ERP consultant/systems analyst/advisor for SME
Discussion
We don't have the knowledge or experience in-house to trawl through the plethora of ERP solutions available. We're out-growing our current systems but struggling to find suitable replacements.
Pretty confident SAP, MS Dynamics, etc are 'too big' for us. We don't have the manpower, know-how or experience to properly specify a ground-up solution, and our industry/competitors is littered with expensive failures from the big boys.
Can you recommend any independent consultants or analysts please?
Briefly, we are a small limited company with a wide range of products and services, c. £50m turnover, 300 employess and 12 branches. All 'business to business'; selling industrial supplies, tools, fasteners, PPE as well as engineering, manufacturing and fabricating in many areas, primarily GSE and construction.
Any help or advice gratefully received.
Pretty confident SAP, MS Dynamics, etc are 'too big' for us. We don't have the manpower, know-how or experience to properly specify a ground-up solution, and our industry/competitors is littered with expensive failures from the big boys.
Can you recommend any independent consultants or analysts please?
Briefly, we are a small limited company with a wide range of products and services, c. £50m turnover, 300 employess and 12 branches. All 'business to business'; selling industrial supplies, tools, fasteners, PPE as well as engineering, manufacturing and fabricating in many areas, primarily GSE and construction.
Any help or advice gratefully received.
Not my area of expertise but MS Dynamics would definitely not be too big for you and MS are also introducing a 'Lite' version (US only atm but coming the to UK soon). Talk to Cameron Davis at TVision on 01483 751 888, they advise on ERP and are MS Gold Partner for their ERP NAV systems.
Bear in mind MD Dynamics includes Dynamics AX (big) and Dynamics Nav (not so big)...previously Axapta and Navision. Both now available as cloud solutions as Dynamics 365 Enterprise and Dynamics 363 for Financials...which is Medusa rather than actual Nav...but let's not go there.
But first, I've worked in the IT sector for over 35 years and although at director level (not powerfully built) for many of those, I've always been 'hands on'. I've worked with Microsoft Dynamics AX since 2001 and have implemented it in businesses from 20 to 1000 users; and in a pre-sales capacity have presented and sold it to business of all sizes. So I wouldn't let the 'size' put you off...oh, er missus; so long as you can justify the cost. Plus, I'm just about to strike out on my own as an independent AX consultant in the New Year after far too long in the corporate community. But that's another story.
So what I'm taking issue with is the idea of 'properly specifying' a solution. Back in the mists of time (and I started on punched cards!) folks would specify their own solution and have it developed for them. Roll forward a few decades to where we have some pretty sophisticated ERP solutions, and many folks still hold out looking for systems that 'do it their way'. And when not surprisingly there's nothing that exactly matches, they state their requirements and get something written/modified. Of course their business is totally different in the way it operates to every other business in the same sector, and they all operate different too. It's what makes them unique. Only it isn't. What makes them unique might be customer service, or product range, or something else...but rarely how they invoice-match a purchase order or whatever,
The biggest risk to budgets and timescales, and ultimately the success of a project is getting bespoke work done. Nowadays it really has to be a last resort. And in financial terms it won't be unusual to spend 25% PA as software licences, so that £10K adaptation gets paid for again every 4 years, and it probably costs you 50%-75% of the original development costs to have it migrated to the next version...say every 3 years.
So I'm preaching a whole new strategy (as are many in the market). Adapt your business to fit your chosen software solution - don't adapt the software. I accept that is diametrically opposed advice to what would have been pitched 10 years ago, but too many folks have had their fingers burnt. That doesn't take the pain away of choosing a system, but it puts a different perspective on it.
It's a motoring forum, so lets look at this in terms of cars. Many years ago in the automotive industry (so equivalent to a few decades ago in IT) you could order a chassis, pick a motor and have whatever body you wanted built. Only it was horrendously expensive. So now manufacturers offer a number of models with options, and folks adapt to what's available. Sure you might have loved the floor-mounted dip-switch and mechanical hand brake...but you adapt to a column switch and a nasty electric handbrake because that's what's on offer and it works well enough. But you still hate that electric handbrake!
