10 insights to help you evaluate a solution

ERP10 insights to help you evaluate a potential solution

2 ERP 10 insights to help you evaluate a potential solution myob.com/enterprise

Contents

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Introduction 3

Insight 1 Understand your processes 4

Insight 2 Involve key stakeholders 5

Insight 3 Carefully consider your ROI 6

Insight 4 Prioritise integrator partnership 7

Insight 5 Consider your future needs 8

Insight 6 Minimise solution fragmentation 8

Insight 7 Embrace customisation 9

Insight 8 Invest in implementation and training 10

Insight 9 Have meaningful discussions with relevant referees 10

Insight 10 Avoid unrealistic timeframes 11

Conclusion 12

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Introduction

In today’s business environment, selecting the right solution to manage your critical business functions can be challenging.

This document shares ten proven principles to help guide you and your management team through the selection process, in order to help you make the right choice.


Insight 1Understand your processes

As the proverb goes: we cannot know where we’re going if we don’t know where we’ve come from. This is very true of finding the right solution to a given business problem. Which is why it is so important to conduct a situation analysis. Identify the processes in your business and then rate them in terms of importance.

Key questions to ask:

> Would improving this process increase revenue or decrease costs?

> Does the process have an impact on your customers?

> Would it improve staff moral and potentially reduce turnover?

> If I don’t improve this process, what happens?

Once you’ve completed this exercise you should then investigate mapping out all the steps and who is responsible. Using flow diagrams and swim lane diagrams will provide you a structured approach. Once accomplished, this insight will go a long way to understanding where you’re going wrong and provide clarity with regard to what you need from a solution.

Although an essential process, the system we were using to track deliveries, payments and reimbursements was hugely complicated – involving triplicate dockets and a lot of manual inputting back in the office. We needed to create a system that would not only replicate this process, but vastly simplify it too.

Ben Knispel Company Accountant Nippy’s

Community Solutions merged with another NFP [Not For Profit]. Almost overnight, the volume of our data doubled.

Beth Miller Group Accountant Community Solutions


We needed data to be readily available across the business, not just at the top. And our past systems couldn’t manage that.


Insight 2Involve key stakeholders

Ensure you engage all stakeholders, internal and external, affected by this change to ensure you don’t overlook anything. Employees are often specialists and may have insight into the more unique aspects of your organisation’s needs. By involving them early, the distinctive needs of your organisation can be identified. Plus, you gain valuable buy-in from those who will ultimately have to work with your solution and vendor of choice.


Insight 3Carefully consider your ROI

One of the biggest challenges you will face selling the business case to senior management is return on investment (ROI). And how long before it can be realised?

Typically decision makers consider 5-15 years the likely lifespan of the solution, so calculate the potential savings over this period. Budget constraints and affordability are of course important considerations. However, it is also important to include the implicit benefits in your business case. For instance:

> Standardised business processes – reporting and data capture procedures can be standardised enabling you to implement uniform procedures across your organisation and ensure that business rules are followed.

> One single source of truth – streamlined processes, and the use of a single

system to host and manage information, results in consistency of data across the organisation. You create a single source of truth so that all of your staff are using the same up-to-date information for decision-making.

> Improvements in productivity – reducing manual data entry improves data consistency and removes a burden from both staff and managers. This helps them concentrate on their core duties and results in more time in their day to focus on revenue generating activities for your business.

> Innovate your business – with new tools at the businesses disposal you could suddenly have the opportunity to innovate your business. For instance you could take advantage of mobility features to take payment for orders at the client’s premises and improve your cash flow almost immediately.

The real time saver is having our data in a single place.

Peter Buzza General Manager RIMS Engineering

We must have saved 20 hours a week alone handling our distribution process – that’s half a full time role.



Insight 4Prioritise integrator partnership

Change, although beneficial, can have its challenges which is why finding an integration partner will ensure a successful transition. An expert can provide knowledge, experience and ultimately the skill set necessary to deliver your solution. As a specialists they can correctly scope your needs (asking the right questions), implement your solution utilising best practice methodologies, train your staff, and provide support for the short and long term future.

They [the Consulting Partner] really took the time to get to know what it was we wanted, which was a great comfort, given that we had some quite specific requirements.

Vicky Li System Administrator Daiwa Food

From the outset it was clear that they [the Consulting Partner] understood our business. Whenever they came back with a solution, it was spot on with our requirements.

Peter Taylor General Manager Adams Pest Control

Local support was important to us as was a good relationship with our provider.

Beth Miller Group Accountant Community Solutions


Insight 5Consider your future needs

Look to the future. Try to envisage what other capabilities your organisation may need in 5 years from now, or 10 years. If your vendor can provide for those future needs today, chances are they could help you take advantage of additional modules and enhancements when you need them.

Insight 6Minimise solution fragmentation

No single vendor can deliver on every feature or function. Third-party apps do have their place. However, try to avoid fragmented databases. As long as you maintain one fully integrated database you will safeguard your business against data conflicts and out-of-date information. Thus guaranteeing you enjoy peace of mind knowing you are making decisions using the right information.

But in the long term, it has provided us with a platform to roll out across our sites over time – so that we can consolidate the group into one financial package.


[In the past] You could never be certain that the values you were looking at were correct.

Peter Taylor General Manager Adams Pest Control


Insight 7Embrace customisation

A solution which can be configured will ensure that your system reflects the distinctive needs of your organisation. This helps improve ongoing productivity and accuracy. Where possible, avoid unique one-off ‘workarounds’, due to issues and complexities that will arise during subsequent version updates applied to customised solutions.

[Regarding the ability to interface with third party software]. We have retail stores and retail software and needed to be able to integrate with that.

Joanne Flood Chief Financial Officer Early Settlers


Insight 9Have meaningful discussions with relevant referees

When you are about to make a substantial investment it’s important to talk to several referees supplied by your vendor. Before making a final commitment, engage in meaningful discussions with vendor-supplied referees on their customer experiences. Be sure referees provided are using the same solution you are looking to buy. Contacting at least three existing clients of similar size – who have been through the process within the last 24-months – will help you verify that what the vendor has been promoting is accurate.

Interested in hearing what others say about MYOB’s Bigger Business solutions?

Visit our bigger business case studies page.

Insight 8Factor in implementation and training

Training is one of the most important considerations and should be top-of-mind in your purchase process. Training improves staff buy-in, as they gain a clearer understanding of any new processes and features. It also helps them get up-to-speed faster and ensures you see a return on investment sooner as staff immediately benefit from new capabilities and productivity gains.

Another key consideration is user acceptance testing (UAT). Conducted in a test environment, UAT helps iron out the kinks in the system so mistakes are made in a test environment not with live data. It also helps staff familiarise themselves with the system before it goes live.

Because I’ve got a background in IT, I took to it straight away. But for others less used to computer systems, the learning curve was steeper.

Vicky Li System Administrator Daiwa Food.

http://myob.com.au/enterprise/case-studies-1257834714863


Insight 10Avoid unrealistic timeframes

The first phase of a complex deployment may take over a month to complete. Where possible, begin market exploration early. This can ensure sufficient time remains to allow your vendor or integration partner to dig deep into your organisational processes. In this way, ROI opportunities will be maximised and ‘go-live’ disappointments should be avoided.


ConclusionHaving a robust, efficient system can accelerate business growth by providing the tools vital to achieving success. The criteria for getting the best system for your needs should include:

> Comprehensive internal review

> Focus on scalability and future-proofing of any technology

> Long-term usability and viability

> Customer support (including implementation and usage training).

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Ready to Think Bigger? Talk to MYOB about our bigger business solutions.

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