Help! My Business is Growing
Help! My Business is Growing
How to pick the right ERP, with Allison Cummins
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Is your business growing but struggling with outdated tools, systems, and processes? ERP systems can help streamline operations and boost efficiency. But, ERP, or Enterprise resource planning, is more than just adding new technology. It requires careful planning and proper change management.
When is the right time to implement an ERP system in your business? How do you get started, and how do you help your team transition smoothly?
In this episode, Allison Cummins and I discuss ERP implementation and why change management is a major part of it. She shares how growing businesses can benefit from ERP systems to streamline operations and how to ensure a smooth transition for your team.
Allison is the Founder and CEO of Blue Outcomes, a boutique consulting firm that specializes in Project and Change Management. She is a trusted advisor for growing companies and is known for bringing transparency and accountability to business transformations.
We discuss: (timestamps)
03:28 When is the right time to consider an ERP system?
05:04 Revenue size for ERP implementation
06:18 Big ERP players vs. smaller systems
07:43 The differences between major ERPs (SAP, NetSuite, Epicor, Microsoft Dynamics)
09:49 Transitioning from smaller ERPs to larger ones
11:55 The cost of switching to an ERP
15:53 Preparing data for ERP implementation
18:34 Data types to include in an ERP system
20:49 How far back should data go in an ERP system?
23:59 Connecting different data systems in an ERP
25:17 Common issues on the people side during ERP implementations
29:44 Preparing staff for ERP implementation
32:16 Stories of successful and unsuccessful ERP implementations
36:27 Causes of scope creep in ERP projects
40:47 Actionable steps for starting the ERP process
Resources:
Allison Cummins, Founder and CEO, of Blue Outcomes
https://blueoutcomes.com/
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonecummins/
Email:
allison@blueoutcomes.com
Kathy Svetina, Fractional CFO:
https://www.newcastlefinance.us/
Blog post | How to Pick the Right ERP
https://www.newcastlefinance.us/listen/how-to-pick-the-right-erp/
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Kathy (host):
Well, hello there, and welcome back to another episode of "Help! My Business Is Growing," a podcast where we explore how to grow and build a business that is healthy and sustainable. I'm your host, Kathy Svetina, a fractional CFO and founder of a company called NewCastle Finance, a company where we believe that everything that you do in your business is eventually going to end up in your finances, and to get to healthy finances is to have a healthy business. Well, the question is, how in the world do you get there? Well, the answer to that is that you listen to this podcast where we're going to give you some good tips and tools on how to actually achieve healthy and sustainable business. And today we're going to be talking about ERPs, which are the Enterprise Resource Planning systems, because as your business grows, your current tools may struggle to keep up, and you're going to find that things are starting to become inefficient. You might have some lost data, and that also means that you're not going to have that transparency of data that you need to run your business well, so you might find it hard to scale, or worse, you might risk falling behind because your systems are not keeping up anymore. So this is where the ERPs, the Enterprise Resource Planning systems come in. They integrate and streamline your processes so things like inventory, your customer service, your sales, your HR and, of course, finance, so you have everything in one place. So that is what ERPs do. But implementing these types of systems can be a bit of a headache, and it can be pretty intimidating because it involves a lot of things that you need to be doing. So this is what we're going to be exploring in this episode. How do you actually first find out which ERP system do you need? How do you implement it well, and what steps do you need to take to make it happen? And how do you do that so that your team is actually using it once you're done with that, because that is going to be a significant not just financial investment, but also a time investment. So once you have done this, now you need to go and use it. And how do you use that? Well, this is another piece that's going to come in - it's actually change management. So this is what we're going to be diving into in this episode. And before I introduce you to my guest, as a reminder, all of the episodes on this podcast come with their blogs, and each one comes with its detailed timestamps, where we link all of the show notes and everything else. So if you want to just kind of scan through the episode before you commit to listening, you can go ahead and look at that. So all of these links are going to be in the show notes, so they're there for you. They're a resource. Please go ahead and use them if they're of value to you. So today, my guest is Allison Cummins. She is the founder and CEO of Blue Outcomes, a boutique consulting firm that specializes in project and change management. She's a trusted advisor for growing companies and is known for bringing transparency and accountability to business transformations. Join us.
Kathy (host):
Allison, welcome to the show.
Allison (guest):
Hi. Thanks for having me.
