I’ve been in the ERP business for a while now and have helped all sorts of organizations with their systems from non-profit, to government, to businesses small and large.
One of the most interesting and complex ERP deployments that I’ve had the pleasure of participating in was for Santa (and Santa generously gave me permission to share what we did for him so that other businesses can learn from his lessons).
We are living in a world of change and uncertainty. In 2014, Harvard Business Review published research that showed that uncertainty has increased in the last 50 years, and that some industries are more affected by it. Of the top ten industries facing the most uncertainty, eight are manufacturing industries.
There is a military term now used by business to characterize the challenges of change – VUCA – which was discussed in a previous blog post. VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. Another acronym (also originating from the military) provides guidance on how to deal with a VUCA world.
ERP projects touch all aspects of a business. Small- and medium-sized companies can typically only afford to have one person do most of the research and that person usually ends up having the most influence over the selection.
Unfortunately, this scenario often results in missing opportunities to make other departments more efficient, as the person doing the research rarely knows the most pressing business problems in the other departments.
In my days as an ERP sales consultant, I had first-hand experience on how customers went about selecting and implementing ERP software. Here are some suggestions based on seeing projects that failed and succeeded, and how the successful ones started.
Those that know me well, know my reputation for being “the lady with the laptop.” There are numerous photographs of me with the laptop seemingly surgically attached: the middle of a field on Scout Camp, whilst washing clothes on the Serbian Scout Jamboree, even in my Wedding Dress. When K3 Syspro took part in the UK National 3 Peaks Challenge, my laptop came too; if I go away for a weekend with the kids, the laptop is the first thing in the car.
