Identify Opportunities

Identify Opportunities and Have An ERP Strategy

After identifying where you are today and where you want to be, the next step is to identify where there are opportunities to improve process, timing and business systems information for greater productivity, lower costs and a more effective customer service experience. Not everything can be done all at once while your regular business continues, so it is important to highlight the ‘biggest bang for your buck’ as you move to a new ERP and related systems. There are stories of failure in implementation … sometimes due to poor planning and sometimes due to taking on too much without a team responsible to make it happen. So identify the opportunities that will yield the most as Phase I.  The selection and implementation of a pre-packaged ERP system should be the end result of a well thought-out development and execution of this ERP strategy. The ERP is a component of the IT strategy, albeit often the most important part. Both the ERP strategy and IT strategy need to include an architectural view of how the ERP fits with other systems and tools. Most important of all, an ERP strategy must support the business strategy and accommodate for changing business needs and technology.

An ERP Strategy should take into account the following

  • Business goals
  • Business requirements
  • Business processes
  • Business and technical architecture
  • Deployment strategy
  • Importance of an ERP Strategy
    There are countless stories of ERP implementations that missed target dates, had budget overruns or resulted in the ERP not doing what was expected. Many organizations do not have a clearly defined ERP strategy, or it is outdated, and the net effect is that companies are not seeing the business benefits of their ERPs. Most companies are not able to start with a clean slate when implementing an ERP; usually there is a significant legacy factor. The majority of organizations have put together their business applications over time through organization growth and/or acquisitions. This usually results in a business application portfolio that does not support the organizations goals, requirements and processes. An ERP strategy is crucial, as the ERP is the backbone of a organizations operations.  So Identify Your Opportunities first!