Kathy (host):
Thanks so much for being here. And you are the ERP expert, and you're the first ERP expert implementer that we have on the show. So I am going to be asking a lot of questions about that, because this is super, super relevant for the financial health of the business. And I always say ERPs always go into the process and systems. But there's so much more than that, because you know, when the business starts growing, the systems that you start with, you probably outgrow them. And the ERP systems, which stand for Enterprise Planning systems - enterprise resource planning systems - are the systems that connect the dots between all those functional departments of procurement, finance, supply, HR, all the stuff that you have in the business, and help you really have that insight and well-managed business. So let's first talk about this. When do you think is really a good time to start thinking about "I need an ERP system" versus all of these other systems that I have built in the business so far?
Allison (guest):
I would say the best time to start thinking about it is when your processes are taking too long. So it takes too long for your finance team to reach out to procurement to make sure that their materials are costed the right way. If that process starts taking a really long time, or the volume gets to be too much, you probably want to start looking at other solutions, like an actual ERP solution.
Kathy (host):
And do you think there's generally like a revenue size where that starts to become a problem for the company? I know it depends from company to company, but is it maybe like a 5 million point, 10 million point, 20 million point - when do you think? When do you see it from your company's perspective that these are generally the companies with this type of revenue size that they start implementing ERPs?
Allison (guest):
I think most companies start thinking about it around the 5 million, but many of the smaller companies who are four to 5 million, even under 10 million, the price points feel too high for a lot of companies to implement an ERP solution. But there are what I call baby ERP solutions out there that are great for growing companies. So I would say, you know, just because you are under the 5 million mark, start thinking about it, because there are options out there that are more price-conscious than the big boys that you always see. Because, you know, once you hit that 15, 20 million, you absolutely need to have one, otherwise everything will start slowing down quite a bit on you.
Kathy (host):
Yep, yep. And then obviously you hire more people because you want to get things done. And if you're doing things manually, there's human error, there are mistakes that happen. You want to avoid that and use systems to plan for that before you know before it happens.
Allison (guest):
Absolutely, yeah, you're never too small to start thinking about it. So if you have different departments or different team members who work quite a bit together, I'm gonna start thinking about it, even at the 4 million - it's never too early.
Kathy (host):
So you talked about the baby ERPs, let's talk about what are the options that you have available? Because there's so many of them. Let's talk about the big players, and then the baby ERPs.
Allison (guest):
So the largest players in the market, particularly for manufacturing, is SAP. They're probably as big as you can get. But then there are other household names, like NetSuite, Epicor, Microsoft Dynamics - those are all really great solutions out there. Then you go into the slightly smaller - you got the Acumaticas of the world. You have the Odoos. Also, I've heard it pronounced Odoo. It just depends. Those are the smaller, more startup-friendly solutions that I like to start my smaller companies out on, like the Odoos.
Kathy (host):
I know this really depends on your use case and what the company does, you know, manufacturer is going to be different from a professional service business, which is going to be different from, you know, for example, like a remodeling business or a construction business. But can you give us a little bit of the difference between these ERPs and let's stick with the big names - SAP, NetSuite, Epicor and Microsoft Dynamics. What are the differences? And if you could give us like, what are the pros and cons of some of these?
Allison (guest):
Well, for like SAP, for example, one of the reasons why it is a leader in the industry is because there are so many different modules that you can grow and flex your business. But also they have - well, majority of the ERP solutions have created best practices for different industries. SAP probably does the best job in terms of like, you get an SAP solution for pharma, you get an SAP option for manufacturing or for retail, and it's really customized to what that industry looks like, so it's very much industry best practice standards. But then you get into some great ERP solutions like, I'm going to use Acumatica as an example. They're amazing in manufacturing. They were built by a manufacturing company. Like, that's what they do. But if you're just in the distribution space, not so much manufacturing, you may want to consider a NetSuite, because they're really great at managing, you know, the output of product. So it really just depends on what your company makeup looks like. And I will also say that, you know, if your processes are great in the finance space, then maybe Acumatica - you're a manufacturing company, but your processes for finance are really great - maybe Acumatica isn't the right solution. Maybe it's more of a Dynamics. So it just depends on what your internal makeup looks like.
