatest fit to standard with your business. It's best to find one that is built for, or well suited to your industry.
You can find some of the best ERP systems for various industries below:
ERP Projects are People Projects
One of the key tenements and ERP implementation best practices is to treat your ERP implementation as a people project, not an IT project.
You can't have an ERP project 'done' to you.
No matter how expensive or prestigious the ERP consultants you select, you will need your own employees to make the largest contributions during the project.
Your employees need to be present during your ERP implementation to make decisions and help design your new processes and ways of working. That means sacrificing them from their day-to-day jobs, and/or asking them to go above and beyond the scope of their current role.
And you can't have any employee do the job. You'll need some of your most knowledgable, energetic and experienced team members to complete an ERP implementation properly.
As an ERP implementation best practice, motivating your people to get on board with the project and make the right level of contribution is a task in itself.
You may want to consider:
- How do you incentivize your employees to contribute to the project?
- Should you consider bonus plans and KPIs that align to the ERP project goals?
- How do you internally promote and manage expectations about the project?
- How do you deal with negativity and concerns about the ERP implementation?
- How do you manage the change that ERP systems will bring to your organization?
- Will your new ERP implementation create lay offs?
- Will your employees need to change roles or reskill once the ERP is implemented?
End User Adoption Is Critical
As we talked about above, ERP projects are people projects first and foremost. You need to build the right team to execute on your ERP implementation, but it's best practice to then focus heavily on end-user adoption.
Good end-user adoption is one of the most ERP implementation best practices - because if people don't use your ERP system, then they'll go back to using spreadsheets, paper, emails and siloed applications.
But how do you ensure end-user adoption?
Here are some things to consider:
- How are you bring your end users on the journey?
- How are you incentivizing end users to adopt your new ERP system?
- How can the new ERP system benefit their roles and improve job satisfaction?
- How can you leverage the improved user experience of your new ERP system to encourage its use?
- How can you set examples and use your executive sponsors to drive adoption?
Beyond this, end-user adoption can be driven by providing classroom training, learning and nominating 'superusers' to continuously train employees.
Continuous Improvement
If you are preparing for an ERP implementation or you're in the middle of one, you'll need to accept one key ERP implementation best practice: implementing an ERP is never over.
Although you won't have to go through the same intense process of implementing from scratch on repeat, it's critical that you continuously improve and adapt your new ERP system. As your business grows and changes, as does legislation, markets and your customers, you will need to adapt your ERP to new demands.
Most ERP vendors, especially Cloud ERP systems release new features and updates every year, quarter or month. Whilst you don't have to implement every change, the moment it comes out, if you don't then you could be missing out on features which can improve your productivity, safeguard compliance and increase customer satisfaction.
If you don't do this, your ERP will fall into disrepair, your end users will replace it with shadow IT and off system processes and you'll find yourself reimplementing or finding implementing an ERP system again, from scratch.
Clear ERP Project Scope & Goals
Why are you implementing an ERP in the first place? Do you really know? Do your employees know? Does your project team know? Does your ERP vendor and consulting partner know?
Taking it a level deeper - which modules are you implementing? Which areas of your business will be affected? Which systems will require integrations to your new ERP?
How many countries are you deploying the new ERP too? Are you doing this all at once or in sequence?
These are all questions you need to answer and define as soon as possible during your ERP Implementation, or your project can lose direction, your budget can spin out of control and your suppliers won't understand the key KPIs for success.
