ERP has become an indispensable business tool because it greatly affects the day-to-day operations and productivity of the organization. Centralized management allows departments to effectively coordinate and collaborate with each other. However, choosing an ERP system is not as easy as we think. There are many criteria that must be taken into consideration while choosing ERP for your business. 

Phương pháp tốt nhất để đánh giá phần mềm ERP là cân nhắc điểm mạnh và điểm yếu và ráp với yêu cầu thực tiễn của doanh nghiệp. Bài viết này sẽ hướng dẫn bạn một số tiêu chí nhất định mà bạn nên tuân theo khi lựa chọn phần mềm ERP.

List the Essential Process Requirements (BRDs)

To get started with any project, not just ERP implementation, the first and foremost thing is to gather requirements. Without identifying an exhaustive list of needs, your business cannot achieve the desired changes, especially in ERP implementation. Therefore, clearly list your ERP requirements in a pre-list.

Use every method possible to complete these lists. Chat with every employee, from workers, managers, team leaders, suppliers, customers about needs and things to incorporate in the application. Write down every proposal, using a Google Spreadsheet is a great idea. Then categorize the level of necessity into three levels: Required - Yes, Good - Later.

TopERP's Odoo deployment model analyzes business requirements further to help evaluate ERP software more effectively.

The detailed feature list should contain all the requirements and be correctly classified, which will help the implementation partner have a complete picture of the requirements of the Enterprise.

You can cross-match and ensure relevance by providing the feature list back to employees who have previously provided the information. Check to see if they agree with the needs listed. This helps you to add all the necessary elements in the solution suite to make everything complete and relevant.

Scalability

It is always good to use sets of solutions that are scalable and responsive to a growing number of users. Some consultants often present too much focus on features that forget to mention the ability to scale to help businesses "bloom" in the future.

Especially for solutions for the retail industry, there are tens of thousands of product SKUs operating at the same time, a few hundred thousand to a million customers in the data list, tens of millions of transactions or entries occur every day. . At this point, you definitely need a solution with good scalability.

The ability to scale to hundreds of employees working at the same time can be costly and unforeseeable. Therefore, it is important to ask ERP implementation partners whether the solution can be extended as needed.

Consider Return on Investment (ROI) 

While total cost of ownership (TCO) is a very important indicator in the ERP software selection process. However, understand the return on investment (ROI) from the software is equally significant.

 If you decide to opt for an ERP solution that is judged on ROI rather than total cost of ownership, it is certain that the chosen ERP commitment will deliver more relevant business benefits to your Business. ROI here is not simply revenue, but it can be a cost that Enterprises save when there is a good solution to increase the efficiency of each member.

An implementation ROI analysis needs to fully assess potential costs.

Let's build a set of business operation scenarios, then record the performance indicators before and after applying ERP. This will help businesses have a clearer view of ROI, avoiding subjective judgments.

Solution availability over time

Some ERP solutions that are built by local developers or by in-house teams can have operational problems if the project is broken in the middle. Businesses that fail to choose these solutions often face the situation of "Putting children out of the market".

Global solutions such as SAP or Odoo are more sustainable thanks to certified partners who are always ready for future growth and expansion. You can see the comparison of SAP Business One and Odoo to understand more about these 2 solutions.

Therefore, before choosing an ERP solution for your business, it is a wise decision to look at the development process and the community using the solution. With Odoo, the open source platform is becoming a stiff competitor to other ERP systems in the market and is constantly upgrading its architecture to keep up with the changing trends of technology. Odoo has a large community building, tuning, and upgrading. Therefore, Enterprises can easily verify the long-term of Odoo and do not depend on any specific Odoo vendor or implementation.

Likewise, should you do your research to see if your chosen ERP product is keeping up with the competition? Is the number of customers growing? If not, it is possible that the solution is having financial problems and the project could be closed at any time. And as you know, with closed-source solutions and no global team of experts backing you up, there's little chance of continuing to develop software that meets more advanced business models.

Reference rating

For any type of purchase, it is always important to provide consultations from customers who have used the service because it helps determine the capabilities of the ERP solution provider. 

References that have been successfully implemented by customers help detect and determine whether ERP vendor claims are true. At the same time, it also helps to learn the system capabilities and usability. To validate claims made by a vendor, the best method is to ask previous customers about their experience with a particular vendor or application. 

