Our ERP Strategy offering gives clients who are planning, or in the process of implementing, an ERP system, valuable guidelines and critical success factors for delivering a quality ERP system on-time, within budget, and achieving desired goals and benefits. Our goal is to assist our client in learning from mistakes of the early adopters, and doing it right the first time.

Description

The TAC ERP Strategy offering provides an assessment and analysis of your current IT environment and project management processes which will provide:

• An evaluation of your IT environment, capabilities and project execution history
• A framework of components required for successful ERP execution
• A strategy and roadmap for achieving benefits from your ERP system

Our consultants have expertise in implementing and providing quality assurance for ERP systems. We have assisted our clients in establishing effective program management offices to guide and control ERP implementation and deployment. Our team also has experience in performing IT performance assessments, developing actionable IT strategies and architecture plans, and improving overall IT performance.

We team with our clients to develop the ERP strategy based on their goals and business requirements, and educate their team in process. We believe that this is important so that our clients can take ownership for the recommendations, and are capable of making continual adjustments to the strategy as changing business needs demand. We stress that the plan is not just a report, but a process which positively impacts how IT delivers value to the business.

Deliverables

Standard

Our service offering delivers the following results:

• A definition of IT alignment with the business — we help you identify business imperatives, and the IT imperatives to support them
• An assessment of the IT environment related to application development, production support, and project management processes. We review people, process and technology to provide a comprehensive view of the IT function and its capabilities. The assessment also reviews how prepared the client is to support the critical success factors (below).
• Education on ERP systems and key components required for effective ERP program management (below)
• Template RFIs for evaluating product offerings
• A clearly defined strategy that guides future IT investments
• An architecture plan, for key IT architecture components, that will achieve the improvement opportunities prioritized by the client, including:
  • Application architecture — how the new ERP system will best integrate into the existing and planned application portfolio, and support the improved business process design
  • Data architecture — the impact of the ERP system on the company’s data architecture to support the business and application requirements
  • Technology architecture — the development and production technologies required to support the new ERP system, including review of hosting options
• A prioritized set of actions/initiatives required to implement the ERP strategy; with each key initiative having a business case which defines high-level costs and benefits
• An execution roadmap which outlines resource requirements and timeline to achieve the agreed-to benefits

Our consultants deliver a detailed report which includes the above deliverables, and present our findings to our client’s management.

Optional

In addition to the strategy deliverables listed above, we can also assist our clients by helping to implement the approved initiatives.

Target Audience

CFO, CIO, COO

IT executives and senior management responsible for IT direction and core applications such as ERP across the enterprise — This strategy will assure that IT investments yield the expected benefits. It will also improve alignment between IT and the business.

ERP Success Factors

• Solid business case for change
• Committed sponsor and executive team
• Effective governance for timely decisions
• Capable team and strong project manager
• Well defined IT architecture and principles
• Understanding ERP impacts on the organization
• Attention to organizational change management
• Continual attention to managing scope and change
• Focus on process and people, in addition to technology
• Effective project planning, initiation, and management to plan
• Proven project management and system development process

Program Management Components