Kathy (host):
And how about in terms of the baby ERPs, for example, like Odoo you've mentioned, when would you think about that? And is it possible that, say you have grown so far, then you said, "Well, I'm going to go with the baby ERP, Odoo, until I reach, let's say, 15, 20 million. That's going to take me there, and then I can maybe go into SAP should I need it?" What would be the difference between Odoo, for example, to something like NetSuite - what are some of the differences there?
Allison (guest):
So the Odoos of the world - it's more of plug and play. So they have - it's very user-friendly. It feels like just like a website that you're kind of navigating through and so super easy to use. These are for companies who want to keep it mostly internal, but they don't have to outsource to a third party, they can kind of keep it - there's not a lot of configurations, very basic, like I said, visually easy to understand, but just also really intuitive. Now an implementation for that is going to be roughly around $60,000-70,000 so that's a lot more price-conscious than implementing like SAP or NetSuite. But on the flip side, it will take you all the way to - they say 100 million, but I would say probably closer to like the 50-75 million, where, you know, by the time you get to 50-75 million, you're probably getting ready to upgrade to a bigger, more holistic ERP solution. But the offset is like you would probably have to bring in special consultants to one, do the implementation, but also there's a maintenance factor. So with Odoo, with those baby ERP solutions, you can maintain it internally, in-house, with just a little bit of training, whereas the larger implementation, the larger platforms, you're now probably looking at some outsourced talent to maintain.
Kathy (host):
Yeah, and it also - what I've noticed, I've gone through two SAP implementations so far in my career, that was from the corporate side, from the finance side, and they were interesting, very, very long time. And I remember, I mean, when we moved to SAP, I think it was a PeopleSoft-SAP implementation. It took about two years. It took hundreds of thousands of dollars. Obviously, this was a big corporation, but it was very labor-intensive, and on top of that, it was expensive and it took a long time. Yeah. So if you are, let's say that you are switching to SAP or maybe even NetSuite in your company - you're not that big of a company. How long do you think it would realistically take, and what should the price range be? Obviously, it's going to depend on the company and the scope. But what are some of the scope prices that you have seen with the companies that you work with?
Allison (guest):
So when I talk with companies who are thinking about implementing an ERP platform, I highly recommend, yes, obviously we're going to look at some of the bigger players. But really, we're going to look at your business processes. What matches more closely? Which platform matches more closely to what your business looks like? In order to keep those costs low, you want something that's going to be out of the box, with very minimal custom configuration that has to be done. That's going to save you a significant amount of money. Too often I have clients who say, "Oh well, we're growing. We're going to implement SAP," but it doesn't reflect anything about how we run our business, and so we're going to have to customize it. Well, customizing is extremely expensive, not just during the implementation, but it's the cost to maintain your system. And it's also very expensive when you have to upgrade that system later on in, you know, 10 years. If you have to upgrade, it's really hard to do that with a highly customized solution. I have a client right now who hasn't upgraded their system in 20 years because it's so unique to them - it's a whole new implementation at this point because it's just so big. So when you start selecting an ERP platform for your business, don't get too tied to like, "Oh, I only want SAP because that's the leader in the industry." Really find a partner who's going to assess your business to find the one that's going to work for you. And plus, if you keep it as close to best practices as possible for that solution, it's going to be faster to implement. So I'm working on an SAP implementation right now where it's, for the most part, 98% SAP best practices, which is incredible - like that is kind of a rare thing, but we've been able to get from start to finish - we started in July of last year, and we went live with the first rollout for the first plant in April of this year. So that is extremely fast, and it keeps getting faster over the years. I've been doing ERP implementations for over 20 years - it's close to 24 years now. And it used to take, to your point, like in your experience, two years or more, but now we're talking months, which is really incredible. Some of those baby ERP solutions, we're looking at 12 weeks.
Kathy (host):
Get it up and going. That's absolutely amazing. Yeah, 12 weeks.
Allison (guest):
Yeah, it's incredible. But all of this, you know, finding the solution that's going to work for your business, keeping it as close to best practices as possible reduces the costs - the cost for implementation, but also maintenance long term.
Kathy (host):
So when you are thinking of, "I've selected this ERP system," whatever that might be, what are some of the things that you should do to prepare yourself for good ERP implementation? Because obviously you're going to work with data, and you're going to work with people, so let's put that in two different buckets. Now let's focus on the data at this point, like putting all the data and making sure that it actually fits your business. How do you prepare for that? And then let's talk about the people side.
