The Fear Of Buying New ERP Software

Companies’ owners, who have outdated software, are afraid to buy more modern ERP Software. Often, the reason for this is that they have heard horror stories from other business owners who bought ERP software that didn’t meet their company requirements and ended up using their outdated software despite the fact that they knew it would result in excess inventory and excessive manual labor, affecting their bottom line profit.

In order to resolve this issue, business owners often hire programmers who promise to modernize their outdated software. This frequently results in their not having the more advanced functions modern ERP software has. After spending a substantial amount of money, the owners just give up on upgrading their outdated software. This changes when the next generation, who are exposed to modern technology, join the business and convince their parents to let go of the outdated software and purchase new ERP software.

Reasons New ERP Software May Fail to Meet Company Needs:

  • After the demo was given, a study of individual business requirements was not done.
  • The users’ ability to learn the new ERP Software was not taken into consideration by the management team.
  • The ERP Software vendor was not willing to modify their software and expected the client to change their business model to meet the new software requirements.
  • When company business requirements are not addressed, it frequently results in another sad story where substantial money was spent and the company ends up going back to their outdated software.

Failure to Implement New ERP Software: A Case Study

A few years ago one of our former clients hired a Nationwide Company Division President whose previous employer had used a high-end, sophisticated ERP software that Fortune 500 companies use. The President, who was accustomed to and liked this ERP software, decided to purchase it, ignoring the department heads’ advice that it was too sophisticated for their end users.

Two and a half years later with a substantial amount of money invested in modifications and training, the New ERP Software was finally implemented and the company went ‘live’. Because the end users had difficulty with the new ERP Software, the company ended up going back to their outdated custom software, and the new president was fired.

Successful Implementation of New ERP Software:

While attending a seminar given by a large accounting firm, I listened to the keynote speaker describe his experience going “live” with the ERP Software I represent. His opening words were: “The morning before we went live I had a sleepless night worrying if we will be able to ship our daily 8000 orders that our customers depend on. The reason for it was the Obama Care Medical Software issues, afraid I will encounter the same experience.  I was pleasantly surprised that there were no issues at all. The software house we bought our new ERP Software from had on-site the support team who trained my users and technical team that converted the software from my old system. Any issues my people encountered were immediately resolved. The two teams didn?t leave until we were convinced that our users were proficient using the new ERP software.”

The Reason for this Successful Implementation:

  • After the demos were done, a project director conducted a companywide study addressing specific business needs.
  • Prior to going live with the new ERP software, the support team did extensive training, making sure the end users were proficient with the new software.
  • In order to achieve this, a test environment was built in which the users were trained using the old software data they were accustomed to. In addition, the company was given the source code and on-line tutorials for long-term support.
  • This resulted in the company acquiring other businesses and the its computer department staff, with help from the ERP software firm, converted the acquired company’s computer data to the new ERP system.

In today’s business reality companies grow by merger and acquisition. Having a modern ERP System with the right support from the software house is a must to achieve this goal.

About SMC & Dani Kaplan:

Since 1980, Dani Kaplan has worked with manufacturers, distributors and food distributors and processors as the trusted advisor helping them lower their operating costs, streamline the operation and control the inventory.

Dani can be reached via SMC – https://smcdata.com/contact