FACTORS TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING AN ERP PARTNER

If you’re lucky enough to become the appointed team leader for deciding on the right ERP solution and partner for your organization, there’s no doubt that you’re under a great deal of stress – it’s a huge responsibility. Without proper planning and extensive reviews, this complex and expensive software can become your biggest nightmare. The performance of your ERP will affect every element of your daily business operations – including staff, productivity, customers, and sales.

On the other hand, an effective and efficient ERP system can save you time and money by streamlining productivity, inventory, supply chain logistics, customer support, and much more. The goal of an ERP solution is to synchronize various functions from various departments into one location, such as manufacturing, order management, HR, accounting, and CRM. As a certified and trusted reseller, we recommend implementing an ERP solution for its ability to monitor and control your daily business processes in a single centralized software.

The right ERP partner will take responsibility for your implementation and beyond. This ideal partner will develop a deployment plan, manage the implementation project, and provide long-term support. Below are fundamental success factors in which you must consider while choosing your ideal partner:

Technical and Functional Proficiency

Undeniably, in-depth product knowledge of the software is necessary. However, your ideal partner should have other areas of knowledge and experience as well. They need to comprehend how the new ERP solution will integrate with your existing software and daily business processes.

You can verify a potential partner’s expertise through certifications, case studies, industry knowledge, awards, recommendations, and reviews. Based on the partner’s industry experience in successful software project implementations, you can get a fair idea about the project implementation’s obstacles and success.

Industry Expertise

You’ll want to ensure that your potential partner has experience implementing the same system in an industry similar to yours. During the ERP module planning stage, you may need add-ons or customizations for your specific vertical. For this, your partner should have the technical knowledge, besides experience working with similar industries.

A potential partner should know the industry language to understand your team, best practices, and industry regulations and compliance requirements. It is worth asking potential partners for industry experience, diverse ERP experience, and how they would utilize the same for your organization’s specific needs.

Compatibility

Different organizations deal with issues in different ways, and it’s this personal insight and knowledge that serves to make projects successful. An ERP deployment can last months, involving hundreds of decisions and a lot of hard work. Your project team will be interacting with your partner for many years to come – far beyond the implementation of your new ERP software.

You must trust not only their technical experience, but their work ethics and interaction with your team. Is your team comfortable interacting with the partners, and are they accessible? Do they show professionalism, pro-activeness, and a customer-centric approach to your organization’s goals? You need to feel confident that the partner will provide consistent and reliable service over the life of your system.

Getting Started

It is undeniable that selecting an ERP partner is a stressful decision. For companies that never had to evaluate third-party implementation partners, the sheer amount of information they assess might quickly prove overwhelming.

If you’re looking for an ERP implementation partner, connect with our experts. At ACC Software Solutions we have the technical and industry expertise to make your implementation a success.