Allison (guest):
You absolutely hit the two most crucial things in an implementation - data and people. So data, I cannot stress this enough - if you're even thinking about an ERP solution, start looking at your data tomorrow, because what we want to do is identify what you want to keep. If you want to keep all of it, totally fine, that is up to you, but you now have to start preparing it to migrate into your new system. And that means, you know, taking time to dedupe some of your redundant data. So if you have John Smith as a customer, is that the same as Jonathan Smith in your system? If yes, don't load both. But you also now have to make sure we link all of their history so we don't lose that. You want to keep that as clean as possible, because remember, whatever data you load - if you have garbage in, it's going to be garbage out. And so you're just going to ruin a really beautiful, pristine system. So start cleansing your data now, but also loading data in takes time. You're going to have to make sure you have a great partner who's going to be very communicative with you and providing you with the templates that you're going to need to load later. All of that takes time. Sometimes it's as easy as an ODBC connection, where you can just have a working environment and you can load it directly, but most of the time, you're downloading all that data into spreadsheets, and you're going to have spreadsheets coming out of your eyeballs. So you want to make sure that you're putting clean data in, and you're keeping it all in a repository that makes sense for the team that you're working with. But yeah, cannot stress that enough - that is the number one risk to implementations. It's your data quality. So start now.
Kathy (host):
And what type of data are we talking about? Are we talking about accounting data, sales data, product data, like all of the above? Like, how do you pick all of that?
Allison (guest):
All of it, all of it. And it really comes down to what modules that you're setting up in your ERP platform. So maybe you're only implementing your customers. So you want to cleanse your customer data, your addresses, making sure that the addresses exist. Sometimes you have, like, I've seen weird things where you just put like dots in addresses. Well, you can't deliver to a dot, so you know, let's get rid of that. So if you're implementing an ERP solution, you're looking at your materials, you're looking at your customers, you're looking at your invoices, you're looking at all of that. If you're doing materials, you're now looking at your vendors - like, who are you procuring these materials, these raw goods from? So you can get that information in there, any purchase orders, that history - all of that needs to go in there. And I've seen some companies, they do packaging, like your packaging materials, and there's a lot more details to packaging. And if you have R&D, now you're building and creating data from your research and development teams. So the other thing that I see - it's not just extracting data from whatever system you have and cleansing it, but it's finding all of the data that you use on a day-to-day basis that you don't really think about. You know, Jan from accounting, she might have a spreadsheet that nobody knows about, that she's using to help run your business, and you don't know about it. So you're gonna have to get that data. And how do you integrate that into the system? I know packaging tends to have a lot of PDFs. Like, how do you capture the packaging material in the right way? That's not just a PDF - you know, extracting all of that information and putting it into an uploadable format. All that takes a lot of time, not just the time to get it all together, but it takes people time, right? Like, how are we dedicating using your internal team to prepare this data? Because they also have a day job.
Kathy (host):
Yep, and how far would you go back? Let's say that you have a company that you've run for the last 15 years. Would you make a decision that we're only keeping the data for the last six years and then we have a legacy system out there, or do we take all of the 15 years and push it into the new ERP system?
Allison (guest):
So that's really a business decision. Sometimes there are regulatory requirements that you have to keep, you know, seven years worth of data, depending on the industry. Really, I typically go back X amount of years and put the rest in like a data lake, and they could just pull it out as needed. Don't spend the time cleaning all the data that you don't need. Just stick with the basics.
Kathy (host):
And once you have this data - and I think this is where the true benefit of ERP comes so much into play, is because you might have completely different systems that never talk to each other, like your salespeople never talked to the product people. And then accounting was, you know, floating out there somewhere. But now you have all of this in the central repository, and you can connect the dots between the data. So how about thinking about now that you have all this data in one place - how do you connect all of these pieces together so that you can connect your accounting with your sales data and with your product data and actually get meaningful, insightful reports and details about your business that you probably would have not had before because everything was floating in their own stuff, right?
