How to measure the success of your ERP project

Unfortunately, not all ERP implementations are a huge success. Some fail early on whilst others fall short of expectations - and the reasons for this vary. From choosing the wrong ERP partner, through to implementing technology that doesn’t meet the needs of your business or customers, as well as failing to engage employees.

But how can you tell whether your ERP project has succeeded or fallen short? And what steps can be taken to safeguard your implementation from failure?

In this article, we explore a list of KPIs that you can track before and after implementation, helping you build a more detailed plan that focuses on success.

1. Evaluate customer experience

The experience your customers have is critical to your ongoing success. Start by setting specific objectives to leverage your ERP and improve customer experience where issues have been highlighted.

For example, if customer satisfactory rates or average or low, what percentage of lift do you expect to achieve after implementation? And how exactly will your implementation and technology support that?

Before and after implementation, track the following KPIs to help measure the success of your ERP:

• Call response times
• Number of customer complaints
• Customer ratings
• Repeat customers

If things are improving for most or all of the above post implementation, you can be confident that your ERP is making a positive impact for customers and therefore your business.

2. Track sales performance

Many businesses pursue the idea of ERP implementation to optimise their capabilities and opportunities in sales. Be sure to set KPIs that help you accurately track sales performance, and which clearly indicate progress. This could include:

• Average order size
• Percent of lost sales
• Conversion rates

3. Calculate profits

In an ideal world, your new ERP will help your business grow, capture greater ROI, and increase revenues. This is because when implemented correctly, ERP can provide your team with real-time data that influences strategic decisions, help improve forecasting, and save on costs related to inefficiencies.

Before implementation, measure your bottom line and then assess the change afterwards. KPIs to help do this effectively, include:

• Gross profit margin
• Average invoice processing costs
• Cost per employee per location
• Average margin per product/service
• Inventory turnover

4. Assess business productivity

Optimising business processes to increase productivity is a goal many companies share when implementing an ERP – and it’s clear why. If operations are running smoothly, customers are happy, and profit margins rise.

Some of the most telling KPIs for measuring productivity based on an ERP are usually related to employees, such as:

• Number of sales calls made per employee
• Average task completion rate
• Transactions processed and orders completed per employee

Ensure a successful ERP implementation with Nolan Business Solutions  

At Nolan Business Solutions, we’re committed to providing long term ERP solutions tailored to our customers’ needs. We’re the experts in providing NetSuite and Microsoft Dynamics solutions that help businesses looking to grow.

Our team of accredited ERP experts will develop, deploy and support your implementation from beginning to end, and after. So, if you’re looking to start your ERP implementation journey, we’d love to support you. Contact our team today for more information.