Andrea Jones walks through building a technology landscape map before choosing an ERP system. List what you own and use, what you own but don't, and what you've researched. For each, track purpose, pros, cons, integrations, licenses, and costs. The map shows you whether to consolidate everything or keep specialized tools like a robust CRM.
Hi, I'm Andrea Jones and today we're going to talk about something that could be helpful in your ERP or other system selection process, which is a technology landscape map. Now this could work for you if you feel like you bought a whole bunch of things already but you're not sure why it won't all work together or things are missing and you know it. So here's, here's how it goes. All right? There's three categories we're going to talk about. The first is what you already own and are using actively. The second is what you already own but you are not actively using. I liken this to that sports car you might have bought and it sits in your garage but doesn't ever get used. It's something like that. And then the third is things that you have researched a little bit on but you don't currently own. Okay? So the things that you own and are using, what you can do is, you know, get a spreadsheet. If you need a copy, send me an email and make a list of the systems that you already own and are using. So it's systems and then in each row it would be what are you using it for? You know, try to high level but still is it for accounting, is it for document signing, is it for your CRM? You know, what are you using it for? Inventory management? And then what are the pros of that software? What do you like about it? What does it do well? What are the cons or some gaps, some things you feel it does not do well, that you would like it to do? Do you have anything it's currently integrated with, anything it's talking to, right? Like maybe your bill.com is talking to your QuickBooks or something like that. And then what? How many licenses do you have? How much is it per license? And then you know, what's the annual, total annual cost of that? And that'll be helpful when it comes to evaluating later whether you should get rid of it or not. Okay, so that's for all the stuff you have and you're using. Again, what it is, what you are using it for, the pros, the cons, and then the costs, figure it out to the annual basis. The next category is software you have bought but you're not actively using. And we've seen this honestly, it happens a lot with maybe project management software. Maybe you bought Asana or Jira, or Maybe you bought HubSpot or some other CRM, but you're not actively using it. And I would list those things out there. Must be some reason you bought it, something you thought you would use it for. So put that down also. And then maybe the pros or the things, the features it has that really sold you on it or you think would be really good. And then the cons. And in that I would also include why you're not using it yet. There must be some reason, whether you haven't set up the process yet, or people couldn't figure out how to use it, they're not trained, or whatever it might be, there's got to be some cons. Again, since you're already paying for this, you should be able to say, here's the licenses, the per license cost, you know, how many seats or whatever, and what's the total annual cost here? Okay, so now those are just the things you currently have today. That's your current map. But you start thinking, and I talked to somebody the other day about this, there's other stuff out there. And a lot of times people will go and look and start to investigate this. So what other systems have you looked at and what do you think you would want to use those things for? What would be the pros of those things and the cons? You know, maybe the pros are something that it does or it purports to do that you don't have a current solution for, but the cons are maybe it doesn't do some things that you do have a current solution for, or, you know, one of the cons is just getting my entire team up and running on this thing. Those are good to understand. And if you know anything about the costs, that would be great for everything. You should also understand, does it integrate with other stuff, especially stuff we already have? Now that you're kind of armed with these lists, this is your map. You can draw out of it maybe some critical requirements which might help you in your ERP selection. So if it's an ERP and you're trying to decide, do I also bolt on a CRM, do I need to bolt on a signing software? Right? And then you can kind of say, gosh, I've already bought something, or we already own something, or I've already been considering something and pull out some of those requirements that'll feed into the ERP selection. If you can get as much as possible under one system, one single source of truth, that's always going to be our recommendation. But clearly there's times where the single source of truth doesn't have a good enough functionality. And one good example, honestly, is a CRM, right? Like a lot of software. A lot of ERP systems have a CRM, but it's not a really robust CRM. Maybe it doesn't integrate well with newsletters or, you know, your salesforce, whatever it is. So it might be something you still need to have on top of the basic system. Anyway, hopefully this is a helpful way to think about all of your technology and the landscape you currently have and what you really need, and it'll help in your ERP or other system selection process. Thanks so much for watching.
