Seven ways to tell if you're "Shaving the Bear" with your ERP
Today we welcome a new blogster to Olympic's I.T. Matters - Heather Roggeveen.
Heather is one of our most senior and most trusted consultants. Heather works mainly with Microsoft Dynamics GP - but her perspective is much wider, as you will see by her below post.
Keep an eye out for more succinct application relevant and financially-fantastic content from her from now on :) - Alex
Hi, this was something I admittedly found two years ago, but it’s one of those things that is forever relevant, and so I share with you all now.
I am a big fan of Mark Polino's very on point blog in relation to the approach a lot of organisations take to their ERP. A couple of years ago he made the reference to "shaving a bear", which comes from a Japanese public service announcement that had a little girl shaving a bear to address global warming. Sure, the bear would be more comfortable (despite the way it would look), but global warming would be no closer to being addressed.
Mark used this analogy to describe seven ways in which organisations "shave the bear" with regard to their processes and ERP.
The top one on his list is one that we also see very often:
- You pay for a customisation to avoid fixing a broken process
Reviewing your processes and looking for solutions that do not involve customisation can be the most effective way to get good ROI on your ERP. Usually effective process review cannot be done internally - you need to utilise the "arms-length" approach that an external person can offer.
A good ERP consultant will always try to use existing functionality rather than customisation - beware anyone who does not take the time to investigate your process and automatically suggests customisation. But also beware of yourself - if you automatically jump to the conclusion that customisation is required, then you may be setting yourself up for on-going issues in the future.
Mark's full article can be viewed here:
http://msdynamicsworld.com/story/accounting/seven-ways-tell-if-you-are-shaving-bear-microsoft-dynamics-gp?destination=node%2F15244
You will need to register for the site to read the full details. It is a good site and I would recommend registering to read the articles.
Cheers
Heather