Loading...
Imagine an everyday shopping experience in the post-digital world. We are certain you’ll picture something along the lines of the customized shopping experience, digital wallets, virtual shopping carts, curbside pickup, etc.
Nowadays, if manufacturers and retailers wish to stay afloat, they must not ignore the digital channels. An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system or platform allows them to integrate all channels and touchpoints across the organization to achieve a unified source of truth. You can have a shared database that consolidates all facets, from finance to operations, retail, and human resources.
After implementing an ERP system, your business will become more agile. You’ll notice a significant increase in productivity and efficiency, and you’ll save on unnecessary costs and gain a long-lasting partnership with the vendor and professional technology partner.
The complete and successful implementation of ERP in an organization relies equally on people and technology. Businesses must take account of the challenges they might face while going through the process of implementing ERP systems. According to a report on ERP transformation by McKinsey, “75% of ERP transformations fail to stay within the set budget or schedule, and 66% have a negative return on investment.”
Let’s take a look at some of these pressing challenges.
From assessment to planning, development, migration, testing, deployment, and support, the ERP implementation plan consists of multiple steps. Organizations must leverage their effective project management skills, as each step has its critical tasks, which can’t be overlooked.
Moreover, this process requires attention from all the teams that will end up using the system. It is taxing to manage that with other already-set responsibilities. However, by setting realistic timelines and transparent communication between teams, you can achieve all the milestones of ERP implementation. Other than this, misaligned incentives don’t lead anywhere, so all the involved parties must share a common approach.
One of the many benefits of an ERP system is that it can act as a single, unified source of truth across the entire organization. Data migration is one of the crucial phases of this implementation. It entails moving the data from your legacy systems to the database of ERP. It is not as simple as it sounds, as the data is scattered across your organization, from the finance and accounting department to human resources, numerous spreadsheets, and multiple other department-specific systems.
If you wish to move forward with a smooth and seamless ERP implementation plan, a well-executed and thoroughly sought data migration is the key. While you are going through this phase, you can discard any redundant data hiding in your cabinets. Lack of attention to this phase results in challenges, such as duplication of data or migration of inaccurate data.
Now that you have located all the data sources, the next step when implementing ERP systems is sifting through that data. You’re likely sitting on the same data stored in different formats. Eventually, all departments across the organization are engaging with the same customers, and handling the same products and orders. There might be other inconsistencies as well. For instance, you might have duplicate documents just because the name or address of the customer was entered wrong.
Eradicating duplicates and verifying the data is a challenge in itself. Before you migrate the new data into the ERP systems, the data must be tested. Your team must acknowledge the imperativeness of data cleaning so that you can easily divide them department-wise. For instance, for a retail store, human resources will ensure the quality of data related to them, and so forth.
Through ERP, you can automate manual tasks, which increases the overall efficiency of the organization. However, it requires a complete mind-shift. An ERP implementation plan is more than a switch to new software. Some people find it hard to embrace a new way of things, especially when beneficial results are not apparent right away.
As mentioned earlier, the ERP implementation process has phases, and your team must understand all the potential obstacles throughout the journey. As the implementation advances, update your team on the status. Organize multiple training sessions in collaboration with the vendor, and have an open-door policy for your employees so that they can share their valuable feedback. All the stakeholders should be aware of the features and potential benefits.
ERP is not a one-time effort that allows you to sit comfortably once the phases are complete. With the ever-evolving technological landscape and customer demands, the ERP systems should be scalable and resilient enough to mitigate the challenges and satisfy business needs. Even after deployment, the updates must be carried out, and issues need to be fixed. Periodic updates are costly; therefore, you need a vendor that can guarantee maximum ROI.
Enterprise resource planning systems are usually implemented through a traditional on-premises or software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Vendors are responsible for the management of the software, while customers can easily access it via the cloud. Management, maintenance, and upgrading features are easier to do on cloud-based ERP systems.
Techvista Qatar leverages the powerful suite of Microsoft Dynamics 365 to automate your redundant business processes and boost operational agility. Dynamics 365, as your ERP platform, will act as a gateway to digital transformation – from finance to commerce, human resource, and business centre. With the help of Techvista Qatar, a Microsoft-approved partner, you can extend and modify the capabilities of this ERP platform.
To remove all the roadblocks from your ERP implementation plan and learn more about how Microsoft Dynamics 365 can leverage its best-in-class infrastructure and capabilities that will enhance your business operations, contact Techvista Qatar.
< Back to Top
Technology you can trust.
