When Choosing an ERP Solution, Don’t Overlook the Obvious

If your organization has come to the decision that a new ERP system is necessary to help run your business, you probably already know that choosing the right ERP system can be a daunting task.  Whether you are starting from scratch or making a change from one ERP system to another, there are many things to consider.  You will quickly find that it is easy to get bogged down in lists of requirements, need-to-haves, nice-to-haves, etc. While the steps of due diligence are highly informative and necessary in your search for a new ERP system, you will also benefit from taking a step back from the details and looking at some big picture questions – specifically those involving usability.

When we talk about usability as it pertains to ERP systems, we are referring to a couple of things - the system design and architecture as well as the ease of use for end users. When exploring the system design of an ERP system, you will want to keep design flexibility in mind.  Is the ERP system easily upgraded and enhanced?  One problem with some of the ERP systems designed in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s is that they were not designed with evolution in mind.  Therefore, subsequent changes and adaptations that were necessary to keep up with updates in technology and modern business models were often painful and piecemeal.  Look for an ERP system with a well thought out, modern, and consistent design.

When exploring an ERP system’s usability in regard to the end user, the user interface is an extremely important factor.  In a white paper titled Usability as an ERP Selection Criteria, Dan Matthews describes the trend of affordance as it applies to ERP user interface design:

As ERP begins to increasingly mimic the Web in its look, feel and in how it makes information available to users, the disciplines of Web site usability and ERP usability will begin to converge. One concept used in Web design that will become extremely important to those designing enterprise applications is the concept of affordance. Affordance involves using basic stimulus-response thinking in the design of objects, situations or systems. By applying the concept of affordance, a designer can generate a user interface that can be intuitively figured out by the user.

Exploring the user interface of any ERP system you are considering is crucial to informing your decision.  So do yourself a favor and make sure you schedule a product demo for all of the ERP systems on your short list.  A demo will allow you to see how employees interact with and respond to specific ERP systems and you will be able to get valuable feedback from your colleagues as they share their opinions on the system’s ease of use.

If NetSuite is one of the ERP systems you are considering, contact The Vested Group today for a free demo!  We can answer all of your questions as well as show you why NetSuite is an excellent choice as far as usability – and plenty of other factors – is concerned.  The Vested Group is an experienced NetSuite consulting firm with satisfied clients all over the United States.