When you are undergoing the process of upgrading your Enterprise Resource Planning, i.e. your ERP solution, there are certain factors that one needs to consider. These factors are responsible for defining one’s ERP needs. The upgrade may involve adding a Sap B1 Addon or modifying some of the existing features. This is why a thorough research should be done. Putting in a decent amount of time in researching will help you save a lot of money in the long run. When your needs are clearly defined, then you can reach on the conclusion what exactly you should be looking for during the upgrade procedure. This gives you an upper hand when you are dealing with the ERP vendors or the sales team. When you know what exactly you are looking for, the chances of miscommunication or any sort of error will be marginalized.
There are several steps that one needs to follow while defining the ERP needs. To begin with, maintaining a document that is accessible to all the concerned people is necessary. This helps in keeping the process transparent for everyone involved in the decision making process. In this document, list out all the important pointers. The main way to define your needs is by asking a lot of questions and asking the right questions. These questions can be broadly divided into three categories:
• What You Want
• What You Don’t Want
• How It Should Work
Once these questions are answered satisfactorily and clearly addressed to, it can be ensured that one will get the best ERP solutions for their organizational needs. Now, let’s elaborate each of these questions. Within each category, these are some of the questions that need to be put out:
- What You Want From Your ERP Solution
- Which organizational department are you looking a solution for? It can be HR, financial, CRM, manufacturing, distribution, inventory management etc.
- What are the overall improvements that are desired in each department?
- Which company processes need to be automated?
- Is there SAP Business One Addon that needs to be added?
- What are the employees personally looking for that would assist them in their jobs?
- What are the processes that are functioning extremely well and do not need any upgrade?
2. What You Don’t Want from Your ERP Solution
- What are the problems that you do not want to aggravate?
- How much time is spent on manual tasks?
- What are the pinching points in the existing software that the need to be eliminated?
3. How Your ERP Solution Should Work
- Will the new system should perfectly fit address all the shortcomings?
- What growth are you aiming at for the company’s future?
- Do you need custom solution for your industry?
- Which will benefit you – an on-premise system or a cloud-based system?
These are just some of the questions that need to be addressed. It might consume time and energy, but in the end, it’s worth it.
