> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://abcsoferp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # How to Choose an ERP: 5 Questions to Answer Before You Look at a Single Demo - URL: https://abcsoferp.com/episodes/s04e13-how-to-choose-an-erp-5-questions-to-answer-before-you-look-at-a-single-demo/ - Published: 2026-06-16T07:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-19T21:50:17.000Z - Description: Choosing the wrong ERP is one of the most expensive mistakes a business can make — and it rarely happens because the software was bad. It happens because the company never worked out what it actually needed before it fell for a slick demo. The tech demo always works. That's the… - Author: ABCs of ERP & Beyond - Tags: Selecting an ERP, People and process, Data, reporting and AI, ERP practitioners, #episode S04E13 · 48 min ## Episode notes [Send us a message about this episode!](https://www.buzzsprout.com/2109197/fan%5Fmail/new?ref=abcsoferp.com) Choosing the wrong ERP is one of the most expensive mistakes a business can make — and it rarely happens because the software was bad. It happens because the company never worked out what it actually needed before it fell for a slick demo. The tech demo always works. That's the entire point of the tech demo. In this episode Pete, Emily, and Nirav walk through how to choose an ERP properly, from both sides: the inward look at your own business, and the outward look at the market. It's the first time the show has tackled the selection question head-on — and the short version is that almost all the work happens before you ever email a vendor. What we cover: - Why "it's old" and "it's expensive" are symptoms, not reasons — and the real question to ask: what can't you do today that's costing you money? - Why fit beats age every time (a 15-year-old system that still fits the business is not a problem) - The "do nothing" option — and why a lot of what you want from a new ERP, you can do without one - Know who you are: revenue, users, sites, countries, industry, compliance — the facts that quietly shrink your shortlist - Why you choose on fit first and cost second (ROI shows up in years three to six, not year one) - Why "know your processes" is the most important step — and the test that proves whether you actually do - Ask *why* you do something, not *what* you do — and let your project manager be the internal consultant - Non-negotiables vs preferences in disguise — and the one-line test that separates them - Where to start the market research: G2, Compare Software, Info-Tech, industry associations, Reddit, and yes, AI - How to handle demos: every demo works, so your job is to break it — on your data, with your hardest questions - Why the implementation partner matters as much as the ERP, and the red flags that should make you walk If you're about to be handed the "which ERP should we get?" question — or you're the one handing it over — start here. Done properly, choosing an ERP takes four to eight months. This episode is how you spend that time well. [Support the show](https://www.buzzsprout.com/2109197/support?ref=abcsoferp.com) ## Watch the episode ## Transcript The speaker labels and timings come from the edited Riverside transcript. Read the full transcript Peter Nicholson (00:24) And welcome back to the ABCs of ERP and Beyond, the podcast all about enterprise resource planning and how it can help your manufacturing and distribution businesses grow, get control, and stop firefighting. I am Pete and joined as always by Narav and Emily, and today we are going to help you hopefully avoid one of the most expensive mistakes a business can make, and that is choosing the wrong ERP. How would you go around choosing the right one for you? And it happens more than you think. A company can sit through a slick sales demo, a tech demo, falls for the system that looks great and signs the deal and spends the next few years regretting it. And it's not because the software itself was bad, but because they never worked out what they actually needed first. So today we are walking through. Some of the steps to get this right from everything from the pain that's really driving the decision all the way to the research that stops you buying the wrong thing. So as ever, let's get straight into it. Welcome both. Nirav Shah (01:23) Thank you, Pete. Emily Browning (01:23) Hello. Peter Nicholson (01:24) So we've spoken ⁓ on prior episodes around you know what the p pitfalls of choosing the wrong one, how you decide to upgrade or migrate, and we keep floating around this whole idea of choosing an ERP. we even covered things like what to ask your potential vendor, what questions to pose to them before you buy their software, but we've never really done one specifically around how to choose an ERP. From both sides. I think this is the first episode where we're going to be discussing the two sides of it. One is more inward looking, looking at your business, how it's operating, what pain points it's going through, what kind of complexities it has, that inward reflection. And then also looking at the market, looking at the ERP market. What tools are there to help businesses that are looking for an ERP? What tools there are a available to see and compare and pit each ERP against each other before you even start to have to engage you know, with vendors and send that email. And of course it's one of those things that I'm sure every business as soon as they sign up to a newsletter of some ERP consultancy company, they get bombarded like, you know, your email stands to propagate around and You know, it's one of those things where for me it's always the tech demo. It's almost meaningless, right? Because it's gonna often be on tech demo data. It's gonna work. it's easy to show something flashy and look, two clicks and I'm done. Month end is closed in ten seconds. It's never like that. Never, never like that. And it's so Surprising to me how many companies still get duped by this. So let's use today's episode to once and for all go right, listen to this episode. Go through this, and you should have success. So I think we should start with that inward looking, and speak about why do you need an ERP? Why are you even looking for an ERP? Nirav Shah (03:05) Yeah. Peter Nicholson (03:18) So what kind of indicators are there for a for a business before they even start doing anything else? what do they need to first think about when they're looking for or they think they need an ERP? Emily Browning (03:30) My experience is usually kind of all for the same reason. So maybe I can share that and then Nirav can probably share some more interesting ones as he's on the consultant side. So I think for one, this