In this week’s mini-sode, D4M COO Jean-Yves Durocher talks about how to reduce cost of ERP projects (be it through simple rollouts or mergers/acquisitions) through skill-based hires AND extensive planning regarding data.
Check it out!
Jean-Jacques: You
brought up something that I wanted your perspective on which is lowering costs.
So, other than, like you said before, the cost of ERP rollouts constantly going
up, what are some other suggestions that you can give plant owners, VPs, etc.,
when it comes to lowering costs of SAP rollouts?
Jean-Yves: I think
that the best advice would be to surround yourself with people who have been
there, done that, because, typically, for many corporations, going through an
acquisition, it’s not necessarily something they have done many times.
Jean-Yves: Some
executives or managers may have gone through this a few times in their lifetime;
for some, it’s their first merger acquisition. So, at the end of the day, I
think it’s a good investment to surround yourself with people who have been
there, done that, in a variety of different disciplines – whether it’s lawyers,
accountants or IT consultants like D4M International.
Jean-Yves: It’s
always a good idea to get some advice from people who have been done that style
project before. I think it can save a lot of time consuming – not to mention, costly
– errors down the road because, again, within your company, the ranks of your
managers/team members may not have a enough people that have been through this
type of situation to give you the necessary assistance or advice.
Jean-Yves: Though
some companies don’t want to add cost to the process, at the same time, you
have to see this as an “accelerator” towards your MnA process. We would come in
with a checklist so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel so you can build up
your own checklist. If you hired people like us, we will come in, day-one, with
the whole checklist and the whole methodology So that you and your team can
save time.
Jean-Yves:. It will
make your merger/acquisition experience become more efficient along the way. So,
to conclude, the central piece of the advice for the merger process would be to
surround yourself with the right expert who have been through the process
before.
Jean-Jacques: Just
out of curiosity, what’s the most expensive part of an ERP rollout or an MNA?
Jean-Jacques: I’m
assuming the most expensive part of the process involves data because that
seems to me to be the part of the process that is most important to both the company
and various legislative bodies.
Jean-Yves: That
depends, are we talking in terms of priority or cost? I think if you look at priorities,
I think data is very high on the list because once you’ve done a transaction
you’re still subject to auditing.
Jean-Yves: Granted, you’re
still going to want to see a data history for example, before purchasing a plant
or starting up production. They need data history for all kinds of different
reasons. They need access to previous year data for references, performance
tracking, traceability, you name it. There’s many reason why you need to keep
your data for a certain amount of time – and this is before even going into the
accounting side of things.
Jean-Yves: It is for
that reason that data is very high on the list. Besides, at the end of the day,
there’s no application running without data; it’s a fundamental aspect that
needs to be taken care of correctly.
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