white paper navigating the erp selection process v1 2017...3&...
TRANSCRIPT
White Paper
Navigating the ERP Selection Process 7 Time Saving Steps with Insights
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Contents
Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 2
Navigating the ERP Selection Process ....................................................................................... 3
Be Organized: Organization is the Key to Success ................................................................ 3
Understand Enterprise-‐Wide Requirements, Goals and Objectives ..................................... 4
Know Your In-‐House Expertise and Resources ...................................................................... 5
Know Your Budget and Its Components ............................................................................... 5
Knowledge is Power .............................................................................................................. 6
Engaging a Software Vendor or Reseller: Which is Better? .................................................. 7
Take Charge of Your ERP Demo ............................................................................................ 8
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 10
About MIS ............................................................................................................................... 11
Contact Us ............................................................................................................................... 11
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Introduction Like your business, technology continues to evolve, bringing with it new opportunities for
streamlining business processes and improving operations. If you are using an ERP system
that is five years old or older consider it technologically outdated. With outdated technology,
you are inefficient and thus putting your company at risk in a very competitive global
marketplace.
Modern ERP capabilities allow for quicker access to real-‐time information, collaboration,
mobility, personalized dashboards and more. Such capabilities are helping businesses improve
their business processes and operations while paving the path for greater efficiencies
throughout the enterprise. In addition, access to real-‐time data means more informed,
proactive decisions, greater responsiveness to trends, customer and supplier needs, supply
chain challenges and more. In short, today’s technology provides you with the tools and quick
access to data to help you be more competitive today and tomorrow.
With the range of ERP solutions available today, you might be feeling overwhelmed by the
abundance of choices, rightfully so when you hear about Tier I, Tier II, Tier III, On-‐Premise,
SaaS, Hybrid technology platforms, and more. You're not alone. Where do you begin?
You begin with a good strategy. Your biggest success will come with organization and
incorporating best practices into the process. Best practices not only include being well
organized from the start, but also identifying the right people for your project team, getting
buy-‐in from key players, understanding enterprise-‐wide goals and objectives and more.
Navigating the ERP Selection Process was written as a guideline to help you create a short list
relatively quickly and effectively navigate through your demonstration cycle. With the right
information, you and your project team will shorten the selection process while being armed
with the right type of information to make a recommendation with confidence.
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Navigating the ERP Selection Process To help you navigate through the process of identifying your ERP solution, here are best practice strategies to keep your project under your control and on time.
Be Organized: Organization is the Key to Success Take the time to get organized from the beginning. A well-‐organized project will save you valuable time throughout the selection process as well as time and money later during your implementation.
Start by identifying a project team including a strong project team lead. A strong project team lead with team members representing the various roles in your organization will help to identify your key requirements faster while also minimizing surprises later in the process.
You and your colleagues know your business best, and it is therefore optimal if your team consists of internal resources. If however, this is not possible, and you don't at a minimum have an internal resource available to head up your project, then a
Value Added Reseller (VAR) or consultant should be engaged. A seasoned consultant should have enough experience with working with organizations that share some of your challenges from which they can draw from when guiding you through the process.
Tip: Identify an ERP
Project Team upfront to
save valuable time
later.
Allocating appropriate resources and incorporating discipline and best practices in identifying an ERP solution will:
• Save time by speeding up the decision
process without sacrificing knowledge.
• Provide a clear understanding of the requirements, goals and objectives of
the organization as a whole.
• Result in a more focused effort
resulting in a relatively faster
identification of your short list without
your team getting confused by fancy
sales demonstrations.
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• Allow your team to be empowered and
in control throughout the selection
process.
• Improve your implementation timeline
because expectations are set
appropriately.
Understand Enterprise-‐Wide Requirements, Goals and Objectives For your project to be managed efficiently and to be a success, you need to understand which features and functionality are most important to all areas within your organization. Start the process early.
Ask your C-‐Level, department managers, IT and anyone else who interfaces with your current ERP system about their likes and dislikes and what their ideal ERP solution would look like and put together a Requirements Document. Gathering and prioritizing key requirements, goals and objectives from the start will keep your project on track, saving you time later.
Tip: Prioritize key
requirements, goals
and objectives early to
keep your ERP project
on track.
MIS has been helping organizations of all sizes identify and implement accounting and ERP systems for three decades.
Based on our experience, most decisions to switch ERP systems are based around a company that is:
• Outgrowing their current ERP capabilities
• Seeking cost savings through gains in efficiencies
• Changing business goals and direction • Needing better integration capabilities with other systems
• Needing a system that is more flexible
and scalable
• Wanting access to real-‐time analytics
• Need for mobility for sales, field
service, or other areas
• Looking for an ERP system with lower
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
• Using an ERP system that is obsolete
and no longer supported
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• Using an old homegrown system with
disparate third-‐party solutions
• Perceived benefits of new technology.
