In today’s business environment, selecting the right solution to manage your critical business functions can be challenging. This document shares ten proven principles to help guide you and your management team through the selection process, in order to help you make the right choice.

1. ERP
10insightstohelp
youevaluatea
potentialsolution

2. 2 ERP 10 insights to help you evaluate a potential solution myob.com/enterprise
Contents
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Introduction 3
Insight 1 Understand your processes 4
Insight 2 Involve key stakeholders 5
Insight 3 Carefully consider your ROI 6
Insight 4 Prioritise integrator partnership 7
Insight 5 Consider your future needs 8
Insight 6 Minimise solution fragmentation 8
Insight 7 Embrace customisation 9
Insight 8 Invest in implementation and training 10
Insight 9 Have meaningful discussions with relevant referees 10
Insight 10 Avoid unrealistic timeframes 11
Conclusion 12

3. 3 ERP 10 insights to help you evaluate a potential solution myob.com/enterprise
Introduction
In today’s business environment,
selecting the right solution to
manage your critical business
functions can be challenging.
This document shares ten proven
principles to help guide you and
your management team through
the selection process, in order to
help you make the right choice.

4. 4 ERP 10 insights to help you evaluate a potential solution myob.com/enterprise
Insight1
Understandyourprocesses
As the proverb goes: we cannot know where we’re going if we don’t know
where we’ve come from. This is very true of finding the right solution to a
given business problem. Which is why it is so important to conduct a situation
analysis. Identify the processes in your business and then rate them in terms
of importance.
Key questions to ask:
> Would improving this process increase revenue or decrease costs?
Does the process have an impact on your customers?
Would it improve staff moral and potentially reduce turnover?
If I don’t improve this process, what happens?
Once you’ve completed this exercise you should then investigate mapping
out all the steps and who is responsible. Using flow diagrams and swim lane
diagrams will provide you a structured approach. Once accomplished, this insight
will go a long way to understanding where you’re going wrong and provide
clarity with regard to what you need from a solution.
Although an essential process, the system we were using to
track deliveries, payments and reimbursements was hugely
complicated – involving triplicate dockets and a lot of manual
inputting back in the office. We needed to create a system that
would not only replicate this process, but vastly simplify it too.
Ben Knispel Company Accountant Nippy’s
Community Solutions merged with another NFP [Not For Profit].
Almost overnight, the volume of our data doubled.
Beth Miller Group Accountant Community Solutions

5. 5 ERP 10 insights to help you evaluate a potential solution myob.com/enterprise
We needed data to be readily available across the business,
not just at the top. And our past systems couldn’t manage that.
Ben Knispel Company Accountant Nippy’s
Insight2
Involvekeystakeholders
Ensure you engage all stakeholders, internal and external,
affected by this change to ensure you don’t overlook anything.
Employees are often specialists and may have insight
into the more unique aspects of your organisation’s needs.
By involving them early, the distinctive needs of your
organisation can be identified. Plus, you gain valuable
buy-in from those who will ultimately have to work with
your solution and vendor of choice.

6. 6 ERP 10 insights to help you evaluate a potential solution myob.com/enterprise
Insight3
CarefullyconsideryourROI
One of the biggest challenges you will face selling the business case to senior
management is return on investment (ROI). And how long before it can
be realised?
Typically decision makers consider 5-15 years the likely lifespan of the solution,
so calculate the potential savings over this period. Budget constraints and
affordability are of course important considerations. However, it is also
important to include the implicit benefits in your business case.
For instance:
Standardised business processes – reporting and data capture procedures
can be standardised enabling you to implement uniform procedures across
your organisation and ensure that business rules are followed.
One single source of truth – streamlined processes, and the use of a single
system to host and manage information, results in consistency of data
across the organisation. You create a single source of truth so that all of
your staff are using the same up-to-date information for decision-making.
Improvements in productivity – reducing manual data entry improves
data consistency and removes a burden from both staff and managers.
This helps them concentrate on their core duties and results in more time
in their day to focus on revenue generating activities for your business.
Innovate your business – with new tools at the businesses disposal
you could suddenly have the opportunity to innovate your business.
For instance you could take advantage of mobility features to take
payment for orders at the client’s premises and improve your cash
flow almost immediately.
The real time saver is having our data in a single place.
Peter Buzza General Manager RIMS Engineering
We must have saved 20 hours a week alone handling our
distribution process – that’s half a full time role.
Ben Knispel Company Accountant Nippy’s

