Data management is an underestimated part of ERP projects. It involves more than simply transferring data to the new system. You have to make sure the data is in order, think carefully about what data you are taking with you and have a plan for the data conversion.
Have you thought about these questions?
You take some technical tool, enter the data you want to transfer there, and with the click of a button it's in the new ERP system. Unfortunately...if only it were that simple. Before you can start data conversion, you need to have a few things clear. For example, do you have answers to these questions?
- How complete and clean is your data?
- What data do you need in your new ERP system?
- What do you do with historical data?
- How do you get transaction data such as open work orders across?
- Can you transfer data 1 to 1 or do you have to deal with different fields and structures?
Work on the quality of your data
In any case, what it starts with is that you start transferring clean, complete and correct data. When moving to another house, you also put everything neatly into boxes and throw away what you no longer need. It works the same way with a data conversion. Chances are, over time, data contamination has built up in your system or systems. Erroneous, duplicate, incomplete...this is almost inevitable. So it is important to take a close look at your data and start cleaning, deduplicating and supplementing. Not a nice job and also something that can take a lot of time, but it is extremely important.
"Thorough data management prior to the ERP project ensures that you'll start with a cleaned-up database that will continue to benefit you in business operations for a long time to come."
Think carefully about what you include in the conversion
Customers, items, objects, suppliers; of course you want to put all that into the new ERP system. But what do you do with transactions and historical data? Do you only take the master data and consult the old system for the history for a while? It is important to decide on this with a team of different specialists. Management or the business may want to transfer all or as much data as possible, but your IT or application specialist may think that this is a hell of a job. Together you can weigh how complex and time-consuming the data conversion will be and how valuable it is to have certain data in the new ERP system.
Establish a clear data conversion plan
Once you know what data you are going to convert, you need to create a clear conversion plan. Start with the transfer of master data, because it is desirable or even necessary to have it at the beginning of the implementation. Later in the project, perform some test conversions after which you thoroughly evaluate whether data has been properly transferred. With the final data conversion, you then don't have to worry about whether this is going well.
A fresh start with tidy data
An ERP implementation is a tough project for your organization, and even after going live, issues and questions will arise regularly. In that case, it is nice if at least these are not caused by data problems. Thorough data management prior to the ERP project will ensure that you start work with a cleaned up database, from which you will continue to benefit for a long time to come.
