Consulting for ERP Selection

Based on an analysis of the current situation, the requirements in your industry, your market and your IT and digital strategy, we provide you with the blueprint of a process model that is suitable for your company. This model is important in order to derive the process optimisation, its potential and its realisation. This organisation and process model contains all information, such as release processes, workflows and much more. Requirements from customer expectations that are placed on you and your company are an essential part of process documentation. This description of requirements, which is important in the context of ERP selection, takes place in an ERP specification. 

This describes the requirements for the business processes, identification and definition of process optimisations, the design of the organisational models, the customer requirements as well as the communication with existing systems (interfaces). For the first time, the necessary definitions for master data and possibly for master data management systems are also worked out for a later ERP introduction.The ERP specifications are one of the important foundations and indispensable as a document for the selection of a potential ERP system.

The necessary selection criteria, which are core processes, which are support processes and in which processes can you achieve competitive advantages with your company are also defined in this ERP selection phase.

We are able to create these ERP specifications completely or - within the framework of a division of labour - to divide these tasks between the capacities of our customers and our ERP consultants. This flexible way of working, tailored to your requirements, allows you to save costs and use resources efficiently. 

Once the processes that are to be mapped as core processes in a potential ERP system have been defined, the pre-selection of software providers can take place.

The phase of identifying potential enterprise resource solution providers begins. With the help of our database, in which almost all ERP systems on the market have been entered over the years, we can make an initial selection. Who will make an initial selection based on the requirements in the ERP specifications?

Important, fundamental parameters are also taken into account. Which technology or which software basis can be used? Are solutions in the cloud or on premise or hybrid solutions conceivable? Here we advise our customers in detail about the advantages and disadvantages. In doing so, we can draw on practical experience as well as on evaluations from our permanent data analysis. Cost-benefit factors are also part of our ERP selection consulting at this stage.

We then define a focus criteria catalogue which is sent to potential providers. The evaluation of this focus criteria catalogue usually confirms our pre-selection from our ERP database.

The selection of a suitable ERP provider is an important preliminary stage for the qualification of a possible ERP solution. A multi-stage qualification process reduces the risk of selecting the wrong - not suitable - ERP software. We have sophisticated and proven assessment techniques, questionnaires and checklists in place. These are based on data analysis, statistics and probability calculations to reduce the risks of a wrong decision.

Parallel to and following the selections made on the basis of data analysis, presentations are started. A procedure which we call Proof of Concepts (PoC) enables individualised testing and scoring. Using your master data and process flows, we can downsize, test and evaluate the features and organisational support down to a single process. This ERP selection is traceable at any time, each decision step is documented and the selection is documented.

This means that we use a procedure in ERP selection in which the potential ERP systems have to prove their usability on the basis of your data and business models.

The contract drafting phase is an essential stage in which long-term agreements are fixed. This includes questions that have to be answered with the licence structure, the number of licences and questions about the subsequent purchase of possible licences or licence blocks.

The costs for operating the ERP system are also determined in this phase, often referred to as maintenance fees. There are many ways to define running costs during the operation of the ERP software and thus influence the ROI of the investment in an ERP system.

Based on our ERP selection, ERP consulting and ERP project management projects, we have a huge database of information on the strengths and weaknesses of the individual ERP software houses, the pricing and quotation of ERP projects. In addition, we have expert knowledge on what you need to pay attention to in contract management in order to keep the risks manageable. We always make this experience available in our projects. As your project manager, we can provide you with comprehensive support during the introduction of the ERP software up to acceptance and test management.