Reduce your ERP implementation costs

Alongside mitigating the COVID-19’s economic fallout, more and more business owners are working on creating solid plans to ensure workplace safety and seize market share during downturns rather than wait for the recovery to begin. The forward-thinking executives are exploring new strategies, go-to-market models to identify and take new opportunities quickly. This approach in the wake of the pandemic has significantly increased the importance of digital and remote sales.

While there is across the board acknowledgement of the need for a simple, integrated, cloud-based sales and business management software (or an ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning software), the business owners are also wary of the liquidity needed to keep the supply chain moving.

Most of business owners know what they want. However, they are very cautious about the cost of change that impacts their liquidity. Based on our experience so far, here is a five-point rule that you may find useful in addressing this hurdle:

1. Differentiate your needs from your wants – Getting the operating model right is critical. To make business decisions, the level of insights and the type of information required is vital. Focus on the data and the process that you need and not that you want. This approach would help redefine the scope of the project/product and would have significant cost implications. E.g., Do you need an ERP system that does advanced production scheduling? The answer to this question depends on the complexity of your production processes and the volume of your demand. It would be cost-effective to use an ERP with a simple production planning system than an advanced/complex production planning system.

2. Adopt market-standard processes as far as possible – You may have been following a process for a long time. It may have created a zone of convenience. However, if a slight change and quick training can help you adopt a market-standard process, that can save you a lot of effort and time. Let the business uniqueness be part of the product/service recipe than the operational processes that you follow.

3. Prefer cloud-based out of the box solutions – Adopting cloud-based solution reduces the total cost of ownership significantly. The significant investment will be on your internet infrastructure.

4. Address quirks using small apps – Despite following standard processes, if you still are left out with a few quirks, try sourcing off the shelf/bespoke apps from your ERP/software provider. It would be more cost-effective to buy a small app to address the quirks than procuring an ERP solution that has advanced features that include the quirks.

5. Refrain from using a technology that is expensive to maintain – It is essential to select an ERP system that has a vast pool of development partners. It allows you to access resources at the right cost to develop and maintain the apps and the ERP system itself.

Would you like to receive a free checklist of ERP features that you can use to define your requirements? Please send us your details using the “contact us” form, add “free checklist” in the body of the message, and we shall e-mail you a free checklist along with the instructions to use it. Or please get in touch to discuss further options.