Lumenia ERP HEADtoHEAD™ Guest Blog from Jordan Parker, Migration and Integration Consultant at GenetiQ.
As an ERP project progresses, attention inevitably turns to one thing: the date you go live on your new system. But having a date in the diary doesn’t tell you whether your business is ready for it.
I work with businesses through the migration process, from the first rounds of data through to the final handover. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that reaching the date and being ready for it aren’t necessarily the same thing.
There’ll always be pressure to get there. But before I’d feel comfortable making that move, I’d want evidence that the business is ready, not just that you’ve reached the planned date.
That means looking at what’s been proven: Does the data add up? Have the difficult processes been tested? Does everyone know what happens during cutover?
Here are five questions you need answered before making the call:
1. Can you reconcile the important numbers?
Before go-live, you need to know that the information you’ll rely on has come across correctly.
During a dummy run, we bring current information, such as stock balances, into your new system and compare it with your old system. If the stock valuation says €1 million in one and €1 million in the other, happy days.
If it doesn’t match, that’s useful too. You’ve found something you can investigate while there’s still time to fix it!
I’ve worked on a migration where it took five attempts to get the stock right. By go-live, it transferred exactly as planned, with no stock discrepancies.
2. Have you tested the difficult processes?
Testing a straightforward transaction can tell you the system works. It doesn’t necessarily tell you what will happen when real life gets involved.
For an ecommerce integration, for example, don’t just check whether an order comes through. Try an order with a discount code, several products and a service item. Follow the payment through and check what happens in accounts.
Think about the awkward scenarios your team deals with and test those.
It’s not a tick-box exercise. You’re trying to build confidence that the process will work when the business depends on it.
3. Can people show you how they’ll work?
There’s a difference between somebody completing their training and being ready to do their job.
We use walkthroughs where people show us how they’ll carry out the processes they’ll need after go-live.
The last thing anybody wants on that first morning is an end user sitting there saying, “I don’t know how to put on a sales order.”
From my point of view, if we reach go-live and nobody is asking me how to do the things we’ve already worked through, I’m a happy man. It means people know what they need to do and they’re doing it.
4. Does everybody know exactly what happens during cutover?
Go-live involves a lot of moving parts, so before you get there, everybody should know what needs to happen, when it needs to happen and who owns it.
We build a cutover plan covering things such as final data, stock balances, open sales and purchase orders, user access and the responsibilities on both sides.
It should also account for ordinary things going wrong. What happens if the person who was supposed to provide the accounts data is suddenly off sick?
You want those questions answered beforehand, not while everyone is waiting for the new system to go live.
5. Is somebody prepared to say you’re not ready?
As go-live gets closer, there can be a lot of momentum behind the date. But the date shouldn’t make the decision for you.
If we think a customer is heading towards a difficult go-live, we’ll raise it and explain why. The customer also needs to be able to say they’re not comfortable going ahead.
By then, you should have evidence to make that decision: the data has been checked, important scenarios have been tested, people can carry out their jobs and the cutover is understood.
Readiness should be something you can demonstrate, not something you simply hope you’ve reached.
Optimism is great. Evidence is better.
No ERP migration is going to come with a guarantee that every unknown has disappeared. That’s not what you’re trying to achieve.
What you should have by go-live is enough evidence to make a deliberate decision.
If that evidence says you’re ready, go. If it doesn’t, don’t let the date make the decision for you.
Meet GenetiQ at ERP HEADtoHEAD
GenetiQ will be at ERP HEADtoHEAD Ireland on October 13-14th, at the Crowne Plaza Dublin Airport.
If migration is one of the things making you hesitate about changing ERP, come and talk to our team about what the process actually looks like, what you should expect from an implementation partner and how to build confidence before go-live.
Learn more about GenetiQ: https://www.genetiqsoftware.com/en-gb/
