Drawing on our experience implementing solutions for hundreds of mid-market and enterprise organizations, has developed a proven approach to ensure that ERP deployments are completed on-time and on-budget. In this two-part series, our senior consultants share two proven strategies. These strategies can help your organization ensure the success of a new ERP implementation. Read Part 1 here
Part 2: Model Current and Future States to Get the Most from your Solution and Reduce TCO
In part 2 of our two-part series on strategies for effective ERP implementations, Western computer’s senior consultants document ways that modeling your business processes—in both their current state and the post-deployment state—can help you take advantage of the capabilities of your new ERP and reduce customizations that drive up initial deployment costs as well as TCO.
One of the risks in deploying a new ERP solution—especially a solution as easy to customize as —is that organizations are tempted to configure the software to reflect their current processes. While this seems like a safe approach, there are two significant drawbacks. First, it wastes an opportunity to introduce organizational efficiencies by re-engineering processes that could benefit from the automation or workflows built into the software. Second, it introduces software customizations that can be costly to develop and maintain, and that may complicate future software upgrades.
Carefully map business processes, in the current or “as-is” state, and then define a desired or future state that takes into account the capabilities of the new ERP solution. This will ensure that your ERP deployment supports meaningful business transformation while reducing total cost of ownership.
Combining our business and industry expertise and deep knowledge of Dynamics NAV, Western Computer can work with your organization to reconcile your business requirements with the capabilities of the software. Our process, based on Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step, applies industry best practices to the unique needs of your business, to introduce software-driven efficiencies and automation. This approach minimizes modifications and custom coding, keeping your systems as standard as possible. In term, this reduces the cost of ownership throughout the software lifecycle. And by involving key users to help model the processes and define the future state, we create champions of change that facilitate change management and ease adoption of the new solution.
While many vendors are willing to customize Dynamics NAV to reflect the current state of your business, this “safe” route may prove to be more expensive in the long run. It also may slow the transformation of your business. Your new ERP should be an opportunity for meaningful change. to learn how Dynamics NAV can provide a painless path to the future.
by Western Computer