Allison (guest):
Yeah, so that's one of the reasons why I love starting with best practices, like whatever the ERP platform recommends as best practice, sticking with that. Because one, you're now going to automate a lot of that workflow that's just going to happen very seamlessly between, you know, how does procurement take this purchase order and turn it into actual inventory, and then that inventory goes to the manufacturing department - like all of that just happens so seamlessly and beautifully. But also, these platforms have built-in reports that you can now tap into and leverage at any given moment, and you now are able to make really smart business decisions based off of what your business truly looks like. You know, how are we getting orders out the door from the customer service reps entering all of these orders to now shipping, getting the product from the warehouse shelves out the door as quickly as possible? So you can now start seeing how long that process really takes. And maybe you put some KPIs around there, like maybe you say, "Oh, we can do this faster if we empower this other team to move," or "How do we structure layout our warehouse floor?" Maybe it's taking too long for John to go from one side of the building to the next, and then take it all the way back to the shipping department. There are other ways that you can start streamlining, because now you have all that data and you can see it.
Kathy (host):
Yep, I mean, that is one of the things that I always get so excited about with ERP, because now we have all this data, we can analyze it, see what the trends are, where we can improve, what can we make better? And it's going to make a significant impact in your financials as well. When you start doing this, it's like, it's like a wealth of information that you just unlocked, it's like, you know, when you're playing a game, it's like another achievement.
Allison (guest):
A lot, and that's exactly what it feels like. You know, people don't realize when you have product sitting on - I may use manufacturing, because I do work in manufacturing quite a bit - the amount of money that is sitting on your shelves at any given moment, from your raw goods to semi-finished to actually your finished products ready to ship. Like, how long it sits in your warehouse? It costs money every time it moves from one shelf to the other. And having this data available, you can now start to see, like, is this really profitable? Like we might sell this one item every three months. Is this really profitable for us to keep, like the 10 different raw goods to make this one product that we only sell once in a while? Like you can now start streamlining your offerings in a more strategic way.
Kathy (host):
Yep, exactly. So that's data and putting data aside. Let's talk about people now, because that is so important. And I have seen ERP implementations go bad because the people just either were reluctant to embrace the change, they weren't trained well, or things got wrong. So let's talk about the people side. What are the most common things that you see that go wrong on the people side?
Here's the final corrected segment:
Allison (guest):
Oh, people will make or break an ERP solution implementation, because most of the time, I'm going to be honest, it's lack of communication from the leadership teams. You know, people are creatures of habit, so if we are not aware that change is happening, if we're not trained in the right way, they are going to work around any solution that you put in front of them because they want to get their job done. And so if they don't know how to use the new tool, if they weren't aware of it, they're going to resist, and then they're going to find workarounds, and now you've just wasted a bunch of money on this new system that you bought, that you implemented, because they're not going to use it. Adoption is a big component to an ERP implementation, and it's something that's so often forgotten by leadership because they're so focused on the results of getting this new platform up and going. They want to get it done, and they're worried about the process, and they just forget about the people. Or my favorite is when some clients will, when we start an engagement, say, "Oh, but our team members are really, really excited about this change. They're really tired of doing this all manually, and they're really excited. So we're not going to have any issues with change management." Like, oh, that's great that they are excited about it, but implementations take time, and that excitement is going to wane if they feel like you're ignoring them, right? So what we like to do is create an entire change process, because everybody experiences change differently. Your corporate team members - so your accountants, your customer service reps - they're going to experience and interact with the new ERP platform very differently than your shop floor. The people who are shipping and building the product, they're not going to have the same experience. So they need a different change journey than the next person. And the messaging has to be the same. So not only do you have to create custom user journeys for them, but you have to have consistent messaging. What is your executive leadership team saying about this new change, this ERP platform that they're implementing? What are your middle managers saying? Then, what are your team leaders saying? What are your informal leaders saying? The messaging has to be consistent throughout. And so oftentimes, you know, the communications coming from leadership get one level down and just stop. You have to maintain consistent, regular updates to people at all levels throughout the entire implementation. But also, talking about training - everybody learns differently. Some people are visual learners. Some need to read it and digest it and then try it on their own. Some people are hands-on. It just all varies based off of learning styles. So you want to have training opportunities that work for all of your employees in a way that they like to receive it. So training them so they feel prepared. I always tell my clients, we want everybody to be so ready for this change that when go-live happens, they just happen to wake up one day and go to work just like normal - they just happen to be doing it in a different system. It won't really feel like a change, because they're so prepared. That's the ideal situation, but it's so often overlooked.