episode should be used as a, hopefully a little bit of a resource before you go to a, you know, ERP. agnostic company that can, you know, says they can help you decide they'll do the consulting for you. I think that's perfectly fine. But I do think we can maybe jump to it a little, little too quickly when actually you can look at yourself, research the market. If you have the confidence to do that and the time and the ability to do that, then why can't you, why can't you select your own? So yes, why. why do you need a new ERP in the first place? The main experience of mine is we have a really old one. Is that necessarily a problem in and of itself? Probably, because if it's end of life support, perhaps you haven't been doing your upgrades, then you're going to run into cyber security risks. You probably have a bunch of customizations because functionality that's available now as standard was not available then as standard. Could be niche. you know, any changes that you need, support that you need, you know, It's a dwindling pool of people about to retire who are the only people who can support you any longer. Lots of reasons why your old system is not fit for purpose anymore. For me, I often see it as loss of knowledge. It's not easy to get support. And we're a business who wants to drive forward, make changes, automations, do better things with data, whatever. And we're stuck with these old things, all of these integrations sitting on old servers. That is the main reason I see in my own role to move towards a new ERP. Nirav Shah (05:30) Yeah, I think Emily, really good points there. from the other side of it, when we see customers looking at, you know, new ERP systems, we kind of see it, you know, a lot of different different reasons. You know, there's takeovers, mergers, acquisitions, where more more or less the the new company that's bought a company that realize that this company needs an ERP system and they're out there Getting them, you know, looking out there in the market for for an ERP system where they have one, turnover of the C-suite potentially, like someone important's in there. and, you know, like like you mentioned, is, you know, they they just had this aha moment that what they're doing right now is is taking too long, or their employees are upset, or there's real some real big driving internal force. that's like there has to be a better way. So then they go out to market and start looking for ERP, right? There's Google searches Obviously with AI now, you're looking at AI and and I'll be, you know, you know quite honest here that most customers are pretty well educated just through their own kind of research that they're doing. Right. And they are trying to ask the right questions when it comes to AI. They're trying to ask AI, you know, what would be the right fit for me? what budget would I look at? 'cause the 'cause an ERP project for any company is one time every twenty or thirty years. Right. So when you have to go through it, you really don't know where to start. So there's some, you know, really great tools out there that, you know, get them going, get them to understand. where ERP kind of fits in the landscape right now from a technology perspective. but you know, once they get through the the hurdle of, you know, okay, yes, it's confirmed we need one because of X, Y, and Z reasons. or whoever is driving the conversation has convinced somebody everybody else that they need one. And what what what what's a rough estimate, right? And I'm not a big fan of all the estimated estimators out there on the internet. ⁓ they could be a little shaky because they don't know exactly your business process, they don't know exactly the number of SKUs you have, they don't know exactly, you know, what your users are like. So that Peter Nicholson (07:26) Mm-hmm. Nirav Shah (07:38) You know, I would say just you know kind of take that as a grain of salt when you're when you're looking that, but find something that's really aligned with your business processes if you just focus on the SMB, you know, husband and wife business, 10 million, 15 million, you know, let's say even up to like 75 million, there's an aha moment. And maybe whoever's listening out there is having that moment right now, like, holy crap, we've been running a certain way for a certain time. And we are about to grow another 20%. And what we're doing now, it's just not gonna cut it. My team is gonna be pissed. you know, we're not gonna get the information we need to service our customers correctly, we're gonna have late orders, whatever that is, right? That's usually the you know what what I feel is a driver when we get into conversations, like, hey, there's this one problem or two problems, like we need to solve this. But then that, but then that also allows them to solve other problems when they start working with an ERP partner and they say, wait, I could also do this. I could also do that. So, you know, I've seen it across the board why these initiatives kind of take off in a business. but they are, I think all, like you said, for the right reasons. At the end, I don't think I've seen a bad reason to to get an ERP or choose an ERP system, right? they're not saying, yeah, we just implemented last year and we're going to implement another one just because we had so much fun. So we want to do it one more time. Emily Browning (08:52) haha Nirav Shah (08:53) So I haven't never heard that out there, but at the same you know, but what I have heard is all legitimate business reasons and you know, there's a lot of obviously misinformation out there too that, you know, where someone will Yes, I need an ERP system, but they read something like, wait a minute, nope, I can't do an ERP system right now. So then they they fall back to what they're doing right away. So, yeah, right, there's a lot of things that here that we're gonna probably discuss and go through, but And you know, a lot of these don't have ERP, a lot of these customers don't have ERP systems right now. and and and to be another fun fact, a lot of these customers don't even know what ERP is right now. In our industry, we use acronyms everywhere, right? ERP Enterprise Resource Planning could also be known as management information systems, aka could also be known as business information systems, right? AKA could be also be known as Oracle, right? Like it's like everyone knows, you know, has their own understanding of what an ERP is per se. So, you know, there's there's a lot of learnings that happen up front in the early stage. Like what what do I need? What am I looking for? Emily Browning (09:50) I'm going to pick a little bit on your comments about there's not a bad reason to choose an ERP because