ERP reference reviews open up many interesting perspectives

Some interesting aspects such as what functions have been implemented? How effective is it? Is there any benefit in terms of Revenue or Expense? What is the level of support and training of the ERP solution provider? etc...

Referring to reviews from similar organizations can help you get the most valuable input that fits your requirements. For example, if you're planning to deploy ERP in the cloud, ask customers who have deployed cloud ERP applications in their business.

User Support

Using ERP, especially with some levels of staff, is always something that is said to be very difficult. Therefore, the method and ability to support end users when implementing ERP is very interesting.

Except for providing full documents from text, images to video, Enterprises need to consider the ability of the supplier to "accommodate" the implementation team below. No employee likes boring training, lack of fun atmosphere.

The more detailed the user manual, the faster the implementation will be.

However, it should also be noted that from the perspective of the President of the Company or the Director, you always need to ask the supplier for actual reports on the implementation situation to grasp and have a solution to the implementation. The most suitable ERP.

With Odoo, the implementation will be lighter when the system supports multi-language and the interface is modern and easy to use.

Request solution function 

Every business has certain functional requirements that must be met before you change your ERP system or update its requirements. It is very important that your new ERP meet any functional requirements that are harmful to the smooth running of business operations.

For example, does your ERP support the sale of physical products as well as services on the same system? Or will your ERP support multiple currencies when your business operates in multiple countries? You will have dozens of functional requirements to consider. Therefore, make sure all your functional requirements are met while you choose ERP. TopERP's approach is to provide a list of available feature requests for your reference and selection.

Integrate with existing systems or with 3rd parties

There are common data components in ERP. Therefore, the question arises whether the new ERP can read, process and transfer to other systems while still ensuring security.

TopERP once encountered a case where the project leader failed to check the API costs incurred when connecting to the Oracle system. Result? The API cost that Oracle reported was more than $100,000, four times the cost of developing a satellite system using Odoo. And the project was gently closed because it was much over budget, mainly from the API with Orcale. 

Budgets and Resources

Doanh nghiệp của bạn có thể phân bổ ngân sách bao nhiêu để ứng dụng được một hệ thống ERP? Nếu ngân sách của bạn hạn chế, bạn cần tiết giảm và phân loại thật chặt chẽ, kỹ lưỡng các yêu cầu chức năng mà các phòng ban đưa lên. Hoặc bạn có thể lựa chọn các giải pháp trên nền điện toán đám mây (like the TopERP SaaS packages we are providing) with a reasonable fee, worry less about security factors.

According to preliminary statistics with the account cost per month, the SAP Business One system costs from $250, Oracle Netsuit costs from 300%, TopERP SaaS costs from $20. Each solution has certain strengths on its core platform.

Therefore, the spending budget needs to be properly weighed by giving viable options. Enterprises often believe that recruiting programmers with 2-3 years of experience in building ERP systems can save costs. However, in reality if you don't have a qualified team, the opportunity cost and salary cost can be even higher than the cost of outsourcing.

Tiki currently has more than 300 programmers, The Gioi Di Dong has nearly 200 programmers to meet the big system needs. Does your business have enough budget?

Ability to customize, customize ERP

For SaaS cloud-based ERP systems, you will not be able to customize as required due to the characteristics of sharing systems and solutions with many other companies. However, when your Business has many unique operating flows, that's when you will really consider the possibility of extensive customization of the solution.

However, be aware and clearly evaluate the customizations that the departments want, is it really important for your business or not? 

The ability to actively add and remove data cells is the strength of Odoo Enterprise

If your Business really needs software customization, carefully consider factors such as the simplicity and performance of the customization package. Make sure you consult qualified developers and designers for customizing ERP software like Odoo. TopERP with a combined team of more than 70 employees, we are confident in our ability to consult and program to ensure high performance for the entire system.

Another solution with Odoo is that you can buy the appropriate extensions (Addons) on Odoo's marketplace (Odoo Marketplace). More economical and efficient than building new!

Conclude

Before starting an ERP implementation, it is imperative to prepare the requirements that the solution must meet along with budget and resources. From our experience of more than 10 years in the field of ERP, we have admitted here 12 Selection Criteria. By quantify all the criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of ERP implementation,, the selection of a suitable ERP solution can be completed effectively in 1 to 2 weeks.