Avoid These Common Pitfalls When Selecting a New ERP6 Min Read

ERP Webinar Recap

Budget overruns, delayed go-live dates, low adoption, and expanding scope are often blamed on implementation. In many cases, however, the underlying decisions were made much earlier.

During UHY’s recent webinar, How to Avoid the Biggest Pitfalls When Selecting a New ERP, our professionals discussed how organizations can build a more disciplined selection process and enter implementation with greater clarity, alignment, and control.

Define the business case before evaluating software

An ERP initiative should begin with a clear understanding of what the organization expects to improve. That may include faster financial closes, shorter order-to-cash cycles, fewer manual processes, stronger controls or more timely management reporting.

Each objective should be measurable and validated by the process owners responsible for the underlying work. This creates a basis for distinguishing essential requirements from individual preferences and attractive features that may offer limited business value.

Without that discipline, the requirements list can become a collection of legacy practices, departmental requests, and functionality that no longer supports how the organization intends to operate.

Control the vendor demonstration

Vendor demonstrations are designed to show the product under favorable conditions. They may illustrate general functionality, but they do not necessarily show how the system will manage an organization’s more complex transactions, exceptions, or reporting requirements.

Organizations should provide vendors with scripted scenarios based on actual business processes. Vendors should then demonstrate those scenarios live, while stakeholders evaluate the results using a consistent scorecard.

The criteria and weighting should be agreed upon before demonstrations begin. Relevant categories may include process fit, reporting, controls, integration capabilities, user experience and total cost. This allows the decision to be based on comparable evidence rather than presentation quality or stakeholder preference.

Investigate data and integration risks early

Data conversion and system integrations are among the most common sources of delay, yet they are frequently addressed after the software has already been selected.

The organization should identify required connections to banking platforms, payroll systems, business intelligence tools, warehouse applications, point-of-sale systems and other operational technology during the selection process. Integrations involving external parties should receive particular attention because testing schedules may depend on organizations outside the project team’s control.

Data quality should also be assessed early. Duplicate vendors, inconsistent employee identifiers, inactive records and an overly complex chart of accounts can materially increase conversion effort. Cleaning and mapping that information requires dedicated resources, timelines and accountability.

Establish governance and decision rights

ERP selection requires active executive sponsorship. Leaders should communicate the expected business outcomes, remain engaged in major decisions and reinforce the importance of the initiative.

A defined governance structure should identify the executive sponsor, steering committee, process owners and escalation path. It should also clarify who has authority when departments have competing requirements or when cost, timing and functionality must be balanced.

Regular governance meetings help resolve issues before they delay the process. They also provide stakeholders with an opportunity to raise concerns and understand the rationale behind key decisions.

Challenge customization requests

Modern ERP platforms offer significant flexibility, but replicating every legacy process can increase cost and reduce the long-term value of the system.

Before approving a customization, the organization should determine whether it creates a meaningful operational advantage, whether a policy or process could be changed instead and how the modification will affect future upgrades.

Customizations may require additional testing whenever the vendor releases a patch or new version. They may also move the organization away from the product’s standard upgrade path. Each request should therefore have a documented business justification and expected return.

Evaluate the full cost and risk profile

Licensing is only one component of ERP cost. The financial model should include implementation services, integrations, hosting, internal resources, support, upgrades, enhancements and the eventual cost of extracting data or exiting the platform.

The implementation partner should be evaluated with the same rigor as the software. Relevant considerations include industry experience, knowledge of the selected platform, project management discipline, team continuity and the ability to support the organization after go-live.
Security and compliance requirements should also be addressed during selection. Role-based access, segregation of duties, approval workflows, audit trails, privacy controls and data residency can be difficult and expensive to correct late in the project.

Enter implementation with evidence and alignment

A strong ERP selection process should produce defined outcomes, prioritized requirements, scored demonstrations, a validated cost model, a formal risk assessment and a documented decision rationale.

The time invested before contracting can reduce uncertainty during implementation and improve the organization’s ability to manage scope, costs, adoption and long-term system value.

UHY helps organizations evaluate ERP readiness, define requirements, assess vendors and implementation partners, and manage the broader transformation from selection through go-live. Contact our team to discuss your ERP strategy and next steps.