An ERP implementation should be treated like any critical business project — properly planned, controlled, executed, and measured. The planning phase is the longest and most important part, as it sets the stage for selecting and preparing your organization for a new system. Think of your company’s processes and the ERP as partners in a marriage: both need to adapt and collaborate to thrive. Your team should leverage the ERP’s efficiency, while the system should simplify workflows and deliver actionable insights.
Know your requirements
Before searching for ERPs or asking your vendors and customers what software they use and recommend, you need to know what problem you intend to solve with the ERP. Keep in mind that “automation will not work well if something doesn’t work well manually”. This means that if you have a complex problem and are thinking about how some management software can solve it for your business, this is just a recipe for disaster. The main purpose of an ERP system is to help you execute your tasks and centralize the information in a way that you already do without it—but a lot more efficiently.
You don’t need to know your requirements in a very detailed way, only enough to help you filter which software will better fit your needs. If you need to handle accounting, sales orders, customer relationships, production planning, inventory management, and shipping, you need to know a little bit about each of these areas. You need to identify the “must-have” and “good-to-have” features from each area, how they will communicate with each other, and what relevant information you need to track in the system. This last point is critical if you want to avoid working on forms with 50 empty fields and only 1 or 2 you actually need to fill out.
Selecting ERP candidates
Once you know your requirements, it’s time to search for ERP candidates. Like hiring a new employee, you have a new role in your organization that you want to fill. You can start by asking for recommendations from similar companies, vendors, and customers. Remember to ask important questions like “How long was the implementation process?”, “What challenges did you face during the implementation?”, and “How responsive was the ERP company’s support?”.
Once you have a shortlist of potential ERPs, you can start scheduling demos and preparing your questions. Always bring real-world examples from your business to the demo — most demos use prepared data that makes the software look flawless. Your goal is to understand how much your team will need to adjust to the new system and how flexible the ERP is to meet your unique needs.
Before making a final decision, test the ERP with a mock workflow. Using the relationship analogy, this is like dating or living together before marriage. In ERP terms, this means running test cases or signing up for a trial period to validate whether the software truly works for your business.
Adopting an ERP is a long-term investment, over time the results are exponentially better. The right system doesn’t just track data—it helps teams collaborate, reduces errors, and turns bottlenecks into opportunities. At Nengatu, we focus on flexibility and ease of use, ensuring your ERP grows with your business, not against it.
At Nengatu, we offer a 3-month free trial and support to help you get your organization ready for growth with a simple and powerful ERP.