How to Recover After an Unsuccessful ERP Implementation

With clearly defined objectives, cohesive communication, willingness to adapt your commercial practices and advice from experienced ERP consultants, implementing enterprise resource planning software has the potential to achieve incredible results for your organisation. Nevertheless, when you’re planning an ERP implementation, you need to consider common challenges and how they might affect your success. This includes establishing a plan for the eventuality that your ERP project doesn’t return the results you hoped for, or worse – fails completely.

In the frustrating event that the implementation of your chosen enterprise resource planning software doesn’t go to plan, you need to be strategic in your response. This includes considering the following steps.

If Your ERP Implementation Doesn’t Go As Planned:

Figure Out the Cause of the Issue

For some failed projects, the root cause of the issue will be very clear. In others, you may need to analyse the project section by section to identify the point at which it took a turn for the worse. Did the project exceed your predetermined budget, fall victim to scope creep or fail due to communication breakdowns in your company? Alternatively, did your ERP software simply not meet the requirements of your business?

Spend time evaluating the successes and pitfalls of your implementation to analyse exactly what the problem was. This is the only way to learn from the situation.

Decide Upon the Most Appropriate Course of Action

Once you have identified the cause of the issue, it’s time to minimise the impact of the ERP implementation failure to reduce cost losses and protect your reputation. If you act quickly, you may even be able to get your project back on track with minimal costs. However, you should only try to reclaim the implementation if you are confident in future success. Forcing something that has failed once already could incur additional fees and waste company time and resources.

Re-evaluate Your ERP Implementation Objectives

Whether you have decided to revive your ERP project or start anew, it’s imperative to consider its objectives and whether they are still realistic and relevant. Think carefully about whether your goals have changed and if continuing along your current trajectory is the most effective way to achieve them. You will need to consider your budget, project deadline and whether you could be drifting towards scope creep.

Seek Advice From ERP Consultants

Seeking the advice of established ERP consultants could help you make sensible, profitable decisions to optimise the future of your project. From identifying why your implementation didn’t get off the ground to evaluating your current ERP software and whether you should consider new customisations, ERP experts can help you recover from hiccups of all sizes and complexities.

What’s more, working with an ERP consultant from the offset will put you in good stead to prevent project failures in the first place. The benefits of hiring an ERP consultant are far-reaching.

For World-Class MS Dynamics ERP Implementation Experts, Choose ICS

To decide upon the best course of action for your MS Dynamics 365 ERP implementation, please don’t hesitate to contact the consultants at ICS. We are well-positioned to help you plan, deploy and manage the most cost-effective enterprise resource planning system with the most desirable long-term rewards.