if I think about me making a business case, you know, I've done my assessment of all the ERPs and I'm making a proposal for one and then I need to say or at least know, you know, have it in my pocket why I haven't chosen other ERPs because you might find you say, we're going to go to QAD or we're going to go to Acumatica, Business Central, Epicore, SAP, whatever. There will always be people saying, but what about this one? What about dynamics? What about, you know, whatever? They're all going to they're going to ask about other ones. So you need to have your answer as to why, you know, actually we've assessed that one as either not suitable for us or not as good for these reasons. Your other option is what if we didn't move ERP? What if we didn't get a new ERP? What if Nirav Shah (10:20) What? Emily Browning (10:38) didn't migrate. That's also can be a solid choice. So you really need to know, really have it locked down what we're talking about now, which is why do you need a new system? Because there could be, you you could have a business complaining, you know, all of our data is a mess. We don't know, you know, what's up and what's down because, you know, the data is just horrendous. We've not maintained it for years. We just want to start fresh. Well, it doesn't work that way. You still have to clean up your data for the new system all that master data needs to be clean. You can't have open transactions from 10 years ago just because you haven't done that cleanup. all of the things that you will do as part of the project that you can sort tout as, you know, this is part of our return on investment, our data will be clean, you we'll have these nice clean new processes. I would always challenge, well, can you do those things anyway if we don't change ERP? Can you simplify your processes? Can you clean up your data? Maybe you can. Maybe you can, but it's not worth it because it would be prohibitively expensive. But worth thinking about. Always consider as well. Well, what if we don't? What if we do nothing? Nirav Shah (11:43) Right. Peter Nicholson (11:43) to add on to that that point also is when when you're considering the reasons why, I think a lot of those are just symptoms, right? If you say, Well, it's old, it's expensive, doesn't do what we need. That's not really the genuine reason. I think it's one of those kind of questions you've got to ask yourself of what does the ERP what can I not do today and what's costing me money because I can't do it? Right, so and as you said, like you know, the value of doing nothing if if it is it's old and our data's shit, well go and clean it up. You don't need a new ERP for that. what can you not do today that's costing you money that will justify the need to have an ERP or to move to a new ERP? I don't think old is one of those reasons 'cause, you know, I think we've said before, right? You know, you could be on a fifteen year old system that does the job absolutely fine. It's not it's it's the fit, it's not the age of the system, it's does it fit your business now? And you know, if you are in a business where everything's hunky dory, right? Everything's great, margins are brilliant, people still love our products offering. that's it, we just need to keep continuing to sell. A lot of businesses aren't in that position. They're either SMB and they're growing. They might grow out of their ERP and it's no longer suitable for them. They could be shrinking. Nirav Shah (12:40) the first person. Peter Nicholson (13:03) It could be an old manufacturer that's winding down, c closing, you know, closing down, that's you know, it's still got enough years that there's traction in the in the company, but I don't need this massive system anymore. I just need something more simple. Or it could be that, you know, your product life cycles have changed so much since the first ERP that now your products are different, your customers are different. Those customers are s are sold to in a different fashion. or those products now are better suited for e-commerce rather than you know a straight manufacturing setup straight to the customer and and now they're buying on maybe on an Amazon shopfront instead. Well that that changes the picture, right? So it all come for me it all comes back down to this fit. Does your system right now fit the business that you operate? combine that with what can I not do now? I think those are the kind of questions that when you find the answers to, that will give you the why behind it. 'Cause it's not a cut. It's fifteen years old, that means we need a new one. Emily Browning (14:05) Good summary. Nirav Shah (14:06) Yeah. Peter Nicholson (14:07) so that leads us on to the next one. Know who you are. So size industry. I think that probably starts to draw up maybe a short list as soon as you know your size, then immediately some ERP comes straight off the table, right? I'm just doing a little bit of manufacturing. Cool, you don't need F and O. ⁓ so know who you are. Let's throw this one. Nirav Shah (14:26) you Peter Nicholson (14:29) out there. what would we need to know? What questions are we asking ourselves and how can we maybe start narrowing down the potential options of ERP? Emily Browning (14:42) I think in terms of assessing yourself, it's quite a simple, straightforward question. It's really just the facts about who you are. So purely on the who are you question, it's you know, what is the size of the business? What is the revenue? How many users of the the system do you have? not necessarily how many employees, because they might not all be using the system. It depends, depends on what you do, how many sites do you have? Are you in multiple countries? What industry are you in? It's gathering that group of facts and then taking that out to the different ERP systems and assessing them on that basis. And for me, that's it that you know, that's as simple as that part is. Nirav Shah (15:21) Yeah, think, you know, knowing who you are, knowing your revenue, knowing, you know, your specific regulations, compliance, knowing your people, right? What are they capable of? Or are they not capable of? Are all important points in this assessment of what you're doing? Like, do you have somebody in the warehouse that's not going to be interested in doing this change? Right. And if that's where you're trying to make the most improvements, I don't know. I think that then is not, you know, probably not the right move right now, unless, you know, you get you get that person on board. Or like your regulations going through a lot of change. Like, let's say you're you're a manufacturer of something in cannabis, for example. Right. And you think you have a good process. You want an ERP