Over the past 24 years of conducting Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) evaluation and selection projects, RJMC has frequently been asked for the “templates” and other process documents that we use to support our successful ERP projects.

Well, you no longer have to wait to learn how to manage your ERP Evaluation, Selection, and Implementation project.  We are now offering a “Live” on-site One-Day ERP Workshop that will teach your team to perform the steps necessary to ensure success when embarking upon this mission critical project.

During the RJMC One-Day ERP Workshop, we will teach you how to . . .

• Identify the unique strengths and shortcoming in your current systems
• Identify system requirements that are key to the on-going success of your business
• Differentiate between “Desires” and “Needs” and why this is an important distinction when selecting a new system
• Define the appropriate scope for your future ERP system
• Narrow the field of solutions alternatives to those that align best with your company needs and budget
• Manage vendor fact-finding sessions
• Prepare a document that you can share with solution providers to obtain a meaningful proposal
• Conduct a software solution demonstration that contributes to your decision-making process
• Review a software license and consulting services agreement properly
• Build a effective implementation project team
• Plan for your ERP implementation by setting realistic scope, timing, and budgetary expectations

This on-site Workshop will provide your whole team with an opportunity to ask questions during the Workshop and RJMC resources will also be available for the following 30 days to respond to any general questions regarding the Evaluation and Selection process discussed during the Workshop!

RJMC represents the best interests of our mid-market clients and assists them in finding the right ERP solution at the right price.  Your ERP project will ultimately change your key business processes to improve your operations, reduce your costs, and support your on-going success.  Let RJMC show you some of our magic so that your company can plan for this significant activity.

Contact us at 310-445-5300 to schedule a time for your Workshop!

Rubenstein / Justman Management Consultants (RJMC) is a management consulting firm that supports business process change and prides it on the strong relationships it has established with its many clients over the past 24 years.  RJMC is vendor and solution independent and does not sell hardware or software or perform system implementations.  Visit www.RJMC.net to better understand the scope of RJMC services.

Rubenstein / Justman Management Consultants

June 10, 2010

Functional business users and the Information Technology department often find themselves in a love / hate relationship.  Over the past several years, as we have guided a variety of mid-market companies in assessing or changing their current systems, we see that this relationship between users and IT is changing for the better.  Today, management teams that once found themselves reliant upon a few key IT professionals to support day to day operations are beginning to regain a refreshing level of systems independence.

Similarly, business users who verbally expressed their frustration in having to work with their IT departments to enhance system functionality or to access their data are gaining control over their own destiny because they are becoming more involved in taking steps to satisfy their own system needs with less and less IT involvement.  Is your company ready for this revolution?

What has contributed to this change and wave of boldness by system users?  In days gone by, users would often be intimidated to approach staff members who had the word “Information Technology” or “Information Systems” linked to their name.  Many of the functional business users of today are beginning to step forward.  What has contributed to their willingness to take on the IT establishment?  Here are a few reasons.

1. Much of the Mystery is Gone

The ever expanding use of smart phones, netbooks, and iThings has given many business users a level of confidence that they did not have even 5 years ago.  And although this comfort level with technology is more predominant with the under 30 crowd, even those of us that grew up in the MIS era are using smart phones and feeling more comfortable using digital devices and pivot tables.  So today, there is a growing reluctance and intolerance to wait months for a software change or a custom report.  Just give them the tools, and many functional business users will find a way to satisfy their own system needs.

2. Employee Turnover Raises Expectations

Much of our consulting time is spent analyzing a company’s legacy system for the purpose of identifying and recommending opportunities for change.  These organizations are often characterized by “Lifers” that have grown-up with the existing legacy system and the extent of their system knowledge goes no further.  As a company experiences employee turnover, either naturally or as the result of layoffs, it is highly probable that the next wave of employees will arrive with a new set of expectations that will go beyond “green screens” and “function keys”.  Companies need to be prepared to provide improved tools for these new employees.

3. Newer ERP System Speak in terms of System Functionality not Bits and Bytes

Today, state-of-the-art enterprise systems speak to users through easy to navigate web browsers that provide for user personalization, click-of-a-button data exports to Excel, real-time business intelligence, and user-friendly report writers.  Even during the implementation of a new ERP solution, the focus is on the functional users to define, with the assistance of a system integrator, the new system design that will support business operations.  This is often not a comfortable role for internal IT.  They remain important to the success of the implementation, but primarily by providing a reliable technology platform and assisting with data conversion activities.  Successful ERP implementations are typically an 80% functional and 20% technical effort.

