ERP Vendors for Small Business

They say that the selection of the enterprise resource planning or the ERP is important in terms of long term commitment. There are so many ERP vendors for small business available out there but not all of them will surely provide you with your expected services.

This article will now provide you with the information on how to evaluate these ERP vendors.

Before saying “yes” to the ERP vendors for small business you will encounter out there, always ensure that they will provide you all the things you are looking for. Thus, proper evaluation of these ERP vendors will surely help you a lot.
 

Define Your Business First
 

Prior to looking for the ERP vendors, the very first thing you need to remember is the business problems present. Take time to define your business and all the things needed. In each process present, make a list of the interactions with the other functions, security, edits, authorizations and any other necessities required. You have to bear in mind that ERP signifies total enterprise resource and this is not just intended in one function like for example Payroll and Finance.
 

Align Technical Requirements with technical Capabilities
 

You must also ensure that you will align the functional requirements with the technical capabilities. Aside from being an important tool for your clients, the new system that you will use should work with the technical environment of your organization. There are so many vendors who will run the software they have on many computing platforms. Moreover, you must also ask the possible vendors to provide you with financial information of their offers. Because of this information, you will be able to determine their stability. Aside from that, you must also request for their recent sales. You know surely why this is needed.
 

Know Financial Information
 

Also, you have to ascertain the cost of the project. When it comes to ERP, this basically includes implementation, the hardware as well as the software and the ongoing maintenance needed. In most cases, ERP vendors will charge you annually in terms of the maintenance of the maintenance aspect. You must not forget to weight the cost of the anticipated savings as well as the possible return of the investments. This is just a very basic way to evaluate the ERP vendors you have. Yet, there are so many business owners who forgot to do this. Surely, you do not want to feel regrets later on so this is a must.
 

Other Aspects to Evaluate
 

Furthermore, you must not also forget to assess the responses of the vendors to the RFP. This is determined by means of using scorecards developed from the RFP requirements. You must also evaluate the references and ask them to demo the software they have. As you are evaluating, make sure that you will do it to the software as well as to the vendor. The evaluation should cover the following:

  • Willingness for negotiable prices
  • Willingness to work with you
  • Responsive level
  • Industry's general status

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