Demand for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software grows ever stronger. The global market was already a very healthy  $87.73 in 2024. By 2032, it’s expected to hit $230 billion.

Factors such as falling costs, increasingly sophisticated SaaS platforms, and the growing role of AI are widening access for all companies, particularly SMEs. The benefits an ERP can bring are clear. They can integrate finance, HR, manufacturing, customer relations, sales, and other departments around a centralised platform, improving efficiency and productivity, removing silos, and creating faster but genuinely collaborative decision-making.

But as with any major company project, if not planned for or implemented properly, an ERP can cause significant disruption and more problems than it solves. This can include uncertainty and conflict between different job functions, spiralling costs, poor customer experience and operational paralysis.

Mike Lord, CEO and Chairman of homelift company Stiltz, has overseen ERP deployments across several sectors, including medical devices and home automation. Stiltz is currently significantly expanding the scope of its ERP. Here, he shares his experience and advice on how careful preparation and watchful, pragmatic introduction can lead to ERP success.

Start with clear, precise objectives

If you want to avoid ERP failure, you must establish the specific goals the system is meant to achieve. Before any system is chosen or developed in-house, organisations must identify which processes or parts of the business are inefficient, where data gaps exist, and what measurable improvements can be expected.

Will an ERP help HR manage payroll and bonuses, perhaps? Could it tighten links and controls between fluctuating customer-order numbers and production, or the ordering of materials?

The ERP at Stiltz has been configured to improve core processes and stock availability across the 50+ countries where Stiltz operates, selling some 700 lifts a month. A different organisation might focus on tighter regulatory compliance, faster financial reporting, or improved visibility across the supply chain. Whatever the priority, specific success metrics must be defined from the outset, whether that is, for example, a two per cent reduction in manufacturing costs, the elimination of reporting bottlenecks, or a significant increase in sales.

Form a steering committee of senior leaders drawn from business units relevant to the ERP, such as finance, operations, IT and HR. CEOs, CFOs and other senior leaders should also consult employees individually, beyond the boardroom, to uncover the practical pain points which only emerge at ground level.

Take time to choose the right system

The range of ERPs available to companies has never been greater. Smaller companies may find relatively simple CRMs or accounting tools (such as Zoho) easily handle essentials such as sales pipeline management and revenue tracking. Larger or growing organisations are likely to need a system capable of coordinating more complicated manufacturing operations and helping them to work with numerous suppliers and customers.

Off-the-shelf and SaaS solutions are more affordable than developing a bespoke system in- house and are increasingly useful for many SMEs. An ERP developed and managed in-house can be more customisable to exact business demand and can scale in response to growth or changing requirements.

Ease of use for all employees is essential. But a system should also challenge an SME or other business to operate better, rather than simply accommodating existing habits and legacy processes. It must be flexible enough to grow with the company. Stiltz’s ERP has grown well beyond its original scope with modules added to handle marketing automation, customer journey tracking, and field-based sales data capture.

A system with a demonstrable track record, a substantial user base, and reliable long-term support is generally a safer investment than a new ERP platform. Ask comparable companies how particular systems have performed for them.

Don’t rely on the ERP to transform your processes alone

An ERP is only as effective as the systems underpinning it. Before implementation, you should establish clear ownership and a shared understanding of how transactions are initiated, approved, recorded, and reported. If you don’t have that across functions such as inventory, order processing or financial transactions, even the cleverest ERP is unlikely to provide consistently reliable and valuable reporting and insights.

Prepare rigorously for go-live

In one study, 77% of companies reported that ERPs helped break down internal silos. But a new system will not resolve friction between departments and team members; it will amplify it. Work through operational and cultural misalignments before implementation begins.

Don’t underestimate or underfund your training needs. Employees who lack genuine confidence in an ERP will default to workarounds, such as spreadsheets, which quietly erode the value of the investment. Finance teams, in particular, need support in shifting from transactional processing to the increasingly analytical, data-driven roles which a well-functioning ERP helps create.

Designate “super users” in each key department. These should ideally be individuals who were involved in testing or developing the system or who have experience with comparable platforms. They can provide an invaluable first line of support for colleagues, before and after launch.

Budget and test obsessively

Unexpected costs are almost inevitable. Building a contingency fund of between 10% and 25% is a practical necessity. But be very careful to monitor and act against potential scope creep and poor spending.

Every process and transaction the system will be required to handle should be tested in depth. Run extensive scenario-based checks in a sandbox environment, involving intended ERP users. Data validation is equally important. Businesses have been unable to process orders or ship products for weeks following a failed or incomplete data migration.

Think long-term

ERP planning should always account for the future. SMEs can evolve rapidly, and you need to be prepared for your ERP to do the same.

Five years after its original Oracle-based rollout, Stiltz is now incorporating its wholly owned Chinese manufacturing operation into the platform, creating a unified global system. Our focus has been on strengthening intercompany accounting, consolidation reporting, and group-level financial insight. The goal is not merely to maintain the system, but to ensure it continues to drive efficiency, tighten controls, and support better decision-making across the entire organisation as it grows.

Mike Lord is Chairman and CEO of Stiltz, the UK’s leading homelift provider. The award-winning company manufactures, supplies and installs homelifts to cater for the widest possible end-user needs.