Achieve ROI: Before You Buy ERP Software, Consider Your Business Processes

by Claude E. White III

If you are in the market for new ERP software, you have to (or soon will) budget up to six figures in cash, and make considerations for training, down-time, start-up time, and opportunity costs. Chances are you won’t do that just to get a fancy new splash screen – you want a return on your investment (ROI). An important step towards achieving this is to define your business processes. Before evaluating Microsoft Dynamics GP or any other new ERP software, you should do the following: 

• Document your existing processes – with a flowchart and written synopsis of how your business functions.  This should include for Products and/or Services:
  • Operational Processes:  everything from Marketing >> Sales >> Procurement, Inventory, and Delivery >> Billing and Collection of Funds.
  • Supporting Processes: Planning >> Budgeting >> Accounting >> Reporting.
• Measure key components of these processes.  This would include all quantities and statistics that are a part of the documented processes. Not just the what, but the related requirements for the delivery and maintenance of these processes.
• Analyze and understand the relationships and dependencies between these processes.
• Analyze how your processes can be improved by specific features of a new solution.   For example, does your sales staff need a license to access the software? Or do they simply need access to customer reports, such as those obtained through a service like Dynamics GP SQL Reporting Services?   

Performing this exercise will help you obtain the information you will need to communicate to your ERP consultant, and will help ensure an ideal implementation.

Rolling out new software should not be an exercise in clicking “Next” on a screen so you can get a canned report. That approach will guarantee you will not receive your desired ROI. What you get out of a new ERP solution depends on the effort you put into to making it succeed.  

It’s hard to arrive somewhere without a defined destination.  Documenting your existing processes to get a baseline of where you are is an important first step.  

by Intellitec, Pennsylvania Microsoft Dynamics GP (Great Plains) Partner

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