Know Your In-‐House Expertise and Resources What in-‐house resources do you have available to dedicate to this project? Do you have IT personnel with the required skillset necessary to support and maintain your new ERP solution? Or, will you need to hire a consultant each time a report or dashboard needs to be modified? In house expertise, or lack of, will affect your overall budget including long-‐term cost of ownership and should therefore be considered when evaluating ERP solutions.
Tip: In house expertise,
or lack of, will affect
your overall budget.
Know Your Budget and Its Components Deploying an ERP solution is one of the
most costly projects your business will
undertake from both a monetary and a
resource perspective. Not only must one
consider the initial cost of the software,
but one must also consider the cost of
supporting, maintaining and training
associated with an ERP system after the
initial implementation. Knowing your
overall budget will save you time as
solutions are targeted to organizations of
all sizes. It is important that you
understand your overall budget both from
a purchasing and maintenance perspective
as this can vary greatly from system to
system, as follows:
• Hardware upgrades • Software and user license fees • Maintenance and support contracts
• Project management, IT staff, and/or
third party consultants
• Implementation
• Data migration
• Customizations
• Third party integrations • Training, including refresher or new employee training.
If your budget is limited, but you want all
the bells and whistles that come with the
latest technologies, or if you don't have the
in house IT resources to adequately
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support a new ERP solution, you may want
to consider a SaaS or hybrid ERP solution
rather than an on-‐premises solution.
With a SaaS agreement, the ERP vendor
provides you with monthly access to the
software and handles all of your software
and hardware upgrades in the cloud. A
SaaS ERP solution can have its limitations,
especially when compared to a full-‐blown
ERP solution. The benefit of SaaS is that it
doesn’t require in-‐house IT expertise or an
annual maintenance contract as software
updates and upgrades are managed by the
software vendor and part of the monthly
service fee you are paying for.
According to Gartner, Hybrid ERP, a
combination of in-‐house ERP and cloud-‐
based applications, are growing in
popularity. Hybrid solutions can work well
for companies with multiple locations. For
example, with a hybrid solution, one could
deploy the corporate location in-‐house and
the subsidiaries in the cloud with all
accessing the same database.
Knowledge is Power Knowledge is power. Before you engage an
ERP reseller or software vendor, spend
time researching your options. With a
project team in place, you should have a
general idea of your requirements and
budget. If you haven’t already, now is the
time to see what the industry experts say
online and to talk to colleagues, your
trusted advisor and others that are familiar
with today’s ERP solutions as well as those
that have recent experience moving to a
new ERP solution. Ask questions such as:
• Which ERP systems were considered?
• Why did they select the system they
did?
• How was their experience with implementation and training?
• How was their experience with the consultants?
• Have they continued to receive good support?
Having the knowledge to ask pointed
questions throughout the process will
serve you well as features and functionality
can be easily blurred. This is especially true
during software demonstrations as a good
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demonstration team is trained to draw you
in and get you emotionally excited about
their products; you have to be able to see
through the show and determine whether
a system best meets the majority of your
requirements.
Engaging a Software Vendor or Reseller: Which is Better? Choosing whether to contact the vendor
directly or a local Value Added Reseller is
worth discussion. For a Value Added
Reseller (VAR) to represent the software
their salespeople have to be trained and
their consultants certified on the products
they represent. Consultants typically go
through the same technical training
courses regardless of whether they work
for a vendor or a value added reseller.
Over time, even though consultants may
be trained on the full range of products
offered, they tend to specialize. For
example, a consultant that has had many
clients in a specific industry will gain a
certain level of industry expertise whereas
another consultant might be very good
with complex financials, processes or
reporting. Aligning expertise with your
needs is important, but there are other
factors that should be considered:
• Personality – You may have found
what you believe to be the absolute
best consultant for your job, but if their
personality does not work well with
yours or the company’s culture, then
you need to move on and quickly
identify another consultant. You will be
spending many long hours together on
your implementation and it is
important that you find someone that
you and your team are comfortable
with and will be easy to work with.
• Type of Relationship – The long-‐term
relationship you will have with a
software vendor is different from the
long-‐term relationship you will have
with a reseller. A software vendor has
many rolls to fill your needs – a
consultant to handle your
implementation, an account manger to
periodically follow up with you after
the implementation and a technical
support team to address your support
questions. In contrast, the relationship
you build with a value added reseller
has the potential to be more
personalized. For example, at MIS your
implementation consultant will
continue to be available to advise you
when future needs arise as they have
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the deepest understanding of your
unique business, it’s goals and
challenges as they have been in the
trenches with your team.
