3 Proven Principles for Implementation Success
In my experience both at Microsoft and as President and of Stoneridge Software, there are many different factors that can cause on implementation to go off-course. Besides the obvious points that the software solution must be a good fit and the implementing partner has an experienced and knowledgeable team in place, here are three proven principles that are the key contributors to ERP implementation success:
https://youtu.be/r0JPl7SbZJ0
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Using Out-of-the-box Functionality
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Using an Iterative Implementation Methodology
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Ensuring Users are Self-Sufficient
Using Out-of-the-box Functionality
At Stoneridge Software our team exists to enable businesses through the premier solutions we provide. The first way we ensure ERP implementation success is we want to leverage out of the box functionality as much as possible. The reason for that is we want to be able to take advantage of the deep amounts of research that Microsoft put into their products. We want to try to standardize across core processes that a lot of different businesses use because it makes it more transferable for them in the future and it reduces the amount of customization needed. When, and if you do decide to customize your software, you’ve got the cost of designing it, developing it, testing it, supporting it and then you’ve got to upgrade it year over year. So there really is quite a burden that comes with having to customize the software. We try and limit that as much as possible to just those things that really make you distinctive as a customer.
Using an Iterative Implementation Methodology
The second principle for ERP implementation success is that we want to leverage a methodology that is iterative, our client centric methodology has a variety of different opportunities for our clients to be able to interact with the software, so from the joint process designs (JPDs) to the conference room pilots to the user acceptance testing, they’re getting in and using the software over and over again, which gets them very familiar with it and also allows them to own the solution a little bit more. So that once we're through the implementation phase, our clients feel like they’ve got the ability to be able to extend it and to configure it the way they want.
Ensuring Users are Self-Sufficient
The third principle for ERP implementation success is related to that. We really want our clients to be self-sufficient. So we want them to be able to take the software where they need it to go in the future. So our whole goal with enabling your business is to try put to put clients in a position where they have the ability to extend the software further on their own. You can always engage your partner for the heavy lifting and the challenging projects but we want our clients to be able to do the modifications that they need to do to take it forward. We want them to be able to support it. That’s why we invest in doing development workshops and admin workshops, so that they’re very comfortable with how the software works, what’s going on in the backend, and they can really take it and own it. Through this preparation, that gives clients a great ability to be able to adapt to their business needs because they’ve got a software that’s flexible and they know how to use it.
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