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Summary – Steering growth and performance hinges on a controlled ERP choice, so it’s crucial to define your business scope and objectives before any functional comparison. By mapping critical processes and KPIs, you turn needs into functional and non-functional requirements, then evaluate flexibility, performance, security, costs, and risks (fit-gap, customization, adoption). A structured process—targeted RFP (80/20), weighted benchmarking, operational PoC, and guided negotiation—secures every step. The solution: apply this pragmatic framework to maximize ROI and competitiveness.
Choosing an ERP is a pivotal step in managing an organization’s growth and performance. Rather than relying solely on a feature comparison, it’s essential to start from business challenges and strategic objectives to frame the selection process.
This guide offers a pragmatic framework, aligned with best practices observed in Switzerland and internationally, to turn an operational need into a structured technology decision. It highlights the technical and organizational criteria to examine, the pitfalls to anticipate, and provides an operational checklist to secure each selection phase.
Start from Business Needs and Strategic Objectives
The success of an ERP project first depends on a precise understanding of key processes and strategic goals. Rigorous business scoping transforms operational expectations into clear functional requirements.
Defining Critical Processes
The first step is to map the essential business processes—finance, production, logistics, human resources, sales, or maintenance. This formalization identifies priority improvement areas and interdepartmental dependencies.
By documenting current workflows, you can spot information silos, repetitive tasks, and duplicate data entry. This factual view fuels considerations for automation and digitization.
IT leaders and business teams collaborate to establish a common reference, ensuring shared understanding of challenges and the future ERP’s scope.
This mapping exercise serves as the basis for the requirements specification, preventing scope creep and hidden costs from late adjustments.
Identifying Key Performance Indicators
Each process must be linked to measurable KPIs: margin, inventory turnover, project profitability, on-time delivery, or accounting error rate. These indicators will guide functional and technical choices.
Precise KPI tracking structures the dashboards integrated into the ERP, enabling real-time decision-making. These dashboards can then be enriched with automated reports.
It’s important to define target thresholds and update frequencies for indicators to avoid an overload of unnecessary data.
Defining KPIs aligns the ERP with strategic objectives, ensuring a rapid return on investment and adoption focused on added value.
Translating Needs into Functional and Non-Functional Requirements
Business needs are converted into functional requirements (invoice management, scheduling, analytics) and non-functional requirements (scalability, performance, security). This distinction is essential for a focused selection.
Functional specifications detail user scenarios, while non-functional criteria address robustness, availability, and usability.
A simplified requirements specification covering 20% of priority needs for 80% of use cases makes solution comparison easier and avoids feature overload.
This approach ensures a balanced benchmark focused on real needs rather than superficial feature richness.
Initial Scoping Example
In a Swiss industrial SME, order management relied on three separate tools, causing delays and billing errors. A collaborative workshop formalized four priority workflows and defined five tracking indicators, including the time from order receipt to shipment.
This example illustrates the importance of thorough business scoping before engaging vendors, avoiding off-topic demos and unsuitable proposals.
As a result, the SME reduced its average order processing time by 25% during the pilot phase, demonstrating the value of a structured approach.
Evaluate Essential Technical and Organizational Criteria
Once needs are formalized, the evaluation focuses on flexibility, performance, security, user experience, and total cost. Each criterion must be weighted according to its business impact.
Flexibility and Customization
The ERP must adapt to business specificities without disproportionate extra costs. Native customization capabilities or modular extensions are essential.
Flexibility also means ease of updating and deploying enhancements. A vendor offering an open architecture and well-documented APIs reduces the risk of vendor lock-in.
Configurable modules without bespoke development empower business teams and limit dependence on integrators.
A configurable framework allows rapid adjustments to workflows, calculation rules, or reports without a full system overhaul.
Performance and Availability
Fault tolerance and scalability are assessed via Service Level Agreements (SLAs) guaranteeing at least 99.9% availability. Response times should be measured under representative load.
Load testing and disaster recovery plans validate the proposed infrastructure’s robustness.
Cloud-based ERP options offer dynamic scalability according to traffic and business cycles.
Log analysis and continuous monitoring ensure early detection of performance anomalies.