• Local Presence-‐ is local presence important to you? A software vendor
will send their team in from corporate
headquarters or a regional office and
for some, these locations are near their
business, but for most they are not.
Software vendors recognize the value
local presence offers and therefore
authorize local resellers to further their
reach in the marketplace. Consider the
availability of local expertise and the
type of relationship you want in the
long run.
Take Charge of Your ERP Demo Take charge of your software
demonstrations by providing the vendors
with a list of features and business
processes that you would like to see
demonstrated. A good approach in
developing your list is to assume that most
ERP packages within a tier (i.e., Tier 1, Tier
2, Tier 3) will have a similar set of core
features and will therefore be able to meet
70-‐ 80% of your requirements out of the
box. Your list should therefore focus on
your top 10, those features, functionality
and processes that your organization
cannot live without in an ERP solution.
Tip: Focus your demo
on the top 10 features
or functionality that
your organization can’t
live without.
By having a list, you will be better able to
see the similarities and differences based
on your key requirements and how the
software handles the areas of greatest
importance to your organization, making it
easier to identify the best solutions for
your business.
ERP software demonstrations typically
start with a high level overview inclusive of
all the bells and whistles to get you
engaged and excited. The vendor will also
demonstrate features and functionality
that they think differentiate their ERP
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solution from their competitors and those
features they think would be of greatest
interest to your organization. For very
specific demonstrations, the vendor may
tell you that you need to engage them in a
Proof of Concept Demo (POC).
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Return on Investment Technology is changing at a rapid pace. Today’s ERP systems enable businesses to do so much
more with less even compared to five years ago. Take a look at some of the return on
investment you should expect:
• Improved business processes and automation for gains in efficiencies
• Faster access to real time information for better decision-‐making
• Collaboration for teamwork and fewer bottlenecks
• Improved customer service levels
• Mobility for anytime anywhere access.
Designed with the future in mind, Epicor ERP will continue to deliver returns on your
investment over time. The solution is scalable and flexible to fit your needs and budget
today and leave you with room to change and grow tomorrow. Whether you deploy Epicor
ERP in the cloud, on-‐premise or as a hybrid solution, or choose to start with a few modules
and add additional functionality over time, you’ve made an investment for the long run.
Epicor ERP is unique in that it uses the same database and code set regardless of
deployment, making upgrades easier and faster, saving you money on future upgrades.
Conclusion Selecting a new ERP system is one of the biggest and most expensive decisions your business
will make. Taking the time to navigate through the process using the best practices outlined
here will make the transition easier as you will be better able to identify a solution that will
best meet your needs.
Having a clear understanding of your needs before the start of your implementation means
that your project should run more smoothly and with fewer surprises. As a result, your
organization will recognize cost savings during the implementation process as both the project
team and the consultants will have a clearer understanding of the scope of the project.
Often a project is considered unsuccessful because the project scope was not detailed well
enough. Using the methods outlined in this white paper will help you reach your goals leading
to project success.
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About MIS MIS Consulting & Sales, Inc. and its subsidiary, MIS Solutions Canada, is an Epicor Gold Partner
that has been helping clients meet their vision with business strategies every day since 1987.
Not all ERP systems are created alike, and neither are all ERP implementation partners.
Through long-‐term relationships we inspire our clients to achieve their business goals and
have an Exceptional ERP™ experience. As an experienced firm, we believe that clear
communications with repeatable, proven methodologies using certified consultants leads to
ERP success with the greatest ROI. Our goal is to help you build your solution today and be
your trusted advisor tomorrow.
Contact Us MIS US Headquarters
1260 NW Waterhouse Avenue, Suite 190, Beaverton, OR 97006
Telephone: 503-‐614-‐1919
MIS Canadian Headquarters
8661 201st Street, 2nd Floor, Langley BC V2Y 0G9
Telephone: 604-‐837-‐0002
Sales Information: sales@mis-‐c.com
Consulting and Support: services@mis-‐c.com
www.mis-‐c.com
We welcome your comments and reserve the right to revise this publication and/or make improvements or changes to the products or programs described in this publication at any time, without notice.
Copyright © MIS Consulting & Sales, Inc. 2017 All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the prior written consent of MIS Consulting & Sales, Inc. Epicor® is a registered trademark and/or trademark of Epicor Software Corporation in the United States, certain other countries and/or the EU. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Copyright © Epicor Software Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the prior written consent of Epicor Software Corporation. Exceptional ERP™ is a trademark of MIS Consulting & Sales in the United States and MIS Solutions Canada in Canada.