Andrea Jones walks through identifying ERP vendors and systems that fit your needs. Cast a wide net through peers and research, then narrow to five to seven candidates for demos. The same software can work very differently depending on which vendor implements it.
Hi, I'm Andrea Jones. Today we're going to talk about our second step in the ERP or other system selection process, which is to identify systems and vendors that might fit. So remember, in the first step you have identified all your critical order to cash, procure, to pay, record, to report. What is it that's different that you do that may not be what everybody else does and you feel is super important. Don't even want to buy a system that doesn't do this. I gave a little sub video on the technology landscape to kind of see what you have and what it does for you that you like, that you don't like, what you may have bought that you're not using yet, and what you might be looking at that has some features you like. So you can really, that can help drive some of these critical requirements as well. So now it's time to shop that around and this could be some of the most time consuming part of the process. What people often will do is talk to colleagues of theirs, whether in their own industry or otherwise, maybe post on a network group that they're a part of. Hey, we need a new system and we're thinking about this and does anybody else use something? And what do you use, what do you like? And that's fine to get some ideas. I mean, I'm not saying that's not a good idea. What I am saying is it's good to cast a pretty wide net, but the goal in this step is to filter. So we want to spend as minimal amount of everybody's effort time to get the maximum potential for likely good candidates for a system and also for a vendor. And the reason I say that is there's a lot of systems out there and some of them are fairly well known. Netsuite, Acumatica, Microsoft Dynamics, Infor, some other big ones that you may have, SAP Business 1. And those big systems often have multiple third party resellers that sell the same system. And I'll use NetSuite as an example. There's lots of NetSuite vendors out there that can sell you that software. Software might be the same, but the vendor and how they work with you might be different. NetSuite themselves might sell direct and that also might be different. So just because you may think the software is the same no matter who sells it, maybe. However, I think there are still some differences in the nuances in that partnership. We're going to talk about that in a later step, but be aware, you might want a couple of options, even if it's the Same software with respect to vendors. And then there's sometimes our industry solutions, you know, so if you're in heavy equipment, for example, you might be looking at E emphasis or apption's equipsoft. So there's specific things and food has its own as well. Stop with specifics. But, you know, there's industry systems. So talking to colleagues and getting a feel, that's not a bad idea. You might want to consider both. But the first round of, you know, casting this wide net is, you know, what's really critical. And what we typically do running this process is we do that sort of desktop research for you. Make sure that the critical boxes are checked. And then we'll have a conversation with somebody at the vendor, probably a salesperson, to understand their process for implementation, get a little better feel for how they fit your critical requirements, making sure they do, talking to them about their availability. I mean, there's nothing worse than saying, yeah, we're ready to go, and then the vendor can't start for another quarter. Which, by the way, we have seen. So, you know, they don't always tell you, but you can get a better feel. And again, people don't always want extra work if they can't meet the needs of the customer. So they might be transparent with you. It's worth the ask. And then talk to, you know, see what kind of research you can do on your own. This is not the time to ask for references. You want to be further down the line. But maybe if you did talk to somebody, they recommended a software or a vendor and you talked to that vendor and you kind of liked them, maybe it's worth going back and getting a little bit more on the level of experience. But the goal here is to start with a wide net and get down to about five to seven system vendor combos that you want to take to the next step, which is actual demos with your team. All right. Hope that gives you a good feel for how this could work for you, and we'll look forward to seeing you in the next video.
