When looking for business software, small companies might fall into the trap of being selected instead of selecting vendors. This usually happens because small companies do not allocate extensive time and resources to the process and do not have selection methodologies, which help decision makers select a product without further investigation.
Not every company takes advantage of a sound software selection methodology. The good news is that other companies have been through complex selection projects before, built sophisticated tools, and developed processes to make it solid, speedy, and successful. This article will broadly review the phases involved in a well-organized software selection methodology. Adhering to a sound methodology helps ensure that you select the right software rather than risk wasting money on all the problems that can arise down the road from a selection, which fails to meet the needs of your organization.
No matter which methodology you use, the process has three main phases: A) research, B) evaluation, and C) selection. We will describe the main activities for research in the following pages and two future articles will describe evaluation and selection.
Research: The First Essential Step in Finding the Right ERP Solution
The most important objective during this stage is to determine what the needs of your company are, which type of software will be best suited for it, and how to find it. It is also essential during this stage to have a better understanding of what’s going on in your company and why (besides helping you find the right ERP for your company, this will also make you (re)define business processes and workflows).
The initial research phase consists of preliminary study and defining your organizational strategy and tactics. Organizations at this stage should begin to understand what its overall strategy is regarding the software it’s looking to implement. In addition, an organization needs to know both its short- and long-term objectives and constraints with respect to its business processes. During this phase, it’s also important for you to review which systems are currently in place in order to gauge whether it’s worth upgrading the current software, as opposed to acquiring an entirely new system.
This phase includes actions related to defining your organization’s objectives, developing a business case, identifying and interviewing your employees, selecting your project team, achieving internal consensus and developing your list of requirements, and creating your long list of vendors.
What Does Your Company Do? (Main Activities)
To find the best compromise and to efficiently use internal resources, here’s what a small business can do when searching for an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system:
Establish who does what in your company. In order to do so, make a list of all your employees, write down their most important daily tasks, and make a note of how long each one takes. Here’s an example:
Figure 1: Matrix describing the main activities in a company.
Of course, there will be exceptions. There are things that people do just once a month or even less frequently, and it’s not always easy to approximate the exact time for each activity. Still, you and your employees should know what the main operations are and what the average time to accomplish them is. When you’re done with the list, summarize it, showing where you should have the most important activities, depending on duration, priority, and reoccurrence. You should decide what the priority is for each activity, based on its type, duration, and importance for the company. For instance, bank reconciliation can take an hour but might be more important than data entry, which may take a couple of hours each day.
What you have now is a high-level list of processes, which is the starting point for the selection process. Ideally, you should not base your decision on this list only. You should get into more detail, depending on the complexity of your business processes and the future growth of the company.
SOURCE:
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/the-path-to-erp-for-small-businesses-part-1-the-research-20527/
Not every company takes advantage of a sound software selection methodology. The good news is that other companies have been through complex selection projects before, built sophisticated tools, and developed processes to make it solid, speedy, and successful. This article will broadly review the phases involved in a well-organized software selection methodology. Adhering to a sound methodology helps ensure that you select the right software rather than risk wasting money on all the problems that can arise down the road from a selection, which fails to meet the needs of your organization.
No matter which methodology you use, the process has three main phases: A) research, B) evaluation, and C) selection. We will describe the main activities for research in the following pages and two future articles will describe evaluation and selection.
Research: The First Essential Step in Finding the Right ERP Solution
The most important objective during this stage is to determine what the needs of your company are, which type of software will be best suited for it, and how to find it. It is also essential during this stage to have a better understanding of what’s going on in your company and why (besides helping you find the right ERP for your company, this will also make you (re)define business processes and workflows).
The initial research phase consists of preliminary study and defining your organizational strategy and tactics. Organizations at this stage should begin to understand what its overall strategy is regarding the software it’s looking to implement. In addition, an organization needs to know both its short- and long-term objectives and constraints with respect to its business processes. During this phase, it’s also important for you to review which systems are currently in place in order to gauge whether it’s worth upgrading the current software, as opposed to acquiring an entirely new system.
This phase includes actions related to defining your organization’s objectives, developing a business case, identifying and interviewing your employees, selecting your project team, achieving internal consensus and developing your list of requirements, and creating your long list of vendors.
What Does Your Company Do? (Main Activities)
To find the best compromise and to efficiently use internal resources, here’s what a small business can do when searching for an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system:
Establish who does what in your company. In order to do so, make a list of all your employees, write down their most important daily tasks, and make a note of how long each one takes. Here’s an example:
Figure 1: Matrix describing the main activities in a company.
Of course, there will be exceptions. There are things that people do just once a month or even less frequently, and it’s not always easy to approximate the exact time for each activity. Still, you and your employees should know what the main operations are and what the average time to accomplish them is. When you’re done with the list, summarize it, showing where you should have the most important activities, depending on duration, priority, and reoccurrence. You should decide what the priority is for each activity, based on its type, duration, and importance for the company. For instance, bank reconciliation can take an hour but might be more important than data entry, which may take a couple of hours each day.
What you have now is a high-level list of processes, which is the starting point for the selection process. Ideally, you should not base your decision on this list only. You should get into more detail, depending on the complexity of your business processes and the future growth of the company.
SOURCE:
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/the-path-to-erp-for-small-businesses-part-1-the-research-20527/
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