What is the Best ERP for Biotech Companies?
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is at the heart of the operation in most medium-to-large businesses, and for many that means SAP, with 99 of the 100 largest companies in the world running SAP solutions.
A Tier 1 ERP like SAP provides a centralized platform for running your business, with the flexibility and scalability to grow and adapt with that growth. It delivers a range of benefits, from process efficiency and increased visibility of operational performance to empowering digital transformation and business agility
SAP’s market leader status, its worldwide reach, and proven track record in the consumer products, retail, wholesale distribution, and life sciences industries, puts it in a unique position to deliver industry-leading ERP solutions to those sectors.
Even so, for an expanding business that has yet to implement an ERP, or is outgrowing its current ERP solution, it can still be a challenge to decide if, when, and how to implement SAP.
Below, we outline the drivers and challenges around choosing to adopt an SAP ERP in a growing business and best practices for tackling an SAP ERP implementation.
CHOOSING SAP ERP: DRIVER AND CHALLENGES
Understandably, many start-ups and small enterprises initially rely on a mixture of manual processes and point IT solutions to run the company. Their focus is on developing the business (or science, for life sciences companies) and growing market share, rather than on the big picture of how the business operates.
As these businesses expand, they typically approach a tipping point where the benefits of bringing core processes together under a single, centralized system outweigh the costs and disruption of implementation.
The immediate driver for an ERP investment may be business-wide, or it may come from a specific function, often finance, recognizing the need to consolidate business processes and data under a single platform.
Even when executives recognize the enterprise is approaching this tipping point, there can still be inertia toward adopting SAP ERP or another Tier 1 solution, such as:
It can be challenging to prioritize the financial, human, and time investment required to implement SAP against competing and critical business needs.
SAP may be perceived as suitable only for larger enterprises with broader functional requirements and deeper pockets.
There may be concern that implementing SAP will force adoption of generic, industry-standard processes that do not reflect the business’s specific complexities and needs.
These factors can delay the decision to adopt an ERP or lead the business to implement a Tier 2 or 3 solution to meet an immediate requirement to, for example, centralize finance functions.
This inertia creates more challenges down the line, because the need for ERP increases with business growth. The more functionality and data that needs to be migrated, the bigger the migration task. Implementing early has the benefit that SAP ERP is designed to grow with the business, so starting with a small-scale implementation then adding more functionality as it is needed offers a smoother migration path.
SAP ERP IMPLEMENTATION: WHERE TO START
Whether the enterprise is implementing SAP ERP from scratch, replacing a Tier 2 or 3 ERP, or upgrading from a legacy ERP such as SAP ECC, implementation planning should be business-driven.
Business goals and plans should drive the process of setting the scope and objectives for the initial ERP implementation. If finance is the primary driver, then finance processes are the first priority.
Planning also needs to take account of the business’s wider objectives and goals in order to develop milestones and a longer-term roadmap for growing value from SAP ERP across the enterprise. Focusing too narrowly on immediate business drivers risks constraining the ability to grow the SAP ERP implementation in line with the business.
This approach mitigates the cost and resource impact of the initial SAP ERP implementation, enables the business to grow its understanding over time, and establishes an ERP solution that can scale and grow with the business.
It’s an approach that is supported by SAP and the SAP Activate Methodology , the next-generation project implementation methodology used to deliver SAP innovations and solutions. Built on the Agile methodology, SAP Activate takes an iterative approach to continuously improve and deliver, increasing project quality and success.
HOW DOES CRESCENSE ADD VALUE?
Crescense is an authorized SAP partner and reseller that can be a conduit to small and mid-size organizations interested in acquiring SAP software as their ERP solution. Our experts leverage in-depth industry knowledge and specialism, along with their proven SAP expertise, to partner with companies in the life sciences, consumer products, wholesale distribution, and retail industries, helping them transform their business with SAP ERP.
No matter where you are on your SAP implementation journey, Crescense can help. Reach out to our team here.