After your ERP selection, it’s time to sharpen your sights on the next phase; the implementation of the system.
This is a critical and dangerous point in your project. Having built a vision and future state, it is time to transform your company’s operation to meet your business and customer demands by the expected GO LIVE date. The heavy lifting of your transformation has started and it will continue through your GO LIVE / operational adoption. It is a complicated and arduous process to successfully reach this destination, and it creates even more demands on your best people, heavy workloads aside.
Your ERP consultant is in the best position to provide the direction and leadership needed to navigate your project team through the tasks and challenges of your implementation. Here’s why:
A project of this nature needs clear direction and strong leadership to move forward successfully and effectively. These two critical requirements are the very skills your ERP consultant has developed over years of experience and exactly what they should bring to your company during this enterprise-wide project.
Although most companies have some staff who have gone through one or two ERP implementations, typically those implementations were more about upgrading technology. An ERP consultant focuses on company transformations all day, every day. That experience manifests itself in your project by providing clear direction, and the right consultant will provide the leadership to help you achieve operational excellence through this process.
Both your ERP consultant and your implementer have an important role in your business transformation. In fact, both are vital. They simply don’t have the same role – or priorities for that matter. It is a mistake to think that either professional can do both or that one is disposable.
The implementer’s priority is to accurately configure and prepare the software to Go-Live, and then to ensure the software is being used in the best way to support best practices. For them, it is all about the software, as it should be.
Your ERP consultant’s role is to combine the skills and knowledge of the implementer, your project team, and themselves to reach the business and operational objectives at an absorbable pace. This includes solving both the expected and the unexpected operational issues that are always part of the equation. They will keep the project and your business flowing.
Your consultant has invested months talking to your employees and documenting your processes and has a deeper understanding of your company than any other outside team member. Take advantage of this value.
To sum it up, your consultant will lead the charge of operational and procedural improvements throughout the implementation. They will provide the direction for the project, and the leadership to drive your transformation project over the finish line.
You’ve come this far with the right guidance, so be sure to build your project’s implementation team with all the right people and skills. Your company’s successful transformation depends on it.