Five councils indispensable to quote a ERP

Some key factors need to be considered when adopting a management tool for your business

The end of the year is coming and with it, the time when many companies are beginning to set their budgets for 2015. In an economy in which, for various sectors, competition will be strong in the coming months, the adoption of a management system can mean the difference between grow or disappear from the market.

However, the choice of an ERP is not simple. There are a number of factors to be taken into account and, therefore, we list here the 5 most important steps to be taken into account in a management system quote process:

1 – What is – The first step is to be clear what you want the management system, and it goes from knowing how to hire up to be sure of what you want with it. Many companies want to solve specific problems with the implementation of an ERP, but this can not be the only reason, because when these problems are solved, others will emerge. The company has to know its processes, know what does not work, and know that that lack secondary problems may arise ahead. This is because, by their size, complexity and criticality, a management system must meet what the company is today and what it will be anticipating your needs.

2 – The technology used by the supplier – Often the ERP vendor potential will present you with a solution to all your business needs, only on one platform designed, written and programmed in the 80 or 90. As it can be patched there will always be a natural limitation of technology. So it is important to know whether the technology used is recent, because that is what will determine the supplier’s innovation capacity. It is always good to remember that when we speak of management systems, we talk about a technology that must accompany the company for at least five years. On average there are ten years old, and a company can not be all this time attached to a supplier that in the end, will be obsolete. The technology to be used needs to be aligned to new business models, using concepts such as mobility, internet, big data etc. It is important to assess how committed to innovation your supplier is.

3 – Partner – When hiring a management system, the enterprise should recognize that you are not hiring a vendor like any other. It will be your partner. There is much knowledge embedded in a management system and, therefore, the supplier needs to have a team that incorporates the client’s business concepts. For example, when a retailer says you need to do an analysis of its contribution margin, the implementation team should know what he’s talking about. So you need to check what level of knowledge that the supplier has in its segment, that other companies it serves, that projects already aired. Another company without the necessary experience and others, promising meet all segments with thousands of software also will not have the necessary depth.

4 – Maturity – Another point to be addressed is the platform of maturity and flexibility by her. The maturity is linked to the system time to market, if it has been sufficiently tested and, after testing, proved stable. In addition to mature, a good management system should be flexible, allowing adaptation to customer needs without the need for major customizations. In practice, it should be configurable – what is done with a few clicks – requiring less customization, requiring changes in the program’s core, without assurances that the result will be satisfactory. Maturity is also related to another important factor: the whole system into one body only, as opposed to several small embedded systems, with different philosophies and purposes.

5 – Support and maintenance – The future customer must check how committed to the support is its management system provider. The provider itself should take care to show that your system is able to comply with all tax requirements of your customer sector and, more importantly, ensure that it accompanies any changes. On the day, the client needs to call for support and find the other side someone who understands what he says and solve the problem.

Full article: http://cio.com.br/

Comments are closed.