We say it in every ERP review and it is worth a piece of its own: the implementation partner determines the outcome more than the software does. The same product delivers a smooth go live with one firm and a nine month ordeal with another.
Here is what to ask, and what a good answer sounds like.
About their experience
- How many implementations of this product have you completed in my industry, at my scale, in the last three years? You want a number and you want to hear specifics, not a claim about the firm's total experience.
- Can I speak to three references who went live in the last two years? A partner who cannot produce this is telling you something. Phone the references and ask what went wrong, not what went well.
- Who specifically will be on my project, and what else are they working on? The people in the sales meeting are frequently not the people who do the work.
- What is your consultant turnover? Losing your lead consultant mid project is a real risk and it is worth knowing the firm's history.
About the local specifics
- Show me a VAT201 produced from live data in this system. Not a slide, not a demo database. This is the single most revealing request you can make, particularly for SAP Business One, Acumatica and NetSuite where localisation comes from the partner.
- How do you handle the payroll interface? Most of these systems have no South African payroll, so the journal comes from SimplePay, PaySpace or Sage. Ask who owns that interface.
- What happens when the tax rate or a statutory requirement changes? Who ships the update, how quickly, and is it covered by the support agreement.
About the project
- What is your estimate, and what are the three things most likely to make it wrong? A partner who says nothing will make it wrong is either inexperienced or not being straight with you.
- Who owns data migration, and have you looked at our current data? Dirty opening data is the most common cause of a bad go live and the least often scoped properly.
- What does your change control process look like? Scope will change. You want to know how that is priced before it happens, not after.
- How much of our team's time do you need, from whom, and when? Implementations fail when the business assumes the partner will do it all. Get the internal effort quantified up front.
About afterwards
- What does support cost once we are live, and what does it cover? The ongoing relationship is where the total cost really lives.
- What can we do ourselves, and what will always need you? A system where every field change needs a paid consultant is a permanent overhead.
- What happens if we want to move to a different partner? Ask it. The answer tells you how the relationship is structured.
The red flags
A quote produced without anyone having seen your processes. A refusal to give references. An estimate that assumes no change requests. A statement that the software does something out of the box that you have not seen demonstrated. And any pressure to sign before a deadline that belongs to the partner rather than to you.