So you clearly can't forget what your business does nor how it does it, but you need to leave any baggage of 'the new system has to do it this way' behind. Ergo the idea of 'specifying' a new system should be consigned to history. Instead the first step is to document all of the business processes you have. Not to any great detail, but you need to define the scope of the system. Now armed with these business processes you need to see and have demonstrated how various solutions handle your business processes. So you issue these processes to a number of partners/vendors and say 'show me' (and give them time to prepare!). Now we're talking high-level here as you need to be opened minded. So you don't need to prescribe every single step and keypress - just the steps that are important to you. Then be open-minded about how each solution addresses the process. The question you're asking yourself is ' could we work with that?'.
There are very few truly independent consultants about; most will have favourites. I'm really not sure of the value of a consultant in a pre-sales situation. I've been presenting software solutions when consultants have got involved for 30 years, and I'm hard pressed to think of any occasion when the consultant was truly independent. And in too many cases I know the customer was not recommended the best solution due to the preferences or knowledge of the consultant involved; and that's worked both ways for us. Now getting a constant that is a specialist in a particular solution to help advise how that solution would work for you is a great idea (and I can help if you end up looking at Dynamics AX/Dynamics 365 Enterprise), and once you start deployment it's great to have a consultant on-board as a bridge between you and the delivery partner; it keeps the partner on their toes and ultimately cuts your costs.
But in my view, you're probably best to engage with the vendors/partners directly, at least initially. There's no hidden agendas - each will want to sell their own solution and will try to present the best match against your requirements (the business processes you've just documented. right). And they'll present their solutions at their cost. Yes, you will engage with salesmen, but that will at least raise the issues of budget and timescale early on. And very early on you have to ask for references in your line of business on the solution being proposed. There are enough partners out there that if they don't have referenceability in your sector, find another. Many will withhold references 'until you show commitment'; always seems a cop-put to me. I'd want the partner or software vendor to justify their inclusion in your short-list by demonstrating domain experience.
Understand the difference licence models. Some vendors are still selling software licences and an annual maintenance contract; others are SAAS (Software as a Service) models i.e. you pay monthly for the licences/users/data/whatever you consume. SAAS (which is where Microsoft are certainly going) will often look the more expensive option, but you need to them remember you're no longer paying for (and periodically upgrading) server hardware, operating systems, databases and/or having 'IT specialists' of a certain level in-house. Personally, I think Clould is the future...but the business case has to make sense; you really do have to work out all of the system lifecycle costs (including version upgrades etc).
And the other thing in terms of system lifecycle is to make a call where all this is going. Folks used to say a system was in for 10 years; then it was 15. Now the whole model is changing and there is the expectation that customers will migrate far more frequently but in smaller increments. It's moving (or trying to move) to a bit like a mobile phone where you just get served incremental updates, rather than keeping the phone that you bought 'as is' for a number of years and then junking it to get a new one. So this means the 'brand' you end up with now is far more likely to be with you for decades to come as it gets incrementally upgraded (assuming it does, but that's another issue).
And with multiple devices (we're seeing some employees now wanting to use their own devices - phones/tablets to access corporate ERP), apps, Internet of Things etc things aren't slowing down. So I'd be very wary now of engaging with any business or solution who isn't throwing bucket loads of cash at software development and can show a robust roadmap. So to me, that means the days of the smaller software house with their own unique solutions have gone. Not so dismiss the smaller businesses doing vertical add-ons to global solutions, but other than that I'd be looking at the global players like Microsoft (AX and NAV), SAP, Oracle, Infor, Epicor, Sage X3, NetSuite etc., bearing in mind some sell through a partner channel, others direct. And given my own heritage and prejudices, I would say the Microsoft solutions have a better business case than the rest...but I cannot comment on closeness of match against your requirements since I don't know them. And if I'm really showing my own preferences, for a shortlist of 5 I'd be maybe looking at just AX, Nav, Infor, Sage and NetSuite. Others will, of course, think differently,
/End of ramblings.
If you do want to discuss any of the above, drop me an email.
LordGrover said:
Pretty confident SAP, MS Dynamics, etc are 'too big' for us. We don't have the manpower, know-how or experience to properly specify a ground-up solution, and our industry/competitors is littered with expensive failures from the big boys.
