Going live with your ERP software solution is not the end of the journey

You probably know this feeling – a vibe of jubilance amongst your project team as your new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system has gone live, more or less on time and on budget.

The Board are happy but your job is coming to an end – WHAT? Going live is not the end of the story!

Many organisations in Australia make the mistake in believing that once their new integrated software solution is in place that there is nothing else for the project team to do.

In reality this is only the start of the journey – after all, the organisation is going to be using the new system for at least the next 10 years.

You already have your team in place so why would you get rid of them? If you were in the mining sector and had just built a new conveyor belt system you wouldn’t get rid of your key engineer’s –  continual improvement and maintenance still have to be carried out.

Often when a new ERP system goes live there is a dip in performance due to the changes in culture and process. It is therefore essential that the project team remain in place to carry out additional training and undertaken minor tweaks.

By maintaining the key project people you can work on the continual improvement of your new ERP solution and carry out additional work that was not part of the original scope of the project.

There are other factors such as auditing the quality of data input into the system. Whilst in most modern systems things can be put into place to prevent user error not 100 per cent of errors can be prevented.

Remember rubbish in = Rubbish out.

So maintaining the quality of your data is crucial and highlighting to staff where errors are occurring and trying to lock these down critical.

So hang on to the project team as they are critical to success now and for the future of your new ERP investment.