system, but there's so massive change, so many changes out there. Like anything you buy right now might be outdated or not be sufficient for the next year, next six months? How far forward can you look when you are knowing who you are, what you need to continue to grow with the right system? Are you looking for x number of customers in a specific industry? And probably this is more of like a overarching comment like when you're first trying to choose an ERP, don't choose it based off a cost. Don't don't don't look at it based off a cost. Look at it look at look at it based off of how we can meet your business needs. And then start then start kind of floating in the costs as you're going through the process. Because that could really easily skew you down the wrong road. And now you're looking at systems that You have no business of looking at is not meant for your business, not meant for your industry. And you're just kind of focused on the cost aspect of it, right? The ROI is not the first year of ERP. The ROI of ERP is your three, your four, your five, your six and beyond. And how quickly your business could grow, which markets you could get into to get more business. So that always, I feel like that message isn't followed as closely in the choose an ERP in that stage when you're trying to get to your first ERP or second ERP. So that's kind of the points that I would add from a consultant perspective. Peter Nicholson (17:41) I would also add that this doesn't mean we'll just get like a general purpose ERP. you need to know who you are, you need to know your market, you need to fully understand that and find a system that's more catered towards that. there's a reason why Acumatica come out with different additions. As much as, you know, the foundational framework is general purpose, right? Everything's ships with finance, for example, but they come out with different additions, like manufacturing edition, because it comes with bomb management and everything that a manufacturing business would need. So I would say l make sure you fully know who you are because this will also help you find what's potentially available and also discount some of them as well. So, you know, another example would be something like QAD, massive in the automotive industry, because it's it's kind of an ERP built for automotive based customers. So I would definitely advocate for people spending their time inward looking on this stuff because you don't want to get to the point where you're just like exhausted and go, we'll just find something that kind of you know, n does a bit of everything, because they tend to not be good at anything. Nirav Shah (18:51) Right? Yeah, exactly. And, and find the right fit first, then look at cost. You know, I feel like that gets so that gets so under that doesn't get understood properly. Everyone just looks at cost before they even look at functionality, which I think sometimes I feel so backwards. Like this is a decision you're making for like 20 or 30 years. I want you to make sure like it's right the first time. right, like you're about to get married, and you want to find the right partner for the rest of your life, you're not going to say, well, how much is this partner going to be making for me? And then I and then I go for well, that's it. If this partner can take care of me or not, well, it's just like, when it comes to ERP software. You know, just just gets flipped on its head sometimes. I don't know why. But because people look at software, right? They're like, oh, it's just software, software. I did journal entries. I'm doing QuickBooks, right? Everyone thinks this is easy. Emily Browning (19:23) Ha ha You could. Nirav Shah (19:42) Like I could do everything you can, but then when they get into the wrong software, now it's painful to get out and it's going to cost you double, triple than what you're going to spend at the end of the day. So. Peter Nicholson (19:52) Yep. Emily Browning (19:53) So I think we can highlight, you know, why why is this important? Why do you need to know who you are? it's because not all ERP systems are made the same and they're aimed aimed at different industries and businesses. They have different key functionalities that they're right rated highly for. So that's that is the reason behind it. I think I've I noted during, you know, Pete's made a couple of jokes, you know, don't Don't use F and O, haha, but but why? It's because they're not all made the same and they're aimed at different things. So that's why you need to know who you are. And then I think that leads us nicely into the next point on know your processes. Peter Nicholson (20:27) This is huge. This is probably for me more important than the first one. Or at least you should spend more time on this one. Because any ERP digitizes your processes. as good or as bad as they are. And most ERP can do whatever you want them to do. They can be set up to do it, good or bad. and I think without knowing your processes, you're gonna end up overspending, going over the time frame for it. It's still not gonna solve all of your problems that you think you're experiencing right now. and I really think it's one of these tests that you need to do with your business. If you're in a position where you can't describe your business processes without opening up your ERP system, you don't know your processes, you know your software. You can't articulate actually the business processes. I think it's so crucial because this is an opportunity to have a bit of a reset, be able to clean out the old ways of doing things and it's just the way that we've always done it it's an opportunity to have a bit of a cleanup of the house so everything is a win-win the odds are heavily stacked in your favor if you take lots of time out to fully document understand your processes and again going back to Emily's point earlier on what if we do nothing what if ERP isn't on the table There's probably a whole load of cleanup you can do. And I'm not just talking about closing out old invoices that are still open or stuck sales orders that have been orphaned somehow. I'm saying a a proper cleanup of processes. Map out your processes. Why are you still doing this? Why are you printing this paper? Why do you have to walk this thing from here to this part of the factory? I think it's a it's a great opportunity to One, choose the right ERP, which is obviously what we're discussing now, but also to ensure that once you've chosen the right ERP, when you do get to that year four, year five, and you're looking at the ROI of choosing that ERP, it's gonna compound the amount of effort you do up front on fully understanding and documenting your processes, choosing the right ERP based