OK, I'm going to take slight issue with this approach But first, I've worked in the IT sector for over 35 years and although at director level (not powerfully built) for many of those, I've always been 'hands on'. I've worked with Microsoft Dynamics AX since 2001 and have implemented it in businesses from 20 to 1000 users; and in a pre-sales capacity have presented and sold it to business of all sizes. So I wouldn't let the 'size' put you off...oh, er missus; so long as you can justify the cost. Plus, I'm just about to strike out on my own as an independent AX consultant in the New Year after far too long in the corporate community. But that's another story.So what I'm taking issue with is the idea of 'properly specifying' a solution. Back in the mists of time (and I started on punched cards!) folks would specify their own solution and have it developed for them. Roll forward a few decades to where we have some pretty sophisticated ERP solutions, and many folks still hold out looking for systems that 'do it their way'. And when not surprisingly there's nothing that exactly matches, they state their requirements and get something written/modified. Of course their business is totally different in the way it operates to every other business in the same sector, and they all operate different too. It's what makes them unique. Only it isn't. What makes them unique might be customer service, or product range, or something else...but rarely how they invoice-match a purchase order or whatever,
The biggest risk to budgets and timescales, and ultimately the success of a project is getting bespoke work done. Nowadays it really has to be a last resort. And in financial terms it won't be unusual to spend 25% PA as software licences, so that £10K adaptation gets paid for again every 4 years, and it probably costs you 50%-75% of the original development costs to have it migrated to the next version...say every 3 years.
So I'm preaching a whole new strategy (as are many in the market). Adapt your business to fit your chosen software solution - don't adapt the software. I accept that is diametrically opposed advice to what would have been pitched 10 years ago, but too many folks have had their fingers burnt. That doesn't take the pain away of choosing a system, but it puts a different perspective on it.
It's a motoring forum, so lets look at this in terms of cars. Many years ago in the automotive industry (so equivalent to a few decades ago in IT) you could order a chassis, pick a motor and have whatever body you wanted built. Only it was horrendously expensive. So now manufacturers offer a number of models with options, and folks adapt to what's available. Sure you might have loved the floor-mounted dip-switch and mechanical hand brake...but you adapt to a column switch and a nasty electric handbrake because that's what's on offer and it works well enough. But you still hate that electric handbrake!
So you clearly can't forget what your business does nor how it does it, but you need to leave any baggage of 'the new system has to do it this way' behind. Ergo the idea of 'specifying' a new system should be consigned to history. Instead the first step is to document all of the business processes you have. Not to any great detail, but you need to define the scope of the system. Now armed with these business processes you need to see and have demonstrated how various solutions handle your business processes. So you issue these processes to a number of partners/vendors and say 'show me' (and give them time to prepare!). Now we're talking high-level here as you need to be opened minded. So you don't need to prescribe every single step and keypress - just the steps that are important to you. Then be open-minded about how each solution addresses the process. The question you're asking yourself is ' could we work with that?'.
There are very few truly independent consultants about; most will have favourites. I'm really not sure of the value of a consultant in a pre-sales situation. I've been presenting software solutions when consultants have got involved for 30 years, and I'm hard pressed to think of any occasion when the consultant was truly independent. And in too many cases I know the customer was not recommended the best solution due to the preferences or knowledge of the consultant involved; and that's worked both ways for us. Now getting a constant that is a specialist in a particular solution to help advise how that solution would work for you is a great idea (and I can help if you end up looking at Dynamics AX/Dynamics 365 Enterprise), and once you start deployment it's great to have a consultant on-board as a bridge between you and the delivery partner; it keeps the partner on their toes and ultimately cuts your costs.
But in my view, you're probably best to engage with the vendors/partners directly, at least initially. There's no hidden agendas - each will want to sell their own solution and will try to present the best match against your requirements (the business processes you've just documented. right
). And they'll present their solutions at their cost. Yes, you will engage with salesmen, but that will at least raise the issues of budget and timescale early on. And very early on you have to ask for references in your line of business on the solution being proposed. There are enough partners out there that if they don't have referenceability in your sector, find another. Many will withhold references 'until you show commitment'; always seems a cop-put to me. I'd want the partner or software vendor to justify their inclusion in your short-list by demonstrating domain experience.Understand the difference licence models. Some vendors are still selling software licences and an annual maintenance contract; others are SAAS (Software as a Service) models i.e. you pay monthly for the licences/users/data/whatever you consume. SAAS (which is where Microsoft are certainly going) will often look the more expensive option, but you need to them remember you're no longer paying for (and periodically upgrading) server hardware, operating systems, databases and/or having 'IT specialists' of a certain level in-house. Personally, I think Clould is the future...but the business case has to make sense; you really do have to work out all of the system lifecycle costs (including version upgrades etc).
