Deciding whether you're ready to onboard an ERP solution is one thing; selecting which ERP is suitable is another, and certainly an important question. There are many different ERP solutions on the market, each with its own advantages and diverse functionalities. To determine which ERP solution best fits your company, the following criteria can help you make this crucial decision.
1 | Check, Check, Double Check!
Ideally, your ERP solution should meet all your requirements and needs, but first, you need to identify them. By having a comprehensive checklist of functionalities and requirements ready, you make it easier to make decisions and eliminate potential solutions early on. To create such a checklist, you can answer the following questions, while keeping a critical eye:
- What are our challenges?
- Which department needs the most investment or streamlining?
- What functionalities are we looking for?
- What is the deadline and budget for our project?
- Which processes have bottlenecks that we want to automate?
2 | Features That Fit Your Business
When evaluating each solution, you must assess all the functionalities in detail, preferably those you need and have noted on your checklist. The key is to look for a fully integrated end-to-end solution that considers all your departments and their needs. In short, a solution that operates across the business, from finance to inventory and everything in between. A solution that perfectly matches your needs usually involves customization to address the most detailed and industry-specific requirements.
3 | User-Friendliness
An ERP solution that optimizes and streamlines as many processes as possible is just the beginning. Moreover, your solution is only as effective as its user-friendliness, as it is ultimately your team that has to work with the complex software. If your team struggles to use the solution or if it is simply not intuitive enough, it can present a bottleneck to the success of your implementation. However, when a solution is intuitive and easy to use with minimal to no training, it significantly simplifies your change management process. Additionally, when searching for an ERP vendor, it is essential that their offering also addresses change management within your organization.
4 | Ready for the Future
Implementing an ERP solution is an investment-intensive process. Therefore, it is beneficial when this solution withstands the test of time, meaning it can keep up with the rapid changes or growth of your business. A cloud-based ERP solution allows room for growth and offers accessibility whenever and wherever needed.
5 | Impressive Integration!
You might already rely on several software programs or packages. Ensuring that your new ERP can seamlessly integrate with your existing operations and software is another crucial criterion. It minimizes your change management, as you don’t have to abruptly stop using familiar programs within your organization, and it also simplifies data transfer to the end-to-end platform.
6 | Industry-Specific ERP
Finding the right ERP vendor can be quite the task, as not every vendor understands the specific needs of your industry. Therefore, having a vendor with experience in your sector is always a plus. Not only should the vendor be aware of your industry, but there are often ERP solutions specifically built for your type of business and way of working. Such ERP can save you a lot of customization effort since it might already be aligned with your industry-specific requirements.
7 | Perfect Partners
You and your ERP vendor are a team, during the project and well beyond implementation. Digital transformation is a dynamic process that impacts many facets of your organization. If done correctly, it certainly leads to success. This depends on your employees but also on the experienced consultants guiding your team through the entire process. Ensure that you clearly communicate your expectations before selecting your ERP solution and vendor to avoid misunderstandings.
8 | An Investment with Returns
It's essential to know exactly how much your implementation will cost, so you can draft a well-considered budget that covers the entire implementation cost. In this calculation, two key indicators to consider are your Return On Investment (ROI) and your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The latter includes all costs that will and can occur throughout your ERP system's lifecycle. After weighing all costs against the returns, you can rationally decide whether it's the right time to implement ERP and how much budget you can allocate.
9 | Secure Data
The core of an ERP solution is data. Ensuring that this data is secure is a criterion not to be overlooked. Generally, cloud solutions offer the highest level of security, complying with global governance standards. In a cloud-based solution, your data is also secured with automated backups to ensure it is never lost and can be recovered in the event of an unforeseen digital disaster.
Interested in what NORRIQ can do for your business? Ask our experienced consultants for advice.