SPONSORED BY 123 INSIGHT
MAKING THE
NUMBERS ADD UP
Choosing the right accounts solution for your manufacturing
business is vital to ensure long-term success
CONTRIBUTOR 123 INSIGHT
Most, if not all of your company’s departments will be
a ected by the selection of a new manufacturing
system, so it’s important to ensure that the selected
solution meets the needs of the many, not the few.
That means you need to ensure that heads of each
and every department a ected are actively involved
in this process.
However, the decision-making process is not as clear-cut
as it might fi rst appear. There are some common traps that
many companies consistently fall foul of:
The blinkered consultant
If the selection/implementation process is led by the fi nance
department then they will often involve consultants who focus
mainly on that area, and they may not have a full understanding
of other departments’ needs. One such example was an
existing 123insight user that was told by a consultant that they
should consider an ERP system with fully integrated accounts.
They’d been using 123insight for nearly fi ve years but were told
that moving to an integrated solution would ‘take them to the
next level’. One year, a lot of heartache and over £100,000
later and the system still wasn’t working correctly. The fi nal nail
in the co n was a stock take that resulted in duplicated serial
numbers. They returned immediately to 123insight, adding an
interface to Sage 50 accounts, which subsequently met all of
their needs. It’s worth noting that they were only able to return
to 123insight because of the low monthly subscription – if
they’d had to choose another system they would have had
to spend a similar amount, with no guarantee of success.
The safe bet
There are several companies that are best known for their
accounting products that also o er manufacturing software.
As the saying goes, ‘No-one ever got fi red for buying IBM’;
however, just because a brand may be seen as a marketleader
in one sector it does not necessarily follow that their
o erings – whether in manufacturing or
accounting – will be suitable for you.
A study showcased in Computer Weekly
magazine, published in February 2018,
stated that businesses have less than a 50%
chance of an SAP software implementation
succeeding. The survey of 113 individuals
across 105 companies (https://bit.ly/2PbkloW)
found that just over a third (36%) felt their SAP
project kept to its original plan and under
half (48%) said their project failed to achieve
business objectives.
The imposed system
During a company acquisition the parent
company may choose to impose their own
accounts and/or manufacturing systems
on the acquired company, often not
understanding that the needs of the two
companies may di er signifi cantly. This is a
signifi cant factor in why some businesses
fail after acquisition – not because enough
investment wasn’t made or that the business
was failing anyway, but because the business
was forced to implement a system that simply
could not deliver what they needed.
Inter-departmental friction
There is often the most tension historically
between fi nance and other departments
when implementing a manufacturing system,
because the fi nancial aspect is often seen as
the most important requirement. This issue
is compounded by the fact that many ERP
systems are accounts-led, leading to a system
being selected because it meets all the fi nance
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