4. Analytics is Providing a New View

ERP systems of yesteryear were highly oriented to taking an order and recording historical events.  Standard reports typically consisted of static views of data that would have to be re-keyed into a spreadsheet to expose the meaning of the data or to make it presentable.  The role of IT in this environment involved programming a custom report and staging or refreshing the data as of a point in time.

Today, off-the-shelf business intelligence solutions and most of the leading ERP software packages provide functional users with real-time access to their data so that it can be visually presented to support a decision-making process.   The role of IT in this environment is frequently limited to the initial process of building the appropriate data relationships so that the functional users can view and analyze the data that best addresses the needs of their decision-making process.

So what does this mean in the world of business users and information technology?  It means that the role of IT is becoming more directed to such matters as building reliable infrastructure, optimizing network communications and ensuring database security and integrity – all critical responsibilities within the organization.  As companies continue to introduce new, full-featured, integrated solutions, IT staff may no longer retain the level of functional knowledge that they have today.  That knowledge will instead reside where it best belongs, with management and the key functional business users who will once again become captains of their own ship.

Rubenstein / Justman Management Consultants (RJMC) is a management consulting firm that prides it on the strong relationships it has established with its many clients over the past 24 years.  RJMC is vendor and solution independent and does not sell hardware or software or perform system implementations.  Visit www.RJMC.net to better understand the scope of RJMC services.

1. Define your business needs by sitting down with all of the business areas that will be affected by the new system. Your business requirements need to be defined prior to starting the software selection process.
2. Establish a realistic budget for the project so that you can pre-qualify vendor solutions that should be evaluated.  Check out the RJMC ERP Calculator to help you determine your budget.
3. With the needs of stakeholders in mind, determine what features and functions you need as opposed to those that you want.
4. Don’t let your people get locked in to the way they do their jobs today. Prepare your staff to evaluate based on how the new software could work for them, rather than how it differs from today’s procedures.
5. Secure upper management buy-in before you start the selection project. Without this buy-in, your project will stall.
6. Ensure that your selection project has a Beginning, Middle, and an End. Your project team needs to know where the project is headed and how long it will take to get there.
7. Evaluate the system integrators that will be responsible for making the software work for your company. A selection process that results in the “right” software must also be implemented by the “right” system integrator. A very important secret to success!

Invite RJMC in to work with your company to take maximum advantage of the RJMC expertise that led to the Seven Secrets of Successful System Selections.

As larger software providers continue to gobble up smaller firms, it is more important than ever to have an informed perspective on what these large solutions offer as compared to the value that smaller but often-times no less robust packages can provide to your business. RJMC will help you match your business needs with these offerings – the key to success in any selection project!

Call us to learn more at (310) 445 -5300.

Answer: This question comes from Rich in Los Angeles. Thanks, Rich, for your question.

First, some definitions. A hosted Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system means that the system’s software physically resides on servers that are outside of your company’s physical infrastructure. Hosting also typically means that an outside party is managing and maintaining the database and code on which the ERP system runs. The more traditional method for setting up and managing an ERP system has always been to manage the system with company employees maintaining servers that reside within the company’s headquarters or other locations.

Hosting an ERP system provides some line-item cost savings by requiring little or no “on premise” hardware and by reducing the staff necessary to maintain both the hardware and the software. The hosting service, though, adds a new cost to the IT budget – and this cost can be substantial. In addition, this cost never goes away.

The persistence of the monthly hosting charge means that in the course of the first three years or so, a company that is hosting its ERP system has spent more for hosting than it would have laid out for a hardware purchase. This all by itself does not indicate whether hosting was a good or bad decision, however. The company has, after all, been saving on its staffing costs all of that time.

In addition to cost savings – or additional costs incurred – with hosting, there is the concern of whether managing an ERP system is the type of skill that this company wants to build and nurture while spending money recruiting, hiring, training the staff necessary to manage the system. If the company is a manufacturer, couldn’t these IT dollars be more wisely spent on IT staff who specialize in productivity-enhancing software tools for the shop floor or managing product design and lifecycle systems for the company’s critical engineering function? In other words, if large-system IT management is not a core competency, then why not let an outside expert do the job?

RJMC finds that companies with a lean IT staff often find hosting to be a solid option. This allows the company to maintain its focus on its core functions and its competitors, without worrying about whether the back-end system is up and running.

Companies with a large existing IT infrastructure are less likely to find the higher long-term costs of hosting to be an acceptable trade-off. These companies have the resources to recruit and train adequate resources to support an on-premise system and will not want to give up the agility that this sort of in-house skill can provide.