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Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software centralizes business operations on a single platform. Teams like HR, accounting, procurement, and supply chain use ERPs as a single source of truth and process automation tool. ERP solutions streamline work, save teams time, and improve data accuracy and process visibility.
Implementing an ERP system is a complex, multi-stage process involving inputs from stakeholders across an organization. Successful implementations require scope planning, system configuration, data migration, testing, and employee training. They also rely on a set of ERP best practices that support these crucial stages.
Learn why some ERP initiatives fail and how to avoid common issues by following certain best practices during planning, implementation, rollout, and review.
Why ERP initiatives fail without clear best practices
Adopting an ERP system is ultimately a beneficial move for many organizations, but the process comes with challenges, often stemming from organizational and process issues rather than from the system itself. As a result, implementations may go over budget, stray from the timeline, meet user resistance, or hit configuration snags.
Here are five common errors to avoid, mitigating poor results.
- Unclear or undocumented business processes: Teams cannot successfully configure the ERP tool to mirror their current workflows if they haven't clearly documented them. Investing time in capturing processes before beginning implementation ensures success later on. Scribe Capture makes it easy for teams to document processes.
- Misalignment between business teams and vendor implementation partners: Organizations must ensure that the ERP software aligns with the business's needs—starting with choosing the right tool and through configuration and rollout.
- Poor data quality and ownership: Data migration fails when the source data pulled from legacy systems isn't clean, accurate, and ready to be transferred. And relying on the implementation team to take responsibility for data alignment can be a recipe for disaster, since data owners (the team members who actually manage this information) know far more about it, and their expertise is essential.
- Limited user involvement during design and testing: One of the primary goals of an ERP implementation is to improve the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of everyday work. And when the people who perform this work aren't involved during the implementation design and testing processes, they can't weigh in on useful configuration tips or give their real-time feedback on the functionality of the platform.
- Treating go-live as the end of the project: Complex software implementations should be iterative processes, meaning that once the platform has been rolled out, teams will continue to test and perfect its functionality. Organizations that treat rollout as the last step of their ERP software implementation run the risk of allowing inaccurate data or clunky processes to trail long into the future without stabilization.
Core best practices to follow before ERP system implementation
Poor planning leads to challenging configuration and rollout stages. Kick off your system option right with these pre-ERP implementation tips.
- Document current processes: To configure and model workflows in the new ERP tool, you need a map to follow. That is, you'll need documentation of as-is processes. Scribe Capture automatically transforms current workflows into user-friendly manuals your implementation team can follow when regenerating (and improving) processes in the ERP software.
- Establish clear executive sponsorship and decision rights: All implementations should be sponsored and guided by a high-level leader in the organization who can help align the system adoption to business objectives, encourage buy-in, and manage accountability. It's also important to establish "decision rights:" who gets to make what choices about the implementation. Organizations often establish a steering committee, project managers, and a project team, and spread decision-making responsibilities among them. For example, implementation teams make decisions about daily work instead of higher-level ones.
- Align scope with business priorities: ERP software only becomes a useful operational tool when it's tailored to the business's processes and aims to meet its overarching goals. Otherwise, it's just another piece of tech that users have to access to complete work.
Best practices during ERP implementation and rollout
Solid planning is the cornerstone of a successful ERP implementation, but teams must practice excellent discipline when following the established roadmap to ensure a successful data migration, meet compliance requirements, and drive buy-in. Use these ERP adoption best practices to guide configuration through rollout.
- Limiting customization in favor of standardization: While it can be tempting to customize the ERP to mirror your exact current processes, doing so takes time and resources. You can save money and go live faster if you use the standardized configurations the tool comes with. You may even find that some of these built-in features improve upon your as-is flows. What's more, you'll save yourself from complex, custom maintenance down the road, which can imply operational downtime.
- Test more than just isolated functions: Testing is a multifaceted process that should push past unit testing on isolated functions to include end-to-end process testing, user acceptance testing (UAT), security testing, and performance testing (under load).
- Involve end users in validation and feedback: End users should provide feedback from using the tool in real-world work situations during testing, rollout, and after the fact. Strong user adoption starts with hearing out concerns and modifying configurations to streamline workflows and rectify data inaccuracies. This way, your team members don't later have to find workarounds or avoid using the tool altogether.
- Creating clear, role-based documentation for training: Training is an ongoing process that begins during testing and runs through go-live and post-implementation. As users adapt their old ways of working to the new ones within the ERP system, they need guides to follow and come back to when they have questions. These operational manuals also make great training tools for new hires. Scribe Capture automatically records the new workflows in your ERP tool and transforms them into visually-driven process guides, complete with texts, arrows, and screenshots.
Best practices after ERP implementation go-live
One of the primary errors organizations make is considering go-live as the final stage of the implementation. But the success of an ERP software implementation only becomes truly clear after launch, once the tool begins to transform processes and help the business reach its goals. Here's how to maximize the implemented ERP tool and prevent its functionality from degrading.
- Stabilize processes and resolve early issues: Stabilization refers to the processes of fixing ERP software errors before they have undesirable repercussions on business processes. Ask end users to promptly bring up concerns and flag data inaccuracies, and establish a dedicated tech support cadence people can use to resolve issues.
- Review workflows based on real usage: Reviewing processes post-implementation allows you to spot inefficiencies and ensure that the new ERP workflows genuinely support the way people prefer to work. Not only do these improvement-forward reviews drive efficiency, but they also encourage buy-in. Team members are more likely to use a tool that actually saves them time and effort.
- Update documentation as configurations change: Whenever a configuration or workflow changes, it's important to update process documentation so that new users have a reliable reference on the most current flows. Scribe Capture can automatically record and document changing workflows in user-friendly guides, complete with visuals.
How Scribe supports successful ERP implementations
All ERP system implementations rely on excellent, up-to-date process information. But not all organizations have it on hand.
Ensure a successful implementation and future modifications to your ERP by documenting processes with Scribe. Scribe Capture automatically turns real-time workflows into comprehensive, easy-to-understand playbooks that are useful when:
- Documenting existing processes before ERP decisions are made
- Testing and training
- Preserving knowledge after ERP consultants disengage
- Keeping ERP documentation accurate as systems evolve
FAQs
Are ERP best practices the same for every platform?
The core best practices apply to any ERP implementation, though the particulars of configuration, data migration, and rollout—as well as the goals of the implementation—differ for each unique use case.
How long does it take to see value from an ERP?
The answer depends on the size of the organization and the complexity of the transition, but teams often see results as early as six months after rollout.
Who should own ERP processes after implementation?
Post-implementation process ownership is a shared initiative, split between the executive sponsor, IT personnel, business process owners, and end users.
How often should ERP workflows be reviewed?
Continuous monitoring is a great habit, as it drives constant improvement, but teams should at least review annually and after any feature release.