Kathy (host):
And how would you prepare? I mean, obviously you would have regular meetings and communication. People would start working in the system. But would you have, like, a sandbox environment where people can play with the system before it goes live? Like, how would that work for someone, let's say that it's - well, obviously for accountants, there's going to be a little bit different, because they're going to be working in the system, probably a lot more than someone who's in the shop on the floor. But how would you start implementing that before the Go Live of the ERP?
Allison (guest):
There's a variety of different ways, but we like to use the train-the-trainer approach. So we have a core group of super users who we would train in the system. So they're also not only our super users and who will eventually be training their colleagues, but they're also our testers to making sure we're building the system in a way that still is going to work for them. So we have a combination of them working in the system with the implementation team to test the system. They're getting to know the system in and out. And we have test cases, and we'll do scenarios. So they're actually hands-on keyboards, playing in their own real-life platform, so that what they're seeing is what it's going to look like for them on day one. It's their own data that they're already familiar with. It might look different because it's in a new system, but it's their data that they're comfortable with. And so they might be in a production system because it hasn't started before they actually go live. So it's like a kind of quasi-sandbox production system, but it'll have the same look and feel that they're going to see later. Now, when they go to implementation, they'll be training their colleagues. Because, again, we create those super users, those change agents, or what we call change champions, to now be those informal leaders throughout the change because it's so much easier for a team member to ask questions to somebody that they already know, like and trust, right? So they can just put their head over the door, like over the next cubicle, and be like, "Hey, you know, Patricia, can you help me with this? I didn't quite understand this." It's so much easier to do that in a safe space than asking your boss, like, "Hey, I don't know what I'm doing." There's like, a safety feeling. And, you know, people can be a little bit more vulnerable.
Kathy (host):
Yeah, exactly. And you know, I always like to weave stories from the field, I guess, so to speak in this podcast. Have you had ERP implementations that have gone really well and have changed a business? And then on the other side, I want to see, like, what are some of the implementations that you had that did not go so well, and what were the causes for those?
Allison (guest):
So the ERP implementations that I have been involved with after the fact has been like I got brought in because it's going south. There are two reasons. One is the system implementation team that they brought in to develop the system - they were missing milestones. They weren't really staying on task with projects. They were having a lot of change control issues, meaning they were finding a lot of requirements after they already started building. And when that happens, now your scope starts expanding. It's that scope creep, right? So I usually get brought in after the fact as an independent project manager to make sure that now we are putting in the change control process. We are managing the scope. We're making sure that the timelines and milestones are being met and just bringing that additional level of transparency and accountability to a project. So failed implementations are usually due to that huge scope creep where you end up with, like, you had a budget of A, your budget ends up being like double or triple. It happens. I got brought in on a project where it's like $20 million over budget. Like, how does that happen? But it did. So that's one thing that happens. But the other part is failed ERP implementations is when your employees weren't ready, they turned on a system, and the consultants just walked away, and now they have this million-dollar platform that nobody knows how to use. It's like, what was the point of that? That happens a lot, so we get brought in to help with the adoption. After the fact, it's really hard to get people excited about a platform that they have seen but they don't like because there's a lot of negative feelings about it and changing that perception, because that's a lack of trust. There's a lack of confidence in not just the platform and its ability to run your business, but it's a lack of confidence in your leadership team. So that causes a lot of problems. So those are the two examples of failed implementations. It's like lack of accountability and missed milestones, and then also the lack of adoption and engagement. So those are the two unfortunate outcomes, but some really successful ones is when you have - I'm actually working with one right now. It's an SAP implementation. From the very beginning, it was a collaboration between the internal SMEs and the system implementation team. So they're working in partnership together and in a quasi-agile way where, you know, they'll do a little bit of show and tell, they'll configure the system, and then they'll show it like, "All right, this is what, how to create an order entry. This is what it's going to look like. What are your thoughts?" And then we give the SMEs a chance to do an order entry in the system. So that works out really well, because it has that high level of confidence in the platform, right? And it just fosters that partnership. So that's something that works really, really well, is when you can get those end users involved as soon as possible. Because at the end of the day, people want to be seen, they want to be heard, and they want to know that they matter. And so doing it in partnership, that sets you up for success for such a big transformation like this.
