FEATURE : ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING
Ram Ramachandran ,
Senior Vice President and Head , Middle East and Africa , Tech Mahindra ways of working supported by the ERP ,” he said .
According to De Vries , cloud ERP is especially attractive to small and midsize companies because it provides an operational investment option , faster deployment and allows them to focus on their core business while outsourcing IT functions to ERP vendors .
De Vries believes that there aren ’ t challenges for African enterprises to consider when implementing ERP , as much as there are some key success points . “ Firstly , and probably most critical to the success of the ERP project , is top-down commitment from the directors to the department heads and process owners . A steering committee should be established to keep these key stakeholders regularly informed as to the status of the project ,” he said . “ The ERP vendor will include aspects of change management during the implementation process such as super-user testing and end user training but customers are strongly advised to drive their own change management programme focusing on how the project will support the business to meet its current requirements and future objectives .”
De Vries advised that customers should be open to a phased approach around the implementation of an ERP solution . “ It is not feasible in terms of time , sound integration , and costs to address all requirements immediately . Prioritise the most important issues and ‘ low hanging fruits ’ with the aim of creating a core platform which will form the foundation for future projects and communicated in a roadmap document .
“ A key consideration for those considering an ERP solution is cost transparency . Buried costs for hardware and hosting in complicated quotes can be a big headache for the owners of the project ,” he pointed out . “ At Seidor Africa we focus on comprehensive and complete offerings that are clear , avoid confusing tech jargon and also refer to the underlying infrastructure needed for a successful ERP system .”
He said by way of example , with cloud implementations , cloud providers need to be reliable , and Seidor prefers to work closely with them . “ Through trial and error , we have carefully chosen the best and most reliable cloud providers who can offer customers a solid underlying infrastructure for their ERP system ,” he said .
“ In addition , Seidor Africa has made our partnerships with infrastructure providers equally as important as the relationship with SAP and our clients and this mitigates many potential problems .” p
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