on that. aligning that ERP to these cleaned processes, you're gonna have so much more ROI in in year four and five. There's just so much benefit from taking loads of time on this. That's one of the reasons why I think it's probably the most important one of the items we're discussing today. That's me. I'm done. My opinion has been thrown out there. Nirav Shah (23:04) Hahaha Peter Nicholson (23:05) Thank you for joining us on the ABC's VR VM. Emily Browning (23:06) Okay, we can this point ties in really well to the to the point before. It's not all ERPs are made the same. so what what do you need it to do? You know, are you taking orders? Do you need it to hook into an e-commerce website? Do you need you know, are you managing production orders? Do you have field service? do you want it to have CRM functionality even if you don't want to have something separate for that? What what does your business need? and in choosing an ERP, this is a huge part for me. It's it's does the CRP do it? Or if it's something like e-commerce, it could be do they is this an ERP company that has, you know, good relationships with e-commerce providers, good hookins with EDI, you know, whatever. You can you can make that assessment by knowing knowing what it is you do in your business. and I would also add You might think, well we have a warehouse, so we need a warehouse management system. Or you could also stop and think about that. Maybe maybe you want it to be you know, a nice warehouse management system down the line, but how are you doing it right now? If you're not doing it in an ERP system already and everything is okay, then you know, you can at least consider what is it do we really need now and what do we need later? Do do we have room to grow into this? Do we need this functionality at all? You know, I'm just using this as an example, but the simple fact of having a warehouse doesn't mean you need, you know, a big warehouse management system functionality. so it's it's knowing what your business does and what your processes are, but also understanding and doing the research of what does this look like in ERP and do we need that? Nirav Shah (24:43) Yeah, I have a, I have an approach on this that usually when a client would tell me like, you know, how do I, how do I know, like they know industry, they know general like we were an e-commerce, e-commerce merchant, you know, we're a high volume shipping merchant and you know, we do electronic invoices, whatever, whatever, right? They know, they know kind of the basics. But when we get down to nitty gritty, I kind of asked them like, instead of you asking questions internally, What do you do? I would ask, why do you do it? Let everybody be, let that project manager be that consultant internally to ask why you do something. Because then from that conversation, you get change. You get some moments where you say, yeah, this is probably not the right approach. Instead of a consultant like myself or our team come in there and we... uncover that during a discovery or we uncover that by the time it's too late. And I say that because by the time you've selected an ERP system, you're already set on the process that you want to implement for the most part. It's hard for lot of people to change at that point. We do this all the time. We need to be able to do the same thing in the system. that almost always happens to be the most important point, that everything stalls. ends up being like a 50 or 100 hour customization before we go ahead and finish it and then we move on. But instead, let's figure out, let's have this open dialogue while you're learning how to, you where you're thinking about choosing an ERP system. Ask questions internally, whoever that project manager is that's going to be leading this project. Why do you do something the way, everyone knows how the business runs. You could ask anybody in any business. that's been in that business long enough, right, to say, yeah, I know, Mary does this, she sends out these AP checks every Thursday, and then Tom is over here, and he gets these picks from a fork from this particular bin, and puts them on his forklift, and he gets the inventory, and he puts it on the sorting table. Like, everyone knows what's happening, but is that right? Right, you're choosing an ERP system. Why are you doing it that way? Become investigative. Peter Nicholson (26:45) Okay. Nirav Shah (26:57) and ask those hard questions like, we change this? How do we like to change it? Before even looking at an ERP system, have that information documented. Yeah, every ERP system we said earlier will do picking. Every ERP system has some sort of warehousing functionality. But what specific warehousing functionality works for you? Do you need cross-docking? We know an ERP system doesn't do cross-talking out of the box, even if you have WMS. versus another ERP system has it out of the box. know, stuff like that, like get into that nitty gritty, see where your price of business processes could change, ask that question, why we do something, not what we do. Peter Nicholson (27:36) I would say that people don't know how the business operates. I would say people don't know the process. And I'd say also if someone doesn't, it's more likely gonna be someone that's probably one of the stakeholders with the buy decision on the ERP. I think when you start to look at your processes and you go, holy shit, we do that? Fuck. And especially the CF CFOs, C CEOs, COOs, they haven't got a clue what Nirav Shah (27:50) Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Peter Nicholson (28:03) Julie's doing in accounting. They don't know that she's got a macro-ridden Excel because she doesn't understand the system because there was a loss of tribal knowledge when the the last accountant left. I say when you start picking at these band-aids, you start uncovering a whole bunch of complexity and workarounds. Nirav Shah (28:04) Exactly. Peter Nicholson (28:23) And it's often an eye-opener. It's people on the ground closest to the work that know the process. Go, yeah, I do this and I do this. You get that person in the same room as the CFO, and I think they're in for a shock of of the compounding nature of these little kind of shortcuts or workarounds or plan B's or people's preference of doing something that's not the the process that the CFO thought everyone was working to. Emily Browning (28:50) I think you're right. And then at that that makes me think we should cover sort of another point. So, you know, the last the last part of knowing yourself is understanding what your key complexities are. So how do we decide which which complexities should we pay attention to? 