Looking For Info About ERP Software Packages?An ERP purchase is a very important business decision and, as such, should be reviewed by an evaluation team. When building such a team, many businesses do not fully appreciate the huge impact that an ERP purchase will have on their business. The most successful firms will appoint managers from the highest levels within each and every business area to their ERP evaluation teams. Top management must make it clear to all participants that choosing the right ERP product and provider are vital to the benefits that the whole business should gain. The most successful ERP software package evaluation teams will commonly consist of senior computer management, as well as senior representatives from each area of the business. This team is responsible for the evaluation of the merits of the various ERP providers and selecting the one that best meets the business needs of their particular business. IT managers will quite often find themselves at odds with day to day business operations people. The accounting employee may well find that the white papers about one products functions are highly desirable, while the IT managers sees only serious technical issues that would have to be addressed with that product. Many IT managers have only a bit of familiarity with the fine points of various business functions, yet they are charged with resolving all the technical issues with the needs and wants of those very areas. That combination can create friction and unrest. Generally speaking, the most successful ERP evaluation teams will have a well defined membership structure. A senior manager or V.P. is typically put in charge of the effort to eliminate (or at least arbitrate) conflicts between the different functional areas of the business and the information technology department. This senior manager's job is to allocate appropriate consideration to all team members' issues and then to direct the choice of a tool based solely upon objective and quantifiable criteria. It is simple fact that, very often, the real choices for ERP solutions are very often are based on factors that are not quantifiable. There are companies that will choose a particular ERP vendor solely because it dominates the market in some vertical market space. That should obviously not be the primary consideration - perhaps the training offered is not what the enterprise needs. Teams might also fail to evaluate software from Singapore or Malaysia (simply because they are foreign), even though those might be the best option. There are several key points that managers should consider during evaluation process in order to make the process a success. A company should simply plan for cost overruns - installation and implementation rarely go exactly as planned. Additionally, the HR cost of training and implementation are typically 3 to 4 times the cost of the software package. |