Every business is different, so it’s important to choose an ERP that will meet your specific needs. You do not want to make the same mistakes as the U.S Navy did and bear $1billion in costs like they did.
Make sure you have a realistic implementation timeline. Hershey’s could not fulfil $100 million worth of sales despite having the inventory in stock, because they set an unrealistic timeline for their ERP implementation.
Ease of use is important because like cosmetics, you don’ want your employees to struggle to learn how to use the software. This lead to AVON abandoning its four-year ERP and change management project costing $125 M
Integration is a must-have because you need to be able to connect your ERP software with other software and systems. LIDL decided to drop the new system they used for 7-years and faced losses worth $580 million because they did not change their processes to align with the new system.
Do you want to implement a cloud-based ERP or an on-premise one or a hybrid one? Selecting the right one will help reduce your overhead, since it enables remote work and the possibility of shifting IT resources to the provider. It also allows standardisation, which saves time.