ERP Selection: Why Right-sized ERP Matters for Manufacturers as You Grow скачать в хорошем качестве

ERP Selection: Why Right-sized ERP Matters for Manufacturers as You Grow

If you are in the process of buying an ERP system for a manufacturing company, you will come across several options. They will appear similar and confusing, making your life harder to find an ERP that can help you accomplish your process optimization and efficiency goals. While it may be hard to discern the differences at the surface level, their design serves a specific customer group. Understanding these customer groups and their variables help understand the differences in ERP software better. RESOURCES & LINKS: ____________________________________________ ERP Purchase Process | A Comprehensive Overview: https://www.elevatiq.com/post/a-compr... How do ERP Systems Work?: https://www.elevatiq.com/post/how-do-... ERP System Evaluation Checklist: https://www.elevatiq.com/post/erp-sys... Download the ERP Selection Guide: https://www.elevatiq.com/guides-and-r... ____________________________________________ Before we start the ERP customer groups and their variables in detail, let’s first understand companies’ evolution. And how their processes evolve, as a result, driving the changes to their ERP system needs. Until $5 mil in revenue in the startup phase, most companies conduct their operations through ad-hoc processes. Also, since they can’t afford to spend on large IT systems, each department will have its budget and choose a functional tool. For example, QuickBooks for Accounting or Salesforce for CRM, while the remaining processes will mostly be paper-based. Since the price tag for consultants could be expensive, these tools will mostly be self-served. This siloed culture, along with self-served nature, results in process isolation and limits organizations’ standardization. Besides, standardization could be counter-productive at this phase, as most functional experts will define the state of the processes and systems from their perspective. For instance, “I perform a transaction in this manner, so I’ll prefer the system to behave this way, “ creating a culture of self-centric approach to system design. If you are looking for an ERP system, so you could be ready for the next phase of growth. Designing a plan with this “self-centric” approach will only fire back. An ERP system might be an overkill for such companies because of a lack of in-house skillset that brings process transformation expertise from larger organizations. Also, your lack of trust with an unfamiliar consultant and understanding of consultants’ services and their price tag might result in sunk costs with unfinished projects or without achieving expected outcomes. Unless you have a compelling reason to go for an ERP such as regulatory overhead or consistent growth over the last 3 years, you are better off sticking to your current methods until you have grown past $5 million to have an appetite to hire a consultant who can set you up for your next phase of growth. Once you reach the milestone of $5 million in revenue, most likely you will need to add a ton of skillsets in various departments. If you continue with the same approach of siloed and self-served culture after reaching this milestone, your problems could exponentiate as your key functional experts will not have enough time to train the new hires, and the new hires will bring newer perspectives and create processes that they are comfortable with. This isolated culture will lead to data siloes and information barriers and process failure points. Now that we understand the stage of different companies in the SMB space, let’s talk about each product available for manufacturers and their market positioning. Vaguely, you may be able to divide the positioning of each product into three tiers: L, M, or S. While some of these publishers may have exceptions of very large or small accounts, they are designed for specific customer groups in mind. Market share also dictates whether the product is designed from your perspective. Now that you understand how the market positioning of various products affects whether they are suitable for you, make sure you consider their size as part of your decision criteria and buy a product that is appropriately sized for your organization. ► If you need help with your ERP implementation or Digital Transformation project, check out our offerings at https://www.elevatiq.com/ ►Subscribe Today for great ERP Tips:    / @elevatiq   ►Follow us on Twitter:   / elevatiq   ►Follow us on LinkedIn:   / elevatiq   #ERP #DigitalTransformation #CIO #CFO #Controller #ERPEvaluation #ERPSelection