Frankly, a company can buy all the enterprise software they want, but unless the company’s core business processes are optimized before they are automated, that software isn’t going to help a whole lot.
For example, a McKinsey Global Institute and London School of Economics study of 100 companies in the United States, France, the UK and Germany came to these conclusions:
- Improving management practices (process improvements) increases company productivity by 8%
- Increasing the intensity of IT deployment (tools) increases company productivity 2%
- Doing both increases productivity 20%
You must fix your organization and processes before you automate. If you have inefficient business processes, all computer systems will report the same automated mess.
Recognize most contemporary ERP systems typically come with all the functionality necessary to run your business, so create a clear understanding of what it is you need to accomplish with your ERP. Define what processes need to be optimized, then automated to make the business generate cash.
“Successful ERP deployments are about improving the playing of the game first, before improving the score-keeping – not the other way around.”
Consider, bringing in an independent third-party expert to diagnose and fix these processes – then use them to implement the appropriate system modules. Bringing in an experienced, objective resource assures that current flawed processes are identified and corrected, not immortalized by automating them.
In our experience, 90% of the challenges with ERP deployment revolve around poor process optimization and ineffective module implementation, while only 10% of the time is the problem related to an ERP system’s core functionality.