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The term "Enterprise Resource Planning" (acronym "ERP") has been popularized since the late ‘90s to define a set of practices for identifying and planning the resource needs of a business organization. ERP-based strategies have demonstrated effectiveness and efficiency in managing products, purchasing, sales, inventories, logistics and other business activities. So today you can hardly find a growing company that doesn't realize and derive the benefits of implementing enterprise resources planning software in the business environment. If you're going to implement ERP software in your business but don't know what to start from, consider these tips to avoid common mistakes and make the right choice.
Wrong ERP Expectations Cause Missed Opportunities
Setting wrong expectations is a "number-one" mistake organizations make when planning for ERP software implementation. While businesses pay too much attention to replacing their existing obsolete systems, they focus little on deploying new software capabilities. Those companies expect to get something that could help them just remove outdated systems with new solutions, and that's it. Unfortunately, they don't consider all the benefits good enterprise resource planning software can provide, and this is the problem.
An inadequate analysis of business needs and a wrong understanding of initial ERP expectations disallow organizations to discover and take all possible improvement opportunities. Companies that don't realize what can be changed for better within their environments are doomed to fail ERP implementation projects, because their expectations are narrowed down to specific solutions while enterprise resources planning software provides more improvement opportunities that remain unexploited.
Customization Solves the Problem
How to avoid this mistake? It is recommended to focus on future improvements that can be provided by ERP, rather than on the existing situation and problems. The main idea is that your organization needs to expect its business environment to be optimized through tailoring ERP functionally to the business needs. The key emphasis should be placed on balancing the needs your company has and the software you want to implement. And customization will be the right tool for balancing.
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For instance, if you are going to implement CentriQS in your business environment, the customization capabilities of this program will help you create and tailor a database according to your ERP expectations and business needs. CentriQS ERP solution makes it easier to exploit all available improvement opportunities and change for better. |
Obtain Top Management Commitment
If the top management of your company is weakly committed to your ERP deployment initiative, most likely you will fail with this project. Why is this so tough? Because lack of managerial commitment turns your initiative needless and senseless. Will your company invest in purchasing an enterprise resource planning software solution if senior executives disregard improvements through ERP? Apparently not, and there will be no money allocated, no training provided, no organizational process in place, and so on. Without strongly committed seniors you can't do anything.
Information Drives Success
What can be done? First, you must get top managers actively involved in your project. The more information about potential improvements and advantages they receive, the more committed and conflict-free they will be. A bright PowerPoint presentation of ERP software will be a great choice to start with. Next you can schedule weekly meetings to tell your managers about results achieved and opportunities remaining open. You must be very persuasive in these meetings and focus the executives on the actual advantages their company gains from implementing ERP systems. Ideally, the software of your choice should be available for free evaluation - this will be one more option to get higher managerial commitment. For example, CentriQS has a free full-featured version that you try and evaluate within 30 days. With this version you get more chances for success.
Select Right Enterprise Resource Planning Software
Sometimes ERP deployment projects were failed because the systems they promoted didn't comply with business needs. So, if you select a software solution that doesn't match the business needs of your company, most likely your project will fail from the very beginning. In other words, wrong ERP selection paves the way to project failure.
In order to avert this negative perspective and make your project succeed, you must ensure that the software of your choice:
- Supports business data integration
- Requires small investments in deployment, maintenance and updating
- Provides powerful user collaboration tools
- Supports extended customization and database management
- Allows remote access
Right Choice Leads to Desired Results
Besides, you need to be sure that adequate training material and tutorials are available for viewing and downloading from the developer's website (or other confident online resources). For example, CentriQS's websites provides the Knowledge Base and the Developers Center that help you and your personnel explore best practice of using this program. CentriQS provides API for data integration, supports user collaboration, allows remote access, and provide extended customization opportunities. The flexible pricing policy at centriqs.biz lets you acquire the software at a reasonable price and benefit from free updates and technical support.
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