Tag: Evaluation Criteria

ERP – Where to Start?

Starting an ERP selection and Implementation seems like a huge undertaking. It can be, but it can also be straightforward if you do things properly.

Where to Start with your ERP Selection and Implementation
Where to Start with your ERP Selection and Implementation

If you are a small to medium sized company, here are some tips to get you going:

1. ERP Vendors – who should you look at? There are many different ERP vendors. The easiest way is to use a free evaluation service such as SoftwareAdvice.com. Their advisors ask you some questions to profile the type of business you are in and then from that they can give you a short list of candidates to focus on. One good article you should examine is to help you understand how ERP vendors are categorized is “ERP – What Tier are you in?” You can also reference our ERP directory for a listing of various ERP vendors.

2. What questions should you be asking the ERP vendors? This is really a questions of how well do you know what you do. Take a look at “How to determine your ERP Evaluation Criteria” to learn more about how you should self examine your company to then have the criteria for evaluating the vendors. You can also get some free templates that will help you in evaluating erp vendors here on our site.

3. ERP Negotiation – How to reach a successful outcome? Negotiation can be stressful, but really it doesn’t have to be. It is a dance that the vendors go through everyday, so they know how to work it and how to make you come to their desired decision point. You can learn more about negotiation through various books, or you can start with this article on ERP Negotiation.

4. ERP Implementation Planning – There are a lot of details to implementing an ERP solution. Here are the Top 20 ERP Implementation tips. Find out also What makes for a successful ERP Implementation. You can also learn about four corners stones to any successful implementations with this article on RICE. Here is a great article on the 12 Steps to a better ERP Launch. Lastly, here is a tongue-in-cheek look at implementations.

We hope these links and articles will help you sort out resources as to where you can start with your ERP project. For more information, please also see our ERP Bookstore where we have a lot of useful books on ERP Selections and Implmentations.

How to determine your ERP Evaluation Criteria

Defining your ERP Evaluation Criteria is essential for paring down the vendors and getting to the final choice.  There are two focus areas for determining your selection criteria:

ERP Evaluation Criteria

Determining your ERP Evaluation Criteria

1. ERP Evaluation Criteria – Process

The Process analysis for determining your ERP Evaluation Criteria is the method you would use to determine the flow of data through the system and how it would follow along your established or to-be business processes.  For example, following a process flow of quoting an order, receiving the order, manufacturing or purchasing the product, shipping, and finally invoicing the order is known as the order-to-cash process flow.

There are other anther ERP Evaluation Criteria processes such as procure-to-pay, which maps the inventory requirement through the accounts payable billings. Another example could be the HR process of recruiting though retirement.

ERP Evaluation Criteria

Using Process Flow documentation to determine your ERP Evaluation Criteria

By mapping out these processes in a tool such as Microsoft Visio Standard 2010ERP Evaluation Criteria and developing a detailed flow diagram, you will have a good understanding of how your business operates.  With this knowledge, your evaluation of various business management software will be a lot easier.  Further, you can see how closely the software’s process flow mirrors your company’s or how disjointed the software is when it comes to your business.

2. ERP Evaluation Criteria – Functional

ERP Evaluation Criteria for the system is the detailed list of all of the things you need the system to do, from processing purchase orders, processing a sales order, to invoicing a client and producing financial reports.  These are the nitty gritty things that your system should do.  A good place to start is to evaluate your current system.  What are the functions that the current system does well?  Include these in your list.  What are the things that your system does poorly, include the desired functionality in your list.

Your list should not be 10,000 lines, but rather it should look at those items that make your business unique.  For example, most every business has to cut A/P checks.  So most systems can do that.  So do not list as a requirement that the software should be able to cut A/P checks, rather make your requirement specific to your company, such as “System should be able to cut 3 copy laser checks, with reprint capability.”  That very specific requirement will help you distinguish the vendors from one another.

A good place to start is with an ERP Evaluation Criteria Template.  ERPandMore has many different templates to assist you in evaluating various ERP software venders and have best practices built in.  In using these as a starting point, you will save yourself countless hours in both preparing these criteria templates as well as in differentiating the vendors your are looking at. We hope this has helped to answer How to determine your ERP Evaluation Criteria