7. 7 ERP 10 insights to help you evaluate a potential solution myob.com/enterprise
Insight4
Prioritiseintegratorpartnership
Change, although beneficial, can have its challenges which is why
finding an integration partner will ensure a successful transition. An
expert can provide knowledge, experience and ultimately the skill set
necessary to deliver your solution. As a specialists they can correctly
scope your needs (asking the right questions), implement your solution
utilising best practice methodologies, train your staff, and provide
support for the short and long term future.
They [the Consulting Partner]
really took the time to get
to know what it was we
wanted, which was a great
comfort, given that we
had some quite specific
requirements.
Vicky Li System Administrator
Daiwa Food
From the outset it was clear
that they [the Consulting
Partner] understood our
business. Whenever they
came back with a solution,
it was spot on with our
requirements.
Peter Taylor General Manager
Adams Pest Control
Local support was
important to us as was
a good relationship
with our provider.
Beth Miller Group Accountant
Community Solutions

8. 8 ERP 10 insights to help you evaluate a potential solution myob.com/enterprise
Insight5
Consideryourfutureneeds
Look to the future. Try to envisage what other capabilities your
organisation may need in 5 years from now, or 10 years. If your
vendor can provide for those future needs today, chances are
they could help you take advantage of additional modules and
enhancements when you need them.
Insight6
Minimisesolutionfragmentation
No single vendor can deliver on every feature or function.
Third-party apps do have their place. However, try to avoid
fragmented databases. As long as you maintain one fully
integrated database you will safeguard your business against
data conflicts and out-of-date information. Thus guaranteeing
you enjoy peace of mind knowing you are making decisions
using the right information.
But in the long term, it has provided us with a platform
to roll out across our sites over time – so that we can
consolidate the group into one financial package.
Ben Knispel Company Accountant Nippy’s
[In the past] You could never be certain that the values
you were looking at were correct.
Peter Taylor General Manager Adams Pest Control

9. 9 ERP 10 insights to help you evaluate a potential solution myob.com/enterprise
Insight7
Embracecustomisation
A solution which can be configured will ensure that your
system reflects the distinctive needs of your organisation.
This helps improve ongoing productivity and accuracy.
Where possible, avoid unique one-off ‘workarounds’, due
to issues and complexities that will arise during subsequent
version updates applied to customised solutions.
[Regarding the ability to interface with
third party software]. We have retail stores
and retail software and needed to be
able to integrate with that.
Joanne Flood Chief Financial Officer Early Settlers

10. 10 ERP 10 insights to help you evaluate a potential solution myob.com/enterprise
Insight9
Havemeaningfuldiscussions
withrelevantreferees
When you are about to make a substantial investment it’s important
to talk to several referees supplied by your vendor. Before making a
final commitment, engage in meaningful discussions with vendor-
supplied referees on their customer experiences. Be sure referees
provided are using the same solution you are looking to buy.
Contacting at least three existing clients of similar size – who have
been through the process within the last 24-months – will help you
verify that what the vendor has been promoting is accurate.
Interested in hearing what others say about MYOB’s Bigger
Business solutions?
Visit our bigger business case studies page.
Insight8
Factorinimplementation
andtraining
Training is one of the most important considerations and should be
top-of-mind in your purchase process. Training improves staff buy-
in, as they gain a clearer understanding of any new processes and
features. It also helps them get up-to-speed faster and ensures you
see a return on investment sooner as staff immediately benefit from
new capabilities and productivity gains.
Another key consideration is user acceptance testing (UAT).
Conducted in a test environment, UAT helps iron out the kinks in
the system so mistakes are made in a test environment not with
live data. It also helps staff familiarise themselves with the system
before it goes live.
Because I’ve got a background in IT, I took to it straight
away. But for others less used to computer systems,
the learning curve was steeper.
Vicky Li System Administrator Daiwa Food.

11. 11 ERP 10 insights to help you evaluate a potential solution myob.com/enterprise
Insight10
Avoidunrealistictimeframes
The first phase of a complex deployment may take
over a month to complete. Where possible, begin
market exploration early. This can ensure sufficient time
remains to allow your vendor or integration partner
to dig deep into your organisational processes. In this
way, ROI opportunities will be maximised and ‘go-live’
disappointments should be avoided.

12. 12 ERP 10 insights to help you evaluate a potential solution myob.com/enterprise
Conclusion
Having a robust, efficient system can accelerate business
growth by providing the tools vital to achieving success.
The criteria for getting the best system for your needs
should include:
Comprehensive internal review
Focus on scalability and future-proofing of
any technology
Long-term usability and viability
Customer support (including implementation
and usage training).

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