What is ERP?
– a 1 hour introduction to enterprise resource planning
ERP is an acronym for Enterprise Resource Planning system, and this an umbrella term for the systems that handle core processes like finance, sales, manufacturing and inventory.
Large ERP systems today are so extremely broad that they can almost handle any process, but still our customers often choose another system they consider a better fit to handle certain processes, despite the available module in their ERP system.
Below video gives a great overview of what an ERP system is, what a typical ERP implementation process looks like and the key challenges:
How to choose an ERP system
Choosing the right ERP system is crucial to gain competitive advantage and therefore it must be based on thorough analysis of the company combined with great knowledge of the available products in the market.
The freelance experts related to Right People Group have the important quality of being independent of commercial interest of what the customer actually ends up choosing. It sounds obvious that you should not select a vendor with commercial interests for such a task, but we often see vendors handling these projects that either have a strong interest in a certain software being chosen or a strong interest in a high amount of customization to be done.
Below video gives an introduction to the factors that should be considered when selecting an ERP platform:
How to orchestrate a successful ERP implementation
ERP systems are heavily integrated with business processes and therefore implementing an ERP system is a strong interference in how people actually do their job.
This is also one of the key reasons why it is hard to make a successful ERP implementation. The entire change management process is extremely important. In general, we see that many companies underestimate what is actually required from their organisation even though they have bought a vendor to deliver the ERP implementation.
Right People Group’s freelance model is very suited for providing ERP project managers that can support the customer in ensuring that this is handled well. The ERP project manager then both manages the deliveries of the internal organisation as well as the deliveries of the ERP vendor. In these projects, it is key to have experience with a large amount of similar ERP projects as this makes the project manager capable of proactively handling the key risks of the ERP implementation.
The below video gives a good introduction to what it takes to be successful with an ERP implementation:
Oracle, SAP and Microsoft – the key ERP vendors for enterprise companies
Oracle, SAP and Microsoft are the dominant suppliers of ERP systems to enterprise companies. In Europe and especially in Scandinavia, Oracle has a rather weak position compared to Microsoft and SAP.
This video gives an introduction to the global market situation for these 3 players:
Dynamics NAV and Dynamics AX
Dynamics NAV and Dynamics AX are very popular in Europe and especially in Scandinavia. For both Dynamics NAV and Dynamics AX, Right People Group have had great success with delivering strong developers that also have a profound business understanding. This enables them to both communicate with the business and directly do the according customizations or integrations in the ERP system.
The bigger and more customized a solution gets, the harder it becomes to find consultants that can work in such a very broad role – but when it is possible, then it is an amazing solution for the customer.
The below video gives and introduction to ERP systems Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Dynamics AX:
Dynamics 365 – cloud based mix of ERP and CRM
Dynamics 365 is a cloud based ERP and CRM system from Microsoft released in late 2016. Below is a short introduction:
SAP
SAP is a huge ERP system and very popular among the largest companies in the world. On the consultant side we see that the consultants and developers are much more specialized than in the MS Dynamics world. This means that a developer is normally only qualified to handle one or maybe two different modules. Below is a list of the core modules in SAP that you need to know:
- FI: Financial Accounting
- CO: Controlling
- AA: Asset Accounting
- SD: Sales & Distribution
- MM: Material Management
- PP: Product Planning
- QM: Quality Management
- PS: Project System
- PM: Plant Maintenance
- HCM: Human Capital Management (or SAP HR for earlier versions)
SAP HANA Cloud Platform
SAP HANA is SAP’s cloud based solution and we see in general that most of our enterprise customers using SAP have started using the HANA platform to some extent.
Cloud based vs. on premises ERP
All ERP vendors today have a cloud-based solution, and in general the market is going towards more and more solutions being cloud-based.
Today, there here is a clear tendency for small and medium sized companies to go for a cloud-based ERP solution.
Enterprise companies have larger economies of scale in their own IT operation as well as much more complexity which makes the choice harder.
Below video gives detailed insight in what parameters to consider in this matter. The video is not new, so the cloud-based ERP products have become much stronger since then, but the parameters to consider are still the same:
Use standard ERP or customize the solution?
This is a classic debate, and it requires strong management to adapt an organisation to new processes, instead of adapting the system to support the existing processes.
This article gives a quick overview of some of the parameters to consider in this matter:
https://www.panorama-consulting.com/the-case-for-and-against-erp-customization/
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