Questions to Ask Before an ERP Upgrade
Are you considering taking advantage of the latest features and improvements available from performing an ERP upgrade? If you currently have an older ERP system, chances are good that your system might not have the capacity to stay on-top of the growing needs of your business, hampering its development.
While it may be necessary, an ERP upgrade can be challenging and expensive, to say the least. If you’re considering an upgrade, you’ll want to evaluate the following questions.
What are you trying to achieve?
The intent of an upgrade should always be to simplify and streamline—essentially make life easier. Evaluate your current system and make sure that you have a clear understanding of what you should enhance or remove with an upgrade. You’ll find out quickly if it’ll be worth it or not.
Is there any training involved?
When you incorporate an upgraded ERP system, everybody will have to learn how to use it. You’ll want to examine what kind of training material will be necessary, how it will be executed, and what the outcome of the training should look like. You’ll want to put a plan in place that identifies which employees will be trained and whether those people are qualified to then train the rest of the staff. Experienced Financial Systems Implementations Consultants can help keep implementations on track.
What is involved in product selection?
You’ll need team members involved in the product selection of an upgrade system. This means that those people will have to take time out of their day to evaluate different options and determine which is right for the company. You’ll want to consider how their divided attention will impact the company’s bottom line and if you should move other team members to take over portions of their workload.
How can you make the transition seamless?
You don’t want to go into an upgrade process without proper planning. You’ll need to have a clear understanding of who will be involved in the initial process, how long that process will take, and how production will be impacted during the transition period.
ERP Upgrade Overview
As with anything else, organization and planning are critical when it comes to an ERP upgrade. Put a bit of forethought into it before you begin, and the process is likely to go much more smoothly for the company and everybody else involved.
