Six early decisions decide whether your ERP succeeds
Most ERP projects are won or lost long before go-live. Discover the six decisions made in the first ninety days, why they quietly go wrong, and how to get them right before configuration begins.
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A 12-page paper on the six decisions that set your ERP outcome before configuration begins.
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>70%
ERP projects missing their original goals
92%
of ERP budget goes to technology
£1.22bn
Asda spent against £800m planned
What you'll learn
Six decisions to settle before configuration
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One owner who carries the P&L
Not a sponsor, but a business owner who loses money if it goes wrong and can refuse an exception in the room, on the day it is asked for.
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Standardize well, not just by default
A vendor default is the average of everyone who bought the software. Learn to tell a real competitive difference from an old habit, domain by domain.
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Named people, released from their jobs
A list of names, each with the thing they stopped doing, and an internal successor named on day one.
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Specify only to the next decision
Fix the target architecture, leave process detail open, and slice releases so each one runs end to end and produces evidence, not a demo.
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One architect who owns every system
Write down one owning system per domain, and give the boundaries to someone with no stake in how much gets configured.
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Reforecast on what shipped
Overruns follow a power law, so burn against plan tells you little. Scope shipped against scope scheduled shows the gap in week six.
The Problem
Nothing breaks on go-live day. Go-live is when the bill arrives for decisions made a year earlier, most of them in the first eight weeks by people who believed they were being reasonable. Phased rollouts made launches safer, but the design is still frozen in months of workshops before anyone has seen the software run. And the one judgment that matters most, which of your differences to keep, is the one your implementation partner is structurally unable to make for you.
“Specifying a new system before you have used it is like drawing the floor plan of a house you have never walked.”
Six early decisions settle the outcome. All six are still open in week eight.
“colayer has been instrumental in preparing Emma for its future for the next 10 to 20 years.”
FAQs
Is it true that 70% of ERP projects fail?
The popular figure has no traceable source. The version that holds up comes from Gartner: more than 70% of recently launched ERP projects will fall short of their original goals by 2027, and up to a quarter will fail catastrophically.
Why do ERP projects fail?
Rarely because of the software. Research consistently ranks organizational factors highest: top management support, fit with the organization and user training. Yet Prosci finds only 8% of a typical ERP budget goes to helping the organization adapt.
When are the most important decisions in an ERP project made?
Most of them in the first eight to twelve weeks, before configuration begins. That is when ownership, standardization, staffing, design depth, system boundaries and steering get settled, deliberately or by default. Go-live only reveals the result. If one of them cannot be answered yet, fix it before configuring rather than start and hope.
Who should own an ERP project, IT or the business?
The business. An ERP project needs one owner who carries the P&L, not just a sponsor: someone who loses money if it goes wrong and can refuse an exception in the room, on the day it is asked for, without escalating. A CIO in that seat has the visibility but usually not the authority to say no.
Does a phased rollout reduce ERP risk?
It makes the launch safer, but it changes how the software is delivered, not how it is designed. If months of workshops freeze every process before anyone has seen the system run, the risk is still there. It just surfaces later.
Should we stick to the ERP vendor's standard processes?
Mostly, but not blindly. A vendor default is the average of everyone who bought the software. Keep the differences that are the reason you win, like product bundling for a consumer brand, and drop the ones that are just habit.
Should product data live in a PIM or in the ERP?
It depends on who owns the data and how they work. What matters most is that the person deciding has no stake in which answer creates more configuration work, which is why the paper argues for one architect who owns every system, not just the ERP.
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A 12-page paper on the six decisions that set your ERP outcome before configuration begins.
Done!
The whitepaper is on its way to your inbox. If it doesn’t arrive within a few minutes, please check your spam folder.
By submitting, you agree that we may send you the whitepaper by email. Unsubscribe anytime.