Services
ERP Implementation Services
The software is rarely why ERP projects fail. Scoping, data and ownership are — and all three are decided before anyone configures anything.
Get a written scope
30 minutes, no pitch. We reply within one working day.
What "implementation" actually covers
Most proposals compress the entire engagement into one line item, which makes them impossible to compare and easy to under-quote. These are the seven distinct pieces of work. When you compare quotes, check which of them each firm has actually included.
- Discovery
- Mapping how you work now, what must change, and what must not. Produces the scope everything else is priced against.
- Data migration
- Extracting, cleaning, mapping and loading master data and opening balances. Routinely the largest single piece, and the one most often left out of quotes.
- Configuration
- Building the system to the agreed scope. Usually the smallest risk, despite absorbing most of the attention.
- Integration
- Connecting the systems you are keeping — banking, e-commerce, payroll, whatever survives the cutover.
- Training
- Role-specific, not a single demo session. Separate training for the internal owner, who needs to maintain the thing afterwards.
- Cutover
- The switch itself, with a rollback plan. Includes the unglamorous work of freezing transactions and reconciling closing balances.
- Hypercare
- Support through the first full reporting cycle, when the questions that matter finally surface.
How we scope and price
Fixed price per phase, approved one at a time. You can stop after any phase and keep what has been delivered. We work this way because open-ended engagements are the mechanism by which ERP budgets triple, and because a firm that has scoped properly should be willing to commit to its own numbers.
01
Discovery
A written scope, a platform recommendation with reasoning, and an honest assessment of your data.
You get the scope whether or not you continue with us.
02
Data preparation
Master data cleaned, deduplicated and validated. Opening balances reconciled.
Quoted separately because its size is unknowable before discovery.
03
Configuration
The system built to the agreed scope, with your data in it, ready to test.
Fixed price. Change requests are quoted, not absorbed silently.
04
Training and testing
Your team running their own processes in a test environment, with issues logged and closed.
Go-live is not scheduled until this phase passes.
05
Cutover and support
Live running, with support through the first full reporting cycle.
The one phase we will not compress to hit a date.
Where the money actually goes
Most budgets are built around the licence quote, because that is the number the vendor puts in front of you first. It is usually the smallest of the three costs you will carry, and the only one anyone plans for.
Why these projects overrun
Data condition, more than anything else
Nearly every overrun we scope against traces back to master data being in worse shape than anyone believed at kickoff. Duplicate customers, product codes that mean different things in different departments, balances that have never reconciled. None of this is visible in a demo, and all of it surfaces the moment real data hits the new system.
"While we're in here" scope creep
Implementation surfaces every process irritation a business has tolerated for years, and each one arrives attached to a reasonable-sounding request. Individually small, collectively fatal. The defence is a written scope and quoting change requests rather than absorbing them quietly into the timeline.
No internal owner
A named person inside the business has to own the system — not sponsor it, own it. Someone who makes decisions when two departments disagree, and who maintains the thing after we leave. Projects without this person do not fail loudly; they degrade over the following year until the team quietly reverts to spreadsheets.
Customisation taken on too readily
Every customisation is a permanent tax: on upgrades, on support, on the next person who has to understand it. Some are worth it. Most are a process that could have changed instead. A partner paid by the hour has little incentive to talk you out of them, which is one argument for fixed-price phases.
What we will not do
- Quote before understanding your data. Any firm that gives you a number in the first meeting is guessing, and the gap between that guess and reality becomes a change request later.
- Recommend a platform we are paid to recommend. We hold no reseller agreements with any vendor, which is why our platform pages state where each product does not fit.
- Take the project if you cannot name an internal owner. We would rather lose the engagement than deliver a system that degrades once we leave.
- Compress cutover to hit a date. Every other phase has some give in it. This one does not, and pretending otherwise is how go-lives become incidents.
Choosing a platform
Platform selection is part of discovery, not a prerequisite for talking to us. If you have already chosen, we will tell you honestly whether we agree.
Or start from your industry
Sector requirements usually narrow the platform question faster than a feature list does.
Common questions
What does an ERP implementation actually include?
Discovery, data migration, configuration, integration with the systems you are keeping, training, cutover and a support period afterwards. Quotes that list only "implementation" as a line item are hiding which of those they intend to do. Data migration and training are the two most commonly excluded, and they are the two most likely to sink the project.
How do you price implementation work?
Fixed price per phase, quoted after discovery, with you approving each phase before it starts. You can stop after any phase. We price this way because open-ended time-and-materials engagements are the mechanism by which ERP budgets triple, and because a firm confident in its scoping should be willing to commit to it.
Do you resell any of the platforms you recommend?
No. We hold no reseller agreements and take no vendor commission, which means we have no financial reason to prefer one platform over another. It also means we will tell you when the right answer is a product we do not implement.
How long does an ERP implementation take?
For a mid-market business switching on a standard set of modules, most of the work sits in a three to six month window, though the range is wide and driven almost entirely by data condition rather than company size. A business with clean master data and one legacy system moves quickly. A business with fifteen years of drift across four systems does not, regardless of headcount.
Can you take over a stalled implementation?
Sometimes, and we will be honest about when it is not worth it. A stalled project usually has a specific cause — unresolved data problems, a scope that was never agreed, or an absent internal owner. If that cause is still present, changing implementation partner does not fix it, and we would rather say so than restart a project that will stall again.