Life After ERP Implementation
Are you using your ERP System to its fullest advantage? Your company purchased the software, training and setup work was completed, and then it was turned on. A few years have gone by, and several updates have been made to the software. Some of the employees and even a few managers have come and gone. Few people in your department remember anything from the training, but you know the basics to get your day to day work done.
Once your new system is live – and you’ve used it for a while – you may have a whole new set of needs and workflows. Equally as important as having the best technology is knowing what it can do for your business, and using it to continuously improve. Your business is constantly evolving and improving. It’s beneficial for long-time software users to evaluate how they’re using their software to determine whether improvements can be made in their processes. Here are some things to consider as you evaluate your system.
- Is your staff doing manual tasks that can be automated?
- Are you getting the most out of your web cart?
- How fast can customers find your products?
- Have your employees reverted to old processes?
This leads to frustration – and the feeling you’re stuck with something that isn’t working for you. So often, we hear “Why didn’t anyone tell us the system could do this?”
Align efficiencies with your organization’s goals
Getting the most from your ERP system means exploring, testing, and implementing new procedures and functions that maximize throughput, maximize the use of your resources, and maximize growth.
To accomplish this, you must fully understand how the system works today in your organization, as well as other ways it can potentially be configured to be used more effectively. This becomes especially important when new versions of the system become available because they include new capabilities or improvements to existing functionality.
It can be overwhelming to figure out a change strategy. Completing Annual Implementation Audits of your system and procedures can refresh the relationship between your system and your procedures. It can identify what you need, what you want, resolve annoyances, and answer questions about new features that can solve problems. Implementation Audits commonly reveal shortcuts that were not being used, and often find processes being done manually when your software could be doing them for you. You can identify functions, features, or optional modules that are not being used at all because nobody knew they existed. At this time, users and managers can attend refresher training sessions, keeping the knowledge and support of your ERP system in the hands of qualified users.
When was your last Annual Implementation Audit? When it’s time to re-align your ERP system with your processes, give us a call. Morse Data is committed to Change Management and Continuous Process Improvement. Changes can get out of line, but we can help get your ducks InOrder.
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