How to find a good vendor for ERP implementation

If your company or organization decides to adopt an ERP system to improve your business processes, then you’ve already taken an important first step. Choosing the wrong software can have disastrous consequences. That’s why establishing the right vendor evaluation criteria before the ERP selection process is key to success.  

First of all, Why finding the right ERP solution is important. Choosing an ERP vendor that will be the most helpful to your business is an important phase in the ERP implementation process and should be approached with care. You will find that many ERP vendors out there offer nearly identical solutions. This can make the selection process overwhelming. But on the other hand, it means that you have plenty of options to choose from. By choosing a good vendor, it will help you become more competitive, provides real-time insights into warehouse processes, and improve day-to-day operations. 

A typical ERP have common features, such as: 

• Financial management 
• Human resources/capital management 
• Purchasing 
• Inventory management 
• Supply Chain Management 
• Customer relationship management
• Business intelligence and reporting 

The selection of a vendor that best meets the needs and long-term direction of the Company is a critical first step in a successful implementation. In selecting a vendor, a well-understood selection process will need to be utilized. The company may want to hire a specialized consulting firm to assist in the selection process. The steps involved in selecting a vendor generally are based on best fit of an ERP to business functions and the overall ERP vendor’s product performance in the market. 

To start looking and purchasing an ERP vendor, here’s major steps that you have to pay 

attention to and what to look for: 

1.Vendor research and information gathering 

By doing some research and information gathering, your team will know what your company needs are and search for the suitable ERP vendor that suits your company needs. The first step is to identify a short list of vendors who will help to shape business requirements. Identifying and researching all aspects of a vendor package, knowing what features they have and what they offer will assist companies in determining the total cost of ownership. For this step, you have to consider the following for selecting your ideal ERP vendor: 

• Other businesses who are using the vendor 

• The vendor’s financial position, implementation philosophy and support issues, 
• The hardware and software infrastructure used to support the ERP 
• The vendor’s direction and currency of software, release and upgrade strategies, user-base involvement in defining future functional changes, and development and maintenance resources. 

2. High-level vendor demonstrations and evaluation, needs and requirements assessment 

As mentioned above, once you have your desired ERP vendor, it’s time to do some demonstrations and sort out the evaluation by looking at your company’s needs, making sure it covers all of the requirements and that your hardware can handle the system well. Identification and documentation of user and system requirements can be done by documenting current legacy system functionality or by using business process re-engineering. When Excel Connection was considering ECI M1, the company looked at whether the product used .NET technology, SQL and Crystal Reports, said Colleen Weber, business manager at Excel Connection, a manufacturer in Milwaukee. The company ended up choosing ECI M1 because modernized older systems still had cumbersome technology that would have required programmers to add fields for reporting or other small tasks. 

3. Pricing- software, maintenance, and consulting, support 

While software cost is important, vendors may underestimate how program management and change management will affect ERP implementation final numbers, said Len Riley, commercial advisory practice leader at UpperEdge, an IT sourcing and negotiation services provider in Boston. Even systems integrators may give an estimate for the implementation that misses required internal resources. Costs could spiral out of control. 

References: 

• https://www.nigelfrank.com/blog/how-to-select-compare-and-evaluate-erp-vendors/ 
• https://www.hashmicro.com/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-erp-vendor/ 
• https://www.bcfooderp.com/how-to-choose-the-right-erp-vendor/