Measuring ERP Readiness Faster With Automation

For family-owned manufacturing and distribution companies, keeping the company growing in the right direction sometimes requires new or upgraded technology — but it always requires big shifts in thinking. That includes thinking about priorities, processes and even governance structures.

When you are considering a new or upgraded ERP solution, you have a lot of things to consider and decisions to make. That’s why measuring readiness is such an important early step in the process.

Getting to that next level of growth tomorrow starts with knowing where you’re at today.

Just as ERP technology continues to evolve, Syte Consulting Group has evolved how we guide our clients through the Measure & Assess phase of an ERP selection and implementation project.

In this report, you’ll learn the tools and processes we use in the early stages of an ERP project, and how they directly benefit family-owned manufacturing and distribution companies.

Putting the Horse Before the Cart: Why Measuring Readiness Matters

You wouldn’t attempt to run a marathon without being reasonably sure you could make it to the finish line, would you? Even before you begin training, though, you would assess where you are in terms of strength, stamina and mental fortitude. You would assess your readiness to run.

An ERP project is no different. Before you begin the ERP selection process, you need to know what your strengths are, what needs to be improved, what’s working and what’s not.

When we guide our clients through the Measure & Assess stage of an ERP project, we look at three specific areas: people, processes and technology.

People: Do you have the right people to fill key roles?

For a successful ERP selection and implementation, you’ll need an executive sponsor, a project manager, subject-matter experts, and a core team of functional experts, business analysts and technical analysts. It’s also important to know who will fill the post-implementation system expert role after launch so you’re not scrambling during this critical phase.

Process: Are your existing processes assessed and documented?

Your business processes are the workflows of your day-to-day operations. Surprisingly few manufacturing companies take the time to thoroughly document their processes. This leaves potential holes in their operations and allows broken processes to create costly inefficiencies.

The best ERP in the world will not fix broken processes. Mapping and documenting your existing processes, and assessing their effectiveness as you do so, are important steps toward better decision-making.

Once you know what processes you’re working with, and where you should focus on improving them, choosing the right ERP for the job becomes much easier.

Technology: What technology solutions do you already have in place, and how will they integrate with the new ERP?

When we guide our clients through this part of the readiness assessment, we look at five components:

1. Networking (including wireless) assessment and readiness
2. Infrastructure and integration readiness and preparation
3. Facilities preparation
4. Maintenance planning
5. Disaster recovery and business continuity planning

All of these areas of technology readiness need to be documented and planned for to make sure there are no expensive surprises during ERP implementation.

How Syte Uses Modern PMO Tools to Accelerate ERP Readiness Assessment

If that sounds like a lot to think about, you are right! But measuring your company’s ERP readiness ahead of selection and implementation will save you so much money, time and stress. When we are hired for an “ERP rescue project,” we almost always find that the company didn’t take these early steps. And now they’re having to pay double to fix a large-scale technology project gone sideways.

At Syte, our ERP consultants always try to make readiness assessments as painless and efficient as possible for our clients, because we know how overwhelming this step can feel. So when new PMO (project management organization) tools came on the market to automate and streamline some of this data-gathering, we jumped at the chance to use it with our clients.

Now we use online forms in Smartsheet to conduct two large assessments:

Business Transformation Assessment

We deliver this assessment to the executive team and senior leaders, and ask them all to answer the same set of strategic questions related to ERP readiness (the three areas of people, process and technology). What we’re trying to do is get multiple perspectives on the same subjects, which will reveal where people are and aren’t aligned. This makes it clear where we will need to work together to solve readiness gaps.

Here is a hypothetical example: The executive team thinks the company’s subject-matter experts (SMEs) can expand their capacity to play critical core team roles — but we discover that the SMEs themselves already feel stretched too thin. That tells us that we need to have conversations about overtime policies and expectations to make sure everyone is aligned. It also tells us that the company may need to consider bringing in additional resources to backfill people’s day jobs.

ERP Capabilities Assessment and Prioritization

During the Measure & Assess phase of an ERP project, we focus on the Core 4 ERP Processes: Order to Cash, Demand to Supply, Procure to Pay, and Finance to Manage. Instead of mapping these all from scratch, we begin by talking through these four processes with a broad group of SMEs.

As we do this, we identify the gaps between where the company is today and best practices for the business. This also helps us begin to understand where there are opportunities for improvement by leveraging out-of-the-box ERP functionality the company doesn’t have today.

Finally, we walk the client team through our online database of over 1,000 ERP capabilities, broken down by workstream, business process and sub-process. In this database — which is connected to our PMO system in Smartsheet — we note what the client’s systems are capable of doing today in order to capture the requirements for a minimum viable product. Then we note the capabilities the client does not have yet, and ask the team to rank them by priority.

This gap analysis approach with automation saves approximately 30 days of work for our clients and results in a clear list of requirements for ERP selection.

The Incredible Benefits We’re Seeing With Automation During the ERP Readiness Process

There are several benefits of automation in the early stages of an ERP project. Here are the ones that have made the biggest difference for Syte and our family-owned manufacturing clients.

1. Automated data collection replaces manual assessment

Manual assessments can be time-consuming and they’re prone to human error. By automating our data collection through online forms, we’ve streamlined the process, improved accuracy and consistency, and reduced the time it takes to assimilate results. This not only reduces the burden on our clients, but it also reduces the time our consultants spend (saving cost for the client).

When you’re engaged in a large project that requires people to have high-level strategic discussions, the last thing you want is to bog them down in data entry tasks.

2. Quick identification of major issues and “big rocks” in the current processes

Our online forms help us pinpoint challenges and inefficiencies much faster. The structured format keeps feedback topics aligned, and ensures our clients give us the insights we need before moving forward. By identifying the “big rocks” quickly, we can deal with critical issues head-on, before they become ERP showstoppers.

Simply put, early awareness of obstacles makes us more effective at planning and risk mitigation — so our clients can launch their new ERP faster and with much more confidence.

3. Easy to generate alignment reports and summaries

Gathering data is only the first step; presenting it in a clear and actionable way is equally important. With our online forms in Smartsheet, it’s seamless and easy to generate alignment reports and summaries. And when the data is organized into these more digestible formats, it’s easier for our client’s leadership team to see where there is alignment and where there are discrepancies.

These reports foster transparency and help everyone involved in the project start (and continue) on the same page.

4. Uncovering organizational gaps before ERP implementation

The success of an ERP implementation depends on a clear understanding of the organization’s existing structure, processes and pain points. Syte’s automated forms facilitate this by uncovering gaps in organizational workflows, communication channels and resource allocation that may otherwise go unnoticed.

Addressing these gaps early helps ensure a smoother ERP implementation and maximizes the value of the system from day one.

All of these things lead to massive time savings.

Leveraging the Time Savings

Our clients appreciate the time savings we’re able to create through our automations, because it means the ERP project will move faster. Our ERP consultants appreciate the time savings, too — but for different reasons.

When we save time up-front during the Measure & Assess phase of an ERP project, it means we have more time and energy to focus on what matters most to us: connection, collaboration and communication. These three things make a huge difference in how our team and our client’s team feel as the ERP project moves forward.

Intentional Automation Leads to Faster, Smoother ERP Implementation

For manufacturing and distribution companies, there are so many things to think about when it comes to selecting and implementing an ERP solution. At Syte, we use intentional automation to simplify the process of readiness assessment and building a requirements list. We help our clients lay the groundwork for the most successful and cost-effective ERP, while keeping everyone aligned and well-informed every step of the way.

If you’re considering a new or upgraded ERP solution, you can make the process simpler and much less stressful with a single phone call. Schedule a time to talk to us.

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