5 Best Practices in ERP Vendor Selection for Manufacturers
Whether your company is implementing an ERP system for the first time, or replacing a legacy implementation, it’s critically important to make the right choice.
Whether your company is implementing an ERP system for the first time, or replacing a legacy implementation, it’s critically important to make the right choice.
Whether your existing ERP system is at the end of its lifespan, your vendor is sunsetting support for your current version, or you feel you’re not getting enough value from it, moving to a new ERP system is a big undertaking.
Food & Beverage companies — big, medium and small — are looking at modern ERP solutions to help them manage more effectively, streamline key functions and accelerate core processes.
Most Food & Beverage organizations start ERP selection with a list of the biggest and best-known names in the ERP software marketplace, then research features, functionalities and total cost of ownership, and then schedule multiple rounds of sales presentations and demos.
An aging ERP system is like a house or automobile in that the older it gets the more it needs to be maintained. And, like a house or car, at some point it makes sense to purchase a new one rather than continue to fix the old one.
The enterprise software selection process is a long and complicated process – for several good reasons. The solution you choose will affect the way you conduct business for years to come, and it will impact virtually every function. It’s a significant investment, even with today’s cloud-based packages.
Experiencing buyer’s remorse for a candy bar only affects one person. But choosing the wrong enterprise software can ripple through the entire organization – and result in huge extra costs.
Today, a holistic approach to ERP and regulatory requirements – using ERP tools and data to support compliance – is considered critical. And solutions have evolved to address controls and records of items, specifications, supply, manufacturing and quality/food safety.
Food and beverage manufacturers, processors, distributors and storage operators are challenged by today’s rigorous regulatory and quality requirements, complex information management demands and constantly changing mandates. Compliance is not optional.
Today’s IT departments increasingly leverage the cloud to deliver applications and services throughout the organization, as well as to customers and partners. In fact, last year Gartner reported that 40% of organizations in North America plan to spend the majority of new or additional funding on cloud technologies.