You know it and so does your staff. Your old ERP or your out of the box solution is no longer working the way you need it to. You are spending time and valuable resources to try to make it work, but it is producing more frustration than results.
What’s the purpose of business process automation in the first place? To make your business more efficient and profitable. Your enterprise resource planning software is a huge part of that. Once your company grows to a certain level or your industry changes, an out of the box, legacy ERP no longer is the right solution.
The Problems with Your Old System
So what is the problem with your old ERP? There can be several things holding you back.
- Outdated software and hardware that fails on a regular basis.
- Increased Support Costs due to the need to constantly update things that fail.
- Difficulties accessing information saved in old formats.
- Inability to scale beyond your current business size.
- Integration issues with CRM and other software.
- Difficulty achieving compliance with new security regulations.
The thing is, you already know if you are having these issues. The key is to solve them before it becomes any bigger of a problem than it already is.
Embracing the New
Often the difficulty in making a change is that it can be challenging, difficult, and scary. It is easier to try to hold on to the way you have done things in the past. The issue with that is that newer ERPs do not always work the same way your legacy one did, and will most certainly have a different interface and greater capability.
You need to embrace the new, better system and try not to hang on to the old system and the old way of doing things. Your new, custom ERP will be far superior if you let it be that way. Concentrate on embracing and learning your new system, and leaving the old one behind.
So how do you replace your old system? That depends on you and your company, and how aggressive an approach you want to take.
Blow and Go
The first approach is the blow and go approach. This simply means that you get rid of your old system in one single action and implement your new one in all areas of your business right away. This approach has some pros and cons.
The pros are that the new features and benefits of your new system will be in place all at once. This means that all the legacy issues of your old system will no longer be in place.
The cons? You will have to be ready for a big change in one fell swoop. It means a lot of educational preparation. Your staff will have to be prepared for the transition and the new system, and all of your data will need to be ready to convert right away.
This can mean that ERP implementation, often a challenge for many businesses, actually takes longer, because every aspect must be tested ahead of time. There is little room for error without having the old system to fall back on.
Gradual Replacement
A more common approach is a modular one, with gradual replacement instead of doing things all at once. If something does go wrong, the old ERP is still in place as a backup. Data can be moved in increments, and some legacy data can be moved well in advance of the final implementation day.
Procedures can be tested along the way, and employees and stakeholders have longer to learn the new system. So, what is the drawback to this approach?
The primary one is the temptation to hold on to the legacy system and procedures since they are readily available, regardless of how crippling that can be to your business and to the implementation of your new ERP. Your ability to adapt and move forward anyway will drive your implementation approach.
When it’s Time to Act
How do you know when it is time to take action? The likelihood is that if you are reading this post, it is because you recognize these issues in your ERP system and you are exploring new options. If you are having issues now, then now is the time to act before they get worse.
If you see issues in your near future, then now is the time to act, before you reach the point where you start to have problems. The fewer issues you have at the time of implementation, the easier the process will be. The idea is to make your business more efficient and profitable, and the sooner you act, the sooner you will reap the benefits of a custom ERP.
Are you at a crossroads with your legacy ERP? Is it time to make a change? Contact us here at SixtySixTen. We have the ability to create a solution that will be just right for you and your business, no matter what industry you are in. we’d love to talk about how we can best help you.
