A few tips and reminders when looking for a new system.
What are the selection criteria?
Having established the need, you can usually define what functionality you need from your new system, (be that ERP or CRM or indeed any business system).
In my experience however, the “System Requirements” are reflective of a functionality specification and all too often miss the equally important criteria around “Customer Success”. Will the supplier go the extra mile to ensure you are using the system to the best of its ability?
These questions need to be addressed during selection stage, but they are so often an afterthought when it is discovered that training and change management haven’t been buttoned down. The other key component swept under the proverbial carpet is data. How many demonstrations have we all witnessed where integration and clean data is merely glossed over – the assumptive close that all will be fine.
Newer systems have open API’s and so integrations have indeed become easier, but they are not a given. Is it a one-way integration, or two-way and are there custom fields or what takes priority on updates? Best practice suggests that ERP roll-out or new system integration have common threads from the largest to the smallest – the importance of clean data and a process flow for data.
The simplest process of moving data through a workflow can be littered with errors. We recently moved from Freshworks to Zoho only to find that the exported data was a complete mess. You would have thought we would know better! But mismatched rows and columns, across nearly 4 thousand contacts, and a painful weekend lay ahead, of sorting the data before forging ahead.
Data “out” is only as good as the data “in” and frankly mine was a mess and it is symptomatic of every system change, micro-project, or ERP implementation. No matter how large of small the project the elements for success are the same.
• Functionality is important but it is not the be-all end.
• Customer Success needs to be thoroughly investigated.
• Personalities are important and will you get the A team throughout or be downgraded to working with the B Team on deployment?
• A third-party project manager can bring independent calm.
• Define what success looks like and measure before you start.
• Drill down on data, integration and connection points between systems and processes.
• Get social proof; take up references, talk to friends and colleagues.
• Think laterally when constructing you KPI’s and be open minded.