Every company wants to use reliable software which is tailored for their business needs. It also helps if the software is user-friendly, responsive and looks and feels nice.
But the reality is a little bit different. Most of the ERP vendors are selling the software which is trying to fit each and every business case. To be frank, that is incredibly hard to achieve (I won't use the word impossible), and that kind of approach oftentimes results in programs that look like space shuttle dashboards, have dozens of input fields, for many of which users don't even know what they represent. Working in such programs requires extensive education and training. Management reports are usually out-of-date and it takes 100 clicks to get to a piece of information. Putting it mildly, user experience is not very good. Does any of this sound familiar to you?
When the level of frustration becomes really high, the idea of changing the ERP software kicks in. This is where the real pain starts. First you have some meetings with different vendors. Then you get an idea which way you would like to go, followed by more meetings. Eventually you may make your decision. Then you come to realization that the migration is going to cost a fortune and that you will have to sacrifice a lot of productive hours from many of your top people from many departments. More often than not, you will realize that you need to adjust your business processes just to be able to use the new software. Such migrations usually take many months, and if the goals and expectations are not clearly set, even years.
Take Lidl for example. They were trying to implement SAP, and having spent 500 mil Euros (!) and seven years, they decided to ditch the whole project. Did Lidl run out of resources? Did SAP forget how to produce and implement software? I highly doubt that.
Even if everything goes more or less fine, facing a strong resistance from within your own organization is inevitable. Let's face it, people hate change. Someone from warehouse department will say something like "I do not need that" and someone from accounting might say "the old program worked just fine". But do not fear the struggle, I am not here to discourage you. :)
The moral of the story is that in such situations you might want to reconsider your options. If the ERP software works more or less fine (the numbers are correct and it just works), perhaps the way to go is to integrate it with some modern solutions that are oriented on business processes and are user-centric. Such approach can be much more affordable, eats up significantly less resources and causes less drama. You can live a happier life and concentrate on what you do best: YOUR OWN BUSINESS.
