Is your ERP platform ready for an upgrade?
The ability to answer this question in a way that’s timely and thoughtful can make all the difference in keeping your organization’s competitive advantage—and losing it.
To better understand when and how you should reevaluate your ERP system against others, we followed relevant discussions on Systematic, the largest community for Business Systems professionals, and came away with a few takeaways. You can read on to learn what we found!
1. Define the Scope of Your Business Needs
While the reasons to switch systems vary by business needs, it’s important to decide based on what you need your ERP system to handle as your company expands. This means you should define the scope of your business needs and be as specific about your requirements as possible when considering systems.
To help you brainstorm, several leaders in Systematic offered up a variety of criteria that they themselves consider. This includes the number of transactions that the ERP system can support, bill of materials (BOM) complexity, traceability and compliance, and upcoming acquisition plans.
2. Ease of Integrating with Your Existing Tools
Does your ERP mesh well with your existing tools? The answer to this partly lies in its ability to integrate with your other enterprise applications. Through integration, several teams can access the ERP software’s data from the tools they use already, and it allows your ERP software to add data from other tools.
If an ERP system doesn’t work with existing tools, it can become an expensive, unusable system instead of a solution. In short: compile the tools your business currently relies on and find an ERP system that’s compatible with them.
3. Functional Fit within Your Organization
It can be difficult to find objective performance ratings from suppliers, so it’s important to compile your requirements and request a personalized demonstration for each ERP system you consider. Also, narrowing your search to systems that are industry-specific and that contain tools tailored to your needs is the best way to pick one that doesn’t require a re-evaluation in the near future.
Finding the right ERP system is a significant investment for your business. While it can be overwhelming to decide when to upgrade and which system to switch to, picking the right one can set your company up for long-term growth.
What else are IT and BT leaders saying about ERP systems? You can find out once you’ve joined the largest community for Business Systems Professionals, Systematic, here!
