D4M Mini-Sode 1: Reducing Rollout Cost through Hires and Planning

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.