'Cause not all of them. Like there doesn't I I don't care that you know, Jane in finance is using a a big Excel with macros, that doesn't really influence the ERP that I choose. So what type of complexity matters? Peter Nicholson (29:21) I think when we're talking about complexities and non-negotiables is there's that gonna be a whole bunch of those and they're not complexities and non-negotiables. I agree with you that you know this wafty XL thing that someone's decided to make is not a non-negotiable at all. For me, all of that stuff is a preference in disguise. And people wrap it up and say it's non-negotiable. For me, a non-negotiable is clear is a clear definition for that, and it's It this is something that if it's missing, it's gonna lose us money. That's it. That's a non negotiable. Everything else is just a preference wrapped up in in disguise. Nirav Shah (29:53) Exactly. Yeah, damage the customer damage of under relationship, right? Get us penalties with our industry regulations compliance. You know, that type of stuff is just not negotiables. Emily Browning (30:10) So now we know ourselves really well. What's next? Peter Nicholson (30:14) We've looked inwards. Now we must look outwards. Nirav Shah (30:15) Yes. Bring it on. Peter Nicholson (30:18) I say this is the it now much easier because you've looked inwards. Hopefully you've already got a a long list down to a short list, right? You're not gonna go for QuickBooks because it's I'm not gonna slate it a third time. Look, we've done it twice. Not every time. Go on. You're not gonna go for quick books. You're you're an S B manufacturer. Emily Browning (30:32) Not every time. Nirav Shah (30:36) I hope I got an app on QuickBooks that's for my industry. Will that work, Peter? Peter Nicholson (30:43) If you if you want. I mean it can do. I mean ChatGPT and Notion can run a business these days. Uh-huh. but I think you should have already definitely discounted some of them. Probably the extremes, right? You've probably said, right, well, the extremes in terms of size. We don't need FNSCM. We don't want QuickBooks. Then you're like, right, we don't need. Nirav Shah (30:45) Ha ha! You Peter Nicholson (31:08) QAD. Hopefully you've got rid of some. It starts to make this external research work a little bit easier because now it's just against the list you've built. So where do we start? If I'm sitting there, okay, this this is different to when we started this podcast a few years ago. Originally I would say, where would do we start? I'm sitting there in front of a blank google.com webpage. What do I do? Now it's normally you just go to you just Google Claude or you Google ChatGBT and ask that. but where do we start, right? I've got a blank web page. What am I looking for? What are there any tools out there that would help me that's not AI? Stop I no one's gonna say AI. Are there any industry tools, some kind of validated, trusted source that's impartial to ERP, stuff like that? Nirav Shah (32:00) I would say start G2\. G2 reviews are really good. Compare software is really good in terms of just starting point of different business management systems, ERP systems. Ask your associations that you're associated with. What are industry standard systems that people use at the end of the day? That's real quick ways you could pick up like. whereas other businesses similar to yours have found success, you know, or not success until you're clear from them, right? So those like that's what I like comes off the top of my head right now. And real quickly how you could just get some quick, like, you know, yep, checklist, like I'm gonna keep this on my radar. I'm not gonna talk to these guys at all. Emily Browning (32:42) Yeah, I think there's good good research companies available. who and the contents of their websites tend to be sort of articles and, you know, proper full research that they've published, but also you'll get reviews and mi you know, maybe validated, verified, a sort of experiences from other companies that are similar to yourself. I have used one called Infotech in the past. There is another one which has been recommended to me and I forget the name of it, but you get the concept right. It's there are these research companies that will do I don't know, almost sort of like a reviewed paper that and it will be specific to industry as well. So I my experience is you tend to find, you know, a a roundup of ERP systems for small and medium enterprises and for the larger ones and you can you can look at it on on that basis as well. Also just a good Google AI can be fine. You know if you if you go into that question you know who you are so you can say you know I am an e-commerce B2C business with a revenue of 50 million I need to choose a new ERP. What types of ERPs would be suitable for me? That you know, that's that's sort of the basis of your question. I know who I am now. So which ERPs should I should I even be looking at? Because I also wanted to add, Pete said you might have a list at this point now you know yourself, but maybe you don't. Maybe maybe you know yourself now and you know absolutely nothing about ERPs. So now just Now you can start to eliminate one, some of the ones that are obviously not right for you. And then you can start looking at, you know, all all of now you have all of the ones that are suitable for you and your situation. now you can look at, well, how how are they rated? You know, what are other people's experience? similar, you know, similar companies to you, what is their experience of these of these ERPs? That's probably probably the key things for me there in in researching them. Peter Nicholson (34:41) Yeah, that's huge. I everyone does that when they're looking at cars, right? You look on Facebook to find the Facebook group of your particular car. See what the current owners are also saying about it. Try and do that for the same for ERP. And I did that like a few years ago with Acumatica. Join the community, see what people are moaning about. Emily Browning (34:54) I think I I think that's a really good point about what are people moaning about? Because I think Reddit and, you know, other kind of sysadmin things are really good as well because you can see, you know, what what pain are the people going through that are that are supporting it, which is really, really useful as well. Or I don't know, you know when Google, you know, suggests suggests the rest of your sentence, you know, if you're like insert ERP here, why why can't Dynamics FNO see what it suggests at the end or X doesn't work? ⁓ see see what's coming up, what people's common pain points are. If they have a forum where people can suggest things, improvements, have a look at that. Are they are they delivering on those