Security and Compliance
Encryption of data at rest and in transit, centralized rights management, and audit logs are prerequisites for a secure ERP.
Compliance with GDPR, SOX, IFRS, ISO 27001, or FINMA standards must be certified or verified by third-party audits.
Managing multi-entity environments and legally compliant archiving cycles ensures impeccable traceability.
Regular access reviews and penetration tests complement the product’s native security.
Example of Modular Integration
A pharmaceutical organization tested a standard API to synchronize its ERP with a cloud CRM and a BI tool. Prototyping validated, in two weeks, the transfer of customer records and sales data without heavy development.
This example shows that interoperability via native connectors or documented APIs reduces technical drift risks.
This early validation prevented a bespoke integration project estimated at several months of development.
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Identify Risks and Prevent Them Upfront
Major ERP project pitfalls—overestimating functionality, hidden costs, limited adoption, or vendor dependency—must be identified at launch. Preventive measures ensure controlled implementation.
Overestimating Functional Coverage
The lure of a one-size-fits-all solution can lead to choosing software that purports to cover every need without field validation. In reality, each company has unique processes.
A benchmark focused on truly used features and the maturity of specific modules limits the risk of losing critical functionality.
Workshops involving business and IT stakeholders confront vendor promises with concrete scenarios.
A fit-gap approach identifies gaps to address from the start, avoiding surprises after contracting.
Underestimating Customization and Integration Costs
Initial quotes often overlook efforts for data migration, connectors, and specific adaptations. These costs can represent 30% to 50% of the total budget.
Allocating a financial buffer for unforeseen changes provides flexibility without jeopardizing project progress.
A detailed reverse schedule outlining migration and testing milestones frames adjustment phases.
Contracting a clear fixed fee for major customizations limits renegotiations during the project.
Resistance to Change
Poor end-user involvement can lead to low adoption and parallel processes outside the ERP.
An organizational change plan—including communication, training, and business sponsors—facilitates ownership.
Prototyping workshops and interactive demos involve future users from the selection phase.
Appointing super-users and business champions ensures ongoing support and gradual skill development.
Mixed Governance Example
A large Swiss retailer formed a steering committee of IT and business leaders to validate each configuration iteration. This cross-functional governance reduced rework by 40% during testing.
The example demonstrates the effectiveness of mixed governance in preventing functional drift and anticipating real needs.
Methodology and Selection Checklist
A structured methodology simplifies choosing among five to ten solutions, with three to five vendors selected for demos. Scoring and a targeted proof of concept ensure an informed decision.
Defining Objectives and Requirements Specification
Revisit business objectives and identified functional needs to draft a concise requirements specification. Focus on 20% of use cases to cover 80% of needs.
Prioritize each requirement by business impact and technical criticality to form the scoring basis.
The document includes organizational constraints, deployment conditions, and expected success indicators.
This requirements specification serves as the single reference for demos and RFPs.
Benchmarking and Scoring
A benchmark of 5 to 10 solutions produces an initial shortlist. Vendors present personalized demos based on a representative use case.
A weighted scoring grid evaluates each solution on technical criteria, UX, total cost, support, and product roadmap.
Scores assigned during demos ensure objective, transparent rankings.
The process also compares vendor financial health and availability of a local support community.
Proof of Concept and Negotiation
A proof of concept covers a key project scope, validating integration, performance, and usability in real conditions.
PoC deliverables include a gap report against requirements, approved by a mixed IT/business committee.
The negotiation phase covers SLAs (availability, response times), support terms, the development roadmap, and exit conditions.
Special attention is paid to data transfer clauses and vendor independence.
Make ERP Selection a Driver of Your Transformation
The ERP selection process should be viewed as a strategic project combining business vision and operational rigor. By starting from critical processes and key indicators, evaluating technical and organizational criteria, and anticipating risks, every decision is backed by facts and concrete validations.
The methodology—targeted requirements specification, structured benchmark, weighted scoring, operational PoC, and guided negotiation—ensures a controlled deployment perfectly aligned with performance and growth ambitions.
Our Edana experts are available to support you at every selection stage, from needs formalization to final negotiation, making your ERP a true lever of competitiveness and innovation.
