Congratulations! You’ve successfully navigated the turbulent waters of an ERP implementation and hit that glorious Go-Live button. It's a massive achievement, a moment for the entire team to celebrate.
But here’s the crucial truth: Go-Live is not the finishing line—it's merely the end of the beginning.
Your ERP system is a living, breathing asset that needs continuous care, refinement, and evolution. If you treat it like a static piece of software, you risk seeing user adoption plummet, processes stagnate, and the system become an expensive bottleneck instead of a driver of business value.
To ensure your ERP constantly improves and delivers maximum ROI, here is a playbook of essential activities you should schedule and execute every quarter.
The first few months post-Go-Live often expose the gaps between design and reality. Use this quarter to actively hunt for friction points.
🔍 Process Improvement and Automation:
Identify Bottlenecks: Conduct workshops with end-users in key departments (Finance, Supply Chain, etc.) to identify the top 3 most manual or time-consuming tasks.
Targeted Automation: Look for opportunities to automate these tasks using the ERP’s native tools (e.g., workflow rules, scheduled jobs) or integrate lightweight tools (Robotic Process Automation, or RPA) for data entry or report generation.
User Feedback Loop: Establish a formal, easy-to-use channel for users to submit "pain points" or improvement suggestions.
⚙️ ERP Parameter Tuning for Better Functionality:
Review key configuration settings that might have been set conservatively during implementation.
Example: Are batch jobs running at optimal times? Can you relax certain validation rules that are causing unnecessary user input? A small tweak in a financial calendar or inventory reorder point can have a massive impact.
A powerful ERP is useless if people can’t or won't use it correctly. This quarter focuses on improving the user experience and internal competency.
💡 Improved Usability & User Experience (UX):
Customise Dashboards: Based on Q1's feedback, tailor user-specific or role-based dashboards to only show the most relevant information, reducing clutter and improving efficiency.
Simple Training Materials: Create short, 1-2 minute video clips or simple, visual "cheat sheets" for the most frequently performed tasks. Retire long, dense manuals.
🎓 Role-Based Training Refresh:
Acknowledge staff turnover and knowledge decay. Schedule mandatory, small-group training sessions focused on a single topic or a new process that was implemented in Q1.
Identify and train ERP Super Users within each department, empowering them to be the first line of support and internal advocates for best practice.
The backend infrastructure is the engine of your ERP. Even cloud systems require continuous oversight of resource allocation and security posture.
💾 Infrastructure Optimisation (Server & Database):
Performance Tweak: Engage an expert server and DB admin to conduct a full review of database indices, query performance, and server resource utilisation. This is crucial for maintaining speed as your data volume grows.
Scalability Check: Based on business growth projections (e.g., new entities, transaction volume), ensure your current environment (cloud resources or on-premise hardware) has a defined, cost-effective path for future scaling.
Cost Management: For cloud-based ERPs, review usage reports to identify underutilised services that can be downgraded or retired to manage cloud spend.
🛡️ Security Hardening and Penetration Testing:
User Access Audit: Conduct a full review of user roles and permissions, specifically checking for separation of duties conflicts (e.g., the same user should not be able to create a supplier and approve payment).
Penetration Testing: Contract an external firm to perform a penetration test on your ERP environment (or the interfaces connecting to it) to find and fix vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
This quarter is about looking forward, assessing risks, and aligning the ERP roadmap with the upcoming year’s business strategy.
📅 Backup and Disaster Recovery (DR) Procedures:
Annual Test: You must test your Disaster Recovery plan. Simply having a plan is not enough. Perform a full, documented, end-to-end recovery drill to ensure your Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) are met.
Review and Update: Ensure backup policies reflect any new critical integrations or data sources added throughout the year.
📈 Strategic Roadmap Planning & ERP Health Check:
Supplier Review: Meet with your ERP supplier or system integrator to review their upcoming features and decide which ones should be adopted (e.g., mandatory patches, optional new modules).
Key Metrics Review: Analyse ERP performance against business Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Is the system helping reduce reporting time? Is stock accuracy improving? Use these metrics to define the focus areas for the next year.
Your ERP implementation was a project with a start and a finish, but the ERP itself is a programme that should run indefinitely. By establishing a rigorous, quarterly cadence for improvement, you ensure your ERP doesn't just manage your business—it actively helps it grow, adapt, and outperform the competition.
While many consultancies stop at the selection and Go-Live milestone, ERP Expert is here for the long haul. We understand that maximising your investment requires continuous care. We are not just an advisory agency; through our dedicated TechOps Team, we work seamlessly by your side and in partnership with your ERP supplier to deliver every service outlined above—from database optimisation and security hardening to deep-dive process automation and quarterly parameter tuning.
Ready to move beyond just 'maintaining' your ERP to truly perfecting it? Contact ERP Expert today to discuss a post-Go-Live support package tailored to your continuous improvement needs.