things or do you have stuff sitting there at the top of the list that Microsoft are ignoring? Or other providers are available. Peter Nicholson (35:27) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Nirav Shah (35:29) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Peter Nicholson (35:49) I would I've got two opinions of demos. One, have a look at them. Because ultimately you're gonna have all of your end users sitting there for eight hours a day sk staring at that screen of the ERP. They've got to kind of like it to a certain degree, like the UI has gotta be clear, seemingly easy to navigate, stuff like that. But also remember that every single demo works. That's the entire point of the demos. So your job is to try and break So if you can somehow get into a test environment or download some some you can download and install yourself, like you might you can do that, try and break it. if you do get to a position where you're now demoing, you know, having a an implementation company or a consulting company doing a demo rather than just like a YouTube demo, try to see if you can get them to demo it on your data if possible. I know it's tough, like no one likes to do that. Everyone, Acumatica, we just use revision two products. Job done. As soon as a company says, can you do it with mine? man. Well, you know, but try to because every the the whole point of the demo is that it works. It's a sales tactic. Look at this, look how easy it is. In a cherry-picked environment, it's just gonna waste your time. try and get those difficult questions put forward to them. Show me month end. Don't show me you put placing a sales order on the system. Like, wow, that's that's great. Show me how this works. Hopefully it's something you found out from know your processes. How do you fulfill back orders as a priority in the system? Go. Nirav Shah (37:20) Mm-hmm. Exactly. Huge, huge points right there. Asking what we do when we are demoing to our prospect is like you just said, let's do a deep discovery. Let's give me your demo data. We'd love to show you the ERP demo with your information. I think that this resonates a lot better with everybody in the room when they're evaluating ERP software. And we give them a flowchart. We do a flowchart of all the different major processes. that they're going to be following in the ERP system. That's part of our deliverable to them. So they could not only see their data in ERP, but these demos also go by really fast. And we know that. You're spending maybe an hour or two. Maybe you might do another two or three demos or whatever. But it goes by really fast, the demo stage. So we provide flow charts around that. And obviously, now with Teams and everything, you could get recordings of the demo and stuff. But we try to make it the more realistic as possible. That person on the other side, whatever that job responsibility is, whether they're CSR, warehousing, AP, shipping, when they see their data flash across the screen in their process, they could envision themselves using the system in front of the computer. And we're hoping that tries to get them engaged. and see will this process work for me or will it not work for me. And if you see demos that are broken, that screen freezes, they just didn't get it, it looks flashy, it looks great, but they just didn't get it. Your gut tells you they didn't hit the mark. Those are ones that you should probably walk away from and say, well, yeah, this is not going to work for me. those demos that you know, or you could like, you know, envision yourself using that system, because it was presented very nicely. And you got all this other supporting information from your peers from your association from, you know, review sites and everything else, right, the demos should just be try to be validation of all that information that you've gathered up to that point. So demos, the biggest event in the whole sales cycle, when it comes to choosing an ERP for you guys, right? And I would say, try not to rely on YouTube demos. Like those are very misleading out there. know, personally, we don't, I don't put a lot of YouTube demos out there when it comes to specific industries, they're more generic in nature. But I would say, you know, you could look at them just to get a flavor. Like, do you like the UI? Or do you like like a basic order entry process or whatever it is, but like, Emily Browning (39:39) Yeah. Nirav Shah (39:53) The true demo the partner is going to give you is going to be the flavor that will most likely be implemented in your environment. Emily Browning (39:59) I agree that it's super important. And if you I I found sometimes, you know, you want a demo from somewhere and it's kind of impossible to get hold of a real person and you're only being directed toward videos. I don't really want to use implementation partners that I can't speak to. and I expect, to be honest, the absolute best of them during the sales process because that's when they're trying to get my money. So if they can't be ac exceptional then, it's only going to get worse once once I'm a a customer of them. So getting those getting those demos, if you can get some of your data or you know anonymized data of yours to give examples of these key processes of yours that you that you've identified, it's so extremely valuable. And I would also, as a as a sidestep, you can go through this process where you know you you maybe you do get to speak to them, but they give you a very generic demo. You're not really talking about your own processes. And then somehow they give you a quote after that. They don't know Nirav Shah (40:54) Right. Peter Nicholson (40:56) Yeah. Emily Browning (40:57) They don't know you or what that project is going to look like. It's definitely going to go, you know, out over budget if you didn't really get into any of the details that you'd have throughout that demo process. So that's that's very important. And then I think that brings me nicely into the point when you're selecting an ERP, can you find a good implementation partner? Because maybe you can't. I have ruled out ERP systems in the past because I of you know heard of you know, companies companies within my network that have been struggling to find a decent a decent partner or maybe they're already on that particular ERP and they're, you know, struggling with their support and struggling to find new support. Well in that case, I don't really want to waste my time trying to trying to locate a good partner then. If you know my more experienced you know people in my network are have been unable to, then fine. There's lots of other lots of other ERPs in the C. so I I if I if I had a short list, if I if I've got it down to a