One of the most well-known Irish myths is about finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If you’re unaware, here’s the whole story summed up in a few words. Once there was a time, the Vikings lived in Ireland who were engaged in looting and plundering up to their heart’s content. Next up, they used to bury those ill-gotten treasures all over the countryside and at length, when the Vikings departed from Emerald Isle, they unintentionally left behind some of the booties. Finally, the Leprechauns found these pots of gold at the end of the rainbows.
Now, if you implement an ERP solution properly, you are likely to be able to find the pot of gold at the end of the day as the Leprechauns did. Previously we talked about pre-ERP implementation phases in detail. This article will be taking you through the some more ERP implementation phases that you need to continue to execute in order to find the pot of gold.
The proper ERP implementation phases to find the pot of gold
- Research the market to find the perfect fit
Before streamlining your business with an ERP tool make sure to do thorough research on the existing ERP solutions out there in the market. Surprisingly, not all ERP applications can match your business needs.
As ERP veterans, we can say that most of the ERP solutions, even with the basic versions, come off with a potpourri of features that do not align with all of your business requirements. Rather, you will be paying for the features that you are not likely to use at all.
To get out of this, you must research ERP software that will ensure your business requirements and doesn’t provide anything that you will never need.
- Employ a team experienced in ERP
No matter how much knowledge you have on anything, you can not replace your knowledge with experience. Moving forward, an experienced person on ERP tools knows all the nitty-gritty and the loopholes of the implementation process. That way he or she can effortlessly identify the bottlenecks and thus can adjust in accordance with your business demands.
If you do not have any experienced person on ERP, do not hesitate to hire a consultant to get things done in a smoother and faster way.
- Expect less in the early days
Supposing that you have implemented the ERP tool for your business. Now, you may be wondering why you can’t see any change. Not to worry! This is a very common scenario in most business enterprises that implemented an ERP solution for the first time.
In fact, the employees will need a few weeks so that they can get to know all the untapped resources of an ERP tool and can utilize them accordingly. Besides, with time, they can get accustomed to the user interface and functionalities and can do things faster than the early days of implementation.
Remember, the big changes are not going to happen overnight.
- Make sure the ERP is well documented
It doesn’t matter which type of ERP system you are deploying in your business. What matters most is the fact that “Does the ERP that you implemented is well documented?”. Now, it is quite normal that as a user, you will be facing a few features difficult to use. In this case, you can take help from the official documentation from the ERP provider you chose.
Some of the ERP solutions also publish tutorial videos from which you can sort your troubles out with all but no efforts.
- Keep the system updated
As the ERP ecosystem is evolving continuously, the ERP solution providers may continuously enhance the functionalities with constant updates. In this regard, you may get updates over the air (OTA).
Therefore, never forget to update your ERP tool not just to find out the pot of gold but to retain it.
- Always explore and learn the system
Last but not least, you will continuously have to keep learning from your mistakes arising from the day to day usage. In addition, you should always check out the untapped facets of the solution.
Always remember that you may miss the pot of gold just because you are missing a simple feature or maybe you are not aware of that feature.
The Final Outcome
As we said in the above ERP implementation steps, you will not be getting any significant ROI in the early days. But after implementing the ERP for a couple of months, you will be experiencing the pot of gold in the form of increased efficiency, reduced costs, properly met deadlines and above all more retained customers.
Remember, all you need to do is take these points into your equation prior to implementing your preferred ERP solution. Another thing is that don’t just stop after implementation but keep yourself updated with the system and the ERP trends. Finally, we wish you the best of luck to find the pot of gold at the end of the ERP like the Leprechauns. 🙂
