ERP Consultancy and Training

Enterprise Resource Planning systems are built since the 1980s. Since that period numerous changes have occurred in hardware, software development tools and network / internet availability. Working in ERP environments since 1998 I have seen a lot of these changes. Hardware and data storage has grown, Software tools were simplified and now everybody has full time access to internet and published applications.

ERP systems still have the same objective: support the business process and reporting in a production environment. ERP is the tool to optimize the organization process and at the same time collect data for progress reporting and financial reporting.

Consultancy

As a consultant I have worked in projects to do ERP selections, implement ERP and optimize business processes supported with ERP systems.

In ERP selection it is important to find the partner and systems that fits the organization. Most ERP systems will be able to support the standard primary processes in the organization. The real distinguishers are, Cost of Ownership, Technology and Flexibility of the system. Cost of Ownership are the costs of hardware, application management. Also the possibility to be able to install solution patches, solution for new legal requirements or upgrade to newer versions with minimal effort and costs. Technology is changing fast and needs to be followed up with. Interfacing technologies with external applications should use new technologies and new, younger, users have another view on business applications than users had 10-20 years ago. Flexibility is needed in ERP systems to follow up with business requirement or requirements from customers, it should be possible to easily add data structures and functionality without losing the grip on Cost of Ownership or Technology.

Training

New systems need to be user friendly and intuitive. Training is needed to teach users on the business processes where the business application supports the process. Training is also needed on maintenance of the application and development off extensions.

Project Management

Implementing an ERP system is team effort of user from the organization and consultants knowing the system and processes. Setting up a project, scoping, planning and progress reporting is a key success factor of the implementation of the application. During the project Cost of Ownership, available Technology and system’s flexibility need careful monitoring.