How do you achieve the business benefit
and ROI from your finance ERP?
The finance ERP needs to integrate into the wider finance landscape
Efficient end-to-end data and process design is critical
Integrated
end to end design
Tested well articulated requirements
Emulate upfront and
pre build
Fully engaged empowered
users
A new ERP is a major step in building the finance and data systems needed to drive the modern business forward. So why do so many ERPs reportedly fail, and how can we get it right.
1. Understand where your ERP sits
Lower cost, the adoption of best practice, and the promise of a transformed end state are all key benefits when moving to the cloud. It is important to realise that the finance ERP is however only one part of the wider finance landscape. Replacing the ERP takes you so far. To truly transform requires end to end analysis. Drop sequences need to be carefully planned. Phased roll outs may require the development of interim and throwaway work, and and elements of tactical work in anticipation of future, more strategic deliveries.
2. Wider finance and data landscape
ERPs are often implemented in isolation, as a first step to transformation. When designing the ERP it is important to avoid siloed and localised thinking. The temptation to fix everything in the one tool over burdens the ERP leading to sub-optimal design, lost opportunity to fix at source, downstream upgrade challenges, overly complex reporting and difficult to maintain data.
3. Engaged and empowered users
It is vitally important to engage users early on during the discovery and the design stage. Your business users are the experts. They know what is needed to drive the business forward. White boarding and conference room pilots take you so far, but there is no substitute hands on modelling using real data upfront. Too often users don't get their hands on the system until UAT, when it is simply too late or too difficult to make changes.
4. Get data and design right pre-build
With the best will and intention it is simply not possible to know or fully articulate all requirements upfront. No one can get everything right first time. With early engagement and the right tools to visualise and discover, users can journey through the full data path, consider and refine before requirements become baked and changes become difficult or impossible to make. Clear requirements then streamline build and test returning the initial investment in time to get it right up front.
5. Set clear definitive build requirements
Users need the tools to set unambiguously and well articulate design and requirements. This includes tangible examples of the data, codings and structures in a tech ready format. Emulated examples based on real business data double as test scripts providing a full range of expected results to fast track both build and test cycles.
6. Clear and easy access to reporting and data
Users often feel frustrated when getting their hands on the new system. Cloud reporting is complex. It requires specialist skills, can be difficult to navigate, and can feel slow and cumbersome. Filters can be difficult to set and often require an intimate knowledge of both data and structures. Cloud volumes are restricted, meaning users need to run multiple bite sized extracts and then load these into excel, before any sort of analysis can begin.
With Fullfatdata-reporting users get fast and easy access to all their financial detail, pre-loaded and conformed into an easy to use reporting tool, bypassing the need to run reports from the system.
7. User resistance and poor senior buy-in
A picture is worth a thousand words. If seeing is believing then touching and prototyping is absolute proof. Demoing the end state and giving users the power to what-if, emulate and own the outcomes means users engage, ultimately becoming the champions of the cause. Emulation is key, waiting until UAT to provide hands on access is an opportunity lost leading to a lack of ownership and resistance.