Kathy (host):
This is really good. And this agile way of looking at things, of working and looking at things, of doing what the user asked for, and then showing it to them immediately, and then doing the iterations after that, so that you can actually see, is it working? Is it not? Do you think that the scope creep happens because the companies that were doing that weren't working in that type of capacity with the client? Or is it maybe something else? Because what I have seen, too, that with the companies, when you do the implementation, and this was, you know, years and years ago, you say, "Well, this is what we want." And then they go away for six months, and then they come back and show it to you, versus like these iterations, where you have constant feedback between the people that are going to be using this tool and the people that are actually developing it.
Allison (guest):
Yeah, I think it's a combination of things. It's like that lack of transparency. They don't know what they're building. Because, you know, the developers go away and it's like, they have this little black box, and all of a sudden they reappear, and just like, "What is this?" So that does happen. I actually worked on a project where the developers got their requirements, and they went away and they didn't come back. We didn't see them again until user acceptance testing. Well, user acceptance testing happens, and we realize, like, "Oh no, none of the users can actually read the platform because it was written in a completely different language that nobody knew," like, because they're based in Portugal, and they couldn't read English, but the developers were English, and nobody - like that wouldn't have happened if it would have been more iterative, right? If it would have been more show and tell, we would have caught that immediately. But they weren't involved, so they didn't see it until the very end. But the other part of it, like the other thing is, to their credit, internal users, they don't sometimes know what they don't know. And so they start building, they start giving these requirements based off of what their current processes are, right? And so if their processes are very manual, they start only thinking in this bubble, instead of saying, "Oh, well, this is how we do it now, but we want to get better. We want to get to X," right? But they are still looking at current process. So what ends up happening is they start building this custom solution, because the ERP solution doesn't do it that way, because they use best practices, but they end up building their old process in this brand new shiny tool. So in that case, it wasn't intentional, it just happened. But that's when you need, like, I always recommend having somebody like a third-party project, program oversight, where you can say, "Hey, I understand that this is how you do it now, but we're looking to the future. How are we going to run your business in five years? This is what it needs to be like. This is what you want. Well, let's build that, because now you can grow and scale."
Kathy (host):
Yeah, exactly. So you're not essentially using better tools to make the same mistakes.
Allison (guest):
Yeah, exactly. And that happens a lot, and that leads to huge amounts of scope creep. And the clients, the customers who are testing these, the internal SMEs who are testing this, it's just a habit. Again, we're creatures of habit. We will automatically go back to what is comfortable and what feels good. And so they sometimes forget about that bigger picture, you know, like, "Oh, we're moving to this. We're moving to the next level." But they still have this constant reminder. That's why that communication from the executive leadership team, your mid-level leadership and your informal leaders, having that consistent messaging all the time will allow these SMEs to keep their eye on the prize. Like, "Oh, I'm not recreating the wheel in a shiny new tool, I am going to - we're looking to the future." So that keeps that scope in check.
Kathy (host):
Allison, you know, we've had about a 40-minute conversation here, and if someone is listening to this, like, "Oh my god, I have no idea where to even begin. Like, I know that I need a better system than I have right now, I'm probably gonna go and implement an actual ERP system," like, what is the one thing that they can do in the next week or two to figure out what they need to do, and whether they should be even doing this or not? Like, something actionable that they can do in the next couple of weeks.
Allison (guest):
I would say, start documenting your business processes. That is the first step to understand, really, what your business does. Like, obviously, they know that they're trying to accomplish X goal. But if you start documenting your business processes, you're going to start finding, you know, a lot of manual work. How are the departments connecting to each other? Like, if there's nothing there, chances are you want to, you might want to look into an ERP solution. So start documenting, putting together those flow charts and those standard operating procedures. It will be obvious that, hey, we're lacking something. People are not - like we're not communicating with each other. Our processes are too siloed. It will be pretty obvious, and that's something that - all you need is a pencil and paper, like you don't need anything fancy, and there are free tools if you want to get real fancy and draw process diagrams. But yeah, all you just need is a piece of paper and pencil. It's just start documenting.
Allison (guest):
So you can find me on my website, blueoutcomes.com, or you can call us at 312-800-2992.
Kathy (host):
Awesome. And we're going to put all of that actually in the episode show notes. So if you're struggling with the ERP implementation, or if you really, really need help with this, Allison is absolutely fabulous to talk to, so I highly recommend you reach out to her. Thank you so much, Allison, this has been an absolute pleasure.
Allison (guest):
Thank you so much for having me, Kathy. Appreciate it.