ERP projects require meaningful participation from business leaders and subject matter experts. One of the most common causes of delays is underestimating the internal time commitment.

However, with a strong PM working 15-20 hours per week, your team will be able to focus on their work and offer specific (and guided) support to the project. Most weeks will be ~5 hours, but heavier configuration, testing, training, and Go-Live weeks may require more time.

Typically a CEO, COO, CFO, or another senior executive who has the authority to make decisions, remove obstacles, and drive alignment across the organization.

Most organizations benefit from a steering committee that provides governance, accelerates decisions, and ensures accountability throughout the project.

Most mid-market ERP implementations require several months to more than a year depending on scope, complexity, data quality, integrations, and organizational readiness.

Common causes include unclear requirements, insufficient internal availability, poor data quality, delayed decisions, integration complexity, and inadequate testing.

Our experience is that for ANYTHING in life, if there is not a single human whose JOB it is to make sure that thing happens, it often doesn’t. This is more true for larger teams than smaller ones.

That’s where we come in!

Item descriImplementation costs vary based on complexity, integrations, data quality, customization requirements, and organizational readiness. For many mid-market organizations, implementation costs are measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars.ption

The answer varies by organization, but realistic planning includes time for design, configuration, data migration, testing, training, change management, and post-go-live support.

However, our Blog has a standard timeline here:

https://www.ajccompany.com/blog/what-is-a-reasonable-erp-implementation-timeline

Organizations should avoid peak operational periods whenever possible. Selecting the right go-live window can significantly reduce risk.

Often, companies choose to go live at the beginning of a fiscal year (most common), the beginning of a new quarter (second most common), or the beginning of a month (at minimum).

The answer depends on reporting requirements, compliance needs, and business objectives. In many cases, organizations migrate summary historical data and detailed current-year transactions.

Software vendors are naturally focused on managing their own internal teams of developers, analysts, and specialists. Their PMs often are staffed with up to 10 projects to manage simultaneously.

This leaves very little time to devote to you and your internal team.

An independent project manager helps ensure that the portion of the project that your team needs to do (make decisions, perform data clean-up and migration, do configurations, test the new system, train people on the system, set first passwords, communicate about timing and rationale, etc.) - actually happen and you don’t waste money on vendor consulting time each week in meetings only to say “we haven’t finished that yet.” :-)

Yes. Poor data quality is one of the most common causes of reporting issues, adoption challenges, and implementation delays.

The good news is that we can help with that; and there are lots of advances in AI that will make this process much less time consuming and costly than it used to be.

AI can accelerate analysis and cleanup efforts, but it cannot replace business decisions about data ownership, standards, and governance.

Also, if your current data is stored in a hard-to-access location, it will still require some manual effort before it is in a format that even AI can help improve.

We do have resources internally at AJC that can help with this, and once the data is available, there are many AI tools that will help make the data clean less time consuming and less expensive than it used to be.

Integrations often become one of the largest drivers of cost, complexity, and project risk. We evaluate them early in the selection process.

If your selected system has most of what you really need “off the shelf” - this will save time and money in implementation.

Some companies don’t want to adjust their internal processes or policies to fit a new system, but typically software companies develop workflows to accommodate “best practices.”

It may be worth considering the true WHY for your specific processes or policies to determine if the ROI is there to custom develop around them. What are all the financial considerations of change?

Many failures occur because organizations focus on technology implementation while underestimating training, change management, and user adoption.

Change management may sound like a business school term, but what we believe is that it means “all of the humans who have to login to this new system to do their job are excited to do it, and feel confident they can be successful in the new system. They also know exactly where to go / who to ask if they have questions once the system goes live.”

We care about that type of end user buy-in and willingness to change, and make sure your team keeps those considerations in mind as you prepare for Go Live.

Training should be role-based, practical, and reinforced after go-live. One-time classroom sessions are rarely sufficient.

Successful organizations combine training, leadership reinforcement, process accountability, and practical system design to drive adoption.

Effective change management includes executive sponsorship, clear communication, role-based training, supervisor engagement, and ongoing reinforcement.

Refer to the FAQ on why ERP may fail after Go-Live.

Configuration uses standard functionality built into the system. Customization changes the software itself. We generally recommend minimizing customization whenever possible.

If extensive customization is required to support core business processes, it may indicate that the software is not the right fit.

Organizations typically enter a hypercare period where issues are addressed quickly, users receive additional support, and adoption is closely monitored.

Success should be measured against the original business objectives, including operational improvements, reporting visibility, user adoption, and financial outcomes.

We provide project leadership, governance, vendor accountability, risk management, executive visibility, and change management support throughout the implementation journey.

Basically, we are your partner the whole way through and make sure you get what you are paying for.