short list, something an ERP could easily make my shortlist just because I'm aware of a really good implementation partner that I could work with. Because more than one ERP will work for you, definitely. Like a lot of them, we've been talking about how they're not all made the same, but also to an extent, they're all ERP. They do similar stuff within reason. more than one will work for you. Maybe one is slightly better, but if you Going to get a bad implementation of that slightly better one, then it will not be slightly better, it's going to be worse for you. So really key point for me for my short list should be a list of ERPs that I know I have a good implementation partner that I could use. Nirav Shah (42:38) Yeah, huge point. Huge point. Like is that partner listening to you during the sales cycle? Is that partner understand? Can he talk your language? Does he can he put a lot of other solutions on the table for you? Meaning, you know, other companies similar in your industry, like, you know, how is how has that partner implemented processes? What other valuable information can you bring to the table for you outside of just the ERP implementation? Right? So that Emily Browning (43:02) Well they say well they say no to me is really important as well. I could I could give them thirty K for some customization. I want them to tell me no, you don't you don't really need that or that wouldn't be worth it. Nirav Shah (43:12) Exactly. Peter Nicholson (43:13) Yep. Nirav Shah (43:15) Exactly. yeah, it's so critical, that relationship with the partner and the partner's relationship with the publisher as well. If that partner is selling a solution, but they don't have many customers on it, that's a problem. Or they're not certified in it, but they sell it. Like Business Central, for example, Peter Nicholson (43:23) Mm-hmm. Nirav Shah (43:36) anybody could sell it. But you're buying Business Central from, let's say, a cybersecurity company, and they only have like two Business Central consultants. I don't know if that's probably the best approach, right? Maybe try to find a Business Central partner that has more or less like, you know, 10, 15 employees, and that's all they focus in is ERP, right? So it's also kind of, you know, making sure that that partner is going to stand be there anytime you call them, email them any single time, and they're going to be able to provide the support that you need. Peter Nicholson (44:06) Yep. And with a a lot of partners as well, you gotta remember that it's not often that the person that's selling you the product is gonna be the person implementing it as well. So been stung before with absolutely great slick salesman. Knows the product inside out, great demo, everything's clicking, this looks wonderful, getting ready to sign the dotted line, and then it all falls apart. Project manager ty changes three times. Nirav Shah (44:26) Yeah. Peter Nicholson (44:33) The rest of the team just don't seem to know what is going on and it falls apart. So you know it's one of those things where it's you need to make sure that you find out who is going to be doing the implementing, who's going to be or who is the team is going to be for ongoing support, who's going to be doing the training. It's not always going to be that slick salesman that's doing the nice polished demo that you don't really care about. and I would also say as well, during that, hopefully it's not just the salesman on the call. And you've got you know two or three other people, maybe an experienced implementer, maybe a consultant on there during that kind of initial kind of discussion. I would also say outside of the demo, it's fine. Going back to what you said, Narav, is make sure they listen to you. And I think if you find yourself having a conversation with them, aside from the demo, because they're going to be doing lots of talking as they're showing you it, but if you see that they're doing 80% of the talking, It's no good. Don't go for them. They need to be listening to you, understanding your business. They're going to be considering whether the ERP's right. They cannot do that. If they're talking at you, wasting your time with a PowerPoint presentation, showing you companies you don't care about, then going, look at these wonderful companies we've done on implementation. I don't, I don't care. When are you gonna ask me about my business? Nirav Shah (45:49) Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, there's a lot. You got to pick up on those red flags. Absolutely. And if the demo is only 30 minutes, can you really see everything you need to see within 30 minutes? Right? Right after demo, you get a contract email to you. We're even ready for that. This is a big deal. Big, big deal. Typically, I recommend customers, when they're starting to embark on this journey to choose an ERP, could take from four months to maybe eight months to find the right ERP for you. It's not like you're going to go and buy a shirt or something like that. You just don't go out and buy the same day. You got to make sure a lot of the pieces fall into place for you to have a successful deployment of whichever ERP system you choose. Emily Browning (46:33) Hopefully with this handy podcast episode it will speed up the process of selecting an ERP. Nirav Shah (46:38) Yes, absolutely. don't make mistakes and you don't go down the wrong road, it erases your time. Peter Nicholson (46:48) And even better, we don't have to sell it, 'cause we put it out for free. Nirav Shah (46:51) Yeah. Peter Nicholson (46:55) All right, very good. That well, I think that wraps it up then. That is how you choose an ERP without ending up being someone else's cautionary tale. ⁓ so as we said, know yourself, look in. research second and never trust a slick salesman. No, never trust never trust a demo that you haven't tried to break. Emily Browning (47:05) Mm-hmm. huh. Peter Nicholson (47:17) So I hope that s someone out there is listening and it's saving you from a bad decision you're about to make or wish you'd heard this episode three years ago instead. So if that is you, make sure you like and subscribe. A new episode comes out every two weeks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, every other major platform. And we also throw the video up on YouTube as well. So if you have a question or an ERP war story or an ERP short list, then drop us a message. wherever on LinkedIn you can also find us, in the YouTube comments, even I think even audio podcasts you can also leave comments nowadays as well. So thank you both. Enjoy the next two weeks. I'll see you on the next episode. Nirav Shah (47:52) Yeah. Great. Thank you guys. Emily Browning (47:58) Good chat. See you then.