17-Point Checklist for Selecting the Right ERP Software for Your Company
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software offers several benefits that contribute to your bottom line: improved employee productivity, streamlined business processes, and lower cost of operations. The challenge is that with the myriad ERP software companies, configurations and feature-sets to consider, how do you determine what total package best fits your company’s needs?
Here is a 17-point checklist to serve as your guide as you navigate an often daunting process of selecting the right ERP system for your company.
Functionality requirements
1. What business challenges do you plan to solve with ERP?
2. What key issues and concerns do you have with your current system? What functionality do you think your system is missing but needs?
3. What functionality will you actually use? This way, you don’t pay for features your company doesn’t need now or don’t foresee using in the future.
4. Is the solution scalable and flexible to meet today’s needs – and provide a framework for future growth?
5. What will define success for your new system? How will you quantify this success – in terms of increased productivity, reduced costs, or other factors?
Integration requirements
6. What’s unique to your industry and business that new software would need to address?
7. Does the ERP solution strategically align with its purchase justifications (business case, return on investment, etc.)?
8. How much customization will be involved – and what is the impact of that customization upon the solution?
Training requirements
9. How intuitive is the user-interface for employees? In other words, does the ERP system offer an interface similar to software that most employees already use – which reduces training time and improves employee buy-in? Or is this something totally new that employees need to learn from scratch?
10. How much employee training will actually be required to optimize the value of the new system once deployed?
Deployment requirements
11. What deployment options does the software and vendor offer – on-premise or hosted or combination of the two; one-time license fee or monthly subscription?
12. What is the deployment process and expected timeframe?
13. What will be required of your in-house staff during deployment?
Vendor support requirements
14. What on-going services should you expect from your ERP vendor?
15. What are the different levels of support plans offered by the vendor?
16. What is the availability of after-hours support?
17. What response times can the vendor commit to achieve?
Your answers to these 17 questions will give you the solid foundation you need to determine your ERP system requirements – and ensure that nothing important falls through the cracks.
Your guide to selecting the right ERP system
To learn more about how to determine what ERP solution works best for your organization, contact ERT Group at 954-825-0888.
Enterprise Resources Technology Group, Inc. (ERT Group) is a technology consulting firm that empowers companies to grow and succeed with business solutions that streamline processes, improve productivity, and squeeze more profit from operations. ERT Group is a Florida Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a 2010 President’s Club member for Microsoft Dynamics – offering Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics ERP.
17-Point Checklist for Selecting the Right ERP Software for Your Company is a post from: ERP Software Blog
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