Choosing ERP to Mend Business Inefficiencies

Posted on: June 25, 2018 | By: Jim Bertler | Acumatica, ERP Selection

So, you are considering an ERP project and evaluating all your options.  You have had enough with Excel work arounds, rekeying data and out of date systems.  You have vendor presentations, scored each package against your requirements, have more meetings than you ever wanted to and then…. you decide to push the project off.  Does this sound familiar? If so, you aren’t alone.  Over the years we have found many companies review ERP systems and just aren’t able (or willing) to decide.  We could write an entire post on the Why of this (hint: look for this coming up next week), but first let’s evaluate the impact.

There is an old saying “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice”.  The obvious gist of the saying is that by not deciding you still did decide and in this case, you decided to prolong the issues your system was creating.  At Logan Consulting when we have encountered this situation we have rolled back to the start of the process.  What were the underlying problems that drove your team to look at a new system?  What issues caused you to finally be ready to make the move?

 

If we take an example many people change systems for one of (or all of) the following reasons:

  • You are using outdated technology

  • You must use many Excel work arounds

  • You must rekey data

  • You lack information to make key decisions

While these are all good reasons they are often surface issues.  If we drill down on each one we could take examples, understand how long they have been happening and most importantly, what is each issue costing the company.  If you rekey data or use Excel as a work around does that require you to use temporary help to do the job?  Do you pay overtime or have people doing clerical work that should be leading your organization? Maybe you miss a shipment or key deliverable to a customer or client. Each of these issues has an actual cost.  Two inefficient workers for a year has a real, out-of-pocket cost and certainly customer satisfaction issues have real costs.

Once you have added up the cost of inefficient workers, overtime, temporary help or missed shipments you can compare that to the cost of the ERP system. Once we have helped clients with this exercise we often find the decision is no longer not to decide.  The cost of being without a new system is simply to large!

So, if you think you may not decide go back to what kicked off the process in the first place and understand if the cost makes you drive to a decision.  If you want to discuss this or other ERP topics feel free to contact Logan Consulting a leading Microsoft Dynamics and Acumatica partner based in Chicago and working throughout the United States including Illinois, Indiana Wisconsin.