As the CFO of an organization, your responsibility is to ensure efficient and effective financial operations and records, and influence overall strategy. An ERP is the foundation of the operations of a business. For a CFO, it enables you to track and report on all business transactions, analyse information, ensure governance and compliance, and increasingly do this via mobile devices. Therefore, you need to be very sure your ERP project will deliver what the business requires, and also what was promised.

One of the biggest difficulties that consultants going down-market have is getting the price for their services in the right ballpark for small- and medium-sized businesses.

Speaking from the perspective of an ERP vendor, we often come across prospective clients who have misleading expectations for the price of ERP set by a consultant who didn’t understand the lower end of the market.

We are told time and time again, we should not always be so quick to believe everything we hear, and this also holds true in the software industry - particularly ERP.

In my first blog on de-bunking common ERP myths, I discussed the fallacy that ERP is too hard to learn. In my second blog I explained why there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all ERP system. In this blog , I discuss why there is more to selecting an ERP vendor than just the technology and the functionality, and this is certainly true of SYSPRO.

Looking to the future, the variation of customer demand globally will require that manufacturers adopt production proximity - having a few plants around the world that produce standard platforms and components, then doing final assembly in local factories which can better serve local needs. This trend is playing out on two fronts - re-shoring of global plants, and local assembly. Both of these trends help manufacturers meet the demands of consumers who are increasingly expecting customized products delivered in a timely manner.

In my first blog on de-bunking common ERP myths, I discussed the myth that “ERP is too hard to learn”. In this next blog I discuss how (despite marketing attempts to the contrary) when it comes to Enterprise Resource Planning, one size DOES NOT fit all.

Myth #2 - ERP is one-size-fits-all

Continuing with our topic of manufacturing technology trends, fast decision-making will be one characteristic of successful manufacturing operations of the future, and technology is providing faster access to a greater volume of information both from the factory floor and from external sources.

As humans, we are often quick to believe speculation and establish opinion based on what often happens to be myth. As we are told time and time again, we should not always be so quick to believe everything we hear, and this also holds true in the software industry - particularly ERP.

One of the ways that manufacturers can be classified is as discrete or process; this describes the type of manufacturing processes involved (there is a third type, mixed mode, which combines both). Your typical small- or medium-sized manufacturer has better things to do than care about whether they are process or discrete. However these distinctions are really quite useful when choosing an ERP system. Knowing the differences will help you understand the types of challenges your ERP system will need to address.