What happens when the audit doesn't come first.
ERP implementation failure is common when projects skip an independent audit. They routinely run over budget and late, because nobody looked at the business before picking the software. The fix isn't a bigger budget. It's doing the checking first, before any platform gets chosen. And where the answer turns out to be software I build, the same rule applies: scope in writing before anything is signed.
The pattern · same business, same platform
Choosing an ERP
and who scopes it first
Sold on its strengths
what it does well, moved past what it doesn't
Scoped by the vendor
before anyone looked at the business
Workarounds begin
the gaps turn up on the floor
and the platform takes the blame for a data problem
The business first
every workflow followed before any software
Fixed first
supplier feeds matched, before anything moved
Kept, and working
the one they had already paid for
to a supplier automatically, out of 317,812 products brought in
Brief first. Every demo scored against it, ours too.
decodedops.co.uk · DO-ART-991 · Rev 01The platform stayed. The layer around it changed.
Nobody ripped out an ERP here. The diagnostic came first, the data got fixed, and the platform they'd already paid for started working.
- The 317,812 products scattered across supplier feeds
- No consistent SKU to match any of them against
- No reliable stock picture for the warehouse or the website
- A platform taking the blame for a data problem
- 154,518 matched to a supplier automatically
- 40 active suppliers feeding in, without anyone re-keying a row
- 3,844 Amazon listings re-optimised ahead of a title-format deadline
- The platform stayed. The layer around it changed.
Different business, ahead of the decision rather than after it.
supplier feeds automated from feed to ERP
hours a week, projected saving
Same pattern, different business: the diagnostic work came ahead of their own ERP decision, rather than after an ERP implementation failure. That's the whole difference, and it's the cheapest part of the project.
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An hour on what's actually going wrong. If you're mid-way through an implementation that's slipping, that's exactly the conversation to have now rather than after go-live.