Imagine this: you have seen the new ERP software in a demo, it is running successfully at similar companies, and you have full confidence in the implementation partner. Then you'd rather start setting up the system in your organization today than tomorrow, right? But then you forget a very important step: diagnosis. In the diagnosis phase, the core users of your organization will discuss all business processes in detail with the consultants. A valuable exercise, because it gives you many benefits:
1.Immediately clear where problems can arise (and how to prevent them)
When you discuss every process with each other in detail, issues will come to light for which there is no immediate solution that satisfies everyone 100%. Maybe you don't collectively agree on how the process should go or maybe the software falls short. Either way; it is always better to discover this at the very beginning than during implementation. Now you can still tune the process flow together, come up with a workaround or adjust the software. This will prevent unnecessary delays later in the project.
2.Together you arrive at the best decisions for the organization
Internally, your core users in the ERP project are the experts when it comes to the processes in your organization. Your software partner's consultants are the experts on the other side of the table. By putting them together in one room, you bring an enormous amount of knowledge together and arrive at the best decisions regarding the processes and how to automate them. Your core users know the processes well and, above all, know where they want to improve. The consultants can use their experience and expertise to advise on how to make the processes faster and more efficient. After all, you don't want a copy of what you have now, but a step - or several steps - ahead.
3.You save time and money later in the project
In fact, the diagnosis phase is your first step of the implementation. It is not an extra session that makes the project more expensive, but a session that lays the foundation for a tight and successful implementation. By performing a thorough diagnosis, you get an early view of the work in the project and any difficulties/obstacles. You can anticipate these immediately which ultimately saves you time and money. Everyone knows the horror stories of out-of-control software implementations, projects that go way over budget or never make it to a go-live. This is often due to poor preparation. Knowing in advance exactly what you are getting into together will save you this misery.
With an ERP diagnosis, you don't rule out every discussion or solve every problem. An ERP implementation is comprehensive and far-reaching. So issues are bound to pop up that you didn't foresee. And that will lead to tough discussions and/or difficult decisions. But by making a diagnosis in advance, you can solve a large part of the problem and the implementation will become a lot easier.
Remko Gaastra is President of Dysel North America and responsible for Marketing. He discusses daily the challenges and risks that (potential) customers experience with software.
