As your business grows, your business inevitably will face challenges managing operations and resource allocation. There will be a greater need to optimize processes and drive more efficiency to control costs. Many businesses opt for an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, which integrates financials, operations, supply chain, human resource activities and reporting into one robust platform to operate seamlessly. 

Whether your company is considering an implementation a new platform or replacing legacy systems, several key factors must be considered for a successful delivery of the ERP program. ERP projects have an inconsistent track record. Approximately 60% of ERP projects failing to meet the desired business objectives.  

In this blog we will discuss common considerations that can improve the probability of success in delivering an ERP system meeting to your business goals. 

How Could an ERP Benefit Your Growing Business? 

In a highly competitive market, there is a greater need for businesses to operate at lowest cost while maintaining the highest levels of internal efficiency. Technology plays a critical role to manage growth, deliver efficiency and support any digital transformation to manage your market facing processes.  

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) often serves as a central component of this strategy to enable any enterprise in controlling a wide range of business workflows, from customer centric processes including sales, ecommerce, support, manufacturing, project execution to control of internal resources in stock, human capital, and financial reporting.  

Therefore, a successful implementation of ERP is designed to:

• Integrate and automate processes and enable internal tasks to be better and more efficiently controlled. 

•  Allow accurate & real-time data for more reliable information to make better decisions.  

• Increased productivity & deeper insights to adapt, streamline business processes and avoid unnecessary resources 

• Less room for error by removing redundant and inaccurate information so that only the facts remain part of the data. It also ensures regulatory compliance to the UAE la`ws. 

• More competitiveness to operate at a leaner cost base and provide new products and services at lower cost with faster time to market. 

• Real-time view of your business with comprehensive view of operation performance, overall company performance and for major analytical decisions  

 How Should Your Company Approach the Project? 

An ERP project is a strategic decision that will have lasting consequences and impact to the financial health of an enterprise. It is more than just an IT project.  

Extensive international research has shown various issues that caused businesses to assess their investments in ERP projects as failures, particularly when these projects were either not delivered completely or delivered but experienced overruns on budget/cost by more than 200%.  

These lessons include:

1. Business Strategy & Requirements. 

Longer term considerations are not fully assessed at inception phase and the project is defined as an IT project with limited business engagement. This can have major impacts to the technology selection, prioritisation of business goals and business frustration on the results. 

 2. Adapt & improve.  

Investment in a new platform is an ideal opportunity to redesign inefficient processes and adopt better working practices. By through compromising internally to get a quick decision, there are inherent risks to miss these benefits. 

 3. Project Sponsorship & Leadership.  

An ERP is a major change to any company. Top-down sponsorship, proper steering and project empowerment is essential to drive the change and decision making. Difficult decisions may be required, and strong leadership and decision making will keep project on course. 

 4. Business Goals & Timelines.  

Realism with resources, goals, budget, and timelines must be considered. Often projects are under budgeted and short-term planning horizons are taken. An ERP is a long-term decision. One should consider the consequences if you need to change your system in 3 years and assess swap impacts.  

 5. Roll Out Planning. 

Prioritise roll out with a view to minimise impact to a large set of users in the first phase. It is prudent to build a core of to gain internal expertise and familiarity. A quick win builds confidence and selecting an area or process that affects a part rather than whole company will create momentum. 

 6. Technical & Project Skills. 

Ensure you bring in expertise to support your internal teams. It is likely that your team is already overloaded on daily operations and lack headroom and/or key skills to deliver successfully. 

 7. Customisations (Related to item 2). A strong ERP platform selection will provide out of the box workflows and options to minimise customisations. Customisations will not only be costly but introduce project delays and lead to more complex issues in adapting your system in the future.  

 8. Change Management & User Training.  

Place high importance in managing change. Ensure there is sufficient user engagement in the roll out, communications, training, and monitoring. User training is often underestimated and leads to business frustration, data corruption and delays.  

Conclusion 

An ERP is a significant business decision that can provide immensely competitive and operational benefits. It is more than an IT project and therefore, you should place strategic importance to its impact and plan accordingly.  

At SimplySolved, we deliver ERP solutions with embedded ISO 9001 & 27001 quality standards within a business workflow-centric and agile methodology. Through our approach, we possess the process domain and IT expertise to advise, plan and provide our solutions to a consistent outcome that will increase the scalability of your company. 

Talk to us. Call us at 043445338 or visit us at www.it.simplysolved.ae 

About SimplySolved

At SimplySolved, we save your time, resources, and costs. Whether you need help with Outsourced Accounting, Finance, Tax, Employee Management & Payroll, or ERP & E-Commerce Integration. we have the expertise and solutions to help.