Steps Recommended Ascertaining the Success of ERP Implementation in your Organization

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Steps Recommended Ascertaining the Success of ERP
Implementation in your Organization
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The implementation of the ERP in an organization
is a massive step towards achieving the
organizational objectives with a systematic and
careful approach. It is a major change that
ensures better success rate by involving various
components of business and integrating them with
the help of software.   These business components
include human resource management, sales, and
marketing management, production management,
logistics, payroll, accounting, management
control and many more.   Enterprise Resource
planning helps all the organization across the
globe irrespective of their size and line of
business. It creates a global foundation and
provides excellent outputs with increased
productivity and reduced expenses.   If you want
to implement Oracle ERP cloud in your business,
then you need to consider about the several
factors to ascertain that ERP implementation in
your organization is successful and your business
is benefited from it immensely.
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1. Setting of Objectives Before you start, it is
imperative to identify your problem areas. Ask
yourself questions to find the real goal of ERP
implementation. It needs to be done keeping
future endeavours also in mind rather than
thinking about current projects only. Now the
important question is why ERP implementation in
your organization? How good is it for your
business and its operations? And what strategies
need to be built for the successful
implementation of ERP. ERP implementation is
crucial for any organization that wants to grow.
ERP implementation offers better visibility and
communication between different business
processes and operations. It also ensures that
the information is centralized for any respective
department of the business to access. Various
modules and their operations are managed over a
unique database system. However, it is also
crucial to think about the software tools that
are already in place and that migration to ERP
might need strategizing and budgeting. In fact,
time management and cost-effectiveness is the key
to the success of implementation if every
critical phase is handled by subsequent and
well-planned steps. So, before you plan to
implement ERP in your system, do a
self-assessment and come up with correct answers
to ensure that this is the right decision for
your business.
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2. Anticipating Risks There are innumerable
risks involved in the implementation of ERP.
Whether overhead costs or delivery delays,
failure in infrastructure or vendor issues, it is
critical to be prepared for these risks in
advance. The management should be able to
anticipate the major risks involved in the
process. That is the reason it is important to
define the objectives of the ERP
implementation. It is equally important to train
the staff for the upcoming changes as ERP
implementation is extremely influential and
everyone should contribute towards achieving the
favorable results.  
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3. Selecting the Suitable ERP System The need
for ERP varies from one industry to another in
terms of performance. It is essential to look for
an ERP package that is built as per your industry
standards. For example, if you go for Oracle ERP
Cloud, it offers an extensive array of
applications that enable the management to get
improved performance with better decision making
and in reduced expenses. Similarly, many ERP
providers including Sage, SAP, Microsoft
Dynamics, etc. render their clients with
segmented ERP solutions. Some of them even design
ERP specific to business sectors and position
them accordingly. The ERP is packaged to
minimize the cost of ERP development and
deployment. And the features provided in every
package fulfill the requirements of all the
SMEs. The standard features of every package
offered by the ERP providers make sure that the
commercial aspect of your business is managed
well. It also controls your logistics, handles
the administrative and financial part, monitors
the production, manages accounts, etc.
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4. Finding the Suitable ERP Providers You need a
vendor that understands your business needs and
processes and offers you a comprehensive solution
for your system. It is best to establish
specification so that you are clear about what
kind of planning and provisioning is
required. Ascertain that your provider has an
excellent reputation in the market and is known
for timely deliveries. Ensure that the business
suite offered by your provider consists of a
portfolio of industry-focused solutions,
integrated business processes, and rapid value
solutions
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5. Defining the Scope of ERP All the businesses
offer some unique products and services and run
on specific rules. Likewise, every business faces
problems while growing. With the boost in the
growth of any company, the various metrics such
as sales, procurement, etc. become difficult to
manage. Hence, ERP implementation comes into
account and help in maintaining data
enterprise-wide, reducing the manual
efforts. Similarly, irrespective of the size of
business, its workflow plays a vital role. ERP
improves the workflow of any business. It mainly
covers all the aspects of your business and
fulfills every business demand. ERP also ensures
that the higher levels of security are
implemented in your system, and all the business
operations run smoothly. It makes the data
centralized, and only authorized employees can
access this data. Therefore, keeping in mind the
core business requirements and financial
investments, the scope of ERP is defined for the
smooth and obstacle-free ERP implementation.
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6. Evaluating the Current System to come up with
Ideal Project Plan It is one of the most crucial
steps to ensure the successful implementation of
ERP in your system. As per some reports, numerous
firms customize their ERP software to lower
degrees of the considered utilization. The
management of the organization is required to
invest time and energy in evaluating the options
available for optimal utilization of ERP.
Because, otherwise the complexities may increase,
if the evaluation is not done properly
beforehand, leading to the failure of ERP
implementation. Evaluating your system is a
stepping stone to understand the present needs
and future projections. It is crucial to
differentiate the customization and ERP
configuration before the implementation starts.
ERP needs to be flexible to accommodate the
requirements going to arise in future.
