Our firm has been assessing, selecting and implementing various ERP packages over the past 19 years, and we are pleased to report that businesses of all sizes have several powerful, reliable and relatively easy to implement solutions from which to choose. Exciting developments from both the perspective of the actual ERP software and the manner in which it can be hosted have given customers more and better choices than any time in the past. For the past 18 years, we have helped select and implement QAD software largely due to its solid capabilities, its reliability and its ease of implementation. To this day, QAD remains a strong ERP player in the manufacturing and distribution space, especially within advanced repetitive companies. Historically, we have found the large ERP players, SAP and Oracle, to be overly complex to the point where the additional benefit did not justify the costs and risks created by the complexity. It is clear to us that these companies have taken steps to streamline their offerings...

The economy has affected enterprises considering new ERP packages - capital dollars have become tight.  For every legitimate ERP selection process that we get involved with, there's likely another one that doesn't need to occur.  Many company's have bought solid packages from viable vendors but have stumbled for many reasons;

poorly managed implementation projects, lack of involvement from business users, lack of definition of good business processes, change in business drivers. It's the last case, "change in business drivers" that should make one pause before throwing out the baby with the bath water.  If the business has changed - say less product is manufactured and more is purchased for resale - then the solution might be a re-implementation that's driven by the new business realities.  That could be done with a new package, but often the ERP that you have can be adapted to fit the new model.  In tough economic times, it's easier to look to fix what you have then to start over. ...

Ah, the start of a new blog!  A chance to vent and to collaberatively share some thoughts.

Selecting and then implementing a new ERP system in today's world doesn't seem to be much about technology, but rather mainly about business process.  Companies embark on such a selection and view it as hardware and software - it's really people and processes.  And certainly, the act of ERP selection needs to be a process with defined steps and stages.  Calling up software vendors and jumping right into demo's seems a great way to define your seleciton in terms of the "neatest" screens - unfortunately most companies never ever use the "neat" stuff - it never leaves the demo session.  There's a lot of good jokes that have "OK, demo's over...." as the punchline.