ERP systems are a long-term investment and the demand for one has risen as more organizations are allocating their budget toward one to automate their processes and propel their business into the future. If you’ve spent time researching ERP systems for your organization, you’ve likely heard horror stories about companies who have selected the wrong ERP solutions or aren’t using all of the solution’s functionality, even though they paid for it. This is usually caused by companies not having a clear picture of their operations and goals or trying to take shortcuts during their discovery process to find the right ERP software to best fit their needs. To ensure you select a solution that aligns with your needs, it’s important to understand how to best evaluate the options that are on the market.
A historically good place to start the selection process is knowing the different tiers of ERP software solutions. Understanding the tiers will give you a better idea of what type of ERP solution may fit your company’s needs best, including features such as business size, functions, and long-term budget. Tiers were traditionally used for hosted and on-premise solutions, but these types of software have become less and less common as compared to their cloud-based system counterparts. Let’s take a look at the various tiers of ERP software solutions so that you can have a better understanding of what type may suit your business needs.
Tier I: Enterprise Level
Tier I ERP software is geared toward large companies, often multi-state or multi-national. These ERP solutions are the most complex and robust on the market and serve organizations that have complicated operational structures. ERP software was originally designed for these larger organizations to help them standardize their internal processes by connecting information systems. The number of modules offered is comprehensive, covering all areas of an organization.
Tier II: Midmarket Level
Tier II software vendors cater to mid-range companies in regard to complexity and size. They are the “middle of the road” choice, meaning they are robust enough to meet specific needs but often less burdensome to implement and maintain. This tier is where you see more innovation taking place because they are able to be more agile in the marketplace than their Tier I counterparts. A lot of manufacturing companies fall into this category.
Tier III: Small Business Level
Tier III solutions often work best for small to mid-sized organizations with few locations and simple process structures. Many of the offerings in this tier are tailored for a specific industry so there is typically less customization offered when compared to the other two tiers. However, the reduced functionality also leaves the door open for improvement in other areas, like mobile access and user experience.
Now that you have a better understanding of the tiers, you can start to narrow down your search to find the ERP system that is right for your business. When you start looking at software demonstrations, be sure to provide specific functions, workflows and features you want to see. A significant thing to note, since most ERP systems are cloud-based in today’s market landscape, it’s important to be aware of “fake cloud solutions”. These are systems that appear to be cloud-based with online web capabilities but are version-locked with dedicated release schedules that make keeping your system updated and maintained a real pain and end up causing more stress than productivity.
Real Cloud Solutions
Today’s true cloud solutions are multi-tenant and subscription-based. This means that much of the overall cloud solution costs, such as system infrastructure, are spread across a multitude of subscribers, thus reducing the price per subscriber. Furthermore, in a subscription model, organizations pay for portions of the solution they utilize, thus tailoring the solution to meet their immediate needs. The scalability of true cloud solutions has eliminated the historical tiers in most cases. A better approach in today’s cloud world is to partner with a solution consultant and provide them with your goals and problems you expect the ERP software to solve and see how they respond. Given the scalability of cloud solutions, they should be able to tailor a demonstration specific to your business. Do they take the time to learn about your operations and incorporate your goals into the demo? This can be revealing in terms of what kind of partner the vendor will be over the long term.
Ultimately, as you work your way through the vetting process, keep your eye on the prize: finding an ERP software that helps you make faster, smarter, data-driven decisions by offering an on-demand, real-time snapshot of what is happening behind the scenes in your organization.
For more information on implementing an ERP solution in your business, contact our team at BerganKDV, we are here to help with all of your ERP solution questions. We also encourage you to download this white paper about why fast-growing businesses select a cloud-based ERP solution like NetSuite, to accelerate their growth.