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7. Transferring the Knowledge Once you decide to
go for ERP implementation, it is essential to
designate some employees that will provide
assistance during the implementation process.
These people should have knowledge of companys
history and culture as these are the
representatives of their respective departments
and introduce the ERP service provider with
various systems along with internal
users. Usually, business owner, chief financial
officer, chief technical officers and other
decision makers are included in stake-holders
along with several other representatives.
Additionally, your provider also renders your
team with required assistance and pieces of
training needed for the implementation process.
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8. Selecting Implementation Phases ERP
implementation is different for every
organization. Choosing the modules that your
business requires is a difficult task. This is
when mapping of your business processes comes
into play. It is a crucial step to know that what
are the processes in place and what is their
importance. For a successful ERP implementation,
it is essential to have the workflow ready and
make changes or customize according to these
business workflows. It is suggested that the
implementation project should be divided into
independent phases. You can either select
complete service approach or guided approach,
depending upon your organization's size and
business requirement.
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9. Creating Achievable Schedules for Timely
Delivery If the delivery of the ERP
implementation is not timely, even with one year
delay, it will not be called a success
irrespective of the quality of the project and
cost savings. Most of ERP implementations take
longer than the expected time of
delivery. Hence, it becomes necessary to
schedule the primary processes deliveries to be
achieved on the timely basis. Make these flexible
to accommodate final adjustments. This can happen
when you define the project in independent phases
and give them the estimated time limit to finish.
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10. Migrating to ERP Once you have established
which ERP solution you need, then the major and
the most critical step is data migration. It
should be a trouble-free transition for the
future utilization of ERP. ERP implementation
can be a tremendous change for the company that
has not used this software before. It is crucial
to determine that which data to be migrated as
the complete shifting of data may be a burdensome
process. Hence, it is recommended that only
critical data should be transferred to the
software and precautions should be taken to
ascertain that the data is retrieved and can be
accessed whenever required.
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11. Customizing ERP is developed as per the
requirement of your business and its respective
industry. The significant amount of thought and
research goes into this process. Since ERP
implementation includes an enormous investment of
capital, large pool of resources, lot of time and
efforts, the company should be able to manage the
scheduled maintenance of the ERP software. At
the time of pilot testing also, the management
should evaluate the understanding of the utility
of the system rather than the desired utility of
the organization. It is critical to keep an eye
on the system to be adopted by the management
from the onset. So if you want the successful
implementation of ERP with necessary
customizations, it is critical to follow the best
practices. If ERP is fitted the way it was
bought, this will do no good to your business.
You must un-follow the old methods of ERP
implementation and get the customization done as
per your business processes and operations in the
company. That is why it is very important to
understand your system, your business
requirement, the software and the modifications
that need to be made, prior to the customization.
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12. Changing the Management While employees of
any organization are habitual of specific routine
they follow for performing their activities
through already defined processes, any changes in
the system are not welcomed easily. However, with
the implementation of ERP, change management
becomes necessary. ERP implementation has a
significant impact on the working environment of
any company. It is responsible for all the
modification in working styles and affects all
the processes and ongoing operations in the
organization. It is the responsibility of the
management to prepare their staff for the changes
by giving them training and making them aware of
the positive impacts and efficiency of the
software.
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13. Transferring the Knowledge Management should
make sure that the vendor renders the in-house IT
team with all the technical know-how and
detailing of the project. Proper technical
training and effective transfer of knowledge are
considered critical for the success of the
project. For operations to be smooth and
simplified, the IT support staff should be
well-trained. If the software utilization is not
optimal, then the output of ERP implementation
will not be effective.
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14. Going Live It is only after go-live that the
actual operational obstructions come in picture.
If there are gaps between evaluation, processes
and implementation and the system is not flexible
enough to handle them, it may backfire. At this
phase, the system needs to be improvised, and at
the same time, the management should ensure that
the primary objective of the implementation
should not be diluted. During go-live period,
accurate data migration and proper hardware
synchronization are evaluated.
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• 15. System Testing
• Testing is another crucial step that ensures that
  product is ready. Though it is a hectic task but
  it confirms that all the technical and functional
  aspects of the system are positive.
• Below are the checklist points that are evaluated
  during testing
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• Business reports
• Access rights for individual users
• Both static as well as dynamic data
• Auto backup procedures
• User acceptance
• Accounting reports

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16. Maintaining and Supporting Once the ERP is
live, it needs maintenance and support for the
maximum output. If the implementation is
successful, it does not ensure the optimal future
utilization.   It is crucial to update the system
on timely basis along with periodical maintenance
and ongoing support. This will ensure the smooth
and trouble-free functioning of the ERP solution
to give you better ROI for your business.
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16. Maintaining and Supporting Once the ERP is
live, it needs maintenance and support for the
maximum output. If the implementation is
successful, it does not ensure the optimal future
utilization.   It is crucial to update the system
on timely basis along with periodical maintenance
and ongoing support. This will ensure the smooth
and trouble-free functioning of the ERP solution
to give you better ROI for your business.