And the other thing in terms of system lifecycle is to make a call where all this is going. Folks used to say a system was in for 10 years; then it was 15. Now the whole model is changing and there is the expectation that customers will migrate far more frequently but in smaller increments. It's moving (or trying to move) to a bit like a mobile phone where you just get served incremental updates, rather than keeping the phone that you bought 'as is' for a number of years and then junking it to get a new one. So this means the 'brand' you end up with now is far more likely to be with you for decades to come as it gets incrementally upgraded (assuming it does, but that's another issue).
And with multiple devices (we're seeing some employees now wanting to use their own devices - phones/tablets to access corporate ERP), apps, Internet of Things etc things aren't slowing down. So I'd be very wary now of engaging with any business or solution who isn't throwing bucket loads of cash at software development and can show a robust roadmap. So to me, that means the days of the smaller software house with their own unique solutions have gone. Not so dismiss the smaller businesses doing vertical add-ons to global solutions, but other than that I'd be looking at the global players like Microsoft (AX and NAV), SAP, Oracle, Infor, Epicor, Sage X3, NetSuite etc., bearing in mind some sell through a partner channel, others direct. And given my own heritage and prejudices, I would say the Microsoft solutions have a better business case than the rest...but I cannot comment on closeness of match against your requirements since I don't know them. And if I'm really showing my own preferences, for a shortlist of 5 I'd be maybe looking at just AX, Nav, Infor, Sage and NetSuite. Others will, of course, think differently,
/End of ramblings.
If you do want to discuss any of the above, drop me an email.
Thank you for taking the time. Appreciated.
One of the reasons we're looking into alternatives is the amount of bespoke programming that's blossomed over the years. Upgrades have become a nightmare.
I'll take some time to identify and record key procedures and systems over the next week or two and maybe get in contact when I have a better idea of what we do. Pretty sure no one person can answer that at the moment.
One of the reasons we're looking into alternatives is the amount of bespoke programming that's blossomed over the years. Upgrades have become a nightmare.
I'll take some time to identify and record key procedures and systems over the next week or two and maybe get in contact when I have a better idea of what we do. Pretty sure no one person can answer that at the moment.
OP - TVROLET talks sense, albeit somewhat verbosely.
I have seen many ERP projects go wrong, at a very high level:-
Misunderstanding / communication of the requirements - get this right BEFORE you do anything
Trying to boil the ocean - suggest you take an iterative approach rather than all bells and whistles from the start
Scope creep
Vendors bulls
tting (well making it sound a lot easier than it is). The salespeople that sell this stuff get paid a lot and consequently they are very good and making it sound easy. It ain't.
Anyway, sounds like you've already seen some failures with your peers so no doubt you're onto these gotcha's already.
Happy to talk through our experiences if you wish, just PM me.
I have seen many ERP projects go wrong, at a very high level:-
Misunderstanding / communication of the requirements - get this right BEFORE you do anything
Trying to boil the ocean - suggest you take an iterative approach rather than all bells and whistles from the start
Scope creep
Vendors bulls
tting (well making it sound a lot easier than it is). The salespeople that sell this stuff get paid a lot and consequently they are very good and making it sound easy. It ain't.Anyway, sounds like you've already seen some failures with your peers so no doubt you're onto these gotcha's already.
Happy to talk through our experiences if you wish, just PM me.
As a hands-on CIO I'd agree with the approach of reworking your processes to fit a system if there's a good fit with your data model and it allows you to maintain your differentiation.
I'd add one thing - do your data cleanse first if you can, or at least as much as possible. If you have any old anomalous data that you need to keep, but can move to an offline system (like a simple reporting system or whatever) consider that. Otherwise you'll chase your tail trying to fit bad or edge-case data into your new system.
Once you're most of the way there, do some test migrations, but IMHO users often complain about new systems because their old bad data is still there. They can't tell the difference!
I'd add one thing - do your data cleanse first if you can, or at least as much as possible. If you have any old anomalous data that you need to keep, but can move to an offline system (like a simple reporting system or whatever) consider that. Otherwise you'll chase your tail trying to fit bad or edge-case data into your new system.
Once you're most of the way there, do some test migrations, but IMHO users often complain about new systems because their old bad data is still there. They can't tell the difference!
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