Business Process Assessment: Keeping Your ERP Implementation on Track

Many manufacturing organizations think that assessing their business processes is a one-and-done task — and that the timing is negotiable, as long as it gets done.

But I can tell you from experience that timing makes all the difference.

In this post, I want to talk about how a solid business process assessment lays the foundation for ERP implementation success. I’m also going to share how it works within the three-step “Discover, Define, Deliver” framework that we use to help our clients plan and implement new ERP solutions.

A Business Process Assessment Steers the Journey

A new ERP implementation is a lot like a cross-country trek. You need to assemble your resources first, then plan your journey, and finally travel a far distance with your resources and plan supporting you. If you put in the right effort up front, you’re in for a much smoother and more enjoyable ride.

Start Where You’re At

The “Discover” phase of our three-part framework is where we identify where you are currently, and where you want to go. Mapping out your existing business processes is an integral part of this initial step, as it helps you build an accurate picture of the workflows that govern your day-to-day operations.

In my experience, individual team members and managers usually have a pretty good sense of their own processes — they know what their workflows look like, who is responsible for what pieces, the inputs and outputs at each step — but it’s rare that any one person has the whole picture.

When you do a thorough business process assessment, you bring all of that intelligence together and get a detailed, holistic view of your operations. It also gives you a chance to identify areas for improvement — bottlenecks, cumbersome or error-prone manual processes — and address (rather than repeat) them in your ERP implementation.

Think of it like planning that cross-country trek: You can’t map out the path to your destination unless you know your starting point.

Decide How to Get to Your Destination

Once you know where you are and where you want to go, you need to create a plan for how to get there. This is the “Define” phase of our framework, where the goal is to develop a comprehensive roadmap that’s going to help you achieve your goals, with maximum return on investment.

Your process assessment is one of your best assets here. Obviously, you’ll have business priorities based on budget, human resources, and operational requirements. But when you have a solid understanding of your business-critical processes, you will also see what has to be in place in the first iteration of your ERP implementation, and what areas of the business will be most impacted.

Your roadmap is like a travel itinerary. You know your destination, and you know the major landmarks you want to hit along the way. You might take a big leap forward initially, but then take your time on the final leg, making shorter stops or adjustments along the way.

Hit the Open Road

Now it’s time to put your plan into action. This is the “Deliver” phase of our ERP implementation framework, and it’s where the rubber meets the road. You know who’s in the car with you, where you’re going, and what it’ll look like when you get there.

Of course, in the real world, things rarely go entirely as planned — but your process assessment will help you navigate around unexpected obstacles and mitigate implementation risks.

For example, your ERP roadmap might stipulate no software customization during Phase I of the implementation, but then you discover that a key process requires additional code or it will be rendered cumbersome or even non-functional. So you make an informed decision to adjust the implementation tasks and timelines a bit so the necessary software modifications can be developed and tested.

In the road trip analogy, your process assessment can help you decide when you need to take a detour (adding cost intentionally) to ensure that you arrive at your destination intact. You’re more able to confidently take a side road, then jump back on the main highway, on track to your final destination.

Cutting Corners Can Keep You Going in Circles 

Doing your process assessment up front is critical to ensuring your roadmap gets you to your destination via the most efficient roads and highways.

Let me give you a real-life example. Some years back, we helped a mid-market manufacturing company with a new ERP implementation. Like many organizations in a similar position, they were looking for ways to save money and bring in the schedule — so they opted to go ahead without doing a proper process assessment at the outset.

Unfortunately, they paid the price for it in both time and money.

In the absence of a detailed process assessment, they stumbled through the implementation. They’d move ahead, and then discover that they were missing information about an important business process in their initial plan, so they’d have to backtrack to address the gap before proceeding. This happened over and over — two steps forward, one step back.

Eventually, they got their ERP solution off the ground, but there was a lingering uncertainty about whether they were still missing something. Watch this video to get the whole story …

A process assessment is the starting point for your journey to a new ERP implementation. If you try to shoehorn it into the implementation phase at the end, you’re in for some big headaches and costly half measures.

Slow Down to Go Faster

When you take the time to conduct a meaningful discovery of where you’re at, you can define a detailed roadmap to your destination — and take 80% of the guesswork out of your delivery.

That translates directly into shorter timelines, lower costs, and less stress on your team.

Are you planning an ERP implementation for your manufacturing business? Don’t miss this critical step! We’d love to help you map out your current business processes and set you up for success. Schedule your complimentary consultation right here.