5 Reasons ERP Projects Fail and How to Prevent Them

Choosing to adopt an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution is a significant decision for growing businesses. The rewards for implementing enterprise technology to replace a legacy system are numerous. The right ERP solution and partner will remove barriers to growth and efficiency. However, some companies, fearing project failure, delay their move to ERP.

Here are the five reasons ERP projects fail and ways to mitigate risk when you decide it’s time for a new business management solution.

1. Executive support – The president and C-level executives must support adopting a new solution and make it clear they expect everyone’s cooperation. Although ERP adoption presents a substantial change, it will be a positive change if everyone at the company understands the technology’s potential. It's important to stress how ERP will save time, increase efficiencies, and make jobs easier.
2. Executive decisions – To keep the project moving, an executive (or executives) must be involved to make certain critical decisions. The right ERP partner will ensure reporting at regular intervals with executives to provide ample opportunity to adjust the course if necessary.
3. Blueprinting – You can compare a successful ERP implementation to the foundation of a house. Rushing and not setting it evenly creates a cracked, unlevel surface. Similarly, processes, reporting, etc. built on a bad ERP foundation will lead to trouble later. While there’s no industry standard for business process mapping, an ERP partner will include blueprinting steps to keep the solution aligned with your process needs.
4. User acceptance testing (UAT) – Failing to test reporting queries makes it difficult to catch problems and bugs. Users need to look for unusual operations of the system to ensure the intended functions will hold up in situations users are likely to encounter in the day to day work. After UAT, failure to implement internal training mechanisms can equal a lower user adoption rate. Choosing a partner with dedicated customer support post go-live is an effective way to ensure a better understanding of the ERP solution and higher user-acceptance.
5. Project scope definition – After the project scope is outlined, adding new functionality post-blueprinting increases the budget and extends the deadlines for go-live. This increases the risk of missing opportunities, so choose a partner who provides a comprehensive business process review to ensure your business considers all angles.

How to Limit Risk During Your ERP Implementation

The best way to ensure a successful ERP implementation is to partner with an experienced IT professional services consultancy. When moving to an ERP solution, an experienced implementation partner provides project managers, senior software developers, and implementation consultants to help coordinate and implement the ERP solution. The partner ensures the alignment of technology with your business's ERP goals.

You’re putting your business in their hands, so choose a partner who understands your business, financial processes, and chosen ERP solution.

To learn more about how you can mitigate ERP project implementation risks and ensure a successful ERP implementation, access the Vision33 Beginner's Guide to ERP.

Learn More in the Beginner’s Guide to ERP

For fast-growing businesses, the time to shift from small business accounting software (e.g. QuickBooks) to an ERP platform may already be upon you. But how do you know for sure and where do you begin sorting through your options?

These are challenging and often complicated questions to answer, and in most cases, the available resources online don’t clarify anything. For that reason, we consolidated all our early stage ERP resources in one place. Access our Beginner's Guide to ERP below!