Service
ERP selection and implementation
Choosing the right system, configuring it around how the business actually operates, and connecting it to what you already run.
The situation
A decision made on a demo
The ERP question usually arrives at the worst possible moment: the company has outgrown spreadsheets and accounting software, something has already gone wrong because of it, and a decision is needed quickly. What follows is a series of vendor demonstrations, each run by the vendor, on clean data, showing the parts of the system that work well.
The number that gets compared is the licence. The number that decides whether this succeeds is the implementation and the first year of running it — configuration, data migration, the processes that have to change, the people who have to be trained, and the work that still happens outside the system afterwards.
The common failure is not a bad product. It is a system configured to the vendor's standard process, in a business that never agreed to work that way. Where the system does not match reality, people quietly keep working beside it, and within a year you are paying for an ERP and still running the business on exported spreadsheets.
What is missing before the signature is a written set of requirements in terms of your own processes, and somebody comparing the options against it who is not paid by any of them.
We do not resell ERP licences and we are not a vendor's implementation partner. If the honest answer is that you do not need an ERP yet, that is an answer we are free to give.
Deliverables
What you receive
Requirements, written down
What the system has to do, expressed as your processes rather than as a feature checklist. This is the document everything else is measured against.
Vendor comparison
Each option assessed against those requirements, with the questions worth putting to every vendor before signing, and the costs that do not appear on the quote.
Process mapping
What changes when the system arrives and what deliberately does not. Agreed before configuration, not discovered during it.
Data migration
Contacts, products, stock, suppliers and open items moved in and deduplicated, with opening balances agreed with whoever signs off the accounts.
Configuration
The modules you actually need, set up against the mapped processes. The ones you do not need stay switched off rather than half-configured.
Integration
Connection to the systems that stay: CRM, online store, invoicing, reporting, warehouse and courier.
Extension where it does not fit
Where the ERP genuinely does not cover something, we build it alongside rather than customising the core, so upgrades remain possible.
Acceptance against specification
Verification that what was delivered is what was specified, item by item, with findings recorded. The same method we use on audits.
Process
How the engagement runs
Requirements
Sessions with the people who do the work, not only with management. The output is a written requirement set you own and can send to any vendor.
Selection
Options compared against the requirements rather than against demos. You get the comparison and the reasoning; the decision stays with you.
Implementation
Staged, with data migration and a parallel run against the existing way of working. Nothing is switched off until its replacement has been running clean.
Acceptance and handover
Delivered against specification, documented, with the people who use it trained and a defined support period.
Fit
Who this is for
A good fit
Companies running the business on spreadsheets and accounting software that have hit the limit. Companies choosing between vendors who want a comparison from someone with nothing to gain from the outcome. Companies whose implementation has stalled and who need an independent read on why.
Not a fit
Acting as prime contractor on a multi-site manufacturing ERP replacement, and anything requiring certified statutory payroll or accounting modules. Those belong with specialists, and we will say so rather than take the work.
Next
Where to start
Tell us what the business runs on today and what broke that started this conversation. If the answer is that you need a better-connected set of the systems you already have rather than an ERP, we will tell you that before anyone writes a requirement document.