Should we replace our ERP, or are we simply using it badly?

Three questions that will decide

Question 1: How old is the data when you use it to make a decision? If the answer is 'from yesterday' or worse, the problem is not the system. It is when and how data enters it. A new system will inherit this problem unchanged.

Question 2: Do you use the module you already have, or have you built your own solution alongside it? If you have a planning module but plan in Excel, the question is why. Sometimes the module genuinely falls short. More often, no one configured it, no one trained the staff, or it was used differently from the way it was intended from the outset.

Question 3: How much of what frustrates you about the ERP is a feature of the system, and how much is a feature of the process? This is the hardest question, and a company will usually struggle to answer it alone because the two have become intertwined over ten years.

What happens if you replace the ERP without answering these questions

The typical course of events looks like this. Implementation takes twice as long as promised because it becomes clear during the project that the processes have never been documented. The company is paralysed for six months. After launch, the data still arrives late because when it is entered, and by whom, has not changed. Within a year, new Excel spreadsheets have grown up alongside the new ERP.

You have paid several million Czech crowns to have the same problem in a newer interface.

When replacement does make sense

• The system cannot support something essential to your industry and the capability cannot be added
• The supplier is ending support or development
• The system cannot handle the volume at which you now operate
• Maintenance and modification costs have exceeded the price of a new solution

Replacement is justified in all four cases. Even then, you first need to document the processes and decision-making needs, otherwise you will merely transfer the debt to a new system.

The cheaper route that almost no one tries

Before deciding to replace the system, establish three things: precisely what the system cannot do, where data originates and how delayed it is, and how many people work around the system and why. Compiling this information takes a few days and, in some companies, shows that the problem can be solved for a fraction of the price of a new ERP.