So you are ready to purchase an ERP or Financial or CRM or other system for your large organization. What are some basics to make the selection and deployment go well?
First, you need to get all the stakeholders fully involved early on. Gather clear requirements and identify core business processes that need to be supported. For maximum success you should really develop at least a high level Value CompoNet Architecture for your company. At the very least make sure you have someone who is working for you, guiding the process, who has experience deploying software solutions in large organizations.
While it would be ideal if they have experience in your industry it is even more important that they have experience across a wide range of industries. This will give them the broad perspective which is critical to understand the old and new system from a general systems perspective. You don’t want them to get so caught up in the details that they miss macro issues. This individual should also have broad software engineering experience so they can quickly get a perspective on the new solution and grasp issues likely to come up with migration and integration relative to that system.
Be sure to consider human factors and effective change management relative to how the new system will affect line workers. Most importantly, as the leader develops the deployment plan be certain that fail-safes, roll-back, and mitigation plans are ready before you start.